Historically, many writers who have written about fictional magicians, and many readers of such works, have believed that such magic is possible – in William Shakespeare's time, witches like the Weird Sisters in Macbeth and wizards like Prospero in The Tempest (or Doctor Faustus in Christopher Marlowe's play) were widely considered to be real – but modern writers, and readers, usually deal with magic as imaginary.[1]
Such magic may be inspired by non-fictional beliefs and practices, but may also be an invention of the writer. Furthermore, even when the writer uses non-fictional beliefs and practices, the effect, strength, and rules of the magic will normally be what the writer requires for the plot. There may be a well-developed system in fictional magic, or not, but when the writer does not systemize the magic, there is always the difficulty of ensuring that it is not merely used when convenient for the writer.
It is by no means impossible, moreover, for fictional magic to leap from the pages of fantasy to actual magical practice. The Necronomicon was invented as fiction by H. P. Lovecraft;
other authors such as August Derleth and Clark Ashton Smith also cited it in their words, with Lovecraft's approval, as he believed such common allusions built up "a background of evil versimiltude." Many readers have believed it to be a real work, with booksellers and librarians receiving many request for; pranksters have listed it in rare book catalogues, and one smuggled a card for it in the Yale University Library.[2] There have been several attempts by modern authors to produce it as a grimoire, such as the Simon Necronomicon.
In some works of fantasy, anyone who can learn the arcane knowledge necessary can practice magic, but in many writers, the use of magic is an innate talent, equivalent to perfect pitch.[3]
There is wide variation on how spontaneously a person (or other being) with such a talent can use it. Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy series at one point depicts a toy that will gradually lose its enchantment and teach any talented child using it to perform the magic instead; it is used to test for children who can learn it, in a process that takes months. Barbara Hambly depicts a character in her Darwath series attempting to practice magic on hearing how it is done, and succeeding. Harry Potter, like many young wizards in his universe, accidentally casts spells before he is taught to do it properly.[4] The unicorn in The Last Unicorn possesses her magical abilities without any effort on her part, as do magical girls in shōjoanime and manga; using such spontaneously generated powers means that a character is seldom called a "magician" or "wizard" or such term, which is usually reserved for those who have to learn to wield magic (although in Xanth, magicians and sorceresses are people whose spontaneous power is very powerful).
Such variation can sometimes occur within the same work. In Patricia C. Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles, wizards and magicians must study their magic, but a fire-witch can spontaneously have her hair burst on fire from her talent, and in Operation Chaos, a werewolf depends only on a light trigger to master his powers, but his wife, a witch, must study to acquire hers.
Talents that occur spontaneously frequently need training to work more than sporadically, or at major effects, or in a controlled manner -- and sometimes all three. Harry Potter, first hearing that he is a wizard, remembers occasional odd things that appeared to just happen; school is necessary to have them happen at his intention, and to produce more effects. Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea novels were among the first to include a now-common fantasy trope: a school where magic is taught.
Besides innate talent and study, a third source of magic is the granting of it by supernatural beings. The personal nature of this distinguishes it from other types of magic: a being chooses to grant the power. Joy Chant's Red Moon and Black Mountain depicts several classes of people whose powers are divinely granted: the Earth Witches, the Star Enchanters, the Wild Magicians. Sword and sorcery heroes may not only face sorcerers, but crazed cults where summoned demons grant powers. This type, owing to the cleric class in Dungeons & Dragons, is very common in Role-Playing Games, such as Final Fantasy, and Legend of Zelda.
Another form is of such granted power may be the Pact with the Devil, or other trafficking with spirits, common in folklore.[5] This motif was used in Ladyhawke. It is not necessarily so. The deal with the demon may be for the demon to give the wizard books or other knowledge that he can use to learn. Conversely, the pact may be for the devil to do the magic on the wizard's behalf, but the wizard must have first studied magic in order to summon it, and in some versions, to compel it to act.
A fourth way to use magic is to use an enchanted item. This may require that someone with the appropriate abilities create it, but the item may have been enchanted long before the work in which it appears, and the means of its acquiring its powers may be unclear.
Use of language and names in magic
Ursula K. LeGuin's Earthsea novels feature a magic driven by words. The true language can name things and by these names control them, an ability shared by both the wizards who study the language, and the dragons whose native tongue it is.[6] Two aspects of this are common to other stories.
One is the notion of true names whereby a person's true name is a powerful magical weapon against them; this seldom applies to objects, but in works from Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away to Andre Norton's Witch World, wizards and witches keep their names secret to keep from their being used against them, and even in the Discworld, the Librarian hides his name to keep from being turned back to a man. [7]
Another is the use of a strange language to cast spells. Many works -- such as the Harry Potter novels, in which the spells are cast in a Latinate jargon -- use this without offering an explanation. Patricia Wrede, in The Magician's Ward, described it as a technique to prevent power from overflowing the spell; Poul Anderson, in Operation Chaos, explained it as a natural consequence of the laws of similarity governing magic, because a magician can not produce extraordinary effects from ordinary language. In many stories, there is a magical "Speech" that can be used to perform feats of magic, such as Susan Cooper's "The Dark is Rising" Sequence and Diane Duane's "Young Wizard" series. In Eragon and Eldest, Christopher Paolini's novels, this language is used to simply define one's desire. For example, one would be able to use magic with out the speech, but it is infinitely easier and more controlled to use it to direct one's magical power.
An often used plot generator is a powerful magical object or artifact, a thing so dangerous that it can defeat the hero, or allow the villain to conquer the world. This can ensure that the plot of a fantasy novel, or role-playing game, is the quest to obtain or destroy this terrible item. Perhaps owing to the defining influence of The Lord of the Rings and the One Ring it contained, this particular plot device is so common in fantasy as to be termed plot coupons.
Lesser magical objects are also common, more so in role-playing games than novels, to lend characters such abilities as they need. Besides the One Ring, The Lord of the Rings contained magic swords that did not determine the plot. Other noteworthy magical objects include the invisibility cloak in Harry Potter and an array of magical items from Arabian Nights, including a magic carpet.
Such items may be created by magicians or powerful beings, but sometimes in the past, with no such items being possible today. Many fictional magical objects have no explained past.
Wands and staffs often feature, usually in wizards' hands.[8] The first magical wand appeared in the Odyssey: Circe used it to transform Odysseus's men into animals. Italian fairy tales put them into the hands of the powerful fairies by the late Middle Ages.[9] These were transmitted to modern fantasy. Gandalf refused to surrender his staff in The Lord of the Rings, and breaking Saruman's broke his power. Magical wands are used from Andre Norton's Witch World, to Harry Potter. One element of this is the need to limit a wizard, so that opposition to him (necessary for a story) is feasible; if the wizard loses his staff or wand (or other magic item on which he is dependent), he is weakened if not magically helpless.[10] In the Harry Potter setting, a wizard can only perform weak and uncontrolled magic without a wand.[11]
Magical places
Sometimes, too, a place will have magic; perhaps a certain location is "close to the spirit realm" or there are residues from powerful spells once cast here, or a place is magical by nature, as in the case of an enchanted forest. Ancient battlefields may be haunted. When the battles were fought by magic, on civilizations erected by magic, the location can be dangerous indeed; in Patricia A. McKillip's Riddle-Master trilogy, the ruins left behind by the powerful Earthmasters contain dangers. In the Crystal Cave trilogy, some places are described as being frequented by gods, but at least one "enchanted" forest is simply the home of an ancient indigenous people who (like one popular conception of Native Americans in literature) conceal themselves and repel invaders by what look like natural occurrences such as falling rocks.
Such places are often the homes of powerful beings. The woods in A Midsummer Night's Dream is haunted by fairies, including Oberon and Titania, their king and queen. In Earthsea, the wizards hold their school on Roke Island; two places on the island, Roke Knoll and Immanent Grove, are particularly conducive to extremely powerful magic. Lórien in Middle-earth was also a magical location, but its magic stemmed from the powers of those who lived there. This is true of other apparently magical locations in many fantasies, and in many more, it may not be clear whether a place is magic because of its inhabitants, or its inhabitants have chosen to live there because it was magic. Within one work, as in Andre Norton's Witch World series, there may be all three types of apparently magical places.
In any given fantasy magical system, a person must have limits to his magical abilities, or the story has no conflict: the magic can overwhelm the other side.[12]
One of the most common techniques is that the person has only a limited amount of magical ability. In The Magic Goes Away, Larry Niven made it a factor of environment: once the mana is exhausted in an area, no one can use magic, and innately magical beings, such as centaurs, die or lose their magical aspects, such as werewolves, which revert to being entirely wolves.[13] A more common use is that a person can only cast so many spells, or use an ability so many times, in a day, or use a measured amount of magic. This is the most common use in role-playing games, where the rules rigorously define them.[14] Similarly, in Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series, the One Power is limitless but each individual user can only channel a limited amount of it at any one time.
An alternative form of magical limitation provides theoretically unlimited power, but restricts what a user can do to what that user is capable of imagining, comprehending and understanding. In this scenario, magical ability may often be increased through scientific study of the world in order to better understand its working, something observed in The Belgariad by David Eddings. In Earthsea, magic is limited by a balance factor which requires the user to take into account the consequences and effects of what he does; a student of the arts soon finds out that the proper way to use magic is to do only what he must do.
Powers can also be restricted to a certain kind of ability. This is more common for innately magical beings than for those who have learned it. The person can be rendered defenseless by a situation to which his powers do not apply.
Magic can also require various sacrifices. Blood or life can be required, and even if the magician has no scruples, obtaining the material may be difficult.[15] Harmless substances can also limit the magician if they are rare, such as gemstones.
The need for learning may also limit what spells a wizard knows, and can cast. When magic is learned from rare and exotic books, the wizard's ability can be limited, temporarily, by his access to these books. In Earthsea, the changing of names weakens wizards as they travel; they must learn the true names of things in their new location to be powerful again.[10]
Magic may also be limited not so much inherently as by its danger. If a powerful spell can cause equally grave harm if miscast, wizards are likely to be wary of using it.[16]
Various genres
In science fiction plots (especially the "hard" variety), while magic tends to be avoided, often extraordinary facts are portrayed that do not have a scientific basis and are not explained in that fashion. In these cases the reader might find it useful to remember Arthur C. Clarke's "Third Law": Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Psionics is often used to endow science fictional characters with abilities, which, if they were called "magic", would make the story fantasy.[17] Many stories deliberately or inadvertently equate magic with psychic ability; others, such as Mary Stewart's Merlin novels or the Valdemar series of Mercedes Lackey, distinguish between the two. Lackey carefully delineates the differences between "mages", who use magic, and "heralds", who have paranormal powers, and the types of training required.
Magic has been portrayed in numerous games, in which magic is a characteristic available to players in certain circumstances.
It is possible to say that The Force from Star Wars canon is a type of magic, with Jedi and Sith being seen as wizards and sorcerers. Obi-wan Kenobi is referred to at least once, in Episode IV: A New Hope, as a "wizard".
In the Full Metal Alchemist franchise, alchemy adopts the role magic traditionally takes in fantasy fiction. Just as certain laws govern the practice of magic the same applies to the practice of alchemy. In order to carry out its function alchemy requires a payment of equal value. This limiting factor of alchemy is known as the law of Equivalent Exchange. The Philosopher's Stone is believed to allow an alchemist the power to bypass this law and is comparable to powerful magical items prevalent in other works of fantasy fiction.
Psynergy from Golden Sun is a form of Magic with Mercury (water), Venus (earth), Jupiter (wind), and Mars (fire).
