It seems like in a lot of fantasy literature that the use of magic comes with a price. But I was wondering, does this have to be the case? Now my own personal POV is that no it doesn't it is fantasy and as long as you are consistent anything pretty much goes. However, I am drawn to the laws of motion "If I exhert a force on a body in equilibrium, that body will exhert an equal yet opposite force on me" Which is a fundamental law of physics. Which If I apply to magic, it means that what ever I do, it will come back at me equally but in the opposite way to maintain a status quo. In my WIP I have a race of humans who are different to the mainstream human in that they have inherent magic within them that allows them to control the forces of nature and laws of physics. This magic pretty much breaks the first law of thermodynamics "Energy can not be created n'or destroyed but is converted from one form to another" Here Energy is magic. My question is: Do you see a problem with this? and must magic always come with a price? Thanks
Speaking as an avid reader: no, it has never occurred to me to expect that magic has to come with a price. I have read books where it is explained how any spell you cast brings about or can bring about an opposite effect of some kind. I don't like it. I want magic to be free or almost free. That's the very point of magic. As far as I am concerned, magic is not supposed to be hard work or selling your soul to the devil or risking to turn yourself into a toad when you get one syllable wrong.
IMO, yes. But it's less to do with real world logic and more to do with narrative balance, to me -- if anyone can just do anything with magic at any time, most plots would be rendered trivial, so I put restrictions on magic / supernatural abilities. It's kind of like setting your story in the 70s so that key elements of your plot can't be made irrelevant by the existence of smartphones, right? I'd still apply logic to how your magic works, but it doesn't have to be that real world logic that obeys the laws of physics, necessarily -- it just has to obey its own magical rules. Often the cost for using magic is that it tires the user out, they need to be able to focus to use it, they have to use certain objects as foci for the magic, they have to know the right words, it takes practice to do it right, etc. If you've got something like that in place, I don't see a problem. Hell, if you can figure out how to write a compelling story where magic is free and easy, I don't see any problem with that, either.
This in a nut shell, and personally I have always disdained the overpowered hero/villain, I don't even care about Superman. It just doesn't appeal to me, and when it comes to villains like the Apocalypse it just annoys me more than anything when the heroes can beat him in some derpy way. So yea, I feel there needs to be a balance. Now for me, I have things like Parents putting spell blocks on their children, and even headaches or inhibitors for psychic characters. Usually after showing their full potential of power, I.E. Psychotic break, they typically fall into becoming brain dead or a coma. But, then there are those times, when you just enjoy the super powered character just ripping through everyone that stands in it's way. and that can also be enjoyable too, I have one character who does that.
Thanks Izzybot, In my WIP on a select few have been born with the ability to manipulate the laws of nature, but they still have to learn to harness them. They also have unnatural long life, i.e. live for 1000 of years, they are essentially immortal, but can be killed. I intend them to be a druid like people. So will see how this pans out!
Imagine it in terms of a video game. Abilities need strengths and weaknesses to keep the game play balanced. This is especially true in multiplayer games. Single player games where the focus is on the individual experience tend to allow you to essentially become a God, like Skyrim for instance. The problem is this tends to get boring. The idea that sacrifice is required to wield power is interesting and can be related with, and is implemented in many games for the reason that it highlights the that your choices and actions have consequences, good and bad. Absolute power with no consequences to its use is just corrupt, and unless that's what you're trying to purvey in your story I think it would otherwise be boring.
This is also a good point, without checks and balances, what is to stop someone who is unfettered by the laws of common man to commit acts of evil or in self interest. It's usually a typical theme in books to the good guys try to keep things balanced and fair, or at least as best as they can. I also do agree that it would be boring as hell. Edit: By the way, great Avatar, Love Frog.
I feel like there is a difference between magic requiring a fuel and magic having a price. Imagine all spells cost an ounce of fairy dust, and I have 20 ounces. That's burning fuel. Same thing if the magic makes you sleepy. To me, a price would be like giving up your soul or summoning demons or losing the use of your hands or your first born dying... something like that. The equal and opposite thing sounds good, but does it really work? Like, if I cast "cause disease" on you, does "cure disease" come back on me? When you fire a handgun, there is an opposite and equal reaction. The gun pushes back into your hands with the same force as what it shoots. But firearms have different means of handling the recoil. The force is spread over your whole hand instead of just a point. Some of the force can load the next bullet in certain weapons, and so on. Firing a gun would be a whole lot more difficult if the handle was a point aimed into your body.
I voted no, but as @izzybot pointed out, the commonality of this feature is simply the ease with which it can be flexed to limit the way magic gets used in a fantasy piece. You can also limit magic by simply keeping it "low wattage", but the people do like their occasional grand display of power at some point in a story wherein magic occurs. Limitless magic makes for a story where no bind is ever an issue, everything is immediately and easily resolved with just an incantation, the Eagles can just take you to Mordor and back, so why bother with this whole faff of a journey, shit like that.
In my story, magic has a 'physical' cost. Not in the 'arm and a leg' sense of Full Metal Alchemist, but in the sense that if you run too much, your body gets exhausted. If you go too long without sleep, you pass out from exhaustion. If you magic too hard, it starts to pull too much from you and you get exhausted. I feel like 'price' is relative. Sure, a lot of things use the 'it'll cost you an arm and a leg' bit to prevent people from just magicking willy-nilly, but it doesn't necessarily *have* to mean that, I don't think. I like to use the example of making a mountain tap-dance. The mountain doesn't want to tapdance. You have to want it to tapdance more than it wants to not tapdance. The stronger your magic, the stronger your will, the closer you come to making the mountain dance. But if the mountain is stronger than you (and it will be stronger than the average person), and you put everything you have into it, you'll lose everything. Like...uh, like a car bumper. It's made to take a certain amount of force before it breaks. It'll absorb that much, and then it can't absorb anymore. If your magic is stronger, you outdo the mountain and it begins to tap. If it's stronger, it pulls and it pulls until you're exhausted...if you keep trying, the price is your life. Like running yourself to death. How does a mountain dance, you ask? Why, it taps its foothills, of course. What a silly question.
In Harry potter there doesn't seem to be a price, other than a possibility of a rebound! In terms of price perhaps I should clarify, I don't mean that the magician gets tired after using his magic, as I see this as being a no brainer. I mean things like a part of you dies or something similar happens every time you use your magic. I am thinking Cause and Causality.
I wouldn't say there needs to be a 'price' as such, but a price or penalty can keep magical stuff from being used frivolously. There might also be some sort of requirement for it as well. It's not a price to pay, exactly, but some kind of requirement you must meet in order to be able to use magic at all, or the number of times it can be used within a given period, or something like that. It's kind of like any other talent, really. If you are a world-class concert-grade pianist, you will need to practice for hours every day to keep your hand in. And there will be lots of ordinary things you will not be able to do, including take long vacations from the piano. Perhaps your personal life will suffer because you are so wrapped up in your art. You will be constantly touring, so your home life will be highly disrupted. Just about everything has a price, doesn't it? Unfettered magic can make it too easy for characters to navigate the story, depending on what their particular kind of magic is. If magic makes everything come easy and there is no downside, I think you'll struggle to make a gripping story out of it.
No, there isn't a "price" in that system. The magic of that world is limited through the paradigm of This Shit Is Hard To Do™. Again, no, that's not an obligatory limiting feature, but it certainly is one of a range of options. So, as regards the initial question of: No, it doesn't have to be the case. What does seem to need to be the case is that some limiting factor be in play, of which, again, there are options, one of which is the "price" paradigm.
There isn’t one. That’s just my observation. In that world magic has to be learned, is a skill, often requires items that are hard to come by, in short: This Shit Is Hard To Do. ETA: And before someone comes and smugly explains how epically wrong I am because there are magicking and non-magicking people in that world, that some people are born with the ability and others not... Yes, that's correct, but those born with the capacity still have to learn to make use of it, hence an entire school and educational program around which the series is based. It's like being an elephant. All elephants are born with a trunk, but, believe it or not, baby elephants have to learn to control their trunks as prehensile appendages. They aren't born with the innate knowledge, just the capacity to learn it.
Magic doesn't have to follow science, and also the second law of thermodynamics is crap (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_demon), so what's to say the first one isn't to? I realize that logic is deeply flawed. but its fantasy so do whatever you want.
I think there does need to be a cost, for a variable definition of cost. I mean, a lot of things in life have a cost in the form of money, energy, or time. With magic, you are forgoing any sort of time cost so there needs to be some sort of balance there. Let's say you want to use magic to make a cake instead of baking it yourself. You aren't using the ingredients or the time it would normally take to make the cake, so you might pay with energy to summon the cake out of nowhere. Or you're teleporting the cake from somewhere else, in which case you might have a few problems. There needs to be a reaction for every action taken, and that includes magic.
@WaffleWhale, what you link to is the Maxwell Demon, which was a thought experiment by Maxwell, in his thought experiment, the changes in velocities would equate to a change in temperature and therefore a breach of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. However physicists have explained this subsequently as in reality, the demons would have to expend energy to measure the speeds of the molecules, and therefore the energy expended would probably be equal to the energy change in the chambers, to maintain equilibrium. Read the criticism part of the article you linked to. I do however like this thought experiment! Thanks for bringing it my attention.
Depending on how they control the forces of nature or laws of physics, to some extent the outcome of their actions is the price. To cause an earthquake causes suffering to the people in that area is a price. Whatever they do the after affects are theirs for them to live with. Unless they are evil and enjoy that control, but then others will want to remove their powers/destroy them for their actions, so in some way there will be a price. As you said with equal and opposites, it's hard to avoid the rules of the universe... ETA I like your 3rd option in the poll, I wish that was on ballot papers
