39,327
edits
(→Western Animation: clean up) |
m (Mass update links) |
||
Line 1:
{{trope}}
{{quote|'''Aang''': When Azula shot me with lightning, my Seventh Chakra was blocked, cutting off my connection to all the cosmic energy in the universe.<br />
'''Toph''': You know what I just heard? [[Blah Blah Blah|Blah-blah]], spiritual mumbo jumbo, blah-blah, something about space.|''[[
[[Sci Fi Counterpart|Like]] [[Techno Babble]], but about [[Functional Magic|magic]], typically Rule Magic. This is usually used in series where [[Magic
{{examples}}
Line 9:
== Anime and Manga ==
* ''[[Fullmetal Alchemist (
* ''[[
** One time, Jiraiya tries to teach Naruto to pulse his chakra in order to break genjutsu, but has him do it while standing on water. He doesn't bother to warn Naruto, "You will get wet (because pulsing chakra to break a genjutsu also disrupts the water walking jutsu, causing him to fall into the water)."
* ''[[
{{quote| '''Touma''': It feels like you're just throwing all this weird terminology at me.}}
** In contrast, while the series has a lot of science fiction, it has virtually little [[Techno Babble]]. Any kind of explanations that the viewer hears are typically [[Mohs Scale of Science Fiction Hardness|the crib-notes dumbed-down version of how things (probably) work]] and trying to [[Viewers Are Geniuses|follow that to revelations about what isn't explained]] leads nowhere. This is most notable when [[Superpower Lottery|espers]] can be handwaved by drugs, hypnosis/brainwashing, and [[Small Reference Pools|Schrodinger's Cat]].
Line 18:
== Literature ==
* In [[Patricia C. Wrede]]'s ''[[Enchanted Forest Chronicles]]'' the magician Telemain speaks almost entirely in Magibabble when describing how various spells and enchanted objects work. He becomes irate when people tell him to explain things with less technical terminology, usually claiming he can't think of a simpler way to explain whatever he's talking about precisely. The only exceptions occur when he is asked to explain things normally by Kazul, the gigantic King of the Dragons, whose intimidating appearance inspires him to somehow find a perfect clear, much easier to understand explanation.
* Ponder Stibbons, a [[Magitek]] [[Geek]] in the ''[[Discworld]]'' novels, uses a combination of [[Magi Babble]] and [[Techno Babble]] to describe the devices created in the High Energy Magic Building (or more often, to hide the fact he's got no idea how they work, even though he built them). Wizards, and indeed some others, also use the catch all explanation of 'It's probably Quantum' or something being weird "'cos of Quantum" to explain anything significantly baffling. It appears to fulfill the same function as saying 'It's magic' in [[Real Life]], though it is usually incorporated with other [[Magi Babble]].
* This is literally Bob's entire purpose in ''[[The Dresden Files]]''. He knows the rules better than any mere mortal like Harry could ever know them.
* This comes up quite often in the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series. In the earlier books, the in-world magic system seems fairly standard for a fantasy series; i.e., one uses their "gift" to achieve the desired results. After perhaps the third or fourth book, the author [[Doing in
* Earlier, in a scene in ''Blood of the Fold'', a character's [[Magi Babble]] is interrupted and it is expleained (via more [[Magi Babble]]) that the character he's talking to already knew everything he was telling her.
{{quote| Warren sighed and at last nodded. "I guess I should tell you, but understand that this is a very old and obscure fork. The prophecies are clogged with false forks. This is doubly tainted, because of its age, and its rarity. That makes it suspect even if it weren't for the rest of it. There are crossovers and backfalls galore in tomes this old, and I can't verify them without months of work. Some of the links are occluded by triple forks. Back-tracing a triple fork squares false forks on the branches, and if any of them are tripled, well then, the enigma created by the geometric progressions you encounter because of the-"}}
Line 27:
{{quote| Verna put a hand to his forearm to silence him. "Warren, I know all that. I understand the degrees of progression and regression as they relate to random variables in bifurcations of a triple fork."}}
* The [[Magi Babble]] in L.E. Modesitt, Jr.'s ''[[Saga of Recluce|Recluce]]'' saga is extremely convincing; it almost feels like real physics.
* Comes up often when Jeff Grubb gets his hands on franchise fiction. Notable works include the Warcraft novel ''[[Warcraft:
* [[Nasuverse]] -- So damn much... and sometimes, [[Techno Babble]] gets thrown in as well, especially [[Melty Blood
* Taken to the logical extreme in ''[[The Death Gate Cycle]]'' by [[Margaret Weis]] and Tracy Hickman: the magi babble is literally indistinguishable from [[Techno Babble]] and ''almost makes sense''.
* Either [[Lampshaded]] or justified in the ''[[
* The Bob Howard / [[The Laundry Series|Laundry]] stories by [[Charles Stross]] are *made* of this trope. The magic in this setting is based on mathematics and computer science -- Alan Turing invented the local [[Magitek]] -- and it reads like a cross between MIT's 6.001 and Abdul Alhazred.
* The ''[[Harry Potter]]'' books have a fair bit, especially ''[[Deathly Hallows]]''. In it, we learn that "food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration". When Ron repeats this tidbit later on, others are amazed by his [[Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness]].
Line 49:
* The "Kesandru's Well" arc from ''[[Sluggy Freelance]]'' positively brims with this trope. Particularly [http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=030408 one of the Rayths].
* ''[[
* In ''[[
* Parodied in [http://www.galactanet.com/comic/view.php?strip=458 this] ''[[
== Web Original ==
|