https://speculativefictionwriting.wordpress.

com/2012/06/18/but-but-but-why-doesmagic-have-to-make-sense-by-n-k-jemisin/
When we think of magic, usually we think of some kind of system, a tome of rules and principles. But
is this the only way or even the best way to use magic in fiction? N.K. Jemisin doesnt think so and in
this well stated article explains why magic should be kept magical. What follows is an excerpt from
the article, the link to which you can find at the end of the post.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. -Arthur C. Clarke
Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science. -Agatha Heterodyne (Girl Genius)
by way of Larry Niven by way of Clarke
La la la cant hear you. -Me
This is a whine, not a rant. I rant when Im angry; right now Im just frustrated and annoyed. Its hard
out here for a fantasy writer, after all; theres all these rules Im supposed to follow, or the Fantasy
Police might come and make me do hard labor in the Cold Iron Mines. For example: I keep hearing
that magic has to have rules. It has to be logical. It has to have limitations, consequences, energy
exchange, internal consistency, clear cause and effect, thoroughly-tested laws with repeatable
results and
Waitaminnit.
This is magic were talking about here, right? Force of nature, kinda woo-woo and froo-froo, things
beyond our ken, and all that? And most of all, not science? Because sometimes I wonder.
Sometimes, whenever I see fantasy readers laud a work for the rigor of its magic system well
come back to this word system later I wonder: why are these people reading fantasy? I mean, if
theyre going to judge magic by its similarity to science, why not just go ahead and read science
fiction? Science fiction has plenty of its own magicky stuff to enjoy (e.g., FTL, psi powers).
Shouldnt fantasy do something different, not just in its surface trappings but in its fundamental
assumptions?
Because this is magic were talking about. Its supposed to go places science cant, defy logic, wink
at technology, fill us all with the sensawunda that comes of gazing upon a fictional world and seeing
something truly different from our own. In most cultures of the world, magic is intimately connected
with beliefs regarding life and death things no one understands, and few expect to. Magic is the
motile force of God, or gods. Its the breath of the earth, the non-meat by-product of existence, that
thing that happens when a tree falls in the forest and theres no one around to hear it. Magic is the
mysteries, into which not everyone is so lucky, or unlucky, as to be initiated. It can be affected by
belief, the whims of the unseen, harsh language. And it is not. Supposed. To make. Sense. In fact, I
think its coolest when it doesnt.

And heres the thing: fantasy specifically English-language fantasy since thats all Ive been able
to read used to get this. When I read Le Guins A Wizard of Earthsea again last year before the
Center for Fictions Earthsea Big Read, I was struck by the fact that none of the stuff Ged learned at
Roke made any sense. OK, it was all about names. To figure out the names of things, wizards
basically had to experience enough to understand them, and disengage with their preexisting
assumptions and then, apparently, they had to cross their fingers and wish really hard. Because
magic was an experiment whose results were never repeatable, never predictable, and even the
most accomplished wizard could only make an educated guess about what would happen any time
magic was used. And in fact, magic itself could change as its caster changed. It was an intuitive
thing, not an empirical thing, and an intuitive wizard could build a spell out of guesses or leaps of
faith based on nothing more than gut feelings. Also, feelings mattered. Bring the wrong feelings
into a magic-working and it could all go pear-shaped. Le Guin rendered this beautifully, and I loved it,
because it felt like magic should feel to me. So did Tolkiens magic, which had the same all-over-theplace weirdness to it. In LotR, sometimes magic meant forging a ring with a chunk of soul melted
into the alloy. Sometimes it meant learning obscure/dead languages, or talking to obscure/dead
creatures. Sometimes it meant brandishing a particular kind of stick in a particular kind of way, and
shouting really loudly. Sometimes it meant being born with pointy ears, and
sometimes resisting magic meant being born with hairy feet. It was organic, embedded, a total
crapshoot. And it was wonderful.

http://fantasticworlds-jordan179.blogspot.com/2012/06/why-magic-has-to-makesense.html

Why Magic Has To Make Sense

N. K. Jemisin argues, in "But, but, but WHY does magic have to make sense?"
that magic in a story shouldn't have to make sense, because
This is magic were talking about here, right? Force of nature, kinda woo-woo and froo-froo, things
beyond our ken, and all that? And most of all, not science? Because sometimes I wonder. Sometimes,
whenever I see fantasy readers laud a work for the rigor of its magic system well come back to this
word system later I wonder: why are these people reading fantasy? I mean, if theyre going to judge
magic by its similarity to science, why not just go ahead and read science fiction? Science fiction has
plenty of its own magicky stuff to enjoy (e.g., FTL, psi powers). Shouldnt fantasy do something different,
not just in its surface trappings but in its fundamental assumptions?
The main reason why is that, in the story universe, magic is being presented as real and able to affect
other real things which are presumably internally consistent. If the magic is not internally-consistent, then
the magic is not going to be perceived by the readersas "real," and hence neither will the other aspects of
the storyverse which the magic affects.
If the magic in one's story does not "make sense" at least in terms of internal consistency then one is
undercutting one's own verisimilitude. This is particularly-bad if there is something obvious that the
characters could do given the displayed capabilities of the magic in one's world, which nobody is doing,
and which no in-universe reason exists not to do.

One classic example of this would be a world in which, say, every lord has a court wizard who can fly over
or push down walls, and yet every lord lives in an expensively-built medieval castle complete with high
vertical walls. Bonus verisimilitude destruction points if this becomes a major plot point, in that the brilliant
protagonist defeats the foe by realizing that he could use magic to defeat the enemy's walls.
This begs the question, to the alert reader, of just why no one has thought of doing this before, unless
there is a specific reason given or at least implied for why this wouldn't work (for instance, if magic
opposes the wills of even non-mages near the objects one is trying to affect, in which case the earnest
desire of the defenders to not have their walls fall down might prevent combat siege magic). And, if the
protagonist alone thinks of using magic to topple walls after the techniques have existed for centuries or
millennia alongside vertical fortifications, then the effect becomes not so much "Oh, how cunning is our
hero!" but rather "Oh, how stupid is everyone else in the storyverse!", which is nota good effect if one is
trying for serious drama.
One can, of course, imagine low-order reality "dream worlds" in which "wishing will make it so," and this
can work too (as in Lovecraft's Dreamlands), provided that the writer has a good idea of the methods and
limits of such "wishing." The Dream-quest of Unknown Kadath would not have worked as a story if
Randolph Carter could have simply wished for anything, anytime he wanted: he just would have wished
himself into his dream-city on the first page, end of story (and if he didn't, then the reader would be
wondering "why?"
Instead, notice what Lovecraft did. He established that ony an "experienced" dreamer could consciously
get what he wanted, and that these were mostly rather mundane things from the POV of the Dreamlands:
it was an exceptional and unique thing that Carter had managed to find a whole city (only King Kuranes
in-story had accomplished an even remotely similar feat, and his city didn't tempt the very Gods) and that,
in fact drove the whole plot because it was seducing the Gods of Earth away from the rest of the
Dreamlands. Because Carter could mostly only dream the convenient appearance of things like ridingbeasts and clothing and stuff like that, he had to embark on a quest to find his city.
All stories with magic will have an implicit magic system, even if the rules are never spelled out. To take
classic European fairy tales, the usual reason why "wicked witches" are able to do magic is implicitly
because they have sold their souls to the Devil. (Disney, of all sources, sometimes alludes to this). We
often miss this because we do not share the world-view in which those stories were first created, told or
even written down (the Brothers Grimm may not have believed in effective diabolism; but their peasant
informants probably did).
If one violates the implict magic system one has established, the readers will notice this. Humans are
good at pattern-sensing (it may lie at the root of "intelligence" in general) and we tend to notice when a
pattern is broken. We feel a sense of "wrongness" when a pattern is broken, and this sense of
wrongness will destroy the story.
This is why magic in fantasy has tended to evolve toward a more logical presentation. This is true even if
(especially if) the system of magic doesn't correspond all that well with real physical laws. For instance,
in Tolkien's Middle-earth reality responds to chanting and singing because it was sung into being at the
Creation. Our world wasn't, but his was, and thus it makes perfect sense that more singing can change it.
There are of course subtle logical inconsistencies here, but verisimilitude can survive subtle illogics. It
can't survive a complete lack of concern for internal consistency. And neither can the stories which stand
upon it.
For the deepest reason why the magic in a storyverse has to make sense is contained in Jemisen's own

line
Force of nature, kinda woo-woo and froo-froo, things beyond our ken, and all that? And most of all, not
science?
Ah, but in our Universe the "forces of nature" are not based in magic, but in science. And any magicks
which do exists must be either very weak or very subtle, because if they were powerful and obvious, we
would have noticed them.
Come to think of it, we did. Both chemistry and electromagnetics had their origins in "magical" practices,
which we eventually systematized and understood.
But if it was possible to, say, reliably strike people dead with lightning bolts powered by the force of one's
will, or turn people into frogs, then people would be DOING this, and we would not see it as "magic." We
would instead be highly motivated to understand the powers, their summonings and their limitations: in
short, we would chart the Laws of Nature that governed them, just as in ouruniverse we chart the Laws of
Nature which govern chemistry and electromagnetism.
The reason why we perceive magic, in our Universe, as "kinda woo-woo and froo-froo, things beyond our
ken" is because magic, in our Universe, is either nonexistent or very weak or very subtle. But if, in the
story Universe, magic is capable of being strong and direct, then it will not be perceived as "woo-woo and
froo-froo" by the denizens of that Universe.
If the writer shows that she -- and the people in her Universe -- perceive magic as "woo-woo and froofroo," then what she is communicating is that neither she nor they are taking it at all seriously. And if
the writer isn't taking it seriously, then how can anyone else?

http://nkjemisin.com/2012/06/but-but-but-why-does-magic-have-to-make-sense/
This is a whine, not a rant. I rant when Im angry; right now Im just frustrated and annoyed. Its
hard out here for a fantasy writer, after all; theres all these rules Im supposed to follow, or the
Fantasy Police might come and make me do hard labor in the Cold Iron Mines. For example: I keep
hearing that magic has to have rules. It has to be logical. It has to have limitations, consequences,
energy exchange, internal consistency, clear cause and effect, thoroughly-tested laws with repeatable
results and
Waitaminnit.
This is magic were talking about here, right? Force of nature, kinda woo-woo and froo-froo, things
beyond our ken, and all that? And most of all, not science? Because sometimes I wonder.
Sometimes, whenever I see fantasy readers laud a work for the rigor of its magic system well come
back to this word system later I wonder: why are these people reading fantasy? I mean, if theyre
going to judge magic by its similarity to science, why not just go ahead and read science fiction?

Science fiction has plenty of its own magicky stuff to enjoy (e.g., FTL, psi powers). Shouldnt
fantasy do something different, not just in its surface trappings but in its fundamental assumptions?
Because this is magic were talking about. Its supposed to go places science cant, defy logic, wink at
technology, fill us all with the sensawunda that comes of gazing upon a fictional world and seeing
something truly different from our own. In most cultures of the world, magic is intimately connected
with beliefs regarding life and death things no one understands, and few expect to. Magic is the
motile force of God, or gods. Its the breath of the earth, the non-meat by-product of existence, that
thing that happens when a tree falls in the forest and theres no one around to hear it. Magic is the
mysteries, into which not everyone is so lucky, or unlucky, as to be initiated. It can be affected by
belief, the whims of the unseen, harsh language. And it is not. Supposed. To make. Sense. In fact, I
think its coolest when it doesnt.
And heres the thing: fantasy specifically English-language fantasy since thats all Ive been able to
read used to get this. When I read Le Guins A Wizard of Earthsea again last year before the
Center for Fictions Earthsea Big Read, I was struck by the fact that none of the stuff Ged
learned at Roke made any sense. OK, it was all about names. To figure out the names of things,
wizards basically had to experience enough to understand them, and disengage with their preexisting
assumptions and then, apparently, they had to cross their fingers and wish really hard. Because
magic was an experiment whose results were never repeatable, never predictable, and even the
most accomplished wizard could only make an educated guess about what would happen any time
magic was used. And in fact, magic itself could change as its caster changed. It was an intuitive thing,
not an empirical thing, and an intuitive wizard could build a spell out of guesses or leaps of faith
based on nothing more than gut feelings. Also, feelings mattered. Bring the wrong feelings into a
magic-working and it could all go pear-shaped. Le Guin rendered this beautifully, and I loved it,
because it felt like magic should feel to me. So did Tolkiens magic, which had the same all-overthe-place weirdness to it. In LotR, sometimes magic meant forging a ring with a chunk of soul melted
into the alloy. Sometimes it meant learning obscure/dead languages, or talking to obscure/dead
creatures. Sometimes it meant brandishing a particular kind of stick in a particular kind of way, and
shouting really loudly. Sometimes it meant being born with pointy ears, and
sometimes resisting magic meant being born with hairy feet. It was organic, embedded, a total
crapshoot. And it was wonderful.

Heres what I think happened between Tolkien/Le Guin and now: Dungeons and Dragons. D&D has
a lot to answer for re the modern fantasy audience (and I say this as a fan of D&D). I blame D&D for
systematizing so many things that dont need to be or shouldnt be systematized: fantastic
racism, real racism, gender essentialism hell, lets just say all the isms career choice,
morality. Yes, yes, D&D has gotten better over the years, and yes all these things happened in the
genre (in spades) before D&D, but remember boys n girls et al: systems are remarkably effective
at reinforcing stupid thinking. This is because systems are self-reinforcing and have internal
consistency even when theyre logically or ethically questionable. Its the way the human brain
works: when enough events occur in a pattern, we stop thinking and go into macro mode. Then
suddenly we see nothing wrong with saying that of course orcs are evil, because theyre orcs. Or of
course magic has to be logical, because how else are we going to simulate its effects numerically and
in a fair way that encourages good team mechanics?
Thats game logic, this concern over quantitative fairness and teambuilding. Game logic should not
apply to magic, because its fucking magic.
OK, lets get personal. The Inheritance Trilogy. There was a magic system, of sorts: the scriveners
had to learn how to write the gods language. This was a science to them, very precise, very detailed,
riddled with rules and empirical tests and I deliberately did not focus on it or describe it beyond
the most superficial level. Why would I? I wasnt interested in the mechanics. I created scrivening
solely to frame gods magic by contrast, and to illustrate the more fundamental differences between
mortals and gods. Scrivening: limited, generalizable, a system complex enough to make Gary Gygax
proud. Gods magic: SMITE, the end. What, you think the Greeks ever rolled up stats for Zeus & the
gang? (Please dont send me links to wherever someone has rolled up stats for Zeus & the gang.) As
far as I was concerned, it defeated the whole point of writing about gods to focus on something so
pedantic as how they do what they do. Theyre gods. They work in mysterious ways. Also: fucking
magic.
I imagine there will be some who take issue with the narcomancy used in the Dreamblood books,
even though thats a little more systematized, because its partially based on stuff Jung thought up
during a psychotic break. Well, well see.
Part of my frustration comes from a few incidents lately in which Ive worked with up-and-coming
writers as part of convention workshops, etc. Ive seen these folks, most of whom are future fantasy

novel-writers, positively agonize over their magic systems, taking great care to consider rules,
required resources, the laws of conservation of magic, yatta yatta yatta, all for fear that theyll get
published someday and have their magic systems picked apart by the Fantasy Police. In some cases
these writers had spent far, far more energy on trying to create a magic system than they had on
trying to create plot or characters. Sadly, Ive seen this same kind of to-the-exclusion-of-all-else focus
on mechanics in the works of some published writers and worse, Ive seen readers going ga-ga over
this sort of thing, as if the magic system really is the only part of the story that matters.
Is that all fantasy is? Thin storytelling papered over a players guide? Is that all fantasy should be?
Mechanistic magic, formulas and figures?
Of course not. Fantasy is, can be, should be, so much more than that. So give me mysterious, silly,
weird, utterly cracktastic magic please. And easy on the logic. Its not like were doing science,
here.
- See more at: http://nkjemisin.com/2012/06/but-but-but-why-does-magic-have-to-make-sense/#sthash.qzMLQpy3.dpuf

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5919143/why-does-magic-need-so-many-rules