This could be a spell that encapsulates the series' magic system, or just a notable standout that stuck with you, or whatever.
Favorite - Giga Slave from The Slayers. It's a spell the main character cobbled together from an ultimate spell invoking a demon god, instead changing the incantation to instead invoke an entity greater than that. It 100% destroys its target if it connects, but requires a level of control and focus or it would destroy the world outright. It's cool to me in that it was an invented spell and you don't often get to see active creativity in a magic system. It also creates a cool moral question for the characters about using such a spell. The magic system of Slayers is just really cool like that.
Least Favorite - Avada Kedavra from Harry Potter. It's an instant death spell and anyone hit by it dies instantly with no chance of resuscitation or revival. It's illegal in the setting, but it's only ever used by the bad guys. There's no history to the spell, no counter measure, and it's considered just evil. Meanwhile there are other spells that are technically lethal on hit, but are perfectly fine to use against an opponent during mortal combat. It's interesting because on the surface, it invites moral questions. A quick and painless death spell that has little chance for collateral damage if it connects.
Favourite spell: Summon Skeleton.
Hell yeah, i can get a skeleton buddy? Let's go ham on these low level woodland critters!
Least Favourite spell: Summon Skeleton.
What do you mean he only has 25 HP and lasts for 30 seconds?
Shout-out to discworld for magic being very real and very impractical
Tiffany got up early and lit the fires. When her mother came down, she was scrubbing the kitchen floor, very hard.
“Er…aren’t you supposed to do that sort of thing by magic, dear?” said her mother, who’d never really got the hang of what witchcraft was all about.
“No, Mum, I’m supposed not to,” said Tiffany, still scrubbing.
“But can’t you just wave your hand and make all the dirt fly away, then?”
“The trouble is getting the magic to understand what dirt is,” said Tiffany, scrubbing hard at a stain. “I heard of a witch over in Escrow who got it wrong and ended up losing the entire floor and her sandals and nearly a toe.”
Mrs. Aching backed away. “I thought you just had to wave your hands about,” she mumbled nervously.
“That works,” said Tiffany, “but only if you wave them about on the floor with a scrubbing brush."
[The fireballs] were Wizard magic, showy and dangerous. Witches preferred to cut enemies dead with a look. There was no sense in killing your enemy. How would she know you’d won?
Favourite - not an individual spell but, sword singing in Elder Scrolls. It's this mythical Yokudan art that involves swinging a sword in a way that it fucks with reality to cast magic. One speculation for the reason Yokuda sank into the ocean is because the Ra-Gada (the precursors to redguards) fought so intensely during a civil war that the force of their sword singing sank it.
I just find the idea of some buff guy swinging his sword so fast it becomes magic funny.
Least favourite - any form of healing spell. Unless there are clear and dire consequences outlined, magic being able to instantly cure any and all illnesses destroys any tension from characters getting injured or sick.
Sword Singing is so goddamn cool. Love how the sword meetings of Cyrus imply that the forbidden technique of "Cutting the Atomos" (sword magic nuclear fission) could threaten Vivec and Talos/Tiber Septim, yknow, actual (sorta) gods.
I'm a sucker for shit that makes it impossible for people to lie (e.g., prevalent in the wheel of time). I think it sets up for interesting relationships.
Least favorite are time travel spells, pretty much for similar but opposite reasons. I think time travel spells ruin immersion.
Time travel ruins any narrative that isn't carefully set up from the very beginning to support it. Chronological cause-and-effect is the foundation of story telling. What are the stakes if the characters can simply rewind?
I think truth magic is an interesting concept, but I feel it's a hard thing to implement into a story in a way that wouldn't dissolve plot tension. At least with high drama and personal angst prevalent in a lot of fantasy. I think it would introduce interesting dynamics though. What do you enjoy seeing when truth spells come out?
I agree with the time travel spells. I think even small ones (reversal of entropy, or rewinding) spells introduce complications. Like if you reverse time to bring somebody back to life (really dangerous application of magic for plot purposes), what happens to the person's neurons or their soul when time is reversed (if you have souls as an explicit part of the setting).
Big time travel spells are even more unwieldy. I think the increasing popularity of multiverses mitigates some of that complexity, but even then, it can really dampen the stakes of a story.
What do you enjoy seeing when truth spells come out?
I'm more referring to situations where the effect is not temporary but a permanent change. I was surprised to consider the power that someone gains after being bound to telling the truth, previously only considering something like this to be a curse. The things that person says carry with them so much weight, and the person can be immediately trusted to a large degree.
I couldn't figure out what you were referencing and then remembered the Aes Sedai oath rod.
Favorite is probably the idol of wrath from Practical guide to evil; the magic, while not really explained, is realistically factional (love the different schools of Wizards arguing, reminds me of somewhere between religious arguments, and programmer arguments over what language is better.), but essentially, the protag's right hand man, The Hierophant, manages to kinda sorta copy the near biblical absolutism of angels:
“Abyss and firmament,” the Hierophant said, and though his voice was quiet it rippled. “I take the shape of the star and the depth of the pit, borrowing laws high and low. I have woven curses into hymn, stuffed a heart with straw,” the Hierophant called out, voiced cadenced. “That which is hollow I have raised onto the dais, revered as glorious under three skies and revered by nine corners. Behold, all ye with eyes, for I have made a god of clay and it is an idol of wrath.”
And is more or less a 'reset button' on an area. And like, I guess its just a divine smite, cast by a wizard, but the build to and worldbuilding behind the how and the why makes it land for me pretty hard.
Least favorite is probably the shadow fuck magic of Game of Thrones. While a lot of the worldbuilding and plot from Song of Ice and Fire I do like, the shadow sex demon spell is probably the best example of GRRM preoccupation with grimdark sex'n'blood that undercuts a lot of what does work in GoT. Which, I'm not strictly anti-grimdark sex'n'blood, but georgy R often takes it to very sensationalist heights, and gives it a 'horny old man' energy that can't help but put an image is his sweaty fuckin face, hunched over a keyboard, furiously typing one-handed into my head.
I am a sucker for instant death spells with no visual tells except for somebody basically exploding. Godlike magic power with no flair is just :chefs-kiss: .
And to continue shilling for Kill Six Billion Demons, I also love magic abilities or powers with extremely wordy titles like the [warning: potential big spoilers in links if you click "next page"] "Palm of the Almighty 5 Finger 77 Point Strike Transmigration of Immortal Souls Technique of Relief ".
I really enjoyed that moment. It was an amazing scene and my friend's jaw dropped when it happened.
I remember back in the 80's reading Michael Moorcock's Elric saga, the magic he used were extra-planar beings his ancestors had made weird creepy pacts with so he could summon them one time. The notion of old relationships with these beings without the Christian myth of eternal damnation and stuff, just really weird ancestors that made pacts so that Elric could summon them 100's of years later because of heritage/royalty was just so rich and interesting and weird a thought. Definitely left an impression on me.
Bale fire from WoT is probably the coolest looking. Blinding bar of light that deletes whatever it hits from existence, leaving only a glowing afterimage like a cheap 80s SciFi TV show. If you get hit hard enough you get retroactively deleted from the past. The harder you get hit the further back your existence gets deleted.
Favorite type of magic is probably the reality-fuckery in Elder Scrolls that people use to achieve divinity. Talos became Talos by acting like Lorkhan until he became an aspect of Lorkhan, and all it took was a shit-ton of backstabbing and murder snd betrayal and lies and fucking with the remnants of a dead god. Vivec had previously used that same dead god's heart to turn from the biggest asshole in the world to the immortal and divine biggest asshole in the world, and then later went on an acid trip without the acid to realize we're all like, one, dude, whoa, and unlocked the dev console instead of deleting himself.
It's a hell of a lot more interesting than "eat metal and you can push shit with your brain"
Grayson Saunders Commonwheel has some neat spells. Maybe the best one is the creation of the Line Standards, which allow the Socialist people's militias to pool their collective mana to the point where they can melt roads through solid rock and easily beat up any potential wizard overlords.
