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.

For a [[The Verse|verse]] where [[Magic A Is Magic A]], this is an inherently [[Justified Trope]] just as long as it makes sense for the culture: Empirical evidence and experimentation are the cornerstone of [[The Scientific Method]], and there is no reason that it should be any less effective at discovering the details of a self-consistent series of rules just because it's called "magic" rather than "physics".

 

 

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}}

* 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.

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

 

** 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.

 

* 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".)

{{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. }}

** 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.

* ''[[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.

** The fan game ''[[Genius: The Transgression]]'' breaks the mold here: ''all'' the splats, especially the Scholastics, follow this ethos. Ironically, mad science consists almost entirely of non-repeatable phenomena making it much harder to study than most of the magic and powers from other gamelines.

** The Cryptics from ''[[Demon: The Fallen]]'' seek nothing less than to ''reverse-engineer Creation''. Yes, the World of Darkness was made by [[God]]. And these demons try to analyze how [[Little Miss Almighty|She]] did it.

** ''[https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B4E22DL0XscIMDM0MmUyOTktZDc2MS00NzU3LWE3MDYtMTUwYTY5NDgwYTUx&hl=en The Net Wizard's Handbook]'' categorized fantasy settings by "Controllability of magic". The highest state was "Magic is a Science", i.e. no fundamental differences between teaching engineers how to work with electrical forces and teaching wizards how to work with magical forces.

** [[Eberron]] is pretty much based on this.

* ''[[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.

** In ''[[Final Fantasy XII]]'', Dr. Cid spends years studying the God-made [[Green Rocks|Nethicite]] in order to create artificial duplicates. Not only does he succeed, he ''improves'' upon his man-made Nethicite (which is just as magical as the other kind) and makes it more efficient.

** In ''[[Final Fantasy XIII]]'', the forces of Cocoon have created Manadrives capable of emulating the magic of the L'cie.

** Similar in ''[[Guilty Gear]]'' where the science behind the technology that produced the Gears was so fantastic is was called magic. But in the OVA and some dialog in the game it is stated as a form of man-made science and not magic but still different from "old school" science as we know it (but it's the old science that keep Zepp the flying nation in the air).

* In ''[[Tales of Symphonia]]'', there are hints of this going on in Tethe'alla, particularly if you listen to the NPC discussions in Sybak University. The Elemental Research Laboratory is also tasked with studying [[Summon Magic|Summon]] [[Physical God|Spirits]]. The end result of this process can be seen in the Desian bases and later on the highly-advanced city of Welgaia, where the [[Magitek]] looks better suited to [[Space Opera]].

* The D'ni of the ''[[Myst]]'' Verse took this approach to their Writing and associated crafts.

* ''[[King's Quest V]]'' cites Niven's riff verbatim at one point, using this to justify [[Magitek|a scientific device repowering a magic wand]].

 

* It's not prominent, but in ''[[Tales of the Questor]]'', this is clearly the Racconan attitude to <s>magic</s> Lux Phyiscs. [[Word of God]] says that their willingness to collaborate and share knowledge is why Racconan wizards are so advanced.

* ''[[Juathuur]]'': Although we never see him actually researching, Sevvil spends most of his time mechanically replicating the Juathurr's powers, in combat he can punch well above his weight by combining his [[Weak but Skilled|rather average electrical powers with a good understanding of the physics behind electricity]]. Beisaru is probably another example given the page quote, it's certainly not an empty boast: he easily defeats [[The Gift|Shadow Magic]] users.

* ''[[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.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Magic and Powers]]