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[Lord Shonus]

I remember missing the end of a Little House on the Prairie repeat back in the 90s because an airliner decided to come in low for some reason and I couldn't hear the TV. Pissed me off far more than it should have.

[MaximumZero]

Imagine all the people who were suddenly surprised with Heidi during the end of a football game.

[Reelya]

Was at a friends house years ago and we had the TV on and an episode of Walker: Texas Ranger was on. Except it didn't turn out to be an episode, it turned out to be a two hour long telemovie about Walker saving this little orphan boy dying of cancer from some baddies, with about half the runtime dedicated to Walker giving the kid a warm/fuzzy life on his farm, before the inevitable drawn-out death scene. The WTF was not knowing this was a telemovie and after a while we're both like "huh, this episode is going a fucking long time", and it was getting excruciating to watch, but by then we'd committed too much time to just turn it off.

[Neonivek]

Ok here is something

I find it odd when fiction depicts magic as a sort of cheat or easy way.

To some extent it is, especially if it is used to cheat. But I have to sometimes see it from the perspective of the person practicing it. They are usually practicing for years and magic is about formula, mental discipline, emotional maturity, or just strict memorization.

To what extent... isn't magic just like... another part of them? Like if someone said to me "Goodness, always using arms... When will you learn to do things without them?"

[Reelya]

IKR it makes no sense really.

e.g. if someone can magic the laundry done in fiction then they do that, and inevitably laze around wasting the same amount of time the laundry would take, then get scolded for cheating. But that situation is a straw man. Doing the laundry by magic is no more cheating than buying a washing machine, and in fact you can start a load then go do something else. Magic should work the same way, making them act lazy afterwards is often completely out of character, because they want to make an Aesop out of it, and if they actually used the saved time to do something useful, that breaks the "moral lesson".

[Lenglon]

Ok here is something

I find it odd when fiction depicts magic as a sort of cheat or easy way.

To some extent it is, especially if it is used to cheat. But I have to sometimes see it from the perspective of the person practicing it. They are usually practicing for years and magic is about formula, mental discipline, emotional maturity, or just strict memorization.

To what extent... isn't magic just like... another part of them? Like if someone said to me "Goodness, always using arms... When will you learn to do things without them?"

Um, you actually do see things like that about arms. or more specifically about someone, especially in either shooting or swordsmanship, being reliant upon their dominant hand. also happens with eyes, someone being reliant upon seeing what they're doing, and then changing from being powerful to being helpless when the area is plunged into abrupt total darkness.

it's more a trope about being reliant upon a single thing too much, and when that thing is taken away becoming helpless, usually with the message of true power involving being strong in all situations.

[Sergarr]

Is this for real

this can't be right, the second simpliest non-linear function is currently the most advanced and the most used one???

complete bullshit

[Neonivek]

It isn't so much that there isn't value in that. It is the way that it is framed as well as what the results are.

Magic isn't "Normal", it is a cheat or shortcut.

And usually whenever they do "You rely too much on your arms" or "You rely too much on your sight" the idea isn't that they are weakened without them... But rather that they are being weakened by their overreliance (So... usually a person who goes through the sight episode... gains super senses that work even in broad daylight).

While magic is just "Ohh man, you use magic.".. and quite often in those settings you cannot be deprived, or reasonably deprived, of magic. As well the skills that they learn are usually skills they already have and no not compliment their current abilities (They don't learn say... How running while casting magic is helpful.). Just make the bed by hand and be done with it.

[wierd]

If magic exists, and is reproducible/teachable, then it is no different than high technology.

Somebody that can design advanced logic and electronic actuators to attach to it, and have it do something, is functionally identical to the advanced magician creating the golem.

Worlds in which magic exists, are worlds where additional physics exists. It is no more wrong, or cheaty, than using a car instead of walking.

[scrdest]

No, no, it's the GLA's attempt at creating a computer virus for old machines running DOS.

BE ON WATCH FOR THE ENEMY!

[Mech#4]

I know in literature authors can have a hard time writing with magic around because it tends to take control of the story and provide simple answers to otherwise complex situations. In Discworld the wizards, while fully capable of using magic to solve problems, show a lot of restraint by not doing so because of the slippery slope it creates. They're also kept fed, happy and docile so they don't get ideas about creating towers and blasting each other apart which causes terrible problems for the surrounding populous who rather dislike it when their houses turn into large custard pies and clouds of butterflies.


There's a memorable scene in one of the Drizzt series where the group have just washed ashore from a shipwreck and are being attacked by sea undead. Two mages start having a competition, showing off what spells they know while destroying the horde until one nearly goes too far and casts Tenser's Transformation.

I think the Dragonlance series had a number of moments with magic through Raistlin but it's been quite a while since I read those so I can't remember specifics.

[Neonivek]

Wizard schools in Discworld teach you how to not use magic

[Mech#4]

Wizard schools in Discworld teach you how to not use magic

I mean really. Who wants wizards mucking about casting spells all over the place. Unhygenic.

[Neonivek]

Wizard schools in Discworld teach you how to not use magic

I mean really. Who wants wizards mucking about casting spells all over the place. Unhygenic.

My favorite school is the Assassins school.

Where passing the final test means you suck.

[Rolan7]

Magic use isn't lazy, because it usually has a cost.  That cost depends a lot on the setting and spell effect, though.  DND magic tends to be exceptionally cheap, making fireballs from pinches of guano you don't even need to track (just have "bag of spell components" that covers 90% of spells). 

Actually DND wizards are just weird, I'm not sure where the "power" comes from...  other spellcasters all channel raw power from somewhere.  Perhaps wizards intricately yet passively defy thermodynamics like Maxwell's Daemon.

Of course, DND is a game.  In a lot of fantasy settings magic requires "equivalent exchange"... even if you're allowed to take the cost out of a victim instead of yourself.  Here magic is a entity or entities which must be bargained with, like spirits or devils (but maybe more primal).  This magic is fundamentally different from sufficiently advanced technology.