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DoN't ChAnGe ThE RuLes, ThAt'S JuSt HoW iT is!

Why can't I have anything nice sadness

  • Cammy [she/her]
    ·
    2 months ago

    I love Laios, I really do, but he's the last person to be giving a lecture like that. At least according to his trajectory as a character. He's not invested in the politics of the world and hasn't done the level of research Marcille has. It just feels off.

    I hate fiction where magic is considered too dangerous to solve systemic problems. Like it's an antagonistic force in the world that's only good for warfare. It's a natural force in most settings, making the mistrust seem so strange.

    Like in this setting, the mad mage made mistakes, but they want to throw it all out.

    • UlyssesT
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      edit-2
      3 days ago

      deleted by creator

      • Cammy [she/her]
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        2 months ago

        Dumbledore is good and powerful, but couldn't be bothered to fight hitler. Good world building.

        • UlyssesT
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          3 days ago

          deleted by creator

          • Cammy [she/her]
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            2 months ago

            I love how these problems of worse timeliness only come up when the writer in question has to reflect on material conditions.

            • UlyssesT
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              edit-2
              3 days ago

              deleted by creator

              • Cammy [she/her]
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                2 months ago

                Yeah, I hate that bullshit of implying a moral high ground by not touching anything when it's like someone's existence at a point in time affects the world in the smallest of ways.

                But somehow if you just keep you head down and stay anonymous, things will work out in the favor of the status quo.

                • UlyssesT
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                  3 days ago

                  deleted by creator

    • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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      edit-2
      2 months ago

      What about fiction where magic doesn't solve systemic problems because it's part of the world and affected by the same systemic problems? Looking at you, Ursula.

      • Cammy [she/her]
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        2 months ago

        So the magic itself is enforcing a status quo? Am I understanding that correctly?

        • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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          edit-2
          2 months ago

          It's more that magic, like all power, is subject to the conditions of that society (something something coconut tree). Like, in the first Earthsea book you learn that "women's magic" is considered basal and wicked, so they aren't allowed into the fancy magic school, so women are born with the gift of magic are usually looked down upon as witches and lesbians

          Magic does have this "things must be in balance" nature to it that you could read as being pro status quo, but I think it's more the case that the existing power structure in the world being unable (unwilful) to change. "Infinite are the arguments of mages" and some mages, it turns out, are just old men unable to see past what they're accustomed to, even some wise ones.

          • Cammy [she/her]
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            2 months ago

            Okay, so magic as an institution is flawed because the institutions that work magic are flawed?

            Or is it a gender essentialism thing happening where magical women are evil lesbians? party-sicko

            • ShinkanTrain@lemmy.ml
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              edit-2
              2 months ago

              Yes on the first one, maybe on the second. It's implied women can learn the art magic just as men do and it's all just men wanting/believing in their no girls allowed club, but from my read on it, it's implied by some characters that it's somewhat different and deeper. Good ass quote from an old hag:

              A woman's a different thing entirely. Who knows where a woman begins and ends? Listen mistress, I have roots, I have roots deeper than this island. Deeper than the sea, older than the raising of the lands. I go back into the dark ... I go back into the dark! Before the moon I am, what a woman is, a woman of power, a woman's power, deeper than the roots of trees, deeper than the roots of islands, older than the Making, older than the moon. Who dares ask questions of the dark? Who'll ask the dark its name?”

              It doesn't outright say which is true so I guess you're supposed to apply your own feminist values on it.