Why I Never Made A Guide For Building Magic Systems
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 พ.ย. 2023
- Had some stray audio from the better part of a year ago, figured I'd "finish" it the best I could an post it, though it's got minor tangents.
I'll be doing a Q and A at 2k subscribers, and I'm currently working on two videos. One is a discussion with its audio complete, and the other one is still just a pile of notes.
I started experimenting with not just throwing my tittle card up all the time. Hopefully its easier to look at this way.
I'm doing a Q&A at 2k subs. feel free to ask questions.
Also I hate the thumbnail, but it was the best I could come up with.
i just had a great inspiration for this to have a system based on photagrahpy and plz make something becuase im not a wrighter of it if you want but plz tag me it
The answer is easy: There is no way to make one. Magic systems are as varied as you can imagine. Literally. If you can imagine it, it can be a magic system. You can go super hard on it, make out every detail, like in Hunter x Hunter, for example, or you can be extremely soft, with just vague outlines, like in Lord of the Rings. Both are amazing, and they are created in extremely different ways. Fuck it, a soft magic system can even just be "Rule of Cool" (this sounds cool, so it will happen). Asking for a step by step formula on how to make a magic system is like asking for a step by step formula on how to cook (not "how to make a specific meal", "how to cook" as a whole):
How to cook:
1. Put the food in a container appropriate for cooking
2. Turn on the appliance you will use to cook it
3. Cook the food
How to make a magic system:
1. Think of a magic system
2. Give shape to the magic system
3. Finish the magic system
damn...let us cook right now
Wizard city is up
My magic systems based around the idea that modern magic is External to my core setting but by connecting to humans people were able to figure out how to manipulate it by imparting ideas and structures to it (the energy being extra dimensional in nature) but often awakening magic is a process that requires someone to be pushed to their limits and often their darkest thoughts can very easily be given form through magic which is why the families which pass down their potential with magic make sure to teach the Mental side of magic even before their child makes that connection and is able to harness the energy to preform magic (also if you dont have control over your magic its liable to convert your body into energy to complete a spell if you dont have enough energy stored up to convert
Hello, a question, have you seen jujutsu kaisen? If so, what do you think of their power system?
So sleep
Please i need an answer, does him criticizing the power system of different animes really makes you guy dislike or like less an anime or show ?
@username2168 no jjk's author has said that hunter x hunter has inspired his power system. Its just a worse version of his inspiration. Nothing to do with hating.
@@jjc7951 doesn't really answer my question here, i'm noy really talking about a specific anime i'm just asking
@@jjc7951 to me it seems like an improvement on the Nen
God video
This is certainly one way to look at it and i do agree with alot of things said here but i think that's not the point. Someone with little to no experience has no way to take into consideration every little detail. If you are just starting out, a step by step guide with proper structure can help you out very much in learning how to go about a magic system in your own unique way. You don't have to do things exactly as the magic system guide states but when you can't really see the bigger picture, having someone else who is indeed capable to seeing it and teach you (loosely) how to do it can certainly be helpful when you have no clue what to do.
You're missing the point. If you aren't supposed to interact with a model in the prescribed order... Then maybe don't have that order.
Nothing is stopping these people from framing their guides to he more cohesive to the way beginners or humans in general think. This might sound mean but, no one is forcing these guide builders to operate this way. They could just model it differently. For example, the world building cycle has a number of points to consider, but it never suggests any kind of order that could hamper creativity.
Nothing wrong with order, but in my line for work specifically, people tend to push guides or orders or charts that don't help that much. Just saying that "structure is good" doesn't make every structure good. There is a thing as bad structure, and i have seen it a lot. These are all things I COULD have talked about in this video, but I'm not making an hour long vid anytime soon.
TLDR: as I said in the video
I disagree with you There brother.
I think you already know this but I maybe wrong, brandon sanderson in his lectures specifically said to see his words as advice not something to one and one copy, to see it as a tool, try it out, if it works for you then great if it doesnt then thats the end of it.
Now i don't know the other videos you watched from different channels or brandons short videos, in them they might not have stated that its just their opinion on it, or its just how they make their magic system. But any reasonable viewer should go into any of those videos thinking that its not a step by step guide but to see how others are doing or taking in a different perspective
As I mentioned in a video in late 2022, there is a difference of technicality and functionality.
We can talk about our own intentions for how things will be used, or make disclaimers, but that itself does not govern how those things will be perceived when other people interact with them.
We can make whatever disclaimers we want, but at the end of the day we have to accept that people are people, and they will perceive things a certain way anyway. It not only a matter of tone in how you explain things, but also wording (as an example "law" in "The three laws of magic").
The implications of perception fly in the face of disclaimers and intention, and we therefore have to consider that those disclaimers won't save us from the fact that people are going to take them seriously or rigidly -- so there will largely be consequences anyway.
As a simple example of that fact, consider how much magic system dialogue is unnecessarily confined to HARD or SOFT despite those two categories not being productive categories when it comes to actually building something. The the creator of those terms constantly disclaims that they are to be used descriptively and not prescriptively. However, people take the information and use it that way anyway. Then, people make videos and papers about how you're supposed to use them, and by that stage the disclaimers and original intentions become largely irrelevant - to the point that people are selling literal courses and teaching that these terms should be used to build things in a bid to make money (I have a name or two in mind but I'm not trying to start that fight right now).
So ultimately, intentions aren't what Warp the writing zeitgeist. It's the details and how people will inevitably take them. We as writers and creators must therefore come to terms with this, and examine how we should go about pushing information as a result, knowing there will be consequences for how we are perceived.
Also, it also possible that these disclaimers are just to avoid having to argue with people who think you are wrong. Because if you are one person with an opinion, the internet with infinitely out number you if it cares to. But that depends on the person. I don't know if that applies to Sanderson.
@@MagicSystemMonday umm, hey a thanks for replying I'm a fan of your channel by the way I liked how you broke down the inconsistencies of Naruto's magic system, I liked how indepth your video was with examples, that video first got me into your channel, and even though I'm no writer or have expertise more than you in this field I'm sure, but... I disagree with the things you said. I'll just briefly try to tackle them
"We can talk about our own intentions for how things will be used, or make disclaimers, but that itself does not govern how those things will be perceived when other people interact with them.
We can make whatever disclaimers we want, but at the end of the day we have to accept that people are people, and they will perceive things a certain way anyway."
- think this is the main part or premise of your argument which i disagree with.
Saying people will see things a certain way despite the intentions, disclaimers and repeated words by the author or youtuber is a completely unfair generalization about the viewership, thiking of them like they're some kind of inherently foolish, dull-witted people, not capable of any critical thinking of their own, I find it very insincere and biased
Of course, any genre romance, action, adventure is filled with different worlds different ideologies and stories, you are free to write as you want, espiecially in a genre such as "Fantasy" the possibilities are endless. Its common sense. You write a story or a fanfic because YOU wanted to tell that story, its your passion.
but like any other subject, those who succeed globally, people would gravitate towards and try to learn from, take pointers and emulate. Get a different prospective see if their teachings works out in their own writing, if not move on, and now and then see different chanel (despite what the channel says this is I believe the majority of people who just want to tell their fanfics or story a better way to get viewership)
Now what you talk about is (in my opinion again) a very small group of people who literally Mimick everything from a person or a channel disregarding their own story or creativity - even ignoring this, know that you could say this for LITERALLY EVERY PIECE of any educational media out there (or even general entartainment media which is WORSE)
But I should clear this last point too -
" but also wording (as an example "law" in "The three laws of magic")"
- yes, I would have also agree with you on this that he shouldn't state this as "laws" in his websites BUT I'm sure if anyone tries to go research any of his laws or stumbles upon his online lectures The viewers will find out that these so called Laws... are LAWS for Sanderson himself, he says that, he tries to apply these on his books. and tries to teach general lesson of this in his lectures.
pls reconsider your judgement on him, ive heard his lectures he doesn't have any bad intent and the whole topic is not really that deep, thats my final say
Regardless, thats enough defending and babbling about this topic. this isn't a fight or anything, it's nothing actually I just wanted to get you see a bit differently. I apologize if I came of as rude. anyway take care man. keep making content👍
it's alright, you didn't come off as rude at all. However it appears I haven't made my point quite well. Which I can ironically use to clarify my point further.
It doesn't have to be everyone that gets the wrong idea. What I'm saying is that you have to be aware of how people interact with Ideas that are given to them, and that even if not EVERYONE comes to such conclusions, the misunderstandings will naturally come, and it is up to the creator to recognize that fact and act accordingly, to minimize such issues.
I have a simple example of this phenomenon. I seem to have accidentally produced the misunderstanding that I have some form of negative judgement of Sanderson, which is not true, aside from me acknowledging the inevitable misleadingness of the term law.
As the person making the point, even if I was not intending to make that impression, I seem to have made it anyway, regardless of wether or not it is true or why the misunderstanding took place.
Regardless of my intention, or who's fault it is, it is my job as the speaker to take into account such differences in perspective between me and my audience to reduce the probability of misunderstanding. And the more hoops I add to that, the more responsible I will be for the misunderstandings. Even if I were perfect people would still have them, and that's not going to be my fault. But when I add more room for misunderstanding it will have been my fault,
Additionally when I was complaining about people selling courses, I wasn't talking about sanderson. Sanderson is okay in my book. I'm talking about somebody else. Selling courses and guide books is fine, just as long as the info is genuinely productive.
What r ur thoughts on avatar and its system btw?
There are things I like and dislike, but overall I think it's pretty good. I plan on making a video about it within the year if I find the time, but the tldr is that I'd score it relatively high.
Don't get me wrong, it's not the infallible system people claim it is, because their are some odd discrepancies with some mechanics and a couple of characters abilities/growth specifically, and some of the spiritual aspects as they relate to non-bending are in sore need if development, but it's an excellent blend of hard and soft Magic the majority of the time.
@MagicSystemMonday what are avatars systems downsides? Could u name a few briefly
Oh and just atla not asking about the legend of korra just the last airbender
My thoughts are more complicated thant this, but even this is an abbreviated version. Mind you I haven't brought up anything I don't think would have tangibly made the series better or more interesting if it was addressed:
To make it simple, water bending in the story doesn't make nearly as much sense as the other elements. While it's debatable at face value, water bending has too many alternative forms of bending. Blood bending and ice bending roughly make sense, but blood bending logically wouldn't be too much harder than plant bending, and only as difficult as it is because of writer fiat.
Ice bending pushes the logic a little bit but is valid enough to accept. But it is way more powerful than all the secondary forms of bending (not the advanced forms, that's different).
Fire benders can heat themselves up. Cool. Earth benders get sand bending. It's use case is highly circumstantial and usually is region dependant. Its still technically earth in its function but still has to be trained separately despite not helping one's kit 80% of the time. Cool.
Water benders debatably get a new element and it seems to not take any special training to harness. Sweet.
Supposedly water bending fluctuates in power level the most, based off of wether it's day or night, and what phase the moon is in. We get to see that once or twice, but never to a satisfactory degree. The full moon's strength was a plot point one time for blood bending, the day and night cycle was relevant once in season one in a fight that the water bender should have lost regardless because her enemy way way stronger with more training, and water doesn't have type advantage in avatar.
We never get to see what impact any other moon phase has on water bending, which I wouldn't care about if it wasn't sort of at the heart of how their powers work. The background is a full moon just because 80% of the time anyway just because.
And then there is like zero justification for how powerful katara is even as far as late season one all the way on to the last season. She gets as powerful as she is because the writers said so. They lay it on really thick with how bad she is at controlling her powers in the beginning, but she gets to being useful really quick sort of out of nowhere, to the point of her using full blown water bending by the end of season one before she ever managed to get paku to deal with her. And that wouldn't be the worst thing ever, but the writer had her trying to use those powers for a hot minute before the story started to next to no avail. And miraculously she became competent because she was traveling or something.
And starting in season two it gets way worse. Every other major character has multiple reasons that can be pointed to to justify why they are as good as they are, even when they haven't mastered their art. Aang, Toph, and zuko all have reasons beyond "I'm pretty good lol" for what they're capable of but katara somehow gets a pass. They didn't even try to say because she's super creative or something like that.
And then there's the healing ability that is effectively an arbitrary kekkei genkai which is extremely uncharacteristic of bending as a system . Just looking at the rules there is no reason not every water bender couldn't do it aside from writer fiat. Even worse, I could argue that everyone in avatar should he able to learn it, if not all benders at least. It seems to channel chi through some version of meridians to heal... Except every character including non benders have that!
I had more to say and in more detail but this is already too long
@@MagicSystemMonday ty