What and Why are Spells?

[RaceFinisher]

Most stories and games have Mages or Wizards who cast spells. Magic may, then, derive from the voice. This matches Tolkien's take with Saruman's voice powers in the LOTR books.

But what are spells really? It would seem to me that spells would have had to be created a long, long time before said story by far more powerful wizards with deeper magic. Words that Stay in the ether vs. Words that Stay on paper, maybe?

Bakker's take on magic: the will to control, i.e. direct control of the power, seems a more likely idea. Like superheros and mutants in comics, the mage or wizard would have direct control of an element or power. I wonder why more novels aren't written with the direct control idea.

Anyone have any thoughts or ideas? What is a spell really? And why do so many writers use spells vs. direct control? An opinion?

[Fist and Faith]

My take is that spells are how the mage gains access to power. Perhaps a higher power (god, demon, whatever) allows you to use its power if you know the correct words/rites. Perhaps a natural power source is accessed with specific words/rites. Perhaps a being, element, thing, power, etc, has no choice but to respond to a command if its true name is spoken.

It could be that a far more powerful wizard was the first to learn something's true name, or learned the proper words/rites to access a power.

Welcome to the Watch.

[Orlion]

My take is that spells are how the mage gains access to power. Perhaps a higher power (god, demon, whatever) allows you to use its power if you know the correct words/rites. Perhaps a natural power source is accessed with specific words/rites. Perhaps a being, element, thing, power, etc, has no choice but to respond to a command if its true name is spoken.

It could be that a far more powerful wizard was the first to learn something's true name, or learned the proper words/rites to access a power.

Welcome to the Watch.

That seems to be the idea. If you know the true nature/sign/name of something, that gives you (in theory) control over it... some, anyway.

[Menolly]

My take is that spells are how the mage gains access to power. Perhaps a higher power (god, demon, whatever) allows you to use its power if you know the correct words/rites. Perhaps a natural power source is accessed with specific words/rites. Perhaps a being, element, thing, power, etc, has no choice but to respond to a command if its true name is spoken.

It could be that a far more powerful wizard was the first to learn something's true name, or learned the proper words/rites to access a power.

Welcome to the Watch.

That seems to be the idea. If you know the true nature/sign/name of something, that gives you (in theory) control over it... some, anyway.

Courtesy of Earthsea's and the School at Roke's rules?

[Vraith]

My take is that spells are how the mage gains access to power. Perhaps a higher power (god, demon, whatever) allows you to use its power if you know the correct words/rites. Perhaps a natural power source is accessed with specific words/rites. Perhaps a being, element, thing, power, etc, has no choice but to respond to a command if its true name is spoken.

It could be that a far more powerful wizard was the first to learn something's true name, or learned the proper words/rites to access a power.

Welcome to the Watch.

That seems to be the idea. If you know the true nature/sign/name of something, that gives you (in theory) control over it... some, anyway.

Courtesy of Earthsea's and the School at Roke's rules?

All of that stuff, plus the fact [well...mythical fact...fact ABOUT myth]
that language, in itself, is magical. That words ARE power, they CREATE reality [IN the beginning was the word...]

The odd/cool thing about that: there is an awful lot of evidence that it is partly true. Language IS magic, it DOES make reality.

Edited to add: and in particular when combined with the wordless...music. Incantation, at root, literally means "sing spells."

[Orlion]

I'm thinking more in a...well, not quite "classical" sense... think John Dee and Aliester Crowley...

Also, Jack Vance's Lyonnesse and Dying Earth series.

[Hashi Lebwohl]

Strangely enough, spells--"magic", if you want an easy-to-use catchphrase--are very scientific in what they are, their fundamental nature. Spells take potential energy and convert it to kinetic energy of some form. The words, symbols, sounds, or whatever else merely open the circuits in the brain that allow the mage to psionically channel and convert the energy into the desired form.

"Why" are spells? The idea of magic exists because we have this desire to transcend our limitations. How many people have wanted to fly like birds, swim/breathe water like fish, move themselves from one place to another instantly, read other people's thoughts, become invisible, open doorways to other dimensions, or throw around some fire & lightning? Magic spells would allow us to become like gods. That is why the idea of them exists and will persist as long as there are human beings.

Imagine someone who had access to only a few relatively "minor" spells such as levitation, invisibility, and "deflect missile weapons"? This person could wait in the clouds, descend without being seen, access places we cannot normally go, and if things turn violent they can stand there while bullets--they are merely high-velocity missile weapons--are deflected harmlessly around them. Give them a sleep spell for "offense" and they would be difficult to stop.

[sgt.null]

there are two different kinds of spells.

those requiring just words.

those requiring materials.

I've always assumed that magic is power that exists around and about us. and that the two disciplines are just ways to access that power.

if we agree that we can't create something out of nothing, then spells must adapt material/energy/power that already exists.

and maybe some spells require more effort because they are so dangerous that we can't have the random idiot exploiting such vast quantities of power.

and maybe some magic requires fuel. thus necromancy. and spells requiring various items.

I mean don't some of the items seem a bit weak and silly? eye of newt, a raven's wing, etc.

but some spells require blood, virgins, corpses.

[IrrationalSanity]

Start with "Sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

The access to power, or magic, is something that each author who makes use of it needs to consider. Some worlds, the magic is intrinsic to a user or device. For others, it is available for all to tap, provided suitable training. In yet others, it requires a certain "sensitivity" to the world.

The D&D worlds have long considered the "how" for their magical systems, though each edition through the years has taken a different approach.

In the end, the how for any given universe isn't quite so critical as ensuring that there is internal consistency.

[Zarathustra]

An interesting question ....

I like what Hashi and Vraith have said. Words are a kind of "magic," in their power to convey the seemingly ineffable ... connecting immaterial entities like other minds. And spells are a kind of "science," or at least the appearance of a lore. I think we have a long history of blurring the difference between science and religion (or myth, or superstition). But even at our most ignorant stages, we've never been entirely stupid. Primitive people couldn't help noticing that some plants have medicinal qualities, or some materials can be mixed in certain ways to make amazing alloys ... even if we couldn't explain them at the time. We've passed down much of this poorly understood knowledge in terms of ritual and myth, confusing which parts worked and which parts were superfluous.

So ritual, knowledge, and lore have been mixed together for centuries, producing "magical" results that work. I think there is something essential about this process--and about us--that makes it possible and likely to pass useful (though poorly understood) knowledge down through time in this fashion. We obviously respond to it, or it never would have been a successful means of conveying information through generations.

So like all myths, we take what we know, and what we don't know, then mix them together in a way that is memorable and "makes sense," which often means putting them into our stories. That's why we cling to the idea of spells, just as we cling to the idea of prayer or other superstitious rituals. [Edit: I mean that quite literally, no insult intended. What is prayer if not a spell? It's an invocation of magical intervention, whether for healing, for safety, for good fortune, for forgiveness, for salvation, etc. Prayer is our most common form of "accessing magic," something most of us think we understand and take for granted as real. Sometimes, such as in Catholicism, they're even written down, memorized, and repeated ritualistically for a specific purpose. So it's little wonder that so many people think of magic--and even the world--in these terms.] Though we're "modern," we still work on caveman principles at our deepest, most intuitive levels. This mode of relating to the world "speaks" to us.

So when you consider the fact that most people can't distinguish science from psuedo-science, and often blur the line between science and religion, it's not surprising that we enjoy stories that feed into this blurring, that reinforces our own biases, ignorance, and desires. To have magic conform to rules and rituals, to mimic both scholarship and science, and yet still tap into those desires that transcend reason or reality, it's the perfect bridge between truth and fantasy ... our inability to deny or escape reality, and (yet) our desire to do just that. Spells allow us to approach the unapproachable in a stepwise fashion, so that we can imagine we're making progress. On the other hand, everyone knows that you can't simply will magical things to happen, so it's a lot harder to suspend disbelief for that brand of wizardry.