I love Laios, I really do, but he’s the last person to be giving a lecture like that. At least according to his trajectory as a character. He’s not invested in the politics of the world and hasn’t done the level of research Marcille has. It just feels off.
I hate fiction where magic is considered too dangerous to solve systemic problems. Like it’s an antagonistic force in the world that’s only good for warfare. It’s a natural force in most settings, making the mistrust seem so strange.
Like in this setting, the mad mage made mistakes, but they want to throw it all out.
The implication is almost always “this is the best possible timeline, actually.”
(CW: nerd shit under spoiler)
spoiler
Granted, because of the butterfly effect, pretty much everyone conceived after the time travel direction change would be different people because that’s how sperm work, among an uncountable number of factors, so yeah it might suck for everyone you knew after that period to never have existed, but you could say the same about the people that now exist in the changed timeline and wouldn’t want to un-exist now that they exist.
Yeah, I hate that bullshit of implying a moral high ground by not touching anything when it’s like someone’s existence at a point in time affects the world in the smallest of ways.
But somehow if you just keep you head down and stay anonymous, things will work out in the favor of the status quo.
I tend to absolutely hate time travel gimmicks in fiction because they almost always have some clownish “oopsie woopsie we fucked up the timeline, but if we act out whatever we just broke/killed/whatever it’ll be like nothing changed at all, lol.”
Sometimes it’s like “be very careful… butterfly effect and all that wink wink nudge” which is not how the butterfly effect works you clowns. Just being there already changed everything ever afterward.
Then there’s the ultimate asspull: “apparently what we did was what already happened all along.”
What about fiction where magic doesn’t solve systemic problems because it’s part of the world and affected by the same systemic problems? Looking at you, Ursula.
It’s more that magic, like all power, is subject to the conditions of that society (something something coconut tree). Like, in the first Earthsea book you learn that “women’s magic” is considered basal and wicked, so they aren’t allowed into the fancy magic school, so women are born with the gift of magic are usually looked down upon as witches and lesbians
Magic does have this “things must be in balance” nature to it that you could read as being pro status quo, but I think it’s more the case that the existing power structure in the world being unable (unwilful) to change. “Infinite are the arguments of mages” and some mages, it turns out, are just old men unable to see past what they’re accustomed to, even some wise ones.
Yes on the first one, maybe on the second. It’s implied women can learn the art magic just as men do and it’s all just men wanting/believing in their no girls allowed club, but from my read on it, it’s implied by some characters that it’s somewhat different and deeper. Good ass quote from an old hag:
A woman’s a different thing entirely. Who knows where a woman begins and ends? Listen mistress, I have roots, I have roots deeper than this island. Deeper than the sea, older than the raising of the lands. I go back into the dark … I go back into the dark! Before the moon I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman’s power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon. Who dares ask questions of the dark? Who’ll ask the dark its name?”
It doesn’t outright say which is true so I guess you’re supposed to apply your own feminist values on it.
I love Laios, I really do, but he’s the last person to be giving a lecture like that. At least according to his trajectory as a character. He’s not invested in the politics of the world and hasn’t done the level of research Marcille has. It just feels off.
I hate fiction where magic is considered too dangerous to solve systemic problems. Like it’s an antagonistic force in the world that’s only good for warfare. It’s a natural force in most settings, making the mistrust seem so strange.
Like in this setting, the mad mage made mistakes, but they want to throw it all out.
Dumbledore is good and powerful, but couldn’t be bothered to fight hitler. Good world building.
Preventing the holocaust would be worse than the holocaust, actually.
I love how these problems of worse timeliness only come up when the writer in question has to reflect on material conditions.
The implication is almost always “this is the best possible timeline, actually.”
(CW: nerd shit under spoiler)
spoiler
Granted, because of the butterfly effect, pretty much everyone conceived after the time travel direction change would be different people because that’s how sperm work, among an uncountable number of factors, so yeah it might suck for everyone you knew after that period to never have existed, but you could say the same about the people that now exist in the changed timeline and wouldn’t want to un-exist now that they exist.
Yeah, I hate that bullshit of implying a moral high ground by not touching anything when it’s like someone’s existence at a point in time affects the world in the smallest of ways.
But somehow if you just keep you head down and stay anonymous, things will work out in the favor of the status quo.
I tend to absolutely hate time travel gimmicks in fiction because they almost always have some clownish “oopsie woopsie we fucked up the timeline, but if we act out whatever we just broke/killed/whatever it’ll be like nothing changed at all, lol.”
Sometimes it’s like “be very careful… butterfly effect and all that wink wink nudge” which is not how the butterfly effect works you clowns. Just being there already changed everything ever afterward.
Then there’s the ultimate asspull: “apparently what we did was what already happened all along.”
What about fiction where magic doesn’t solve systemic problems because it’s part of the world and affected by the same systemic problems? Looking at you, Ursula.
So the magic itself is enforcing a status quo? Am I understanding that correctly?
It’s more that magic, like all power, is subject to the conditions of that society (something something coconut tree). Like, in the first Earthsea book you learn that “women’s magic” is considered basal and wicked, so they aren’t allowed into the fancy magic school, so women are born with the gift of magic are usually looked down upon as witches
and lesbiansMagic does have this “things must be in balance” nature to it that you could read as being pro status quo, but I think it’s more the case that the existing power structure in the world being unable (unwilful) to change. “Infinite are the arguments of mages” and some mages, it turns out, are just old men unable to see past what they’re accustomed to, even some wise ones.
Okay, so magic as an institution is flawed because the institutions that work magic are flawed?
Or is it a gender essentialism thing happening where magical women are evil lesbians?
Yes on the first one, maybe on the second. It’s implied women can learn the art magic just as men do and it’s all just men wanting/believing in their no girls allowed club, but from my read on it, it’s implied by some characters that it’s somewhat different and deeper. Good ass quote from an old hag:
It doesn’t outright say which is true so I guess you’re supposed to apply your own feminist values on it.