Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

 

In his tower, the wizard Istar casts his fortieth fireball today while his apprentice diligently notes the exact qualities of each. On his workbench are piles of fireball spells yet untested, but Istar plans to catalogue them all. Only then can he begin to study what makes one fireball stronger than another.

 

A subtrope of [[Fantastic Science]]. Compare and contrast [[The Spark of Genius]]. For the sake of general cohesion, anything that more or less works thanks to magic but isn't actually [[Magic by Any Other Name|called "magic"]] by anyone in the work falls under this trope.

{{examples}}

* ''[[Lyrical Nanoha|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' has got to have set a new standard in that its not just taken and sufficiently analyzed magic, but it's pretty much evolved to the point of understandable science. If ''[[Girl Genius]]'' is sufficiently analyzed magic in the Victorian Era, then Nanoha is its equivalent in the space age.

* Most of the alchemists in ''[[Baccano!]]'' were content to discover the secret of alchemy. [[Mad Scientist|Szilard and Huey]], on the other hand, decided to test everything related to it from, "exactly how ''fast'' do I heal from each individual injury?"<ref>Regeneration is variable depending on both the severity of the injury and how many times it's been received before. The more times you've had your head blown off, the faster it reconstructs itself.</ref> to "can I combine human and dolphin DNA to create a viable homunculus?"<ref>Yes.</ref>

* In ''[[Bleach]]'', the afterlife has an entire research division devoted to studying spiritual powers and coming up with technological applications for them.

 

* [[Doctor Doom]] is a pro at this trope. Unlike his contemporary and rival, [[Fantastic Four|Reed Richards]], Doom has a thorough understanding of not just earthly sciences, but magic as well. He's actually used this advantage on a number of occasions to one-up Reed (and most of the [[Marvel Universe]] at various points), although the inherent weaknesses of magic (usually, bartering/stealing the energy from a higher power) typically come to bite Doom in the backside.

** Doom also blends magic and technology. For example, he use the sensors of his armor to copy the exact hand movements of spells when he sees them cast for the first time, and his gloves can automatically guide his hands through them. Thus allowing him to [[Mega Manning|copy other wizards' spells]] far more quickly than it would normally take to master them.

* [[Green Lantern|Hal Jordan]] in the early [[Silver Age]] run of his book did quite a bit of this to discover the exact limits and potential drawbacks of his [[Green Lantern Ring]]. And the tests themselves often kicked off the events of a story.

 

* ''[[Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality]]'' is all about this.

* In ''[[Dungeon Keeper Ami]]'' Ami's main advantage, other than her taking knowledge from her own world, is her scientific approach to magic and all the innovations she can make, especially with teams of research warlocks.

* The "Unified Theory of Magic" from "Warriors' World" in ''[[Drunkard's Walk]]'' is this to a T -- the missing part of the [[wikipedia:Grand Unified Theory|Grand Unified Theory]], it reconciles magic with physics, and explains how a thousand different traditions, schools and styles of magic from as many cultures all work despite frequently contradicting each other. It also provides the tools to translate spells from one system to another, or render them in a "system-neutral" form that can then be "compiled" later into the style of one's choice. It even has a formalized notation system which can be used for spell design and magical analysis. The only thing it doesn't handle is [[Functional Magic|Theurgy]] -- for that, they've got the Research and Applied Theology fields.

 

* This is a plot point in the ''[[Thor (film)|Thor]]'' movie. Jane Foster, rather than being a paramedic as in the original comics, is an astrophysicist. Thor, on the other hand, comes from Asgard, which seems to be a place of great magic... but as he points out to Jane, "Your ancestors called it magic... but you call it science. I come from a land where they are one and the same."

** This is also seen in the "tech" Asgard uses. The Destroyer is indistinguishable from any old super-science giant robot with a death ray, and if you took the operational end of the Rainbow Bridge and dropped it in a science-fiction movie, people wouldn't blink twice and simply consider it a teleporter or stargate.

** The entire [[Marvel Cinematic Universe]] seems to be headed in this direction.

 

* Derk's forte in ''[[Dark Lord of Derkholm]]''. He magically engineers plants and animals in his spare time, winding up with things like winged pigs, invisible cats, extraordinarily stupid cows and highly intelligent geese, and griffin children, who share the DNA of both him and his wife, along with whatever else he made them out of. (One is part house cat, while another is part actual lion, another has goose DNA, another uses actual eagle, etc.)

* A [[Zig-Zagging Trope]] in ''[[Discworld]]'': Magic changes its rules randomly in response to scientific study, still the Wizards in the High Energy Magic building have managed to start working out the laws governing how it changes. (Apparently it has something to do with "quantum".)

* ''[[Monday Begins on Saturday]]'' is set mostly in the Scientific Research Institute of Sorcery and Wizardry.

 

* Thomas Aquinas essentially did this to Catholicism—he dismissed [[The Bible]] as a source of data, and approached the subject of God from the perspective of an Aristotelian empiricist. This "natural theology" has been popular among Catholic theologians ever since.

 

* ''[[Ars Magica]]'' is largely about this trope. One of the main reasons why each player controls a troupe of several character is so that they can still go out and have adventures while their Magus is locked in the lab for months at a time, researching new rites or secrets of Forms and Techniques.

* ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade]]'': Dr. Netchurch is analysing the effects of all sorts of supernatural effects for science. However, while he can explain in detail the interactions between human faith and the forces maintaining the integrity of undead flesh, he dismisses thaumaturgy out of hand as unscientific.

* ''[[Nephilim]]'' refers to magical techniques (e.g. Sorcery, Summoning, Alchemy, Necromancy) as "occult sciences" and states that the human understanding of "magic" is simply a silly superstition.

 

* Much of ''[[Final Fantasy]]'''s [[Magitek]] functions on this trope:

** In ''[[Final Fantasy VII]]'', the Shinra seemed to be using Aeris and her mother before her to study the magic of the ancients, although the story didn't go into much detail on this point.

* Magic in ''[[Touhou]]'' is presented as having immutable laws and Patchouli treats magic and science as the same thing. In fact, magicians use the same methods as scientific researchers to create new spells and investigate magical phenomenons: trial-and-error experimentation, data collection and use of existing knowledge recorded by their peers and predecessors.

 

* [[Trope Namer|Named]] during the "Cinderella" non-canon arc of ''[[Girl Genius]]''. After using her [[Steampunk]] tech-knowledge to repair the Good Fairy's magic wand, Agatha revises the page quote to "Any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science!"

{{quote|'''Zeetha, playing the Fairy Godmother:''' What's with the '''[[Medium Awareness|quotation marks]]'''? Who said '''that'''?

* ''[[Erfworld]]'': Sizemore notes that Parson Gotti takes this approach to learning how Erfworld and its [[RPG Mechanics Verse|gamelike mechanics]] work. Notable because those who ''wield'' magic in the world are typically content to solve their quandaries about how stuff works with heated philosophy and self-serving hearsay. It's likely that there are ''very'' few Erfworlders who really ''know'' the rules of their world.

** It seems as if most Erfworlders are born (or "popped") with an innate understanding of the most basic rules of the world and the skills they need to practice their specialties, and this inherent knowledge tends to discourage further questioning ("Why ask questions when you already know most of the answers that matter?"). But Parson is ignorant of even the most basic aspects of Erfworld - and in asking ''those'' questions, he's also asking the sort of questions that lead to discoveries and tactics no one else in the world ever dreamed of.

* The eponymous court in ''[[Gunnerkrigg Court]]'' dedicates much of its time to the "etheric sciences".

* Mori of ''[[The Dragon Doctors]]'' is a "magical scientist," someone whose basic job description is analyzing forms of magic and using appropriate forms of treatment for magical ailments.

* Tedd of ''[[El Goonish Shive]]'' is attempting to treat magic just like any other area of the (mad) sciences — physics, chemistry, robotics, etc. So far, we've seen him trying empirical testing of transformation spells, running numbers instead of hoping that things "just work", and so forth. It's heavily, heavily implied that "Lord Tedd" resulted in one timeline when he forgot the value of friendship in lieu of obsessing over magic-turned-science — and thus, power — to the exclusion of all else.

 

* ''[[Deucalion Chronicles]]'' is practically built on this trope; almost all technology present in the CU is magic-based.

* A central point in Threetoe's [[Dwarf Fortress]] based short story "[http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/story/tt_journey.html Cado's Magical Journey]"

* Church of [[Red vs. Blue]] prefers to believe that his being a ghost is this, as opposed to Wash's must more mundane theory that Church is {{spoiler|the Alpha AI}}.

* The [http://scp-wiki.net SCP Foundation] recovers and studies anomalous objects in the world, many of them being the origin of folktales and urban legends around the world.

 

* [[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic|My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic]]:

** In "Boast Busters", Twilight Sparkle is seen experimenting to find out what magic, exactly, she is capable of.

* Doctor Doom in ''[[Iron Man: Armored Adventures]]'' is similar to the comics incarnation that he appears to possess both advanced science and magical powers from his armor, much to Tony Stark's bewilderment as this version of him has only encountered technological threats until he met Doom. However, after further examining the armor Tony concludes that Doom is using extremely next-generation tech [[Reality Warping|to manipulate quantum fields]] or some such [[Techno Babble]], similar to the series Macguffins he and the Mandarin are searching for. Doom even summons an entity (or at least its arm) from another dimension to attack Iron Man and says that primitive people would have called it a demon, meaning that the "magic is advanced science and vice-versa" line in the Thor film may apply to ''Armored Adventures.''

 

* Many of the earliest scientists in [[Real Life]] started out trying to find God/gods/magic.

** Sir Isaac Newton for one tried to make gold with alchemy and count the exact date of the Judgement Day. It's often said he's the last alchemist rather then the first scientist.