Timewaster's Guide Archive

Why is it, that, although every defense EUOL and AEN gave of fiction is oh-so valid, I still find it difficult not to hide my latest fantasy novel under my arm as I walk around?  Why, when I sit down to read it on campus, do I push the book against my lap and maintain it flat the entire time so that no one walking by can see the cover?  I am ashamed of my shame yet still find myself afraid to boldly walk with Robert Jordan or the like out in easy visibility?  How can I overcome this?  What have you guys done to flaunt instead of flee?  I don't even have the excuse that I am trying to meet girls; my fiance loves SF and we are currently reading Elantris out loud together.  I shouldn't care that people mark me as a nerd.  I should be proud to have such excellent taste.  The weird thing is that on some level, I am.  But not proud enough to stop caring what people think when they see me with a  fantasy novel or hear me talking about Magic the Gathering or WoW.  What can I do?  Wear sunglasses more often??

Hello everyone!  I just registered on TWG, and that only so I could join what is a pretty great discussion about Brandon’s First Law.  This being my very first post, I hope that all will have patience with me and forgive my coming late into the conversation (I feel kinda like one of those wannabe cool people at a party who wander from group to group trying to insinuate themselves into the more popular crowd).

I don’t know that this particular topic is the place for some Brandon-praise, but before I go on I must say that, to me, Brandon is the Pixar of fantasy authors right now; new, fresh, bankable, exciting.  There are many great movie studios in Hollywood, but even the best occasionally produce a major lemon.  Pixar is, in my opinion, the exception to this, as everything they have made has been good (so far).  Until they make a bad film, I will continue to see each of their movies simply because it has their name attached to it.  Brandon has achieved this same position of trust with me as an author.  Until he writes something bad, I will continue to purchase each of his books (in hardcover Brandon--hope you’re happy) as they are released.  Here’s hoping my bookshelf quickly fills with Sanderson novels…

We read in his EUOLogy that the other members of the Worldcon panel attacked the use of laws and rules in magic systems because of a belief that such would kill the wonder inherent in good fantasy.  I cannot speak for anyone else, but my ability to feel wonder as a reader is not dependant whatsoever on the relative softness or hardness of the magic system.  In fact, there need not be magic at all.  Who can read something like The Bourne Identity or The Count of Monte Cristo without experiencing a sense of wonder?  Indeed, I would say I felt more wonder while reading those two non-SF/F books than I did reading many a fantasy novel with a soft magic system.  If an author’s chief (or heaven forbid, only) way of generating wonder in the mind of his readers is the use of a soft magic system, no amount of dragons or wizards or treasure or unexplored depths will make a good novel.

If this is true, then the question changes.  All things being equal, does a magic system devoid of rules and laws generate more wonder than a harder system?  And is generating wonder the true narrative reason for writing fantasy?  If so, is that as it should be?

I would take a somewhat more cynical approach to Sanderson’s First Law and phrase it like this: The degree to which an author’s use of magic to solve problems becomes DEM is inversely proportional to the degree to which the reader understands said magic.  The temptation (both conscious and subconscious) for an author to resolve conflict arbitrarily gets higher and higher the softer the magic system.

Sanderson points out that in Tolkien’s LOTR books a soft system works because it gives the setting a fantastical appeal.  “In his books,” he says, “you rarely understand the capabilities of Wizards and their ilk. You, instead, spend your time identifying with the hobbits, who feel that they’ve been thrown into something much larger, and more dangerous, than themselves. By holding back laws and rules of magic, Tolkien makes us feel that this world is vast, and that there are unimaginable powers surging and moving beyond our sight.”

I have a few issues with the use of LOTR as an example to defend a softer magic system.  First and foremost is my belief that Tolkien’s ability to make his world seem vast, with unimaginable powers surging beyond our sight, has very little to do with a lack of magical rules.  Middle Earth seems vast because it is vast.  Tolkien wrote hundreds and hundreds of pages of background into the nations and histories and battles and landscape and people and cultures and conflicts and songs and poems that occasionally peek out through the narrative to say, “This world is BIG.  It is very, very rich in detail and wonder.”  He wrote out tide charts for his oceans and phases of the moon as seen in different parts of his geography.  And, though much of this is never seen by the casual reader, somehow a part of the profound spirit of Middle Earth is transmitted and the depths of the world are felt.  This is primarily due to the astronomical skill of Tolkien, not the absence of magical laws.


The other reason LOTR (both in movie and in book form) is not a good example of a soft magic system in use is that it really does not have a lot of magical conflict resolution in it.  Tolkien apparently was taking Brandon’s advice and asking himself quite frequently “How can my characters solve this problem without magic?”  Hear me out here.  Sure, it has magical creatures, if one’s definition of “magical” is “cannot be encountered in our world.”  But what magic do we ever see a hobbit, a dwarf, a Watcher, an orc, an Ent, or an eagle perform?  They are simply smaller people or bigger squid or uglier jocks or longer lived sentient trees or…the bigger thing again.  And when we do see magic, it is either exceedingly arbitrary (nice to have an entire legion of undead unkillable spirits to fight for you right when you need them most, isn’t it?) or actually very hard (the Elves’ superhuman senses and agility).  Then there is Gandalf.  Is his magic soft?  Yes.  Does he really solve major plot conflicts with it?  Yes and no.  After his healing of King Theoden and confrontation with Saruman in the book, or his driving off of the wraiths with the light from his wand in the movie (which by the way, Peter Jackson only included because he felt the Gandalf character was disappearing from the film and wanted some way to dramatically throw him back in), what conflict does he ever actually resolve with magic (other than the use of Shadowfax, which does not count because (1) it is not his magic and (2) it is pretty DEM)?  We have a being who killed a Balrog and casually disarmed Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas with the wave of a hand fighting orcs by banging them over the head with his staff??  His major magical strength throughout the books seems to be his ability to impress others as a Wizard without ever doing anything truly Wizardy.  The real magic in the books is the evil stuff, and although it is plenty soft (we never really are sure what the ring can do), it is not used to solve conflicts.  Sure, there are errors and exceptions to much in the preceding paragraph, but taking a step back after having finished the books or the movies, I am struck more by the absence of magical conflict resolution than by its presence.

And as long as I am on the subject of LOTR, I also disagree that trying to use magic in LOTR only resulted in things becoming worse (see the end of Brandon’s essay).  As a matter of fact, I would say there could have been few things better for the eventual resolution of the plot than Gandalf’s death at the hands of the Balrog.  Not only did it enable his transformation into Gandalf the White (a change that set up his later defeat of Saruman), but it also put into motion a chain of events that were probably the only way the ring could actually have been destroyed.  With Gandalf gone, Aragorn finally had to step into the role of leader, starting the breakdown of his reservations against becoming King.  Without accepting his role as King of Gondor, Aragorn could never have led the army of the dead, and the Battle of Pelennor Fields would have been lost.  Had Gandalf been there, Strider might never have become Aragorn.  Gandalf’s absence also enabled the splitting of the Fellowship and the insertion of Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas into Rohan.  Without their help, Rohan would most likely have fallen and without Pippin and Merry, the Ents never would have joined the battle.  With Gandalf present, none of this would have taken place.  Most importantly however, is the fate of Frodo and the ring.  Would a party that included Gandalf and Aragorn, the two beings under the most constant worry of Sauron, ever have reached the Pit of Doom?  It was Gandalf’s very absence and the resulting distraction of Sauron that allowed the ring to enter Mordor at all.  So rather than being a worsening of fate, the death of  Gandalf is perhaps the single most fortuitous event in the entire trilogy.

But the main point I wanted to make (I know, I’ve typed this much and haven’t even reached my main point yet?!  I am WAY too long winded for my own good) is that everyone seems to be forgetting that DEM is not the only danger to an author in using an insufficiently hard magic system.  Even if the author never chooses, in the use of his soft system, to solve a conflict arbitrarily with magic, inadequately explained magic systems still cause another significant problem.  They create inconsistencies in the relative strengths of the characters.  To continue using LOTR, look at Gandalf VS. Balrog VS. Legolas VS. Oliphaunt.  We see Gandalf defeat the Balrog and Legolas defeat the oliphaunt, each single-handedly.  But, although we know Legolas could never kill a Balrog, we also do not really get the impression that Gandalf could take down an oliphaunt by himself.  Even though at one point, we see Gandalf easily disarm Legolas, subsequent events make us wonder who is truly the more dangerous (at least in the movies).  This confusion is the result of not knowing what Gandalf can really do, or how often he is “allowed” to do it.  The reader never knows who stands where on the hierarchy of any particular strength because no two situations or conflicts are alike.  Any victory or defeat of any hero or villain can later be explained away by the use of some extenuating magical circumstance, and all assumptions made from the encounter called into question.  These explanations are often very good ones, and often make logical sense, but the absence of set magical rules nevertheless undermines an author’s attempt to establish the pecking order of power.

Anyway, I had fun posting this and I hope I haven’t completely bored anyone.  I have been super impressed with everyone’s insights and comments so far, even the ones I don’t agree with.  Obviously, I am a huge fan of much harder magical systems (probably more extreme on that issue than Brandon himself) but I have enjoyed many novels where the systems are not so well explained.  I just wonder how much greater my enjoyment of those books might have been if I hadn’t noticed so many incidents of DEM or inconsistencies in the relative character strengths that were the direct result of poorly defined magic.  That being said, I can’t wait to see how everyone picks apart my points.   Have fun!!