fantasy themes I just don’t get tired of
Today, I want to talk about magic. It’s one of the reasons we read fantasy, and there are few elements that can make a story more gripping, a world more immersive, than really stunning magic.
the neatest thing since
I’m going to start with a work that is break-your-brain fantastical: Foundryside by Robert Jackson Bennett. We start with a premise that’s simple and facially unoriginal: magic is the language of the gods, stolen in an early age like Prometheus took fire. We don’t know much about these shadowy antecedents yet, but it certainly feels like they may later become more relevant.
That’s only where the adventure starts, however. Queue sharp left turn off trafficked path.
Embedded within the concept that one can control anything by speaking to it is the idea that anything has to be ready to receive commands. All the world was created with a code attached, dazzlingly complex, detailing the ways in which it’s programmed to act. The more of this code one knows, the more success one has manipulating it.
I fear to get too deep into the nitty-gritty of this system, because this is a scenario where the experts are operating under a series of misconceptions. Figuring out how and why they’re wrong is part of the plot and I don’t want to spoil it. The crux of the system is, if you want to do magic, you’re going to need to communicate with inanimate objects. It’s genuinely a thrill to be in people’s skin as they do.
There’s even a character named Clef, a sentient key that befriends the protagonist!
and the other side of the spectrum
I’m going to be candid, although I know the opinion will be unpopular with some. From my perspective, the distinction between so-called ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ magic in fantasy is both arbitrary and uninformative. If it feels more meaningful to you, or you’re just not all the way clear what the terms are supposed to mean, The Traitor Son Cycle by Miles Cameron can be your litmus test.
The magic in this story is abstract expressionism, not science. It’s powerfully evocative but doesn’t necessarily make a lot of sense. Full disclosure, I haven’t finished the entire series; it’s possible the author will explain at a later date why this cool old wizard has columns of light fountaining off him.
How a person became a massive tree.
What the relationship is between magic – a natural force – and the ‘artifice’ of magical wards and sigils built into structures, some of them sophisticated to a degree that baffles modern practitioners. But I’m content that this unfold in its own time. Or not at all. The magic is part of the experience and it never disappoints.
The point is, in both these stories, the magic is beautiful and fascinating. It’s one of the reasons we love fantasy, right? It’s bullshit that magic isn’t real, and nothing beats an author who can make us feel like it might just be after all.
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