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Ursula K. LeGuin, Earthsea. From Wikipedia: One vital aspect of magic is that it is impossible to lie in the old language, so that magic works by forcing the u
by tashbarg 5y ago
Ursula K. LeGuin, Earthsea.
From Wikipedia: One vital aspect of magic is that it is impossible to lie in the old language, so that magic works by forcing the universe to conform to the words spoken by the magician.
- savingsPossible 5y agoSo spells just accumulate? That is, if a mage says something general, all the rest of reality and other mages will just have to deal with it?
- tashbarg 5y agoDisclaimer: it's been a few decades since I read that. I may be completely wrong. It's not like you can simply say something universe-altering just because you know the right words. You still need the magical ability and if you're not powerful enough in that ability for what you want to say, you simply can't say it. But otherwise, if the mage is THAT powerful, then, yes, the rest of the universe has to deal with it.
- brian_cloutier 5y agoPart of the plot to HPMOR is exactly this: https://hpmor.fandom.com/wiki/Interdict_of_Merlin https://hpmor.fandom.com/wiki/Interdict_of_Merlin
- masklinn 5y agoElantris is an interesting mirror / inversion of this trope. There's also "The Gods are Bastards" (currently on hiatus due to author burnout but there's a huge amount of content to go through for first-time readers), which turns out to be something of a created infosphere, the entirety of the setting's "magic" is really sufficiently advanced technology, which is then used by the "mortals" of the world to emulate technology (through sufficiently advanced magic).