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Sufficiently Analyzed Magic: Difference between revisions
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{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* ''[[Lyrical Nanoha|Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'' has got to have set a new standard{{verify|reason=Didn't Heinlein do the same thing decades before Lyrical Nanoha did the same thing? And isn't Heinlein well-known to Japanese SF writers?}} 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 ''[[Code Geass]]'', this is how Lelouch takes to his Geass power after an awkward situation with Kallen where he first realizes it has limitations- namely, that it won't work on the same person more than once. Before making serious use of it again, he conducts several tests on random students to see what other limitations it has.
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* 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".)
** Goodie Whemper ("[[Running Gag|maysherestinpeace]]") was a "research witch" who live in Mad Stoat, Lancre. She investigated such things as exactly what species are eligible for the "[[Eye of Newt]]". One of her triumphs was discovering the exact breed of apple and type of knife to use in the old "predict your future husband's name with a thrown apple peel" if you wanted it to actually work; otherwise it would inevitably spell SCSSSC. Magrat inherited her cottage after her premature death during an experiment to find out how many bristles you could pull out of a broomstick
** Magrat followed in her footsteps, as did many of the witches who had lived in the cottage. In ''[[
{{quote|It's all very well a potion calling for Love-in-idleness, but which of the thirty-seven common plants called by that name in various parts of the continent was actually ''meant''?
The reason that Granny Weatherwax was a better witch than Magrat was that she knew that in witchcraft it didn't matter a damn which one it was, or even if it was a piece of grass.
The reason that Magrat was a better doctor than Granny was that she thought it did. }}
** The ritual that summons Death traditionally required a human sacrifice and lots of eldritch fires, but by the time the books start this has been refined to 3 bits of wood and 4 cubic centimetres of mouse blood. A later book introduced an even more refined version that just needed
** Of course, none of this is helped by the fact that a lot of it works the way it does [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|because they believe it works that way]].
* The ''[[Heralds of Valdemar]]'' series has a newly created school of magical theoreticians, who use geometry to work out what the effects of various bits of magic will be. There's some degree of conflict between them and the actual mages, who take a much more intuitive approach. As the ''Mage Storms'' series reaches its climax, it's conceded by even the most diehard "intuitionists" that the theoreticians have a point, and that their research works.
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