Magic A Is Magic A: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''"We don't ask that you stay within the bounds of physics, but at least follow the rules you freaking made up."''|'''[[Cracked.com|Cracked]]''', ''[http://www.cracked.com/article_16625_8-classic-movies-that-got-away-with-gaping-plot-holes.html 8 Classic Movies That Got Away With Gaping Plot Holes]''}}

Or at least, they do, if the writer knows what he's doing. No matter how fantastic the events in a piece of fiction, their [[Internal Consistency]] is what makes or breaks the [[Willing Suspension of Disbelief]]. You can have the tech guy of [[La Résistance]] [[Techno Babble|explain in oblique terms involving the word "nano"]] why the [[Evil Empire]]'s fairy dust superweapon needs an hour to recharge after activation, and the audience will nod its collective head and smile; but if you later have that superweapon fire twice in succession, you just made a [[Plot Hole]] and they'll all be at your throat.

** But note there are other forms of magic—Perrin's wolf powers, Min's viewings, Hurin's sniffing—that don't fit within the rules and confuse the "normal magic" users. Not to mention the whole Horn of Valere thing.

** It's further complicated by the fact that the setting is full of [[Lost Technology]], [[Poor Communication Kills]] and [[Culture Clash]]es, and is set [[After the End|after multiple different apocalypses]]. When something weird pops up, it's anyone's guess whether it seems completely impossible to the current viewpoint character but would be well-known and understood by someone from another country, was commonplace during the Age of Legends and has been forgotten by the present day, or has truly never been seen before by anyone in the world since the last Third Age.

* One-upping that, the "magic" in Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman's ''[[Death Gate]]'' series ''is'' (pseudo)science, complete with a [[Techno Babble]]—filled appendix describing how all of it works.

* The Endowment magic system from [[The Runelords]] books is very much Magic A Is Magic A. Internally-consistent and thought out rigorously well, it was actually one of the inspirations behind Sanderson's ideas for the Mistborn books.

* The indie superpowered-sleuth system Mutant City Blues elevates this to new heights. Sure, there are mutants in the setting, and they can fly, shoot assorted kinds of energy bolts, read minds and even steal each other's powers. All these powers, however, are meticulously catalogued in the so-called Quade Diagram which provides solid insight about what powers can concievably coexist in a person. Some, like supernatural analytical abilities and remote control of electronic devices, are very *close* so that the person posessing one can be routinely assumed to posess another. Others, say, the ability to fly and become invisible, are so far apart in the chart that it is impossible for one man to have both (without breaking the setting and/or having Infinite Experience Points). This diagram, along with more conventional investigative methods, makes the task of solving "Heightened" crimes more of a usual analytical exercise and almost none of the "whoever got more control of The Force" challenge common for less defined supernatural settings.

* [[GURPS]] Thaumatology is a sourcebook dedicated entirely to making up bizarre, yet internally consistent, magic systems. GURPS ''also'' has a completely separate system for "psionics," which can be the same exact force as magic, but which are administered in the form of traits specific to a given character, rather than general rules that all magic users have to follow. That's where you go for [[Wrong-Context Magic]].

** ''[[Warhammer Fantasy]]'' has a more detailed system that has most people drawing on a collective library of spells, though Lizardmen, Chaos, Undead, Orcs and Goblins, High Elves, and Dark Elves all have access to an extra group of spells.

* In ''[[Ars Magica]]'', wizards can do virtually anything, but every spell they case must be formed by combining, basically, constructing a Latin sentence consisting of one of five "techniques" (the verbs, all with the subject "I") and one of ten "forms" (the direct objects). For example, throwing bolts of flame would be "Creo Ignem" ("I create fire"), while making someone forget something would be a "Perdo Mentem" spell ("I destroy the mind"). Every wizard has varying levels of ability with each form and technique which determine how powerful of an effect they can generate (someone with a high score in Creo is good at making things in general; someone with a high score in Mentem is good at working with people's minds in general; someone with high scores in both Creo and Mentem would be extremely good at putting thoughts in other people's heads). Each edition of the game also has a few hard-and-fast rules beyond the verb/object format, such as it being impossible to raise the dead or travel back in time, although whether those things are literally impossible or simply unknown or forbidden to members of the Order of Hermes (the organization player character magi are assumed to belong to) is generally unclear (by design).

* [[Hand Wave|Handwaving]] lack of internal consistency with extreme applications of [[Bellisario's Maxim]] is discussed in #3 of ''[[Cracked.com|Cracked]]'''s [http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-common-movie-arguments-that-are-always-wrong_p2/ 6 Common Movie Arguments That Are Always Wrong].

* ''[[Chatoyant College]]'': There are strict rules on what can be achieved with each type of magic.

== [[Western Animation]] ==

** Fire produced by firebending doesn't seem to work in the way real-world fire does. I.e. it has concussive force, can burn in the air without fuel etc. This is mostly accepted because whilst not being portrayed ''realistically'' it is portrayed ''consistently''. Even Combustion Man's <s>exploding death-ray</s>sparky sparky boom ray is, [[All There in the Manual|according to the Nickelodeon Site]], something he was born with that allows him to focus his firebending to an extreme level. It also appears that it is that ''only'' form of firebending he is capable of. [[Crippling Overspecialization|With deadly results...]]

*** Firebending does break the internal rules in that, unlike the other elements, it can be created out of thin air (other benders can only manipulate existing quantities of their element). Again, it's accepted on the grounds that it's consistent in itself. (Interestingly, [[Live Action Adaptation]] ''[[The Last Airbender]]'' altered this exception, making it much harder to do and essentially enforcing the "must manipulate existing elements" rule.) Note that for the [[Did Not Do the Research|research]] and [[You Fail Physics Forever|physics]] [[Critical Research Failure|failing]] [[Viewers are Morons|viewers]], fire/flame ''does need'' tangible fuel (which air most certainly is not) in addition to heat and oxygen in order to exist. Thus, any explanation for fire/flames appearing without an existing fire source or fuel to consume either violates [[Elemental Baggage]] or [[You Fail Physics Forever|fails physics]] for the above reason.

**** Of course, the [[Live Action Adaptation]] proved why violating this trope isn't necessarily a bad thing, as adhering to it utterly ruined the Fire Nation as a credible threat, and produced a massive [[Idiot Plot]] in that the other nations could have easily beaten them just by putting out the dinky little torches they relied on and driving them off when [[Brought Down to Normal|they have nothing left to bend.]]

**** Flame is plasma and hot gas, so what they are really bending is heat, not matter. Fire bending is explicitly powered by the sun, so it seems they are actually concentrating sunlight and using it to superheat air (or generate an electrical potential). Superheating air quickly would carry a concussive force with it, due to the pressure generated by suddenly increasing the temperature of the air without changing its volume.