Doing In the Wizard: Difference between revisions
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* Marion Zimmer Bradley's ''[[Darkover]].'' ''[[Applied Phlebotinum|Laran]]'', the setting's word for their magic, is a word for psychic abilities that can be amplified through matrix crystals. Bradley does a good job of showing how most native Darkovans call it sorcery, but those who actually work with it treat it as a science. Although the science behind the psychic abilities boils down to "It's magic but not!"
** To a lesser degree also her ''Avalon'' books and ''Firebrand'' (they have some magic and some elements explained by more mundane factors).
** ''[[The Mists of Avalon]]''--the only Avalon book that Bradley wrote and revised completely on her own--is an odd case, as most people would regard Atlantis, visions and fairies to fall into the realm of the fantastic. However, judging by the book, Bradley seems to have believed that Atlantis was once a real place in the North Atlantic rather than an imaginary island created by Plato as part of an allegory on hubris. Psychic powers are interpreted by Bradley as genetically transmitted abilities that crop up in certain noble and royal bloodlines, which has more to do with eugenics than magic. "Fairies" and "Tribes" or "[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Picts Picts]" are terms that are used interchangeably, as Bradley seems to believe a theory, popular in the 1970s, that "fairies" were actually tiny primitive humanoids who survived long after Cro-Magnons and their descendants took over. Those with "fairy" blood in ''Mists'' are described as being very small. Viviane, the Lady of the Lake, is stated to be the size of an eight-year-old when she is thirty-nine. Morgaine, her niece, is only an inch taller. This narrative choice allowed Bradley to write about child-sized beings in sex scenes.
* In an unusual variant, the [[Lord Darcy]] mysteries take place in a world where sorcery exists, yet the solution to his cases usually turns out to be non-magical. Indeed, Darcy must often prove the culprit used mundane methods so as to exonerate an innocent magician, thus Doing in the Wizard to ''save'' the wizard.
* In ''[[The 13th Warrior]]'', the monster is just a brutal primitive tribe, but no less dangerous.
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