73 – Limits on Magic

Comments

1. Quinte

   May 15, 2016 at 3:16 am

   When you were talking about magic through appeasing higher entities I was curious if you had read Bartimaeus trilogy? The magicians have no power of their own but they can summon and enslave demons to do their will.

   Reply to Quinte
   • Oren Ashkenazi

     May 15, 2016 at 9:23 am

     Can’t say I’ve read that one, but it sounds neat. Do the demons appreciate this?

     Reply to Oren Ashkenazi
     • Quinte

       May 16, 2016 at 2:52 am

       No. The demons only follow orders under the threat of murder and torture. The titular character Bartimaeus regularly schemes to kill his master and avoid doing his work.
       The setting is also pretty awesome. The mages being powerful took over the English government and they rule the public despotically and the plot of the books centres around various attempted coups.
       I’d recommend the books, they have deep characters and explore some dark themes. The books are written for the same age range as Harry Potter, though I’d say they are better.

       Reply to Quinte
2. Pyrut13

   February 8, 2017 at 11:47 am

   About ATLA bending, bending with little to no movement was around as early as season 2 of the first series, remember Bumi bending with just the muscles in his face?

   Reply to Pyrut13
   • Oren Ashkenazi

     February 8, 2017 at 12:16 pm

     Bumi’s facebending was a pretty natural extension though, since it’s still movement and he was established to be very skilled and eccentric. The real leap was Sparky Sparky Boom Boom man, who could just cause explosions with his mind and we had no idea where he came from or how he did it.

     Reply to Oren Ashkenazi
3. Michael

   April 13, 2017 at 8:43 pm

   It’s never explicitly said in the books, though in the fanfic Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality Harry surmises that ancient wizards made them as slaves (and also created their love of serving humans). Of course that doesn’t make this right, but would explain things at least. They come from the tales of brownies in European folklore, but brownies weren’t slaves. I think it would have been better if they were portrayed as helpful, but free.

   A failure to play out the implications for magic in a setting is definitely a problem of many works. I think one way for people to limit magic is just to have fewer mages, even aside from the effects themselves. Harry Potter and works with genetic magic have the problem of it being hereditary. In time you would expect the number of mages to rise simply through having children. We can imagine that mages would be highly sought as mates, if anyone who has magic would have an advantage (as usually seems to be the case). Over time “muggles” might simply die out. I think having a work in which everyone can do magic to some degree would be interesting, but that doesn’t show up too much.

   Reply to Michael
4. Exillus

   October 11, 2017 at 1:54 pm

   “measuring spell charges by calories” well damn lemme cast firaga 16 times so I can get that sweet bod!

   Reply to Exillus
   • Cay Reet

     October 11, 2017 at 2:22 pm

     This is the explanation why wizards are so thin: they use more calories for their spells than they take in through food. Unless they live on the Discworld, in which case they eat a lot, but don’t cast any magic.

     Reply to Cay Reet
5. Danny

   October 16, 2017 at 10:48 pm

   I want to say the BIGGEST problem with Korra’s blood bending was making people who could do it without a full moon, that was the limiter, like the fire boost of the comet.

   Reply to Danny
6. Cece

   November 5, 2017 at 1:04 pm

   What do you guys think about Hunter x Hunter’s power system?

   Reply to Cece
   • Oren Ashkenazi

     November 5, 2017 at 2:58 pm

     If you’re referring to the anime, I don’t think any of us have watched it, though it looks interesting.

     Reply to Oren Ashkenazi