Guild Wars 2

A friend has pushed me to take a class in Atomic and Optical Physics recently. This along side several classes in Quantum Mechanics. In reading, listening to lectures, and generally cramping my brain I’ve come away with a fair bit of understanding and a lot of questions. Playing with these ideas has yielding some interesting ideas on just what’s going on in the minds of people when we discuss the idea of ‘magic’.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to go popping anyone’s metaphysical balloons here. Instead, since we’re all here to have fun, I’m going to inflate a few more and talk about why.

Dark Energy has been described as the 21st Century’s aether.. String Theory, on the other hand, has a curious frustration of resulting in an infinity if attempted to be combined with Quantum Mechanics. That doesn’t really work. Yes, you can work infinities with infinities using some algebra, but the equations are pretty tight and aren’t really going to yield a lot of practical utility beyond whatever personal clarification you may be seeking or trying to abandon.

However, it may be that the reason these ideas seems illusory or in conflict is because at certain scales, Information is continuous.

What do I mean by this?

In gross terms, when trying to describe something mathematically the effort is to arrive at a persistent and accurate quantity. There is a serial logic to this. A person attempting to understand something mathematically prefers that the accuracy of a given quantity has a persistence for just so long. Here I am clarifying that persistence is usually secondary to accuracy, and this ordering is both pedagogically precise as well as having within it a serial order; A takes us to B and so on. I’m using ‘serial’ here to stay away from the idea of linear, so as to include linear and retain the option for multiple simultaneous vectors.

Now, in the world of Tyria we see that most things are somewhat arranged this way. Ley Lines provide a continuous transmission of Magical energies. I’ll capitalize Magical here, since in the world of Tyria, Magic is an accepted idea. For our purposes, rationally, let’s consider this idea to be entirely precise while simultaneously (and in contradiction) a statement that Tyrians (really) have no idea what it is: they simply use it.

Now, the “use” of Magic is quite possible because Tyrians have identified something within the nature of their environment which is either absent from our own real world or has not been identified to us in such a way that we can make any practical utility from it consciously.
Whether or not we can ever come to realize the reality of one of these distinctions is not important for us in this post. Rather, what is important is that Tyrians have been able to make certain distinctions very clear to themselves which are accurate about Magic such that they are able manipulate the world toward their aims. In our world such words as Alteration, Abjuration, Conjuration, Divination, and Evocation would be applicable for such Magics as we have seen used in Tyria. However, the Tyrians have roughly chosen to go with a very distinct style of interpretation for their Magics than have we.

Warrior – Axe, Hammer, Swordsmanship, Tactics – Attribute: Strength
Ranger – Beast Mastery, Marksmanship, Wilderness Survival – Attribute: Expertise
Monk – (Prayers) >> Healing, Smiting, Protection | – Attribute: Divine Favor
Necro – >> Curses, (Magic) >> Blood, Death | – Attribute: Soul Reaping
Mesmer – (Magic) >> Domination, Illusion, Inspiration | – Attribute: Fast Casting
Elementalist – (Magic) >> Air, Earth, Fire, Water | – Attribute: Energy Storage

(Parenthesis) >> to | means that something has (a source of magic) and ends at |
I’m trying to give you a good visual way of seeing these each on just one line.

What I want you to notice is that the Attribute is Primary to the eventual outcome of this person in some manner. Thus, the vast difference between our way of interpreting the universe and Tyria’s is that Tyrians begin looking at the universe pluristically and attempt to define some qualitative attribute as essential rather than definitive to determining the mechanics of this particular plurality’s functionality.

To clarify even further, Tyrians never suffered to live a Descartes nor Locke. We have had to suffer with an inherited, but not particularly practical viewing of the world which crystallizes our ideas to regard everything in a linear modality aim at an anticipated absolution from which no advance thereafter, nor escape therefrom thereafter, will ever be possible. Thus, qualities of an observation such as solidity, motion, number, figure, and extension all are considered Primary while such things as taste, color, smells, sounds, and impressions (feelings) are all disregarded. For this reason we are linguistically crippled in most circumstances, unable to describe our emotions beyond just five words: Love, Empathy, Anger, Fear, and Guilt – with every other word variations on this theme and highly fixed to a hierarchical structure that is linear and absolute to one degree or another.

Tyrian, therefore, demonstrate a qualitative break from the consciousness which we demonstrate by retaining metaphysical boundaries that afford the potential to encapsulate ideas without degrading the potential of the consciousness doing so for not having the contorted notion of an absolute upon which to absorb, process, retain and output information. A Tyrian’s perception of information is continuous as contradictions are allowed their play.

Obviously this alludes to the possibility for vast contradictions to arise which would eventually overwhelm the Tyrian. However, this is largely countered by the aforementioned favoritism of plurality as the prime interpretation through which the universe is viewed. Contradictions are thusly anticipated and there is good evidence of philosophies created to handle them. The easiest of which to observe is the Elementalist.
In a more ridged style of Elemental Magic the use of one element typically precludes another. Whereas, in Tyria synergistic properties are favored over those discrete attributes. Combo Fields are one such property of this. Another is the absence of Arcane being a primary field. In fact, it’s Trait.
Here again, the use of the word Trait demonstrates pedagogical concern rather than philological.

With all of this in mind we can step forward with a more concrete understanding of how Tyria differs from our own world fundamentally without necessarily diverging from its physics in any discernible way.

Before trying to tackle the Physics I’m going to give every lore delver and math-head a bit of a gift. It relates heavily to this topic and should be a bit of fun for those really bored with the depth of lore delving can go right now. I challenge you to find things like this across Tyria and real life (you’ll have to reference both to solve this).

526746889473253119
492861765597138234
641622914358377985

735834198561462297
438231792867165594
132537495264768891

The upper three lines are sequences.
The lower three lines are clues that you are on the right track.

In the Lion’s Arch, above the Marriner Plague, are two words written on the walls: the largest in size is gold, the longest in length black. Together, the total count of their characters is two less than four times the value you will need to confirm these sequences.

Turn around for a clue how to begin…

A trip to the Grove will also afford you the correct number to begin calculating if you go to the pub, located through the candy-cane colored doors, and search along the windows for the picture of the yellow flower on a field of blue. The divisions of the flower’s yellow colors sum divided by two is the count you want; don’t miss the littlest one!

Look immediately down left of the flower, still on the window, and you’ll notice several leaves all alone on a branch… you’ll want add that number back into what you gained from Lion’s Arch if you really need reinforcement you’re on the right trail!

The choice of the Grove as a location is a clue…

Now a freebie: 137.5

What was Newton’s Third Law?

Ulam was doodling something like this in 1963.

Maybe you should take idea and go back to Lion’s Arch for awhile with all this in hand? All this information ought to go to something, shouldn’kitten Perhaps on it?

Travel to Wolf Lodge, Hoelbrak – Wolf Waypoint. Head inside, turn right, go up the little ramp, and you’ll see a number of bookshelves with scrolls on them. These are a clue, though redundant. Take the total number of shelves on each stand and multiple this number by the total number of stands. Write that number down. Now use the clue that has been repeating itself up to this point to find a way to make the number you have just written down smaller without subtracting or dividing: you may add.

The fact that I’ve chosen Hoelbrak instead of Rata Sum for this part is a clue…

The last paragraph reinforces you have found the base value you need to construct a ruler of sorts, though it will hardly be conventional!
The last paragraph also informs you to what you will be doing with this ruler to find the proper values so that you can uncover the sequences that began this quest.

A few hints. Go back to Lion’s Arch, where you turned around… this image you are looking at, now that you have gotten this far, is an embedded hint magnifying the clues you’ve already obtained.

If you think you have all of the clues, but aren’t sure what to do… go stare at the landscape of Orr for awhile. What’s stands out most consistently about the architecture?

Use the freebie to get a clue how to look for the sequences once you’re confident you’ve got it.

Be persistent and you’ll connect the dots!

Alright, puzzle is left to you to solve further! Oh, except one last thing… this leads to three pictures. You might want to hold them up to the light when your done…

…

Okay… Physics, Ley Lines, and Magic !

So, if Tyrians really aren’t interested in making arbitrary differences between Secondary and Primary Characteristics the way we do then they are able to make more rapid access to the information they use in their hearts and minds. Consequently, Skills might be representative of qualitative distinctions they’ve been able to identify, isolate, and eventually magnify until such qualities of some plurality can be exercised into some sort of utilitarian mechanism.
Simplistically, this is like saying Tyrians would be much more fascinated that water has the capacity to undulate than that it can move a wheel (which is more of a racial trait). The fact that water can glitter might be something a Mesmer would notice.

This would explain why a great many of our skills are pretty situational. It’s rare to see a skill so universally applicable as say, Polymorph, and then such things are very short at any rate. By contrast, Skills that teleport, cloak, and shadowstep are fairly common: only the aesthetic details vary. The importance here is that just as there is shadow step, there is probably some equivalent of undiscovered ‘light stepping’ and ‘folded light’ abilities out there that just hasn’t come about because monks have faded out of Tyria since they’re powers seem to be entirely based around being a conduit for Dwayna.

What this means is that areas like Serenity Temple have the potential to HEAL the Scar. It’s like an energy well that just needs to be tapped. These could actually function as a kind of conduit for that particular kind of ‘god magic’ – if you will. The reason I make this claim and distinction is that the Tyrians and their Gods probably first realized a linguistical modality more capable than our own for identifying those characteristics of reality which would yield Magic rather than produce it. This is the difference between forcing a cow to give milk and taking milk from a cow that’s able to provide it. Our real life methodologies force things. If it can’t be forced our sciences are pretty powerless. Whereas, the Tyrian method is looking for already available resources, regardless of how much morphology comes with it, and trying to get some utility out of that. We’d crawl this crude, but they’d probably just call us “unnecessarily conservative”: I’m thinking of an Asura saying this as I type. The ‘Gods’, if they were Human, probably just had the same abilities as a person determining the best place to set a Shinto shrine: where the weirdest most exotic concentration of that forest, that plain, that dance of light on the water most likes to appear… After the Gods figured it out, they stepped into that area and absorbed its power like a Human temple would otherwise.

And all of that goes back what I wrote here some time ago:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/lore/Orrian-Hypothesis/first#post4284937

Enjoy!

A clever someone had some questions this morning. Another helpful clue is that the white-stone wave-inlays around the base of the Marriner Plague have divisions. You’ll want the number of the divisions.

This number is also twice the value minus four of the very first number you worked out in this puzzle. You’ll use this number to determine how to finish this.

Double the number that repeats itself so much in the Hoelbrak’s clue. Return to the Marriner Plague. Look carefully, but not hard at your screen. If you’re still really stumped the UI is very helpful.

Keep in mind Newton’s Third Law so you don’t cut yourself short by half as you finish this!

I think you are confusing the concept of qualia with that of assumption. Anything that was a subjective quality, still remains a subjective quality as long as there is a definitive threshold in tyria to apply it as based on general anatomy. It would be just as easy to say that magic which is connected to the mind has the ability to bypass qualia and influence the mind.

From what we have seen elementalists cannot create something that is a homogeneous mixture of water and fire, but if they could would this represent a divergence in the limit of human comprehension, or speak to the differences in which physics operated in their world?

A puzzle for you. Why does blasting a smoke field give aoe stealth but shooting through it gives blindness, while blasting a dark field gives blindness while shooting through it steals health?

Hmm. I hadn’t thought of it that way. You’re probably right in practice just because qualia leads to precise discussion. I was attempting to distinctly evade coming to precision in my use of metaphysics to leave room for the possibility that Tyrians just aren’t interested in a micro-cosmic view of the universe that slowly builds into a grand unified theory. This bends toward the idea that, sort of like Sulfur, there are states were it is solid and states were is liquid; but this can happen at higher temperature rather than just low and high. There’s a lot plasticity in consciousness, most of which never gets expressed because of the environment.
Again, this doesn’t retract anything of what you’re saying. Perhaps what happens with combo fields is that since those using these things are aware of the qualia of ‘blast’, ‘smoke’, and ‘shoot’ these are like primary attributes: they are like the carrier signal and emergent expression from that source _macro_qualia (the class type and awareness of the entity being that classes to these properties) whereas the “blindness, darkness, field, and steals” could all be related to only what’s possible through physics. “Health” getting affected probably being more complicated.

This doesn’t entirely answer the question, but it sort of alludes to the way in which I’m thinking through this at the moment. I think the idea I’m working toward is that quantitative values wouldn’t have a real hierarchy in Tyria. 1 isn’t really less than 8. Rather, 8 could be less than 1 because 1 is more complete unit of information, while 8 is not. 8, however, demonstrates something being extracted from some more continuous field – ala magic – than 1, which is still a closed (or complete) packet of information.

So, when a person produces the effect of a combo field they are producing something like an 8 variable extraction from this higher continuous reality (the Mists? similar to the Fade in Dragon Age?) whereas in when the effect produces something like a fire wall, and that only, then they’ve used just a 1 packet expression of that higher field.

I was thinking that if the electron is an energy well, then perhaps the near-presence of another mass-body has the capacity to recreate a sympathetic resonance. Once having reached a near

Eirdyne.9843:

Hmm. I hadn’t thought of it that way. You’re probably right in practice just because qualia leads to precise discussion. I was attempting to distinctly evade coming to precision in my use of metaphysics to leave room for the possibility that Tyrians just aren’t interested in a micro-cosmic view of the universe that slowly builds into a grand unified theory. This bends toward the idea that, sort of like Sulfur, there are states were it is solid and states were is liquid; but this can happen at higher temperature rather than just low and high. There’s a lot plasticity in consciousness, most of which never gets expressed because of the environment.
Again, this doesn’t retract anything of what you’re saying. Perhaps what happens with combo fields is that since those using these things are aware of the qualia of ‘blast’, ‘smoke’, and ‘shoot’ these are like primary attributes: they are like the carrier signal and emergent expression from that source _macro_qualia (the class type and awareness of the entity being that classes to these properties) whereas the “blindness, darkness, field, and steals” could all be related to only what’s possible through physics. “Health” getting affected probably being more complicated.

This doesn’t entirely answer the question, but it sort of alludes to the way in which I’m thinking through this at the moment. I think the idea I’m working toward is that quantitative values wouldn’t have a real hierarchy in Tyria. 1 isn’t really less than 8. Rather, 8 could be less than 1 because 1 is more complete unit of information, while 8 is not. 8, however, demonstrates something being extracted from some more continuous field – ala magic – than 1, which is still a closed (or complete) packet of information.

So, when a person produces the effect of a combo field they are producing something like an 8 variable extraction from this higher continuous reality (the Mists? similar to the Fade in Dragon Age?) whereas in when the effect produces something like a fire wall, and that only, then they’ve used just a 1 packet expression of that higher field.

I was thinking that if the electron is an energy well, then perhaps the near-presence of another mass-body has the capacity to recreate a sympathetic resonance. Once having reached a near

Quantitative values are not hierarchical by definition as hierarchy is a subjective measurement.

The song “one is the loneliest number” is a good example of how how quantitative values can be viewed subjectively.

For 8 to be less than 1 you would have to move into subjective interpretion, beyond base ten, or both.

However your comments have made me think it’s possible that by the synergetic properties of tyria not all quantities that are subjectively better are hierarchically better when viewed at a macro level.

If magic behaves like chemistry then the change between 1 and 8 could be similar to the observable change in atoms that happens between 1 and 8 neutrons being added.

It is then possible that a combo is as simple as creating isotopes that for whatever reason produce might or blindness. But even with that the subjective hierarchy that people apply to quantitative valued (why have billions when you can have millions) would still exist.

Yes, that’s where I was going! I couldn’t remember enough of my chemistry to set them together. The idea would be that each subjective value, in some super set, is really more accurate than the individualistic qualia and quanta that we prefer to think in for our world. Tyria may have more availability in some aspect of its particle physics than our world.

Example:

for all y, v(y) < d, and
for all y <d, v(x) =0

It’s like water running along the lip of an eavestrough. The water hangs, upside down, but hasn’t yet fallen for a number of reasons.
Similarly, our universe may actually be something like this. The macro structure is really invisible to us because our range of sensory perception is locked into just a few bandwiths by our biology. We’re viewing the universe through the coordination and thus interpretation of trillions of atoms rather than a single lens. That means our interpretations of what that universe is also hinges on this divided interpretation. Continuing, our brain is still another filter system. If female, then colors and body signals are more pronounced. If male, color is reduced, but process and signal filtration is more pronounced.

Perhaps in Tyria the bacteria in the social is more tending toward the production of chemical rings similar to that in Prednisone or there is more DMT present in the plants. Either of these would vastly alter the usual filter system our brains operate under. Also, it may be that Tyrians are experiencing a different state of consciousness than our own simply because everything they are accessing for diet isn’t restricted through processed foods. It’s caught, it’s cooked. There may be a basic idea that dried foods preserve better, but the principles of this haven’t really come up. Combine this with the amount of travel our characters are experiencing it’s a real wonder there hasn’t been a plague yet; especially after Zhaitan showed up. There was mention of Malaria in this coming expansion, so perhaps we’ll see more about the diseases in Tyria now.

Before I wrote this I went all over Tyria looking for something resembling Sacred Geometry. I am happy to say I didn’t find a single piece of it, which suggests Tyria didn’t go there. Further, there is a lot more curved artwork in Tyria than found on Earth. Almost everything on Earth that is art comes out in some form of squared geometry. Whereas in Tyria everything is curved or irregular. That might also allude to the idea that something is slightly different about this world than our own.

In our world it typically requires modern computers to do curved architecture.
Examples:
http://assets.dornob.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/architect-curved-forms.jpg
http://c1038.r38.cf3.rackcdn.com/group5/building45979/media/52641103e8e44ef4c20001d8_rest-hole-in-the-university-of-seoul-utaa_04.jpg

The closest things we see in the ancient world like this are these:
- Sacsayhuam, South America

By contrast there are anomalies:
- Sacsayhuam, regarded more closely
content/uploads/2014/10/4484933008_158bafcd87_z.jpg
- The ruins with the giant head at Arakawabana, Japan
- Pont du gard, France
- Carrieres de Bibemus, France
- Olantaytambo, Peru
- Tiwanaku, Bolivia

Tiwanaku is really interesting as far as Tyria goes since it near identical architecture as that in the Silverwastes. So, Tyrians have, by fortune of living in a less hostile environment, managed to develop themselves more persistently without a lot of interruption until the Dragons emerge. I wrote in a somewhat playful RP letter how the de-evolution of the Ettins may actually the future of all of our current races. It is as though the races that survive the Dragons to any degree are not just passing through a dramatic decline, but are actually altered in some way that permanently shifts them from sentience to something more animalistic.

We know that Gordon Wasson made a pretty good case for all of this in his studies of ethnobotony across the globe. The Siberians traded their herbs with the Tibetans which filtered it down to India and inspiring much of the religions there, while the Indo-European migrations also brought with them those same herbs, eventually to evolve the mystery schools that dominated so much of Greece, Roman, and Egypt.

And this, again, take us back to the Alchemists who used the remnants of these arts to try to contact Elves.

A really good way to understand this, too, is to look into books like The Road to Middle Earth and Defending Middle Earth. Both books clarify what Tolkien was doing that lead to the creation of the Lord of the Rings stories rather than the typical understanding we are told about the books; that he was the father of modern fantasy – alluding the idea he invented something.
Tolkien realized that the Beowolfe, like the Norse Sagas, and Finland’s Kalevala, describe in a story a history of stories. Tolkien realized that the inconsistencies of the Beowolfe epic were actually linguistical inconsistencies. He was able to take these inconsistencies to ground by following the philology (history) of the root words through primary documents back to a clearer basis of the mythologies there present. Thus, the F in Dwarfs has a distinctly different root history than the V in Dwarves. The word Dwarf has French origins of a fairly late data in history, while Dwarves goes all the way back to beyond Indo-European. From this he was also able to separate that Alf and Alv, and finally Alvar are entirely different from dwarve (dwarfs): which is what lead him to catalog Dwarves and Elves as distinctly separate races with distinctly separate motives.

Tyrian magic is probably something like this, where we are at the late period of a slowly being lost kind of magical authority. Tyrians can use it, manipulate it, and make some practical applications from magic, but are actually in the process of losing it altogether. This doesn’t seem to be anything to do with the Elder Dragons, but rather a slow decline in their consciousness as time goes on. It’s almost as though Tyria favors the use of Magic over Technology because Technology imposes neoteny in the development of consciousness which; merely restrictive to the first generation that shifts toward technology, but later begins a process which forces later generations toward an ever amplified divergence from consciousness as the neoteny of that first generation is conserved by habit and confusion.

Correction: Perhaps in Tyria the bacteria in the soil *

Eirdyne.9843:

The importance here is that just as there is shadow step, there is probably some equivalent of undiscovered ‘light stepping’ and ‘folded light’ abilities out there that just hasn’t come about because monks have faded out of Tyria since they’re powers seem to be entirely based around being a conduit for Dwayna.

I think they already exist. Guardian came out of a combination of monk, paragon, and ritualist (possibly others, this remains unconfirmed) and they have a handful of teleports – Flashing Blade and the two Intervention skills. They do seem to be less versatile than shadowstepping, but they exist.

Regarding monks: I think we saw too many enemies of Dwayna using monk magic in GW1 to consider their powers to be from being a conduit of Dwayna, especially since the bloodstones gave a source of power that wasn’t reliant on the gods. We’ve been told with the guardian that the powers of the guardian are invoked through faith, although it doesn’t matter what that faith is in (a charr having faith in their legion is given as an example). Since monk and guardian magic are related, I think something similar happened with monks – monks of various religions pray to their gods, this act of faith empowers them to perform magic, and they come to associate the results as divine miracles coming from the focus of their religion, rather than their own work that was simply unlocked through an act of piety.

There are a few hints that divine power might have the potential to cleanse dragon corruption in various ways, but I’m not sure Serenity is at that level. While the main temple in Ascalon, Serenity seems at best to have been the most sacred location in Ascalon, well behind locations of greater concentrations of divine magic such as Orr, the Crystal Desert, the Temple of the Ages and the temple of Grenth in Lornar’s Pass. With the gods having withdrawn and Serenity having been smashed up by the Searing, the charr, and the Branding, I suspect there’s not a lot of divine power in Serenity to access.

When it comes to the rest: Interesting puzzle, but I’ll be too busy with my own projects to chase it up in the foreseeable future.

Eirdyne.9843:

Yes, that’s where I was going! I couldn’t remember enough of my chemistry to set them together. The idea would be that each subjective value, in some super set, is really more accurate than the individualistic qualia and quanta that we prefer to think in for our world. Tyria may have more availability in some aspect of its particle physics than our world.

Example:

for all y, v(y) < d, and
for all y <d, v(x) =0

It’s like water running along the lip of an eavestrough. The water hangs, upside down, but hasn’t yet fallen for a number of reasons.
Similarly, our universe may actually be something like this. The macro structure is really invisible to us because our range of sensory perception is locked into just a few bandwiths by our biology. We’re viewing the universe through the coordination and thus interpretation of trillions of atoms rather than a single lens. That means our interpretations of what that universe is also hinges on this divided interpretation. Continuing, our brain is still another filter system. If female, then colors and body signals are more pronounced. If male, color is reduced, but process and signal filtration is more pronounced.

Perhaps in Tyria the bacteria in the social is more tending toward the production of chemical rings similar to that in Prednisone or there is more DMT present in the plants. Either of these would vastly alter the usual filter system our brains operate under. Also, it may be that Tyrians are experiencing a different state of consciousness than our own simply because everything they are accessing for diet isn’t restricted through processed foods. It’s caught, it’s cooked. There may be a basic idea that dried foods preserve better, but the principles of this haven’t really come up. Combine this with the amount of travel our characters are experiencing it’s a real wonder there hasn’t been a plague yet; especially after Zhaitan showed up. There was mention of Malaria in this coming expansion, so perhaps we’ll see more about the diseases in Tyria now.

Before I wrote this I went all over Tyria looking for something resembling Sacred Geometry. I am happy to say I didn’t find a single piece of it, which suggests Tyria didn’t go there. Further, there is a lot more curved artwork in Tyria than found on Earth. Almost everything on Earth that is art comes out in some form of squared geometry. Whereas in Tyria everything is curved or irregular. That might also allude to the idea that something is slightly different about this world than our own.

In our world it typically requires modern computers to do curved architecture.
Examples:
http://assets.dornob.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/architect-curved-forms.jpg
http://c1038.r38.cf3.rackcdn.com/group5/building45979/media/52641103e8e44ef4c20001d8_rest-hole-in-the-university-of-seoul-utaa_04.jpg

The closest things we see in the ancient world like this are these:
- Sacsayhuam, South America

By contrast there are anomalies:
- Sacsayhuam, regarded more closely
content/uploads/2014/10/4484933008_158bafcd87_z.jpg
- The ruins with the giant head at Arakawabana, Japan
- Pont du gard, France
- Carrieres de Bibemus, France
- Olantaytambo, Peru
- Tiwanaku, Bolivia

Tiwanaku is really interesting as far as Tyria goes since it near identical architecture as that in the Silverwastes. So, Tyrians have, by fortune of living in a less hostile environment, managed to develop themselves more persistently without a lot of interruption until the Dragons emerge. I wrote in a somewhat playful RP letter how the de-evolution of the Ettins may actually the future of all of our current races. It is as though the races that survive the Dragons to any degree are not just passing through a dramatic decline, but are actually altered in some way that permanently shifts them from sentience to something more animalistic.

We know that Gordon Wasson made a pretty good case for all of this in his studies of ethnobotony across the globe. The Siberians traded their herbs with the Tibetans which filtered it down to India and inspiring much of the religions there, while the Indo-European migrations also brought with them those same herbs, eventually to evolve the mystery schools that dominated so much of Greece, Roman, and Egypt.

And this, again, take us back to the Alchemists who used the remnants of these arts to try to contact Elves.

A really good way to understand this, too, is to look into books like The Road to Middle Earth and Defending Middle Earth. Both books clarify what Tolkien was doing that lead to the creation of the Lord of the Rings stories rather than the typical understanding we are told about the books; that he was the father of modern fantasy – alluding the idea he invented something.
Tolkien realized that the Beowolfe, like the Norse Sagas, and Finland’s Kalevala, describe in a story a history of stories. Tolkien realized that the inconsistencies of the Beowolfe epic were actually linguistical inconsistencies. He was able to take these inconsistencies to ground by following the philology (history) of the root words through primary documents back to a clearer basis of the mythologies there present. Thus, the F in Dwarfs has a distinctly different root history than the V in Dwarves. The word Dwarf has French origins of a fairly late data in history, while Dwarves goes all the way back to beyond Indo-European. From this he was also able to separate that Alf and Alv, and finally Alvar are entirely different from dwarve (dwarfs): which is what lead him to catalog Dwarves and Elves as distinctly separate races with distinctly separate motives.

Tyrian magic is probably something like this, where we are at the late period of a slowly being lost kind of magical authority. Tyrians can use it, manipulate it, and make some practical applications from magic, but are actually in the process of losing it altogether. This doesn’t seem to be anything to do with the Elder Dragons, but rather a slow decline in their consciousness as time goes on. It’s almost as though Tyria favors the use of Magic over Technology because Technology imposes neoteny in the development of consciousness which; merely restrictive to the first generation that shifts toward technology, but later begins a process which forces later generations toward an ever amplified divergence from consciousness as the neoteny of that first generation is conserved by habit and confusion.

Trying to parse this again.

Remember that alchemy in game is not like our alchemy in that it doesn’t have to rely on philosophical principles. Also that neoteny is an evolutionary selected for process, it is biological not mimetic. Social darwinism is an example of the perils of applying evolution to sociological.

Are you saying that the development of technology is causing them to develop magic less?

We know that before the stones magic could be used in ways outside their current comprehension. During the bloodstone it was divided into four schools. And after the bloodstones they began mixing disciplines again. Each professions has decided to advance magic as according to these divisions with some overlap. But they aren’t losing magic, they are simply not attempting to reinvent a discipline that existed before their current paradigm. This would only be an issue if the prebloodstone magic that existed without division is somehow superior to the current expression of magic.

We also don’t know if the magical technology in Tyria is interdependent to the advancement of magic.

This subject matter often comes up in fantasy game forums, and I’ve been dying to figure this out for a long time.

My question is: what do subjects like advanced mathematics and scientific theory have to do with “sword and sorcery”-ish fantasy settings? I’ve never understood the need, or wish for that matter, to insert modern scientific thought and theory into a fantasy setting. Isn’t that supposed to be for, you know, the sci-fi genre? One thing Fantasy is, at its core, is a make-believe universe that does not in any way have to try and adhere to the laws of RL science.

Things like the Star Trek ‘verse for instance…of course. It’s Sci-Fi, it’s only natural that something about high-tech space-ships/travel should be relatively highly steeped in science. But high fantasy?? I just don’t see why it should have anything to do with it really. If anything, it’s the one genre where you really don’t need to take a nod to science at all…it’s the power of creative imagination at its purest.

I’m actually not trying to troll here, what’s the deal with marrying science to fantasy? Is this a modern trend or something? Because I never remembered this ever being a “thing” with fantasy in the past. Or maybe I did and simply disregarded it as silly, I don’t know.

Maybe this is why I always thought the Asura never fit in with Tyria??

Obsidian.1328:

My question is: what do subjects like advanced mathematics and scientific theory have to do with “sword and sorcery”-ish fantasy settings? I’ve never understood the need, or wish for that matter, to insert modern scientific thought and theory into a fantasy setting. Isn’t that supposed to be for, you know, the sci-fi genre? One thing Fantasy is, at its core, is a make-believe universe that does not in any way have to try and adhere to the laws of RL science.

I think the issue falls fundamentally with the notion that these theories are new and only exists because we’ve reached a certain point in technology.

In actuality, however, humanity has been trying to define the universe since the earliest of civilizations. Nowadays, we refer to these early scientific theories as “myths”, but they ultimately served the very same purpose as things like string theory, the big bang theory, and so forth do for us today. Explain how existence came to be, and how it functions on the grand scale of things.

The act has not changed one bit. The only thing that’s changed is what the theories are.

Of course, rather than using mysticism we use telescopes and radars and all these other fancy machines who’s names I probably couldn’t even pronounce let alone explain what they do.

But what if mysticism took a more tangible form? More than an individuals’ possibly-just-hallucinations? What if prophecies truly came to pass in an obvious manner? Wouldn’t that then be used to more fully explore the universe and how it came to be and how it functions on a larger scale? Would they not be used to figure out things the mortal eye cannot, and thus allow them to see things that instruments which allow people to figure out things the mortal eye cannot allow people to see?

If magic was as concrete as technology, would that not be used to attempt the very same thing we’re attempting with technology, thus the advancement of magic eventually leading to the same discoveries as the advancement of technology in the same given world?

After all, the goal is the same. The same goal we humans have had since we could think:

Why are we here? What is the meaning to our existence? And is there other existences out there?

I – and I believe many others – would think yes, we would go after the same thing regardless of method.

Obsidian.1328:

Things like the Star Trek ‘verse for instance…of course. It’s Sci-Fi, it’s only natural that something about high-tech space-ships/travel should be relatively highly steeped in science. But high fantasy?? I just don’t see why it should have anything to do with it really. If anything, it’s the one genre where you really don’t need to take a nod to science at all…it’s the power of creative imagination at its purest.

I’m actually not trying to troll here, what’s the deal with marrying science to fantasy? Is this a modern trend or something? Because I never remembered this ever being a “thing” with fantasy in the past. Or maybe I did and simply disregarded it as silly, I don’t know.

Science Fantasy is a very big genre, though folks don’t tend to label it as such. Things like Star Wars fall under this, where science is used to create a rule of cool, more or less, without scientific explanation. Science Fiction, at its fundamental basis, is really a “what if” scenario played out in story format.

Change the reactor to a magic orb, change the tazers to scepters, and change the holodeck with an illusion deck… and how different is the outcome to Star Trek?

Not very different.

Obsidian.1328:

This subject matter often comes up in fantasy game forums, and I’ve been dying to figure this out for a long time.

My question is: what do subjects like advanced mathematics and scientific theory have to do with “sword and sorcery”-ish fantasy settings? I’ve never understood the need, or wish for that matter, to insert modern scientific thought and theory into a fantasy setting. Isn’t that supposed to be for, you know, the sci-fi genre? One thing Fantasy is, at its core, is a make-believe universe that does not in any way have to try and adhere to the laws of RL science.

Things like the Star Trek ‘verse for instance…of course. It’s Sci-Fi, it’s only natural that something about high-tech space-ships/travel should be relatively highly steeped in science. But high fantasy?? I just don’t see why it should have anything to do with it really. If anything, it’s the one genre where you really don’t need to take a nod to science at all…it’s the power of creative imagination at its purest.

I’m actually not trying to troll here, what’s the deal with marrying science to fantasy? Is this a modern trend or something? Because I never remembered this ever being a “thing” with fantasy in the past. Or maybe I did and simply disregarded it as silly, I don’t know.

Maybe this is why I always thought the Asura never fit in with Tyria??

The only difference between the genres is that Sci fi could happen in our you universe but hasn’t while fantasy hasn’t and can’t.

We want to know how Luke Skywalker performs the force as much as we want to know how an illusion is produced.
Advanced mathematics and scientific theory are both expressions of empiricism. To become invested in a fictional world one usually seeks objective information from the setting. We know that their reality has rules, the information we try to examine is whether their intelligence has grown to the point they can express these rules in math and science/magic. And if they can express their reality in a way similar to our own it makes the immersion process easier.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

~snip~

Um…I understand human curiosity and technical advancement, that wasn’t my question. That’s real life. I’m talking about fiction.

I guess my question is why turn fantasy into science or science into fantasy(or anything in between) in the same fictional universe ?

Does this happen a lot with fantasy/science fiction? I honestly don’t know.

Daniel Handler.4816:

The only difference between the genres is that Sci fi could happen in our you universe but hasn’t while fantasy hasn’t and can’t.

We want to know how Luke Skywalker performs the force as much as we want to know how an illusion is produced.
Advanced mathematics and scientific theory are both expressions of empiricism. To become invested in a fictional world one usually seeks objective information from the setting. We know that their reality has rules, the information we try to examine is whether their intelligence has grown to the point they can express these rules in math and science/magic. And if they can express their reality in a way similar to our own it makes the immersion process easier.

Huh? I don’t want to know how Luke performs the force, I actually prefer the mystery. It’s not real, we all know this, the mechanics aren’t important. The story is what’s important.

I guess I’m not sure why immersion has to be qualified by science. I mean, I can be completely immersed in a story without ever understanding some of the rules that make up the world in that story.

For sci-fi, it makes sense to have a rather high degree of scientific adherence because…well…it’s a very technologically steeped setting. Even so, like Konig mentioned with Star Wars, it certainly doesn’t have to be absolute. Part of the beauty of that franchise, I would argue, is the mysteriousness of the Force itself…something Lucas destroyed with those medicaloreans(sp) or w/e their called.

But for fantasy…does it really make a setting less immersive if one does not understand, say, the mechanics of a simple magic spell? I would argue that the more technical(for lack of a better word) a fantasy setting gets, the less “fantasy” immersive it becomes because it starts blurring the line between how that world and our own world works.

Does no one like the idea of “mystery” anymore?

Obsidian.1328:

Um…I understand human curiosity and technical advancement, that wasn’t my question. That’s real life. I’m talking about fiction.

I guess my question is why turn fantasy into science or science into fantasy(or anything in between) in the same fictional universe ?

Does this happen a lot with fantasy/science fiction? I honestly don’t know.

“That’s real life. I’m talking about fiction.”

People impose their reality onto their fiction while altering it to not be their reality. That’s how anyone who makes stories or art pieces work.

I think the issue is that you’ve created such a stark difference between what is fantasy and what is science. They don’t have to be so separate. Why wouldn’t people go towards technology, just because they can do magic?

I would argue it happens in just about every piece of fantasy and science fiction there is. There will always be a bit of fantasy in science fiction, and a bit of science in fantasy fiction. The question is more of “how much of each” rather than “does it have any of either”.

Obsidian.1328:

I don’t want to know how Luke performs the force, I actually prefer the mystery.

And not knowing that is what makes it science fantasy, not science fiction.

Obsidian.1328:

But for fantasy…does it really make a setting less immersive if one does not understand, say, the mechanics of a simple magic spell? I would argue that the more technical(for lack of a better word) a fantasy setting gets, the less “fantasy” immersive it becomes because it starts blurring the line between how that world and our own world works.

Does no one like the idea of “mystery” anymore?

Explaning how magic work doesn’t remove any form of mystery. That’s not a form of mystery at all.

Mystery is more than just “what’s not known”. An issue that ArenaNet truly failed to grasp while making Season 1. Mystery is the subtle hints, pieces of bait that draw people to looking for the meaning behind them. Ascendant’s Ring in Verdant Brink is a mystery because it lead folks like myself wondering what its purpose is. How someone conjures a fireball is not mystery, despite not knowing how it’s done beyond “magic!”

Knowing how someone conjures a fireball in their hand doesn’t reduce magic. It rather builds upon foundation to lay down explanation for how something greater could be done. Usually explaining things like magic results in being a proverbial chekov’s gun – unless the writer is just trying to fill space, it’s going to become relevant later on to explain something.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

People impose their reality onto their fiction while altering it to not be their reality. That’s how anyone who makes stories or art pieces work.

I think the issue is that you’ve created such a stark difference between what is fantasy and what is science. They don’t have to be so separate. Why wouldn’t people go towards technology, just because they can do magic?

I would argue it happens in just about every piece of fantasy and science fiction there is. There will always be a bit of fantasy in science fiction, and a bit of science in fantasy fiction. The question is more of “how much of each” rather than “does it have any of either”.

That makes sense, but I guess I’m talking about switching the emphasis midstream. Like if, say, Picard and crew stumbled upon a group of fireball-wielding wizards that had little to no foundation in the Star Trek verse.

Explaning how magic work doesn’t remove any form of mystery. That’s not a form of mystery at all.

Mystery is more than just “what’s not known”. An issue that ArenaNet truly failed to grasp while making Season 1. Mystery is the subtle hints, pieces of bait that draw people to looking for the meaning behind them. Ascendant’s Ring in Verdant Brink is a mystery because it lead folks like myself wondering what its purpose is. How someone conjures a fireball is not mystery, despite not knowing how it’s done beyond “magic!”

Knowing how someone conjures a fireball in their hand doesn’t reduce magic. It rather builds upon foundation to lay down explanation for how something greater could be done. Usually explaining things like magic results in being a proverbial chekov’s gun – unless the writer is just trying to fill space, it’s going to become relevant later on to explain something.

Hmm…how would you define mystery then?

I think I understand the literary definition, which is what I think you are alluding to…please correct me if I’m wrong. The mystery genre? Like a puzzle that can be solved. Or peeling away at a problem layer by layer until understanding comes? I don’t mean that.

I mean something not understandable or knowable and never will be.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, a make-believe world called Bubbles has a green sun. It’s always had a green sun, that’s completely normal for this particular fictional world. That’s just how it is.

Now, does it really matter at all, even for immersion’s sake, that we, as willing spectators and/or participants in the world of Bubbles, know why the sun is green and not yellow like we are accustomed to? Can’t it just be a green sun and leave it at that?

Not really adding much to the discussion beyond what was already said by Konig and others, but regarding the "green sun’ example…

Maybe the reason the sun is green in that setting is tied to certain properties of it that can be exploited by the author(s) and/or players (in the case of RPG) in order to expand the setting itself on a larger or smaller scale. It may be something as awesome as finding out there are eldritch abominations, or the discovery of a brand new way of hurling a more potent fireball at someone (or maybe just making better lightbulbs or some such).

Most of the mysteries of various settings can be used to build upon in such ways (and I am just scraping the surface here, but I need sleep).

As an observation, one thing I tend to think about physics in fantasy universes is that they don’t necessarily have to be the same as physics in the real world. Generally (and even this can vary) it’s the same, with the exception of any magic that might be around, from the perspective of a lay person with no scientific training – what goes up must come down, push against something and it will push back, light mostly travels in straight lines unless something bends it, and so on.

However, the details of why that is the case may vary. Maybe there really is a luminous aether, or light is its own thing completely independent of electromagnetic waves in the first place. Maybe gravity really is spirits pushing everything down. Maybe the constellations are messages from higher beings mounted on the crystal sphere that surrounds the world and protects it from what is outside. Or maybe the world is a disk born on the back of a turtle.

Generally, the higher the technology level, the more constrained the physics of the world becomes, since the physics of the world has to be compatible with the technology. Note, though, that this does not mean that ‘more advanced technology’ means that the physics must be closer to our own: one could imagine a setting that has its own physics, very different to our own, which allows a form of technology based on the physical laws of the setting. It’d probably take a very creative and detail-oriented world-builder to be able to think through what technology a very different set of physical laws would allow, but some steampunk settings are based on doing exactly that.

@drax

Ah, that makes more sense to me then. A “fantasy” version of physics, as it were.

Nice Discworld reference, btw. :-P

To Obsidian:

I really didn’t have much idea about a need for High Fantasy having any clarification on how magic works until I came across the fantasy series Wheel of Time. It was written by the author Robert Jordan who actually was a physicist. He drew a lot of inspiration from Lord of the Rings, but also took off in another direction entirely. In Lord of the Rings Gandalf says to Legolas, “I can’t burn snow,” which is the only time we get a discrete clarification on what Gandalf’s magic actually can’t do. Similarly, in Religion, a disciple of Buddha once asked, “What is Nirvana?” The Buddha replied, “It is easier to discuss what it isn’t.” The Buddha continued to reply which lead to the creation of the Dharma, which is has merit gain somewhat similar to Kharma, but with nonbinding effects. So, in practical terms every time someone makes a distinction about what magic isn’t they get a little closer to describing what it is.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that magic, in any fantasy universe, constitutes liberty or even sovereignty. The distinction here being that liberty is finite as it is bounded by dependent-independence.
For example, something might be red, but being a Mesmer I could theoretically color shift it to purple or even green. No matter what colors I chose to shift it, I can still only shift its colors to those which our universe affords to be possible. This would be magic in any of the usual since of it. This is also how I tend to think of magic being liberating, having liberty, and therefore also having dependent-independence. It also dependent on the contextual properties of that given universe.
By contrast, a sovereignty just doesn’t care. It does things which we cannot understand. No amount of analysis which is bounded will be able to access to the totality of its actions in whole nor in part.

The tricky thing about this is that it is likely we have a limited understanding of the universe all the time, save for in a few rare circumstances throughout our lives. This can be overcome, but that option for us was negated 43 years ago in real life. This generation is unlikely to recover such means. Therefore, our ability to determine if something has made an action of sovereignty or merely liberty is as rarely identified for us.

When people encounter magic in a fantasy universe they are going to think as Obsidian has for while, but then the author of that magic will do something that alludes to a system. The question then becomes: “Why is the system here?”

At great example of this is Brandon Sanderson. He so systematizes his worlds there can be joy or wonder in them if you can do the least bit of algebra. These are dead stories, fixed to a course, because they are bounded. By contrast, Lord of the Rings is far less bounded because magic in that world is grounded on properties which the author in writing was able to recover from primary sources of history: ie, Druids had cloaks that could camouflage them. Fire does not burn snow. Gandalf can utterly annihilate whatever he so wants with gratuitous acts of power using something we know very little about called ‘the secret fire’, but is himself restricted by a uber-machina called Manwe, who is a sort of angelic like being that oversees lesser angelic like beings – Gandalf and the other wizards. Melkor, the ultimate evil in Lord of the Rings is actually an increasingly lesser being as it refuses to use divine magic; instead drawing on itself. Consequently, at the beginning of Middle Earth the thing goes around creating demons like the Balrog, Dragons, and etc. Then, just some time before the start of the Lord of the Rings series it has so depleted itself that it essentially gives up so as to retain what powers it has left and starts to work through proxies: ala Satan.

So yes, Draxynnic has it here. Freedmon Dyson talked about this recently where every new invention progresses humanity while every new concept is actually a clarification on some former invention. We advance quite blindly forward; a completely different notion than ideology most often imagined as where we should be going by the utopianists – a deliberately chosen future.

Before Robert Jordan died the Wheel of Time series had _ a lot _ of mystery around it because the author understood opportunities in physics not taken in our own world. Therefore, he was able to construct a very primitive society trying to climb back to a place of incredible advances from which it had fallen: Wheel of Time took place in a recovering world after total collapse.
When the author died Brandon Sanderson was asked to write the series. A monumental task to be sure, but ultimately beyond him. He didn’t have the firm grasp of physics that the former author had and the entire magic system became overt.

This is one of the real dangers of magic being systematized. Once a magic is made overt it is effectively dead. It is not longer magic. It must retain more whimsy, mystery, uncertainty, contradictions, and unknowns than it does clarity.

To give more contrast:
Tyria has Magic
Brandon Sanderson has Marvel Comic Physics
Iron Druid Chronicles has magic
Wheel of Time has Non-Entropic Physics
Lord of the Rings has Magic
Kingkiller Chronicles has Magic
World of Warcraft has Magic

World of Warcraft is an interesting study too. If you can find a map of the way magic worked in WoW 1.12 (release) its magic was decidedly systematized, but to magic. For instance, a Mage could not cast Holy, but a Warlock could not cast Arcane. A Druid could not cast Fel Magic nor Holy. Holy was interesting, too. Holy could come from Holy, which is as much as humans and High Elves ever thought of it, but a Night Elf actually could use Holy magic from a Goddess like Tyrande does to create a shield for herself by calling on Elune.
More interesting still, in this early version of WoW Engineers (physicists for that world) could do things no magic user could do. To paraphrase Moiraine from the Wheel of Time, “This was too precious and too random to be,” … magic. Most magic users could do something that fundamentally disagreed with the way physics and biology proceed. Engineers never do this. Engineers proceed from a place of applying components of physics to produce a meaningful effect, it is very linear.
By contrast, a Magic user may never advance in their understandings in their use of flame until the flame appears to flow like liquid. Until they have gained that sort of experience they can neither proceed forwards with their mastery nor necessarily ever claim to have originated from some earlier linearity. Magic is about qualities, physics is about lineage: both utilize process. Physics has a hard time working with asymmetry. Magic could doesn’t bat an eye at asymmetry and would in fact argue it such things are a kind of symmetry (which today is just saying it is topological or rooted in chaos theory).

Finally, language seems to be the major trap here. A century ago what we are doing today is all magic. We’ve just inherited a lot of comfort in developed jargon that enables us to cope more profoundly with the contradictions all around us. For instance I’m using a LCD monitor and I haven’t the faintest idea of the history of these things, what enables them to so precisely make the colors that they do, or how to make one myself if ever our civilization had a hiccup but I can use them!

Obsidian.1328:

Hmm…how would you define mystery then?

I think I understand the literary definition, which is what I think you are alluding to…please correct me if I’m wrong. The mystery genre? Like a puzzle that can be solved. Or peeling away at a problem layer by layer until understanding comes? I don’t mean that.

I mean something not understandable or knowable and never will be.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, a make-believe world called Bubbles has a green sun. It’s always had a green sun, that’s completely normal for this particular fictional world. That’s just how it is.

Now, does it really matter at all, even for immersion’s sake, that we, as willing spectators and/or participants in the world of Bubbles, know why the sun is green and not yellow like we are accustomed to? Can’t it just be a green sun and leave it at that?

First half of my post was about mystery genre – explaining that “not knowing” is not the same as “mystery”.

Second half of my post was about “why explain the sun is green”. Either story makers do it because they want to fill in space, or it’ll play a chekov’s gun or similar role – either be foreshadowing to explain a different event, or become relevant to the plot itself.

Ley lines were this. There was no need to explain that magic flows in rivers. After all, we’ve known since GW1 that certain areas have higher magical concentrations (Arachni’s Haunt, for example, is said to be exactly this and is why the asura were interested in clearing out those caves, eventually turning the nearby area into the Rata Sum docks). However, it became relevant to know when we had the plot being about redirecting those rivers to feed Mordremoth.

In your sake of argument example, the author could explain that the sun is green in a high fantasy story due to an ancient god-like being throwing a magical artifact into the sun for protection. Then suddenly during the story the sun turns yellow, and the big bad of the story suddenly has a powerful magical artifact. Because of the change in the sun, and knowing why the sun was green, the hero (and audience) can conclude what the artifact is – the one of the story of the godlike being – and figure out how to counter it.

Great point Konig Des Todes! I’d am more of a SciFi reader than High Fantasy so I always see these things as artifacts of our language limitations or artifacts of the desperate need for clarification that eventually comes when we’ve read the book, but still want more. I think that’s why theory-crafting gets off so strongly. The Rothfuss books are good about this. Example: What does Copper have to do with the Doors of Stone, Knives, and Shields in the Kingkiller Series? It’s a gigantic mystery. Just as much so, there are many kinds of technology and magic hinted at in stories that no character ever actually encounters. In Guild Wars 2 it’s the mystery of just what the Mists are (doubtful to be answered nor should be!) and whether or not the Gods were all once humor, the latter leading to the possibility that any of our characters have the potential to become gods (and thusly vastly improving the scope of where magic can lead us).

One line I’ve heard is that the distinction between science and magic is that science is reproducible. In a scientific experiment, if you manage to exactly reproduce the starting conditions, you can expect to get exactly the same result (quantum mechanics messes this up a bit, but the results will show the same probability distribution, so while experiments that have a single quantum interaction might have different results, if you have two experiments that each involve a few thousand quantum interactions, they’ll each end up roughly the same). Magic, however, doesn’t have this reproducibility. If it has a set of rules that are so hard and fast that you can expect the same result each time if you do the same thing, then that’s effectively alternate physics rather than magic.

Personally, I’m not sure I agree. It’s possibly because of my own background, but I tend to agree with Agatha in the Girl Genius Cinderella takeoff special: “Any sufficiently analysed magic is indistinguishable from SCIENCE!!!” The unpredictability of magic is, in my mind, often based on the user and/or the audience not being able to see behind the curtain well enough to see how it actually works, or because use of magic by mortals is mediated by the whim of one or more magical beings (which may, themselves, be using a ‘magic’ that has hard and fast rules, they can just choose not to do what a mortal invoker is expecting). I tend to consider that when somebody is able to do something that seems like magic, and there’s no explanation rooted in science (a dragon breathing fire because they generate a flammable fuel by biological processes which is ignited as it is exhaled through some spark as opposed to a dragon breathing fire simply because it’s suffused with fiery magic, for instance) then that’s magic, however systemised the magic is.

Eirdyne.9843:

The tricky thing about this is that it is likely we have a limited understanding of the universe all the time, save for in a few rare circumstances throughout our lives. This can be overcome, but that option for us was negated 43 years ago in real life. This generation is unlikely to recover such means.

Wait, what?

I want to discuss more, but I’ll comment on these two for now:

Eirdyne.9843:

At great example of this is Brandon Sanderson. He so systematizes his worlds there can be joy or wonder in them if you can do the least bit of algebra. These are dead stories, fixed to a course, because they are bounded. By contrast, Lord of the Rings is far less bounded because magic in that world is grounded on properties which the author in writing was able to recover from primary sources of history: ie, Druids had cloaks that could camouflage them. Fire does not burn snow. Gandalf can utterly annihilate whatever he so wants with gratuitous acts of power using something we know very little about called ‘the secret fire’, but is himself restricted by a uber-machina called Manwe, who is a sort of angelic like being that oversees lesser angelic like beings – Gandalf and the other wizards. Melkor, the ultimate evil in Lord of the Rings is actually an increasingly lesser being as it refuses to use divine magic; instead drawing on itself. Consequently, at the beginning of Middle Earth the thing goes around creating demons like the Balrog, Dragons, and etc. Then, just some time before the start of the Lord of the Rings series it has so depleted itself that it essentially gives up so as to retain what powers it has left and starts to work through proxies: ala Satan.

I’ve read the Silmarillion many many times, and I never once got the notion that Melkor was becoming an “increasingly lesser being” somehow. His fall from grace started from almost the beginning of time with the music of the Ainur and his arrogance and pride associated with it. He had major setbacks twice(once with Tulkas’ arrival and once when Beren confronted him) before finally being cast into the void for good…although his influence still remained in Middle-Earth. Sauron was his mighty lieutenant who fought for him, through proxy as you put it, all the way up to the days of Frodo.

Melkor’s power wasn’t something that could be quantitatively measured, nor should it. That wasn’t the point of Tolkien’s story. It was a measurement of quality. Morgoth’s folly, even though completely foretold and known by Eru, was the great lesson of the Middle-Earth narrative. It’s a moral story of good vs. evil on a fantastically grand scale. It wasn’t long on physical understanding, but that’s just how Tolkien rolled. How the world of Middle-Earth exactly worked just wasn’t important to the story. What was important was the events of the story itself and what ideas he(Tolkien) was trying to convey through it.

Finally, language seems to be the major trap here. A century ago what we are doing today is all magic. We’ve just inherited a lot of comfort in developed jargon that enables us to cope more profoundly with the contradictions all around us. For instance I’m using a LCD monitor and I haven’t the faintest idea of the history of these things, what enables them to so precisely make the colors that they do, or how to make one myself if ever our civilization had a hiccup but I can use them!

To use your example, why does it matter that you yourself understand how an LCD monitor works? You know that it took some hefty amount of techno progress over the years to make it happen, can’t that be enough? You have proof that it works because you use it everyday, why measure its parts unless that’s your job? Simple curiosity? Sure why not. But a fantasy narrative doesn’t need to satisfy all of the mundane curiosities of its world just to satisfy a readers’ curiosity. Unless that’s the style of the author and/or it’s somehow pertinent to the narrative. But a make-believe world can, and does, get along just fine without it because it’s just not important to the story.

All you need is two things: a reasonable suspension of disbelief, and trust in the author. It’s sort of a social contract between author and reader: tell me a story that I’ll remember fondly for the rest of my life, and I’ll let myself believe your world lives…if only in my head.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In your sake of argument example, the author could explain that the sun is green in a high fantasy story due to an ancient god-like being throwing a magical artifact into the sun for protection. Then suddenly during the story the sun turns yellow, and the big bad of the story suddenly has a powerful magical artifact. Because of the change in the sun, and knowing why the sun was green, the hero (and audience) can conclude what the artifact is – the one of the story of the godlike being – and figure out how to counter it.

Why not a third option: the sun is green because the the sun is green. Why does it have to be explained at all? Can’t the world of Bubbles just have a green sun and not have to explain itself to the reader? Can’t the reader just accept that as a fact of the world, and move on with the story?

Obsidian.1328:

Konig Des Todes.2086:

In your sake of argument example, the author could explain that the sun is green in a high fantasy story due to an ancient god-like being throwing a magical artifact into the sun for protection. Then suddenly during the story the sun turns yellow, and the big bad of the story suddenly has a powerful magical artifact. Because of the change in the sun, and knowing why the sun was green, the hero (and audience) can conclude what the artifact is – the one of the story of the godlike being – and figure out how to counter it.

Why not a third option: the sun is green because the the sun is green. Why does it have to be explained at all? Can’t the world of Bubbles just have a green sun and not have to explain itself to the reader? Can’t the reader just accept that as a fact of the world, and move on with the story?

Because in this instance the story is currently in limbo. Readers reimmerse with literary texts that are between sequels by analyzing previous texts. And when the story is completely finished such analysis is all that is left of the story.

Finding out how magic works is just as engaging as contemplating whether the humans could have bounced back if the foefire hadn’t happened.

Obsidian.1328:

Why not a third option: the sun is green because the the sun is green. Why does it have to be explained at all? Can’t the world of Bubbles just have a green sun and not have to explain itself to the reader? Can’t the reader just accept that as a fact of the world, and move on with the story?

Such stories exist too. I recall a story which takes place in a world with two moons. They never explained why there were two – there just were. It was nothing more than am ambient setting.

Such stories can and do exist.

I’m saying for the other stories, in which the reason why the sun is green is explained, there will be a reason why it was explained intended later on – presuming that reason doesn’t get scrapped in the case of writing long series.

There are stories where such things don’t get explained. But in stories that they are explained, they are explained for a reason.

I’m not sure how much Sauron was still fighting for Morgoth at that point and how much he was fighting to rule Middle-Earth for himself. Obviously, his philosophy was aligned with Morgoth, but Sauron seemed to present himself as being the dark god of Middle-Earth himself, rather than as Morgoth’s lieutenant – which goes some way to explaining why some of Morgoth’s other former servants, such as the Balrog and the dragons, remained independent.

Mind you, I’m not as read up on Tolkein lore outside of the main books as some.

Regarding the discussion on colours of suns: Green is actually an interesting choice because it’s one of the few colours that you don’t see naturally in stars. Blackbody radiation that peaks in the green region gets interpreted as white to our eyes – you can see red through to yellow for relatively cool objects (but still hotter than you’d want to touch) up to blue for really hot objects, but green requires something funnier to be going on. Any other colour can be just ‘oh, their star is bigger/smaller than ours’. Green… that just isn’t natural. It would require physics to work differently, the eyes of the viewpoint characters to work differently, or something really funny going on.

Ok all of these extremely long posts with big words scream to me TLDR

But I went ahead and read. And my response may be overly simple.

I don’t think there’s a quantifiable or scientific basis behind certain aspects of magic in tyria. It’s a force, it exists.

People born around it have the ability to psychokinetically access it through force of will.
Some appear more talented than others, which opens up new debate on why.

I think if we equate it to the magnetic energy surrounding earth, if humans were somehow able to use a much higher percent of brain power and manipulate their own electromagnetic current.

Maybe it’s similar to that?

@Daniel
@Konig
@drax

All good points, thank you. :-)