Magical systems

[pegkerr]

This is going to be an extremely long and confused thinking-out-loud entry about my thoughts as I try to get a grasp on my magical system in the book. I am quite frustrated. I have been brooding about the book brainstorming session I had with B. minnehaha last Friday night, because I am still quite perplexed about how to pull all the pieces together. I keep circling round and around the idea I had several months ago that somehow magic in this system has to do with phlogiston.

I was very struck by Alan Jacob’s article "Harry Potter’s Magic," which I’ve quoted from before, in which he posits that J. K. Rowling’s magical system is sort of taking off from the split in magical and natural sciences:

The place to begin is to invoke one of the great achievements of twentieth–century historical scholarship: the eight volumes Lynn Thorndike published between 1929 and 1941 under the collective title A History of Magic and Experimental Science. And it is primarily the title that I wish to reflect upon here. In the thinking of most modern people, there should be two histories here: after all, are not magic and experimental science opposites? Is not magic governed by superstition, ignorance, and wishful thinking, while experimental science is rigorous, self–critical, and methodological? While it may be true that the two paths have diverged to the point that they no longer have any point of contact, for much of their existence—and this is Lynn Thorndike’s chief point—they constituted a single path with a single history. For both magic and experimental science are means of controlling and directing our natural environment (and people insofar as they are part of that environment). . . . It was not obvious in advance that science would succeed and magic fail: in fact, several centuries of dedicated scientific experiment would have to pass before it was clear to anyone that the "scientific" physician could do more to cure illness than the old woman of the village with her herbs and potions and muttered charms. In the Renaissance, alchemists were divided between those who sought to solve problems—the achievement of the philosopher’s stone, for example (or should I say the sorcerer’s stone?)—primarily through the use of what we would call mixtures of chemicals and those who relied more heavily on incantations, the drawing of mystical patterns, and the invocation of spirits.
At least, it seems to us that the alchemists can be so divided. But that’s because we know that one approach developed into chemistry, while the other became pure magic. The division may not have been nearly so evident at the time, when (to adapt Weber’s famous phrase) the world had not yet become disenchanted. As Keith Thomas has shown, it was "the triumph of the mechanical philosophy" of nature that "meant the end of the animistic conception of the universe which had constituted the basic rationale for magical thinking." Even after powerful work of the mechanistic scientists like Gassendi the change was not easily completed: Isaac Newton, whose name is associated more than any other with physical mechanics, dabbled frequently in alchemy.

This history provides a key to understanding the role of magic in Joanne Rowling’s books, for she begins by positing a counterfactual history, a history in which magic was not a false and incompetent discipline, but rather a means of controlling the physical world at least as potent as experimental science. In Harry Potter’s world, scientists think of magic in precisely the same way they do in our world, but they are wrong. The counterfactual "secondary world" that Rowling creates is one in which magic simply works, and works as reliably, in the hands of a trained wizard, as the technology that makes airplanes fly and refrigerators chill the air—those products of applied science being, by the way, sufficiently inscrutable to the people who use them that they might as well be the products of wizardry. As Arthur C. Clarke once wrote, "Any smoothly functioning technology gives the appearance of magic."

(This essay was a cornerstone of the paper I wrote for the Nimbus 2003 conference on the Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues in the Harry Potter books.)

Many examples of urban fantasy can be described as stories where both a "magical" explanation and a "real world" explanation can simultaneously exist. A good example is Megan Lindholm’s novel Wizard of the Pigeons. Is the main character a mentally ill Vietnam veteran living on the streets of Seattle? Or is he a wizard? Perhaps he is both. I’m interested in doing this, in coming up with an explanation for the events in my story, and perhaps an explanation for why Minnesota culture is the way it is, that is both. But I’m really groping here to pin my ideas down.

Now re: my idea of using phlogiston: the idea is that phlogiston is a theory that chemists explored and eventually abandoned. I found an essay that suggests, intriguingly, that if refined a bit, the phlogiston theory actually works:

It may seem hard to believe that phlogiston theory, which is incorrect, was so persistent. How could it survive all of the attacks, and come back for more? I think the answer is that phlogiston theory is actually very close to the truth. If we consider a chemical's tendency to take up oxygen, and call its lack of oxygen "phlogiston," we can describe absolutely any chemical reaction involving oxygen. Instead of putting oxygen on one side of any chemical equation, we can put this anti-oxygen on the other side. It will always balance. One atom of phlogiston would always have an atomic weight of -16, and the weights will always balance, too. So, we can always construct a self-consistent phlogiston theory, even today.

So what if I do what Jacob’s essay suggest, and use this idea of phlogiston, which was abandoned by scientists, as a basis for my system of magic. What would that mean to the story?

When B. minnehaha was asking me questions about my ideas about magic under this system last Friday night, he said that it sounds as if what I had in mind was that magic was "manna," meaning it was a "thing" which was quantifiable, something that you could have "more" of or "less" of, something that you manipulated as a substance by certain rules (an alternate technology), rather than something that was called into being by ritual and spells. I think that sounds right.

Now: re: winter magic and summer magic. B. wrote two columns (titled "Summer Magic" and "Winter Magic") on the back of one of our ever-helpful placemats, and we tried to put the characteristics of each magical system in the two different columns. I think that this book will be mainly about winter magic, because Solveig’s a winter magic kind of gal, but it’s helpful to understand both, and how they interact. I think of them as two sort of interlocking systems with entirely different characteristics and functions: one wanes while the other waxes. A person may be proficient in one system, and indeed may only know about one system, but not the other.

The totemic animal of winter magic is fish, which become very wise as the ice freezes and the magic builds up in the water. The totem of summer magic is birds, which fly through the air. As I mentioned, mosquitoes are significant here, too, in a way I haven’t entirely worked out. Their larvae live on the surface of the water, right on the border between the summer realm of the birds (air) and the winter realm of the fish (water), and they suck blood, which is mystically linked to the oceans. Minnesota is strong in winter and summer magic because it is as far as you can get in all directions from the oceans. The distance from the oceans means we have such a wide temperature extreme (the ocean are a heat sink) AND it is a source of salt, and salt leaches away magic. Being far from the oceans, we have a high concentration of magic. Anyway, the fact that mosquitoes bite some people and not others is magically significant.

Again, the idea is that winter magic builds up in water when it freezes. The magic becomes concentrated in the water, and especially the ice. (Perhaps it’s somehow magically significant that water expands as it freezes, unlike most solids?) An ice palace, therefore, would be a concentration of winter magical power, a tremendous focal point. Solveig became "steeped" in winter magic because she fell through the ice as a girl and absorbed that winter magic.

I’m not entirely sure what this means, and I’m not quite sure how I want to play it. I think I don’t want to write a story about someone who is gifted, "the One" (like Neo in The Matrix, say), someone who the fates decree will solve the magical problem, and therefore has all sorts of magical powers that they can whip out whenever the going gets tough. I am interested instead in someone more like Frodo, who has to solve a problem, and does it not through any special magical reserves, but through sheer human courage, and drawing on inner reserves, specifically calling upon her heart of flesh (as opposed to the heart of stone). That’s the humanness aspect that all good fantasy stories illuminate for me. Yet, how do I reconcile this with the idea that somehow she is steeped in winter magic? What does that mean? I want her to solve her problem—whatever it was because she has winter magic and because she’s a damned good architect. In other words, the solution is both magical and real world.

B. minnehaha suggested that if winter magic is concentration of power, that it’s "strong" whereas summer magic is "weak." I saw what he was getting at, but immediately disagreed with him. Winter magic is concentrated, yes, but the fact that summer magic is dispersed, attenuated, doesn’t at all mean that it is weak. Perhaps summer magic values dispersal, because if the magic is dispersed, it infuses everything and a master summer magician, then, is someone who is connected to everything, through that magic. A summer magician is like a zen master who learns to become one with the universe. Power is expansion, where it is concentration in winter magic. I discussed with B. the idea that women are sometimes said to be "specialists" in inter-relationships (connectivity), and men in the particular and concrete; therefore women might be natural summer magicians and men winter magicians. And Solveig, the untypical winter figure is a woman in a man’s world (architecture). But am not certain how much I want to get into what might be gender stereotyping here.

Still, what does this have to do with phlogiston, or anti-oxygen? What do summer and winter magicians do with their power? I suggested that perhaps experienced practitioners of summer and winter magic, who use it "right" might not strike you as particularly impressive or powerful people, because their concerns are not worldly and acquisitive. Perhaps powerful winter magicians seem to be merely taciturn Norwegian bachelor farmers, who like to go ice fishing and pull up the fish out of the water. Perhaps they’re catching those fish to seek wisdom, asking the fish questions as they pull them up. But they’re not doing it to acquire money or power or anything material. Unless they "go bad" like Rolf. How does what Rolf’s doing with the ice palace have to do with how winter magic works (or how winter magic is corrupted)? And what about all those other ice palaces, built in other St. Paul Winter Carnivals? Were they all built by "bad" winter magicians? Or were some "good" winter magicians? What might they have been trying to accomplish with all that focused winter magical power?

And summer magicians? What do they do with their time and how do they practice their art? Uh . . . my mind’s a blank.

I looked up archetypal symbolism connected with fish and birds. It’s been bothering me that I don’t know what the fish are "up to." What do they have to tell Solveig? What is their significance? Fish are a common symbol of fertility, which in psychological terms may symbolize a promise of personal growth. If the fish is in the sea, the sea may symbolize the unconscious (alas, we have no seas in Minnesota. But still . . .) According to Jung, fish, being cold-blooded and primitive creatures, may symbolize a deep level of unconsciousness. 'Fishes and snakes are favourite symbols for describing psychic happenings or experiences that suddenly dart out of the unconscious and have a frightening or redeeming effect.' (Jung).

Birds may represent the simplicity of nature and the need to get in touch with nature. An invitation to enter into the spiritual realm. May symbolize energies that can bring you healing or balance in life. A bird taking wing may represent the need for you to take wing, unencumbered by circumstances that prevent you from the freedom you require.

So . . . fish have to do with the unconscious, perhaps unconscious wisdom? And birds with spirituality/freedom?

Peg, going off to think and wrestle with all this maddeningly slippery stuff some more

Edited to add: Upon re-reading this, I now think it is probably all garbage. But perhaps that is merely the effect of too little sleep.

Edited again: Garbage! Swill! Dreck! Inane stupidity! Ack!

Comments

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Well, the ice palace is being built in the winter. At this point, I think that the action will start in the summer, continue throughout the autumn and winter, with the climax occurring in the ice palace itself. The denoument (I think) will occur at the May Day Parade, which is put on by the Heart of the Beast Puppet Theater every year the first weekend in May.

As I said, the focus will be on winter magic. But I'd like to know about summer magic too, as part of the overall magic system.

[(Anonymous)]

Yes, but summer magic is also air magic, if I am following you. This castle stands in the air, where winter birds can fly through. It looks like an intersection of magics.

Leshii