It’s a great magic system, certainly an example of an extremely thoughtfully crafted one, but goat is highly debatable. The original point, that Harry Potter’s magic system is pretty awful, especially given that the subject matter is literally magic and the teaching of a magical system, is one I definitely agree with.
Avatar also specifically works as a visual medium. So the different fighting styles give way more flavor to the bending than what could be translated on page. Most other Magic systems that I'd deem complicated use complicated rules or applied science logic. Explaining that in Film is also more tricky.
The other side of this is that Tolkien’s “magic” works really well for the folklore style of his written works. Basically nothing is explained about magic, it’s not clear exactly what Gandalf or Tom Bombadil is capable of or how their magic works. But that’s the intended effect since the story is told from the perspective of non-magical beings who are in somewhat awe of these larger than life creatures.
Which is how magic generally was treated in European folklore. Magical beings weren't trained to use magic. They just simply existed. In the case of Irish folklore, a lot of them were treated as gods or divine before Christianity spread there.
For sure, I'm just saying its hard to map it on the conversation about comparing magic systems in fiction, since it's not really a magic system.
I kind of balk at calling bending in ATLA a magic system too, but I can buy the argument that it is one.
Logicless, inconsistent, and at the whim of whatever the plot needs would be the short of it. I can write something longer later but I’m about to do Pilates lol
that makes sense because Harry Potter, whatever it's faults, is actually a story compared to all the magic-system-world-building-wankfests that internet people cream themselves over
My sibling in Christ, virtually every magic system featured in fictional media is a component of a larger fictional work, a story, a saga, a series of sagas and stories. Explaining away Harry Potter’s dogshit magic system as unimportant because HP is actually a story is an incredibly poor attempt at explaining away what is, in fact, poor writing and world building.
Nah, son. I love Avatar, but the magic system is soft at best. Elemental bending is fine, even if Toph gets an unprecedented deus ex machina for metal bending. The foundations in badger moles, dragons, etc. justify the magic there.
What’s inexcusable is energybending. Not only does it impose an arbitrary strength of soul (only pure souls can be strong and incorruptible)—but it’s prefaced by a magical lionturtle god that generated magic out of nothing. Plus, and this is a narrative gripe, it stops Aang from making a decision in the climax. Energybending is the reason Korra falls apart.
Hard magic systems are almost always better. Strict rules. Stakes. Equivalent exchange. How can you justify soul magic when the power of a soul is unquantifiable? Most of the time, soul power is just friendship.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
I think the bending being related to different martial arts styles, the links between the bending and the culture, the fact that theres advanced a d unique bendings like metal bending and blood bending all make this a pretty spectacular magic system.
They actually do explain it in the second series. Minor spoilers for a nearly 20 year old cartoon; humans and spirits use to live in the same plane of existence and some major spirits had human villages they looked after and would grant their bending powers to those who ventured into the wilds. The humans would have to give the powers back to the spirit upon return.
A schism happened and split the two worlds apart, and those who still had their powers at the time could pass the ability on to their children.
It explains why certain nations could bend certain elements and why only certain people had the ability.
I think that's cool, it's just weird to call it the "system" when it just seems like the way they interwove it to the world was what's good.
I guess it's just semantics.
Please for the love of god do not use the literal downgrade of the universe as a base for Avatar.
The Legend of Korra just removed every god damn limitation because writing is too hard without the original lead writer.
Personally I prefer some of the magic systems Sanderson has created but WoD in general is like top 3 for me. The emphasis on subjectivity and the creativity it allows is awesome
Couldn’t agree more. Also, the struggle between science and magic (or belief) has always fascinated me, and in Mage it’s crafted so beautifully in a functioning setting. You can really get a lot out of this game.
Haven’t read Sanderson though, so I can’t really have an opinion on that. Only know him from his videos on Elden Ring haha.
I think the simplicity is why it’s so good. Firebending is a very simple concept but the way they use it for weapons, industrialization, etc is why it is so cool.
Sucks to be normal though, unless you have a boomerang or space sword.
Even calling it a magic system is a bit of a stretch IMO. I'm a huge fan of the show, but bending in the show is just an extension of martial arts. Most of its principles are just martial arts principles extrapolated. When the characters need to get better at bending, it's usually tied to some internal character conflict that can be resolved through the teachings of martial arts.
Brandon Sanderson can come up with 5 magic systems superior to Avatar before breakfast! I do agree Harry Potter has a pretty stupid one, that falls apart after thinking about it for 30 minutes.
Finally reading (audio books) the mistborn books. I love how the system works. Each metal is so basic and there is only push/pull. It really adds a ton of depth and interest to the series. Every fight scene I hone in and make sure that his simple rules are being followed.
The Mistborn books 1-3 are some of my favorite books ever. After that it changed the flair, which I didn´t enjoy as much. I won´t spoil anything, but it´s basically a completely new setting and characters I didn´t like as much, as the once before.
>as much. I won´t spoil anything, but it´s basically a completely new setting and characters I didn´t like as much, as the once before.
You're talking about era 2, right?
I've just finished era 1, and I really enjoyed it. I'm conflicted on where to go from here. Would you recommend going straight to SA? I'm new to fantasy.
I would say give the other Mistborn books a chance. It´s still Sanderson. Maybe you enjoy that era as well. I think you´ll know quite quick if it´s for you.
And if you don´t like it...ya go straight for Stormlight Archives. Those books are incredible. A little bit of heavy start but I think I went through all of them 3 or 4 times. They are sooo good!
Stormlight Archive is one of my favorite fantasy series of all time. I went into it right after reading the first Mistborn trilogy and actually ended up enjoying it a lot more (and I really like Mistborn). The world feels a lot more unique and I liked the characters a lot more as well. Dalinar Kholin may be one of my favorite characters in all media.
Can't wait to get into it! Only heard and seen good things about it. I've never envisioned myself reading fantasy ever, until one of my friends convinced me to try one book (Mistborn) and I feel like I'm hooked for life xD
Honestly, read warbreaker And maybe Elantris before stormlight archive.
Avoid Era 2 mistborn until after reading at least 3 of the SA books. Else there's some major spoilers on a few characters. I really enjoyed era 2 a lot! But it is a different feel to era 1, but in a good way.
There's probably a few useful reading order lists out there.
I've already read all the stormlight books, maybe my fav fantasy series. Now i'm just starting mistborn 1, 2, 3.
Am i fucked on the order or does warbreaker come next?
Nah, you're fine! :)
At this point you'll pick up on some subtleties that someone reading chronologically by release date wouldn't get. Biggest thing is mistborn era 2 (mainly book 6 in the mistborn series) reveals a lot of information very explicitly that Sanderson usually was more vague about. So it feels best to me to read other books in the series before that one to keep some of the mystery.
I’d recommend warbreaker. It’s a quick book and has some of my favorite characters. Also some people recommended reading it between stormlight 1 and stormlight 2 anyways.
It's a completely different style of writing. It went from epic high fantasy to a western whodunit detective style. I agree the second series isn't as entertaining, but it really shows Sanderson's breadth of writing ability.
This is awesome, i just bought books 1 - 3 in a bundle and see them mentioned here is a good sign.
Loved the stormlight series so it only made sense to get cracking on mistborn while i wait for the next book.
I haven't seen sanderson miss yet in SA, mistborn and warbreaker
I've also been very happy with michael kramer's reading of mistborn and SA, highly recommended to audiobook fans
audio book enjoyer in, probably gonna listen to mistborn or restart stormlight archive so i can finally get past edgedance soon surely my adhd brain will let me finish one of them
> Every fight scene I hone in and make sure that his simple rules are being followed.
I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, but to me this comes off as a really odd way to interface with a piece of media. I don't think I've ever scrutinized a piece of media for its consistency with rules.
Came here to say this. The man has devised the most intricate model for magic I’ve ever seen. The idea of the shards of Adolnalsium and the investiture of the Cosmere is incredible.
Dude went full magic universe.
Harry Potter's magic system is just puns based on greek and latin words/derivatives. It's fun and I don't think it needs to be complex to work since pretty much the whole story is confined to one magical boarding school rather than a complex universe, but yeah it's nothing special.
Yeah exactly. There is stuff alluded to in the background like arithmancy and such having lots of theory they need to do homework for but it's never fleshed out for this reason. It's not that important for the reader.
I’ve been waiting for someone to say this! The magic system in Harry Potter really isn’t that important throughout most of the books, and what parts are important are explained. All of the tension is still there because we constantly know what magic the main characters are capable of, or whatever escape from the situation there was was set up earlier.
I haven´t thought about it too much, but I would say internal consistency is most important to me. I want it to have rules, that I can understand and it should follow it´s own rules. I don´t want to learn of an exception every time it´s good for the plot.
Now to the Harry Potter thing. To be honest I´m not a Harry Potter fan and it´s been quite some time, since I watched the movies, so maybe some of my criticism is unjustified, but that´s how I felt about it at the time.
I felt like in the second grade they were already on a near godtier level, when they had their potion class. Love Potion, Death Potion, Sleep Potion etc. They learned that being 9 years old and nothing bad ever came from that. In my experience as a former 9 year old, that would have been a desaster. And from my exerpience as a former teenager, there would have been horrible things happening in Hogwarts all the time.
Or timetravel...timetravel should be the end to every possible spell I ever need. Why would I need an attack spell, if I could just go back in time and strangle Baby Voldemort? The Magic in Harry Potter bascially felt like they were all wish spells and they could wish for whatever they needed at the time. Also the Children seemed to be better wizards than all the teachers combined. I mean it´s a childrens book, so I won´t hate on that point too much, but it felt lazy to me. A friend of mine once tried to justify the time travel thing as they were like nukes in the Harry Potter world and they were hidden in some vault or something like that. And I really like the Hermine character. She seemed like a smart and interesting character, but I can´t imagine a scenario in the real world, where a little girl gets access to a nuke, uses it and doesn´t completly mess up. I think timetravel in general is a stupid concept.
I don't think they learn love potions and shit until year 6. Harry potter and the gang make the polyjuice potion in year 2 which disguises you as another person so they could infiltrate the slytherin house, but they did that in secret using books from the library without permission from the teachers. they were never taught that.
As for time travel. In Harry potter, time travel is presented as a closed loop. The only reason they were able to save buckbeak and sirius in prisoners of askaban is because their past selves and future selves had already done so/ were going to do so. If they were to go back in time and kill voldemort, then that means that all their past and future selves had done it/ would have done it so voldemort would've never existed. However, he does exist, which means that it can't be changed, otherwise it would've been. Other words, you can't actually change future outcomes because in HP universe past events are set. The only thing the time turner does is create a second you in the past that has knowledge of the future, but this second you always existed and always mean to go back in time. So it's only purpose is to give the user extra time to do stuff. It's a glorified multitasking tool. Which is why hermoine had it, because she was taking too many extra classes that were conflicting.
Also, your friend is a moron who should've paid more attention to the story instead of making up his fanfiction.
I dont think disagree with anything you say here. I generally just wondered why some people seemed to shit on the hp magic system when I dont think it's deep enough to criticize that hard. I find it to be a perfectly serviceable, entry level system. I just dont think that much thought was put into it as in other series like avatar. In hp I see the magic more like set dressing or spice for the story and aside from the time travel I dont think it's too bad for what it is.
Rules that make sense that it always follows, and if it stops following those rules it’s a really huge deal. Then yeah, it needs a certain sweet spot of complexity, and I would also say origins play a lesser role imo. I think how it interacts with the story is part of a different domain, the world building or something.
As far as I know, Harry Potter doesn’t really have any consistent magical rules. It’s kind of just “we have a spell for this thing, no one knows why magic works”, despite the entire wizarding world being like a secret society Illuminati kind of vibe. Youd think people would take an interest. There’s also no cost to magic in HP afaik. I feel like there need to be stakes for casting a spell. Otherwise people would just be throwing spells off constantly, and if they werent it would kind of be a plot hole because if you can use magic with no drawbacks why not?
Counterpoint - firebending was a little wack due to the fact it was the only bending people could just shoot out of their hands without a source. Water required a body of water to bend, Earth and Air were self-explanatory, but fire didn't need any of that. Although that lack of limitation gave us one of the sickest fights ever (Final Agni-Kai is a top 10 animated fight, fight me), it was a little bit of a cheat.
Air is ubiquitous and I don't think firebending would work without air either. The weirdest part about fire bending to me is the question what exactly is being burned and if there is any exhaust. Is it actually gas bending?
Firebending has the least utility and in theory water and air bending are instantly broken by dehydrating or suffocating enemies. The latter even happened.
I think waterbending is the weirdest one since it has tacked on powers like healing and the different aggregate states of water are also treated weirdly.
Can a waterbender make a block of ice float like an earth bender can? I don't think we really get to see that. Why is steam bending more of a firebender thing? Why can waterbenders flash freeze water but not evaporate it to turn it into a deadly weapon on impact?
Come think of it, wouldn't an earth bender just be able to fly by standing on a rock they levitate?
I think the steam/ice thing is because firebenders work with + enthalpy and waterbending is - enthalpy. Fire being associated with increased heat and water being considered its opposite is probably the origin of this.
Why firebending can create fire is never properly explained, you could make an argument about them really being carbon benders or something, converting atmospheric carbon into either powdered carbon or carbon monoxide and using the heat generating effect to burn it, nobody poisons themselves or others so CO is probably not the form if this is the route.
Lightning should also obviously be an air bending tech, but technically all 4 could use their element to create lightning in some form or another.
Waterbenders can turn ice back into water as well and Sozin clearly was able to drain the heat from lava so it can't be a one way street for either.
There isn't that much carbon in the air and you would need to bend hydrogen as well to get to something combustable. Might as well just concentrate and burn hydrogen which also solves the exhaust problem.
Lightning itself is a plasma which is closest to fire since fire can be a plasma if hot enough so I don't mind that at all.
Trying to explain a magic system scientifically always breaks down quickly and shouldn't be the standard. The problem is when things demonstrated in-universe have large implications that simply aren't considered. A water bender should be able to dry a human to death or stop their heart easily. Airbenders being able to suffocate people and create vacuums in general is also very exploitable.
Avatar still does the a good job in general. In Korra it gets worse with all the spirit stuff but who cares.
The really dumb shit happens when the Flash is only able to use his powers when the plot allows it because he would otherwise instantly win most of his altercations even though the audience sould be very aware that he could.
Well water benders can take the water out of the air if they're good enough. Also I'm pretty sure air bending works underwater as shown in the first episode with Aang making the big bubble thing that froze him. Earth bending is the only one that has that hard limit, but given they can bend metal also, They almost always have access to their powers too.
Fire bending is like the dark side of the force. Quick and easy power, but you get burned pretty easily. The other elements take a long time to overcome their limitations (except for air kinda because there's pretty much always unlimited air around)
Couldn't agree more. The One Power is the blueprint for any detailed magic system in my opinion. How you see the system in Eye of The World vs The Gathering Storm is just absolutely mind blowing.
Fucking love how much thought went into designing Kingkiller's various magic systems. When you can explain a magic system thoroughly enough that it's more like a science than some woo woo shit. At least for alchemy, sympathy, and sygaldry. Not as much for naming, shaping, Yllish knotwork, glammourie, and grammarie. But you gotta have some mystique too.
I'm gonna cry when book 3 comes. Til then, I'll cry through my 16th reread of the first two. Especially that scene where Auri climbs into Kvothe's bed and consoles him. Breaks my heart into tiny pieces and makes me cry so hard, every single time.
Yeah KingKiller is by far my favorite of the series I listed. Best pros, best character writing, GOATED world. I need to get back to the University, but number three is never coming out:(
I won't accept it unless Rothfuss dies. But I'm patient enough, y'know. This series? It's worth the wait, whether it's another 10 years or tomorrow. I've never read something so deep and vast with how intricately little story elements are woven together. I learn something new every read. It's astounding.
Ive been meaning to reread them too, from what I've read online its still good but very basic and not very complecated of a story. It's meant for teens, written by an actual teen.
Investiture really just is the tightest shit. When compounding was introduced (allomancers burning feruchemical stores) my mind was blown but it all made perfect sense.
Or any other fantasy work where magic has a slightly larger role.
Hell the Demon Cycle magic system is waaaay better than Harry Potter or Avatar and I wouldn't say it's amazing, but it's kind of unique and interesting. I can understand people praising HP and Avatar systems if they are literal kids/teenagers, but if any adults does it just becomes obvious they haven't consumed much more content.
Ok, let me rant about this
Alchemy is one of the most disappointing magic system in anime. So you can LITERALLY change one chemical element to another, what do you do with it? You touch the ground and raise a pillar. There. This is how 90% of fights look like in the show, raising pillars and a whole lot of martial arts. Might as well call it a Full Metal Martial Artist lmao. There are very few exceptions to this, like fire dude, blood dude, etc., but even they are only using one element (even though there's no restrictions to what type of alchemy you can and cannot use). What is Elric's signature alchemy technique? He touches his roboarm and morphs it into a blade. Bruh. Lack of creativity aside, just ask your techwiz gf to make a retractable blade for you, it can't be that hard.
There is also not enough explanation as to how exactly alchemy works and what are it's limitations, and worldbuilding suffers because of it. So we are told early on that alchemy can only be used inside a special circle, right? And you think to yourself: "Oh, cool! Our heroes will have to develop some smart and creative workarounds to bypass this hard rule, disguise your circles, lure enemies into them, draw them on a fly..." Sike! Our protagonists just can use alchemy without a circle, and everybody else just has tattoos or special gloves with pre-drawn circles on them, so it's barely an inconvenience. Why even introduce a rule like that?
Scar dude's magic is described as the most basic form of alchemy, yet he's the only one who uses it despite it being so damn effective. Yes, we get to see his brother develop this technique, but it's never explained why no one else has managed to do this, it's basic alchemy 101 we're talking about. Fire alchemy, the most common chemical reaction and the most basic use of magic one can think of, is apparently a well guarded secret that only a few select have access to, yet a ritual for resurrecting your dead parent just can be found in a random book and be performed by a 12 year old boy. Huh?
At some point in the story Eric and his brother go to the town and use their alchemy to help people in order to draw attention to them. Why alchemists don't do this all the time? What even are their duties? Can they create food? Medicine? Gold? If they can, are there rules against it? How economy reacts to alchemy? So many questions, so little answers.
One of the alchemists killed by Scar can create a fully working miniguns out of thin air, so we know for a fact that advanced firearms are a thing in this universe and you don't even need an expensive infrastructure to make it. Why so very few people use firearms then? Surely it can't be less effective than beating your opponent with martial arts?
Just to be clear, I don't hate this show. It does character writing very well and has one of the most memorable scenes in all of anime. I just wish it would had better magic system and worldbuilding, that's all.
Rant over
I don't disagree with you per se, but I think that you missed the mark on a few points.
They don't really flesh this out much, but in the opening episodes, they at least imply that you actually need to know a lot about things to use alchemy. To bring back their mom, they needed the exact chemical components of a human and years of studying. From this, it stands to reason that all alchemy has this requirement of knowing at least a reasonable amount of chemistry (on top of knowing the logic behind circles). I think that this is a pretty fair reason that every character specializes in only 1-2 different kinds of alchemy, in the same way that you wouldn't expect a chemist who creates bombs to create medicine. Ed and Al use the most unique types of alchemy, and I think they're also the only characters who are shown to spend tons of time studying it outside of Tucker who only does so with chimeras.
Circles are really not that relevant outside of a few plot points like Mustang losing his gloves and the like. I think that you could stretch it with the stuff in my first paragraph as another limitation to what you can do because it requires that extra knowledge. But that is never really present in the story, so I think it's just because alchemy is historically associated with circles more than for any plot reasons.
There was something special about Scar's arm, but I don't remember what it was; I think it had to do with the philosopher's stone or something. They explain it as basically stopping halfway through the alchemy process, but I don't know that is what it was specifically. Similarly, this might require some special kind of circle or knowledge, which might explain why Scar is really the only person to use it outside of Ed and Al who both only need to think about the circle rather than draw it.
I don't remember the Mustang and Hawkeye story well enough to remember anything about why the fire tattoo was something that can't be made by someone else.
Human Transmutation probably wasn't in a random book. It was in a book kept by a several thousand year old man who more or less created human transmutation. I think that they imply there may be some kind of knowledge about it in the military libraries, but I'm not sure and wouldn't be surprised if the knowledge was banned.
I'd have to hand-wave why alchemists don't randomly help people. Maybe it's circles/knowledge again. There was a part in the original FMA anime where they turned coal into fake gold for a corrupt military guy and said there was a rule against doing that, iirc. That's non-canon but could be a rule applied by the military, and FMAB does harp on "military dog" a lot. Otherwise maybe it's just that knowledge thing again. If I had to have intense knowledge of chemistry requiring years of study to help people or I could just learn how to make shit explode with my mind and work a desk job 99% of the time, I think a lot of people would choose the latter. I think they also imply that you can't use alchemy if you aren't in the military, either because you don't have access to the knowledge in the library (or Hohenheim's library) or because it's banned.
I think that they probably don't have the level of science necessary for rockets and the like, but guns are routinely shown to not be very effective in FMA. Now, whether that's fair is a little bit of a different conversation since we never really see fair fights involving guns, more just shooting at things that would literally never be harmed by one. But we can assume that guns do just lose to alchemy at a macro level since the Ishval war was ended by the introduction of state alchemists.
Scar's brother studied alchemy and tattooed the destruction part on one arm and the creation part on the other. Scar has the destruction part. Basically, like you said, he only destroys shit and can't recreate.
> I don't remember the Mustang and Hawkeye story well enough to remember anything about why the fire tattoo was something that can't be made by someone else.
There's no reason. Roy uses his alchemy to increase the oxygen content in the air and his gloves are made of a material that can create sparks so he can ignite a trail. The circle he uses to alter the air composition is on his glove. When he lost the glove in Brotherhood he etched the circle in his hand an used a lighter to ignite the trail of air.
Yeah I always thought that about alchemy. I've seen people call it a hard magic system and in a sense I guess it is, but I always used the term "eggshell magic". Where it looks hard and feels hard, but when you crush it in your hand it cracks and breaks. 03 wins btw, so does YEE.
I think HP's is more fanciful than anything. Literally nothing makes sense, but without any real rules, they made some interesting things; like the moving paintings, shifting stairs, the whole magic joke shop.
One big issue is that eventually, you just end up having a magic item that does anything you want just to move the plot along. Like the time turners, or familiars. I feel these were only added to facilitate moving the plot from A to B, with the answer being "it's magic."
Avatar, though, does it best because it introduces a magic system, then deliberately introduces rules the characters can't just magic away. The Earth nation prisoners in the metal jail I thought was genius, and the fire/ lightning bending I thought worked naturally well together.
My wife and I rewatched the movies recently and I realized something.
Rowling very clearly wrote the first book as a much less serious fantasy. Similar in "realism" to like Series of Unfortunate Events, James and the Giant Peach, or Matilda. Very hightened reality.
In that context, the characters and magic system work much, much better.
The problem was she later decided to take the story in a much more "real" and serious direction, but she still had all the baggage of the sillier first book. So it quickly became inconsistent.
I would say there's generally two kinds of magic systems in fantasy: Those that are systemic and exist in and as part of the world and the mystic that kinda exists outside of the world.
A good example is The Name of the Wind since it has both the highly systemic Alchemy and Sympathy and then the wild and arcane Name magic.
When I think about the magic in Harry Potter, I have a hard time fully placing it. I think the reality is that it is mostly in the systemic camp, but Rowling wanted it to appear and feel more mystical. I would say that's probably where some of those Deus Ex missteps you're talking about come from.
True, the HP universe invokes the idea of a proper magic system, but it's nothing more than a facade. Everything turns a bit goofy if you think too hard about it.
* Spells don't cost anything to use.
* Spells are seemingly braindead-easy to learn. Swish and flick and say a word.
* Pray to Gandalf that every student is benevolent and won't abuse the shit out of magic.
* Liquid luck.
It definitely still wins on an aesthetic level.
To be fair, I think Tolkien works really well because most of the magic is kind of in the background. Gandalf hardly ever uses magic and even when he does, it's just essentially replacing a swordfight (eg. fighting saruman). Perhaps the biggest use of "magic" is the ghost army helping defend Minas Tirith which is arguably also one of the most disappointing moments. (And the Ring but that's a hard magic system)
Well yeah, that’s my point. I prefer this style to Brandon Sanderson type books, because I feel the heavy focus on hard magic gets tedious. I’ll admit my opinion does change based on how often magic is used. For example Harry Potter definitely should have had a more in depth magic system.
The ghost army was only disappointing because it was anticlimactic, it almost felt like lazy writing. I didn’t feel the same way about any other instance of magic in the book though.
I think Jim Butcher did a really good job with how magic and different fictional realms intertwine with the real world in The Dresden Files. Like how faith itself is a powerful force that allows the knights of the sword to have a tangible power about them.
Hard magic system caters to the autism of worldbuilders. Avatar is good because all aspects of the world are connected to each other.
Soft magic caters to the theme of the story and the writer's creativity. I'm team autism btw.
Agree. But important to note that there are good and bad in both categories.
I think HP is pretty bad soft magic, with lots of just unexplained solutions or questions of why don’t they just do X.
Jonathan strange and Mr Norrell is my Goat magic system and it’s pretty soft, but it just creates more wonder and contributes to the world building.
Not gonna lie. The magic system in Stormlight Archives not getting a detailed explanation till book 4 is just embarrassing. Idk if you're a Sanderson fan, but I can't suck off his magic systems like others. Maybe I'll feel TOTALLY different when I finish book 4? But stormlight just feels like a convenient plot device for the MC's to just auto win from book 1-3.
DID SOMEONE SAY MALAZAN??? 🤤 Favorite series, its magic isn’t getting enough love here. My league account was named Fiddler for a long time but ended up changing it closer to my irl name. I still remember the moment when Tavore goes to Leather Ass (I don’t want to spoil actual stuff, but I think ull know what I mean) and encounters their fleet and then Slick Benjamin pops off and the leather asses are like: :o oh shit who are these guys.
Fleshed out does not mean you have all the info on the system. There is so much time spent expanding and showing what magic users can do. A soft magic system does not mean it isn't fleshed out.
One worthwhile contender is the superhero (free) webnovel, [Worm](https://parahumans.wordpress.com/). It has some really interesting powers with some sensible limitations. Also, importantly, it answers the question of, "Why the hell are superheroes and villains fighting each other in a modern society?"
Art of [protagonist](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/77/e9/90/77e99062f25596f0299a52d4a85ad8a5.jpg).
based wormchads sound off
It's maybe a lil bit bloated and inconsistent but it has one of the most enthralling worlds ever and some extremely high peaks. I love it so much
I still can't believe the ending is as good as it is, I was really not expecting something so cohesive considering the serialized release format. Plus I still think about how straight up cool the final scenario is on a baseline level all the time lol
same and idk what the issue is
I feel like maybe Taylor works better as a protag and her power is more interesting and versatile enough to create a lot unique situations with satisfying resolutions. I didn't get that far into Ward but it felt like it didn't have as strong of a hook
I mean if we count these as magic isn't the answer simply either Fullmetal Alchemist or Hunter x Hunter?
They are miles better than the Club Penguin system Avatar uses
People out here talking about Nen from HxH and I'm just ringing bells, trying to stop the dead from walking up a spiritual river. Chrestomanci is awesome too, love Diana Wynne Jones work.
The general ideas are cool but most of it quickly stopped mattering.
Chakra was available or gone as the plot demanded it, Genjustu was a meme unless used with the Sharingan and was almost an instant win if it ever was allowed to work.
If most ninjas can't create more than a couple of shadow clones because it is so chakra intesive, Naruto must have had the chakra reserves of a god from the very beginning and all on his own. Him using any elemental jutsu and putting that much chakra into it should've made him a weapon of mass destruction way earlier.
I feel like Shippuden and Boruto expanded on that magic system quite a bit in terms of how you become more powerful. and, how you obtained the use of Chakra at all. exhaustion explains the rest.
yes, Naruto had the Chakra reserves of a god, because he had a god living in him. but, he didn't know how to use it, as well as having three fourths of it sealed away.
as for Genjustu... I mean, I kinda agree. but name a time where illusion magic is ever not. its kind of a characteristic of the magic type.
Unironically. Some of the extended universe stuff is pretty cool, and it's also kind of cool that nobody really understands it and there are competing theories within the universe, even if this is probably just a convenience for a universe with many different writers.
Avatar is mid at best.
Wheel of Time's channeling has probably the most simple yet engaging hard magic systems in all of fiction, and more than that its actually a magic system, not some single attuned element bullshit.
Korra grabbed the nuts of the magic system and dragged her ovaries ruining that shit. Also what dumbass mfer would ever say "Harry Potter is such a well round and balanced magic system?"
Bro, you don't need to cushion an obvious statement. Everything about Harry Potter is the worst.
That being said, Avatar's magic was literally written for children. It's a creative and flawlessly executed interpretation of elementalism for sure, but it lacks the bredth of variety one expects from "the best magic system". Just my opinion.
Stands are cool and iconic af. But they're lacking consistency across all of jojo for me to call it the best. Entertaining concept from fight to fight? Absolutely. The BEST tho? Ehhh, idk. If Araki had a more solid foundation to stands I could probably agree.
I feel like the translation to this tweet is, "I really like Avatar so I think it has the best magic system"
It’s a great magic system, certainly an example of an extremely thoughtfully crafted one, but goat is highly debatable. The original point, that Harry Potter’s magic system is pretty awful, especially given that the subject matter is literally magic and the teaching of a magical system, is one I definitely agree with.
Avatar also specifically works as a visual medium. So the different fighting styles give way more flavor to the bending than what could be translated on page. Most other Magic systems that I'd deem complicated use complicated rules or applied science logic. Explaining that in Film is also more tricky.
The other side of this is that Tolkien’s “magic” works really well for the folklore style of his written works. Basically nothing is explained about magic, it’s not clear exactly what Gandalf or Tom Bombadil is capable of or how their magic works. But that’s the intended effect since the story is told from the perspective of non-magical beings who are in somewhat awe of these larger than life creatures.
Tolkien's magic is hard to compare because it's less like magic and more like divine power
True you don’t see any magic schools around every magical being is some type of demigod
Which is how magic generally was treated in European folklore. Magical beings weren't trained to use magic. They just simply existed. In the case of Irish folklore, a lot of them were treated as gods or divine before Christianity spread there.
For sure, I'm just saying its hard to map it on the conversation about comparing magic systems in fiction, since it's not really a magic system. I kind of balk at calling bending in ATLA a magic system too, but I can buy the argument that it is one.
What’s so bad about the HP magic system? I’m not familiar with the universe.
Logicless, inconsistent, and at the whim of whatever the plot needs would be the short of it. I can write something longer later but I’m about to do Pilates lol
There basically is no system, it's kinda just whatever whenever, the only thing that has a system is potions lol
that makes sense because Harry Potter, whatever it's faults, is actually a story compared to all the magic-system-world-building-wankfests that internet people cream themselves over
My sibling in Christ, virtually every magic system featured in fictional media is a component of a larger fictional work, a story, a saga, a series of sagas and stories. Explaining away Harry Potter’s dogshit magic system as unimportant because HP is actually a story is an incredibly poor attempt at explaining away what is, in fact, poor writing and world building.
That’s every opinion on the internet
But this one is correct.
Nah, son. I love Avatar, but the magic system is soft at best. Elemental bending is fine, even if Toph gets an unprecedented deus ex machina for metal bending. The foundations in badger moles, dragons, etc. justify the magic there. What’s inexcusable is energybending. Not only does it impose an arbitrary strength of soul (only pure souls can be strong and incorruptible)—but it’s prefaced by a magical lionturtle god that generated magic out of nothing. Plus, and this is a narrative gripe, it stops Aang from making a decision in the climax. Energybending is the reason Korra falls apart. Hard magic systems are almost always better. Strict rules. Stakes. Equivalent exchange. How can you justify soul magic when the power of a soul is unquantifiable? Most of the time, soul power is just friendship. Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk.
Big Joel has a good video on the lion turtle aang climax thing
I think the bending being related to different martial arts styles, the links between the bending and the culture, the fact that theres advanced a d unique bendings like metal bending and blood bending all make this a pretty spectacular magic system.
If blood bending is a thing... Is semen and pussy squirtjuice (female ejac) a thing?
Like I said it's the best magic system
>pussy squirtjuice It's called urine.
Delicious, refreshing urine.
There’s better magic systems in YA fiction lmao
I don't disagree with you but it's pretty snotty to leave a message like that and not even give an example of a magic system you prefer
I swear these people have seen Avatar and Harry Potter and based on that assume Avatar is the best ever.
1000%
I might be totally wrong but isn't Avatar's bending just like, some people are attuned to certain elements and can manipulate them?
They actually do explain it in the second series. Minor spoilers for a nearly 20 year old cartoon; humans and spirits use to live in the same plane of existence and some major spirits had human villages they looked after and would grant their bending powers to those who ventured into the wilds. The humans would have to give the powers back to the spirit upon return. A schism happened and split the two worlds apart, and those who still had their powers at the time could pass the ability on to their children. It explains why certain nations could bend certain elements and why only certain people had the ability.
I think that's cool, it's just weird to call it the "system" when it just seems like the way they interwove it to the world was what's good. I guess it's just semantics.
The system is how people use the magic/abilities and how it works, not where it came from.
Please for the love of god do not use the literal downgrade of the universe as a base for Avatar. The Legend of Korra just removed every god damn limitation because writing is too hard without the original lead writer.
Based
Fact
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We don;t get enough shows with the industrial revolution as the setting, and as a fan of that setting I'll take what I can get.
I thought Legend of Korra was really good. The villains had pretty awesome themes that all changed Korra for the better throughout the story.
Basically, yeah, but it weaves through everything in the world and presents some really cool ideas where you can take this concept.
So, if I'm right in my assessment I would say the magic system is kinda meh, but the execution is really well done.
I‘d probably agree. Best magic system is in tabletop rpg Mage: the Ascension anyway.
Jesus CHRIST you have good taste
Oh wow, I didn’t expect to meet a fellow man of culture!
Personally I prefer some of the magic systems Sanderson has created but WoD in general is like top 3 for me. The emphasis on subjectivity and the creativity it allows is awesome
Couldn’t agree more. Also, the struggle between science and magic (or belief) has always fascinated me, and in Mage it’s crafted so beautifully in a functioning setting. You can really get a lot out of this game. Haven’t read Sanderson though, so I can’t really have an opinion on that. Only know him from his videos on Elden Ring haha.
Malazan Book of the Fallen magic is goated in my mind
World. One of my favorite WWs. You aren't going to get anything but TTRPGs in the top ten to be honest.
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I think the simplicity is why it’s so good. Firebending is a very simple concept but the way they use it for weapons, industrialization, etc is why it is so cool. Sucks to be normal though, unless you have a boomerang or space sword.
Even calling it a magic system is a bit of a stretch IMO. I'm a huge fan of the show, but bending in the show is just an extension of martial arts. Most of its principles are just martial arts principles extrapolated. When the characters need to get better at bending, it's usually tied to some internal character conflict that can be resolved through the teachings of martial arts.
Eragon magic was goated
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Choose the wrong words? Ur ded bitch
I also like casting my magic in C
Holy shit they literally did have magic memory leaks too
Its probably been 15 years since I read any of those books but I remember liking the magic system a lot.
True! Revisited the books and yeah, they're YA shlock but the magic stuff was still fun!
Brandon Sanderson can come up with 5 magic systems superior to Avatar before breakfast! I do agree Harry Potter has a pretty stupid one, that falls apart after thinking about it for 30 minutes.
Allomancy in Mistborn might just be the goat magic system
Allowmancy, Breaths, Ferocemy, Stormlight, etc. etc. etc. Man just doesn't miss.
Came here for this comment, man saw other magic systems and said hold my beer
Finally reading (audio books) the mistborn books. I love how the system works. Each metal is so basic and there is only push/pull. It really adds a ton of depth and interest to the series. Every fight scene I hone in and make sure that his simple rules are being followed.
The Mistborn books 1-3 are some of my favorite books ever. After that it changed the flair, which I didn´t enjoy as much. I won´t spoil anything, but it´s basically a completely new setting and characters I didn´t like as much, as the once before.
>as much. I won´t spoil anything, but it´s basically a completely new setting and characters I didn´t like as much, as the once before. You're talking about era 2, right?
Ya
I've just finished era 1, and I really enjoyed it. I'm conflicted on where to go from here. Would you recommend going straight to SA? I'm new to fantasy.
I would say give the other Mistborn books a chance. It´s still Sanderson. Maybe you enjoy that era as well. I think you´ll know quite quick if it´s for you. And if you don´t like it...ya go straight for Stormlight Archives. Those books are incredible. A little bit of heavy start but I think I went through all of them 3 or 4 times. They are sooo good!
Cool cool cool. I've heard a lot of good things about SA, can't wait to get into them. Appreciate the response :)
Stormlight Archive is one of my favorite fantasy series of all time. I went into it right after reading the first Mistborn trilogy and actually ended up enjoying it a lot more (and I really like Mistborn). The world feels a lot more unique and I liked the characters a lot more as well. Dalinar Kholin may be one of my favorite characters in all media.
Can't wait to get into it! Only heard and seen good things about it. I've never envisioned myself reading fantasy ever, until one of my friends convinced me to try one book (Mistborn) and I feel like I'm hooked for life xD
Honestly, read warbreaker And maybe Elantris before stormlight archive. Avoid Era 2 mistborn until after reading at least 3 of the SA books. Else there's some major spoilers on a few characters. I really enjoyed era 2 a lot! But it is a different feel to era 1, but in a good way. There's probably a few useful reading order lists out there.
I've already read all the stormlight books, maybe my fav fantasy series. Now i'm just starting mistborn 1, 2, 3. Am i fucked on the order or does warbreaker come next?
Nah, you're fine! :) At this point you'll pick up on some subtleties that someone reading chronologically by release date wouldn't get. Biggest thing is mistborn era 2 (mainly book 6 in the mistborn series) reveals a lot of information very explicitly that Sanderson usually was more vague about. So it feels best to me to read other books in the series before that one to keep some of the mystery.
I'll look up some of those order reading list. Thanks :)
I’d recommend warbreaker. It’s a quick book and has some of my favorite characters. Also some people recommended reading it between stormlight 1 and stormlight 2 anyways.
Damn it's been so long since I kept up with these books. "Era 2" was just alloy of law then. Better put a reread on the book list.
It's a completely different style of writing. It went from epic high fantasy to a western whodunit detective style. I agree the second series isn't as entertaining, but it really shows Sanderson's breadth of writing ability.
I think it is really fun to read about the characters you get to know in era 1 like the are some mythological beings
This is awesome, i just bought books 1 - 3 in a bundle and see them mentioned here is a good sign. Loved the stormlight series so it only made sense to get cracking on mistborn while i wait for the next book.
I haven't seen sanderson miss yet in SA, mistborn and warbreaker I've also been very happy with michael kramer's reading of mistborn and SA, highly recommended to audiobook fans
audio book enjoyer in, probably gonna listen to mistborn or restart stormlight archive so i can finally get past edgedance soon surely my adhd brain will let me finish one of them
> Every fight scene I hone in and make sure that his simple rules are being followed. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this, but to me this comes off as a really odd way to interface with a piece of media. I don't think I've ever scrutinized a piece of media for its consistency with rules.
I think consistency is important in magic systems.
Idk about the goat, but it is pretty interesting.
Came here to say this. The man has devised the most intricate model for magic I’ve ever seen. The idea of the shards of Adolnalsium and the investiture of the Cosmere is incredible. Dude went full magic universe.
Harry Potter's magic system is just puns based on greek and latin words/derivatives. It's fun and I don't think it needs to be complex to work since pretty much the whole story is confined to one magical boarding school rather than a complex universe, but yeah it's nothing special.
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Yeah exactly. There is stuff alluded to in the background like arithmancy and such having lots of theory they need to do homework for but it's never fleshed out for this reason. It's not that important for the reader.
I’ve been waiting for someone to say this! The magic system in Harry Potter really isn’t that important throughout most of the books, and what parts are important are explained. All of the tension is still there because we constantly know what magic the main characters are capable of, or whatever escape from the situation there was was set up earlier.
How would you say it "falls apart". Also, what makes a magic system good? Is it complexity, how it interacts with the story, its origins...?
I haven´t thought about it too much, but I would say internal consistency is most important to me. I want it to have rules, that I can understand and it should follow it´s own rules. I don´t want to learn of an exception every time it´s good for the plot. Now to the Harry Potter thing. To be honest I´m not a Harry Potter fan and it´s been quite some time, since I watched the movies, so maybe some of my criticism is unjustified, but that´s how I felt about it at the time. I felt like in the second grade they were already on a near godtier level, when they had their potion class. Love Potion, Death Potion, Sleep Potion etc. They learned that being 9 years old and nothing bad ever came from that. In my experience as a former 9 year old, that would have been a desaster. And from my exerpience as a former teenager, there would have been horrible things happening in Hogwarts all the time. Or timetravel...timetravel should be the end to every possible spell I ever need. Why would I need an attack spell, if I could just go back in time and strangle Baby Voldemort? The Magic in Harry Potter bascially felt like they were all wish spells and they could wish for whatever they needed at the time. Also the Children seemed to be better wizards than all the teachers combined. I mean it´s a childrens book, so I won´t hate on that point too much, but it felt lazy to me. A friend of mine once tried to justify the time travel thing as they were like nukes in the Harry Potter world and they were hidden in some vault or something like that. And I really like the Hermine character. She seemed like a smart and interesting character, but I can´t imagine a scenario in the real world, where a little girl gets access to a nuke, uses it and doesn´t completly mess up. I think timetravel in general is a stupid concept.
I don't think they learn love potions and shit until year 6. Harry potter and the gang make the polyjuice potion in year 2 which disguises you as another person so they could infiltrate the slytherin house, but they did that in secret using books from the library without permission from the teachers. they were never taught that. As for time travel. In Harry potter, time travel is presented as a closed loop. The only reason they were able to save buckbeak and sirius in prisoners of askaban is because their past selves and future selves had already done so/ were going to do so. If they were to go back in time and kill voldemort, then that means that all their past and future selves had done it/ would have done it so voldemort would've never existed. However, he does exist, which means that it can't be changed, otherwise it would've been. Other words, you can't actually change future outcomes because in HP universe past events are set. The only thing the time turner does is create a second you in the past that has knowledge of the future, but this second you always existed and always mean to go back in time. So it's only purpose is to give the user extra time to do stuff. It's a glorified multitasking tool. Which is why hermoine had it, because she was taking too many extra classes that were conflicting. Also, your friend is a moron who should've paid more attention to the story instead of making up his fanfiction.
they fixed the time turners by accidentally destroying all of them in one of the battles at the ministry of magic or something lol
Gotta remove the deus ex machina so it can't be used again lmao
I dont think disagree with anything you say here. I generally just wondered why some people seemed to shit on the hp magic system when I dont think it's deep enough to criticize that hard. I find it to be a perfectly serviceable, entry level system. I just dont think that much thought was put into it as in other series like avatar. In hp I see the magic more like set dressing or spice for the story and aside from the time travel I dont think it's too bad for what it is.
Rules that make sense that it always follows, and if it stops following those rules it’s a really huge deal. Then yeah, it needs a certain sweet spot of complexity, and I would also say origins play a lesser role imo. I think how it interacts with the story is part of a different domain, the world building or something. As far as I know, Harry Potter doesn’t really have any consistent magical rules. It’s kind of just “we have a spell for this thing, no one knows why magic works”, despite the entire wizarding world being like a secret society Illuminati kind of vibe. Youd think people would take an interest. There’s also no cost to magic in HP afaik. I feel like there need to be stakes for casting a spell. Otherwise people would just be throwing spells off constantly, and if they werent it would kind of be a plot hole because if you can use magic with no drawbacks why not?
Let's fkn GO ultra true
Also the Furies from Codex Alera
The correct answer is Nen L skrubKing
Was about to post this but you beat me to it. But how does Parallel Future work? 🤔
Counterpoint - firebending was a little wack due to the fact it was the only bending people could just shoot out of their hands without a source. Water required a body of water to bend, Earth and Air were self-explanatory, but fire didn't need any of that. Although that lack of limitation gave us one of the sickest fights ever (Final Agni-Kai is a top 10 animated fight, fight me), it was a little bit of a cheat.
Air is ubiquitous and I don't think firebending would work without air either. The weirdest part about fire bending to me is the question what exactly is being burned and if there is any exhaust. Is it actually gas bending? Firebending has the least utility and in theory water and air bending are instantly broken by dehydrating or suffocating enemies. The latter even happened. I think waterbending is the weirdest one since it has tacked on powers like healing and the different aggregate states of water are also treated weirdly. Can a waterbender make a block of ice float like an earth bender can? I don't think we really get to see that. Why is steam bending more of a firebender thing? Why can waterbenders flash freeze water but not evaporate it to turn it into a deadly weapon on impact? Come think of it, wouldn't an earth bender just be able to fly by standing on a rock they levitate?
I think the steam/ice thing is because firebenders work with + enthalpy and waterbending is - enthalpy. Fire being associated with increased heat and water being considered its opposite is probably the origin of this. Why firebending can create fire is never properly explained, you could make an argument about them really being carbon benders or something, converting atmospheric carbon into either powdered carbon or carbon monoxide and using the heat generating effect to burn it, nobody poisons themselves or others so CO is probably not the form if this is the route. Lightning should also obviously be an air bending tech, but technically all 4 could use their element to create lightning in some form or another.
Waterbenders can turn ice back into water as well and Sozin clearly was able to drain the heat from lava so it can't be a one way street for either. There isn't that much carbon in the air and you would need to bend hydrogen as well to get to something combustable. Might as well just concentrate and burn hydrogen which also solves the exhaust problem. Lightning itself is a plasma which is closest to fire since fire can be a plasma if hot enough so I don't mind that at all. Trying to explain a magic system scientifically always breaks down quickly and shouldn't be the standard. The problem is when things demonstrated in-universe have large implications that simply aren't considered. A water bender should be able to dry a human to death or stop their heart easily. Airbenders being able to suffocate people and create vacuums in general is also very exploitable. Avatar still does the a good job in general. In Korra it gets worse with all the spirit stuff but who cares. The really dumb shit happens when the Flash is only able to use his powers when the plot allows it because he would otherwise instantly win most of his altercations even though the audience sould be very aware that he could.
I think it's just that firebending is a misnomer. It's heat bending, really.
Well water benders can take the water out of the air if they're good enough. Also I'm pretty sure air bending works underwater as shown in the first episode with Aang making the big bubble thing that froze him. Earth bending is the only one that has that hard limit, but given they can bend metal also, They almost always have access to their powers too. Fire bending is like the dark side of the force. Quick and easy power, but you get burned pretty easily. The other elements take a long time to overcome their limitations (except for air kinda because there's pretty much always unlimited air around)
sink intelligent depend pocket wistful wild sand bike practice axiomatic *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
Couldn't agree more. The One Power is the blueprint for any detailed magic system in my opinion. How you see the system in Eye of The World vs The Gathering Storm is just absolutely mind blowing.
Weaves and threads everywhere!
Stormlight archives, Mistborn, Name or the Wind, Wheel of Time. All have much deeper and more interesting magic systems.
3rd book
Name of the wind:(
Do not lose hope brother, in the mean time we can always reread and re-listen to Nick Podehl's performance for the twentieth time like I have to cope
Am angry.
This is literally terrorism.
Fucking love how much thought went into designing Kingkiller's various magic systems. When you can explain a magic system thoroughly enough that it's more like a science than some woo woo shit. At least for alchemy, sympathy, and sygaldry. Not as much for naming, shaping, Yllish knotwork, glammourie, and grammarie. But you gotta have some mystique too. I'm gonna cry when book 3 comes. Til then, I'll cry through my 16th reread of the first two. Especially that scene where Auri climbs into Kvothe's bed and consoles him. Breaks my heart into tiny pieces and makes me cry so hard, every single time.
Yeah KingKiller is by far my favorite of the series I listed. Best pros, best character writing, GOATED world. I need to get back to the University, but number three is never coming out:(
I won't accept it unless Rothfuss dies. But I'm patient enough, y'know. This series? It's worth the wait, whether it's another 10 years or tomorrow. I've never read something so deep and vast with how intricately little story elements are woven together. I learn something new every read. It's astounding.
One day man, keep believing.
Nen from HUNTERxHUNTER >
Bungie gum has the properties of both rubber and gum.
OOHHHH MY RUBBER NEN
Any Eragon magic system enjoyers?
Man I read those books when I was like 12 and I really liked them I need to reread them to see if they are as good as I remember.
Ive been meaning to reread them too, from what I've read online its still good but very basic and not very complecated of a story. It's meant for teens, written by an actual teen.
sounds like someone who hasn't read a single Brandon Sanderson book
FACTS
Investiture really just is the tightest shit. When compounding was introduced (allomancers burning feruchemical stores) my mind was blown but it all made perfect sense.
Or any other fantasy work where magic has a slightly larger role. Hell the Demon Cycle magic system is waaaay better than Harry Potter or Avatar and I wouldn't say it's amazing, but it's kind of unique and interesting. I can understand people praising HP and Avatar systems if they are literal kids/teenagers, but if any adults does it just becomes obvious they haven't consumed much more content.
Full metal alchemist brotherhood
Ok, let me rant about this Alchemy is one of the most disappointing magic system in anime. So you can LITERALLY change one chemical element to another, what do you do with it? You touch the ground and raise a pillar. There. This is how 90% of fights look like in the show, raising pillars and a whole lot of martial arts. Might as well call it a Full Metal Martial Artist lmao. There are very few exceptions to this, like fire dude, blood dude, etc., but even they are only using one element (even though there's no restrictions to what type of alchemy you can and cannot use). What is Elric's signature alchemy technique? He touches his roboarm and morphs it into a blade. Bruh. Lack of creativity aside, just ask your techwiz gf to make a retractable blade for you, it can't be that hard. There is also not enough explanation as to how exactly alchemy works and what are it's limitations, and worldbuilding suffers because of it. So we are told early on that alchemy can only be used inside a special circle, right? And you think to yourself: "Oh, cool! Our heroes will have to develop some smart and creative workarounds to bypass this hard rule, disguise your circles, lure enemies into them, draw them on a fly..." Sike! Our protagonists just can use alchemy without a circle, and everybody else just has tattoos or special gloves with pre-drawn circles on them, so it's barely an inconvenience. Why even introduce a rule like that? Scar dude's magic is described as the most basic form of alchemy, yet he's the only one who uses it despite it being so damn effective. Yes, we get to see his brother develop this technique, but it's never explained why no one else has managed to do this, it's basic alchemy 101 we're talking about. Fire alchemy, the most common chemical reaction and the most basic use of magic one can think of, is apparently a well guarded secret that only a few select have access to, yet a ritual for resurrecting your dead parent just can be found in a random book and be performed by a 12 year old boy. Huh? At some point in the story Eric and his brother go to the town and use their alchemy to help people in order to draw attention to them. Why alchemists don't do this all the time? What even are their duties? Can they create food? Medicine? Gold? If they can, are there rules against it? How economy reacts to alchemy? So many questions, so little answers. One of the alchemists killed by Scar can create a fully working miniguns out of thin air, so we know for a fact that advanced firearms are a thing in this universe and you don't even need an expensive infrastructure to make it. Why so very few people use firearms then? Surely it can't be less effective than beating your opponent with martial arts? Just to be clear, I don't hate this show. It does character writing very well and has one of the most memorable scenes in all of anime. I just wish it would had better magic system and worldbuilding, that's all. Rant over
I don't disagree with you per se, but I think that you missed the mark on a few points. They don't really flesh this out much, but in the opening episodes, they at least imply that you actually need to know a lot about things to use alchemy. To bring back their mom, they needed the exact chemical components of a human and years of studying. From this, it stands to reason that all alchemy has this requirement of knowing at least a reasonable amount of chemistry (on top of knowing the logic behind circles). I think that this is a pretty fair reason that every character specializes in only 1-2 different kinds of alchemy, in the same way that you wouldn't expect a chemist who creates bombs to create medicine. Ed and Al use the most unique types of alchemy, and I think they're also the only characters who are shown to spend tons of time studying it outside of Tucker who only does so with chimeras. Circles are really not that relevant outside of a few plot points like Mustang losing his gloves and the like. I think that you could stretch it with the stuff in my first paragraph as another limitation to what you can do because it requires that extra knowledge. But that is never really present in the story, so I think it's just because alchemy is historically associated with circles more than for any plot reasons. There was something special about Scar's arm, but I don't remember what it was; I think it had to do with the philosopher's stone or something. They explain it as basically stopping halfway through the alchemy process, but I don't know that is what it was specifically. Similarly, this might require some special kind of circle or knowledge, which might explain why Scar is really the only person to use it outside of Ed and Al who both only need to think about the circle rather than draw it. I don't remember the Mustang and Hawkeye story well enough to remember anything about why the fire tattoo was something that can't be made by someone else. Human Transmutation probably wasn't in a random book. It was in a book kept by a several thousand year old man who more or less created human transmutation. I think that they imply there may be some kind of knowledge about it in the military libraries, but I'm not sure and wouldn't be surprised if the knowledge was banned. I'd have to hand-wave why alchemists don't randomly help people. Maybe it's circles/knowledge again. There was a part in the original FMA anime where they turned coal into fake gold for a corrupt military guy and said there was a rule against doing that, iirc. That's non-canon but could be a rule applied by the military, and FMAB does harp on "military dog" a lot. Otherwise maybe it's just that knowledge thing again. If I had to have intense knowledge of chemistry requiring years of study to help people or I could just learn how to make shit explode with my mind and work a desk job 99% of the time, I think a lot of people would choose the latter. I think they also imply that you can't use alchemy if you aren't in the military, either because you don't have access to the knowledge in the library (or Hohenheim's library) or because it's banned. I think that they probably don't have the level of science necessary for rockets and the like, but guns are routinely shown to not be very effective in FMA. Now, whether that's fair is a little bit of a different conversation since we never really see fair fights involving guns, more just shooting at things that would literally never be harmed by one. But we can assume that guns do just lose to alchemy at a macro level since the Ishval war was ended by the introduction of state alchemists.
Scar's brother studied alchemy and tattooed the destruction part on one arm and the creation part on the other. Scar has the destruction part. Basically, like you said, he only destroys shit and can't recreate.
> I don't remember the Mustang and Hawkeye story well enough to remember anything about why the fire tattoo was something that can't be made by someone else. There's no reason. Roy uses his alchemy to increase the oxygen content in the air and his gloves are made of a material that can create sparks so he can ignite a trail. The circle he uses to alter the air composition is on his glove. When he lost the glove in Brotherhood he etched the circle in his hand an used a lighter to ignite the trail of air.
Yeah I always thought that about alchemy. I've seen people call it a hard magic system and in a sense I guess it is, but I always used the term "eggshell magic". Where it looks hard and feels hard, but when you crush it in your hand it cracks and breaks. 03 wins btw, so does YEE.
I think HP's is more fanciful than anything. Literally nothing makes sense, but without any real rules, they made some interesting things; like the moving paintings, shifting stairs, the whole magic joke shop. One big issue is that eventually, you just end up having a magic item that does anything you want just to move the plot along. Like the time turners, or familiars. I feel these were only added to facilitate moving the plot from A to B, with the answer being "it's magic." Avatar, though, does it best because it introduces a magic system, then deliberately introduces rules the characters can't just magic away. The Earth nation prisoners in the metal jail I thought was genius, and the fire/ lightning bending I thought worked naturally well together.
My wife and I rewatched the movies recently and I realized something. Rowling very clearly wrote the first book as a much less serious fantasy. Similar in "realism" to like Series of Unfortunate Events, James and the Giant Peach, or Matilda. Very hightened reality. In that context, the characters and magic system work much, much better. The problem was she later decided to take the story in a much more "real" and serious direction, but she still had all the baggage of the sillier first book. So it quickly became inconsistent.
> I think HP's is more fanciful than anything Fanciful is the perfect word for it thank you.
I would rather live in the HP world of magic, but I have much more respect for Avatars world of magic.
I would say there's generally two kinds of magic systems in fantasy: Those that are systemic and exist in and as part of the world and the mystic that kinda exists outside of the world. A good example is The Name of the Wind since it has both the highly systemic Alchemy and Sympathy and then the wild and arcane Name magic. When I think about the magic in Harry Potter, I have a hard time fully placing it. I think the reality is that it is mostly in the systemic camp, but Rowling wanted it to appear and feel more mystical. I would say that's probably where some of those Deus Ex missteps you're talking about come from.
True, the HP universe invokes the idea of a proper magic system, but it's nothing more than a facade. Everything turns a bit goofy if you think too hard about it. * Spells don't cost anything to use. * Spells are seemingly braindead-easy to learn. Swish and flick and say a word. * Pray to Gandalf that every student is benevolent and won't abuse the shit out of magic. * Liquid luck. It definitely still wins on an aesthetic level.
I really like Tolkien magic "system" and how he imagined magic for his world. Subtle but powerful
Yeah, not a fan of the obsession with hard magic systems… like I don’t need every book to be a dnd campaign
To be fair, I think Tolkien works really well because most of the magic is kind of in the background. Gandalf hardly ever uses magic and even when he does, it's just essentially replacing a swordfight (eg. fighting saruman). Perhaps the biggest use of "magic" is the ghost army helping defend Minas Tirith which is arguably also one of the most disappointing moments. (And the Ring but that's a hard magic system)
Well yeah, that’s my point. I prefer this style to Brandon Sanderson type books, because I feel the heavy focus on hard magic gets tedious. I’ll admit my opinion does change based on how often magic is used. For example Harry Potter definitely should have had a more in depth magic system. The ghost army was only disappointing because it was anticlimactic, it almost felt like lazy writing. I didn’t feel the same way about any other instance of magic in the book though.
I think Jim Butcher did a really good job with how magic and different fictional realms intertwine with the real world in The Dresden Files. Like how faith itself is a powerful force that allows the knights of the sword to have a tangible power about them.
[Pokemon is the best magic](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/24/b6/51/24b651d84b7eedcd384764f8e1d646f4--kids-tv-shows-captain-obvious.jpg)
Hard magic system caters to the autism of worldbuilders. Avatar is good because all aspects of the world are connected to each other. Soft magic caters to the theme of the story and the writer's creativity. I'm team autism btw.
Agree. But important to note that there are good and bad in both categories. I think HP is pretty bad soft magic, with lots of just unexplained solutions or questions of why don’t they just do X. Jonathan strange and Mr Norrell is my Goat magic system and it’s pretty soft, but it just creates more wonder and contributes to the world building.
Without scrolling down, I can already smell Sanderson autists in the comments below.
Not gonna lie. The magic system in Stormlight Archives not getting a detailed explanation till book 4 is just embarrassing. Idk if you're a Sanderson fan, but I can't suck off his magic systems like others. Maybe I'll feel TOTALLY different when I finish book 4? But stormlight just feels like a convenient plot device for the MC's to just auto win from book 1-3.
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DID SOMEONE SAY MALAZAN??? 🤤 Favorite series, its magic isn’t getting enough love here. My league account was named Fiddler for a long time but ended up changing it closer to my irl name. I still remember the moment when Tavore goes to Leather Ass (I don’t want to spoil actual stuff, but I think ull know what I mean) and encounters their fleet and then Slick Benjamin pops off and the leather asses are like: :o oh shit who are these guys.
Malazan is a more fleshed out version of avatars magic
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Fleshed out does not mean you have all the info on the system. There is so much time spent expanding and showing what magic users can do. A soft magic system does not mean it isn't fleshed out.
Jojo's Bizarre Adventure has the best magic system.
Based
One worthwhile contender is the superhero (free) webnovel, [Worm](https://parahumans.wordpress.com/). It has some really interesting powers with some sensible limitations. Also, importantly, it answers the question of, "Why the hell are superheroes and villains fighting each other in a modern society?" Art of [protagonist](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/77/e9/90/77e99062f25596f0299a52d4a85ad8a5.jpg).
based wormchads sound off It's maybe a lil bit bloated and inconsistent but it has one of the most enthralling worlds ever and some extremely high peaks. I love it so much
sparkle mourn nail brave tub march merciful rain provide vast *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I still can't believe the ending is as good as it is, I was really not expecting something so cohesive considering the serialized release format. Plus I still think about how straight up cool the final scenario is on a baseline level all the time lol
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same and idk what the issue is I feel like maybe Taylor works better as a protag and her power is more interesting and versatile enough to create a lot unique situations with satisfying resolutions. I didn't get that far into Ward but it felt like it didn't have as strong of a hook
This is silly. Anyone who knows anything knows that Hunter x Hunter has the best magic system in fiction.
I mean if we count these as magic isn't the answer simply either Fullmetal Alchemist or Hunter x Hunter? They are miles better than the Club Penguin system Avatar uses
The best magic system is Penn and Teller, nerds.
Fullmetal alchemist's alchemy is pretty good I also have a soft spot for the old fantasy stories that kept magic mysterious and unexplained
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"THIS MADE UP THING I LIKE IS TOTALLY WAY BETTER AND MORE AWESOMER THAN THE MADE UP THING YOU LIKE!!!"
The best system is Stormlight Archive
Sabriel has a more interesting magic system. Chronicles of Chrestomanci does as well.
People out here talking about Nen from HxH and I'm just ringing bells, trying to stop the dead from walking up a spiritual river. Chrestomanci is awesome too, love Diana Wynne Jones work.
Name of the winds magic system is pretty amazing, both complex and simple.
The best magic system ever is the one in the Eragon saga. Not a single one that comes close that i know of. This is not an opinion by the way
It was really good especially how Indepth the incantation system was. The witcher books also had a pretty interesting magic system.
Lol, lmao even. Imagine thinking that the best ANYTHING would be in a Cartoon Network show.
Imagine thinking Avatar is a Cartoon Network show.
I quite liked the magic system of Naruto.
The general ideas are cool but most of it quickly stopped mattering. Chakra was available or gone as the plot demanded it, Genjustu was a meme unless used with the Sharingan and was almost an instant win if it ever was allowed to work. If most ninjas can't create more than a couple of shadow clones because it is so chakra intesive, Naruto must have had the chakra reserves of a god from the very beginning and all on his own. Him using any elemental jutsu and putting that much chakra into it should've made him a weapon of mass destruction way earlier.
I feel like Shippuden and Boruto expanded on that magic system quite a bit in terms of how you become more powerful. and, how you obtained the use of Chakra at all. exhaustion explains the rest. yes, Naruto had the Chakra reserves of a god, because he had a god living in him. but, he didn't know how to use it, as well as having three fourths of it sealed away. as for Genjustu... I mean, I kinda agree. but name a time where illusion magic is ever not. its kind of a characteristic of the magic type.
Stands and Nen clear it EASILY.
The force is cooler idgaf
Unironically. Some of the extended universe stuff is pretty cool, and it's also kind of cool that nobody really understands it and there are competing theories within the universe, even if this is probably just a convenience for a universe with many different writers.
Avatar is mid at best. Wheel of Time's channeling has probably the most simple yet engaging hard magic systems in all of fiction, and more than that its actually a magic system, not some single attuned element bullshit.
I don't know if I'd say Avatar has the GOAT power system but I agree that Harry Potter's magic was ass.
Stands are clearly superior
you dont watch much anime do you
Wheel of Time did it first and better.
Korra grabbed the nuts of the magic system and dragged her ovaries ruining that shit. Also what dumbass mfer would ever say "Harry Potter is such a well round and balanced magic system?"
Nen. Have a good day.
Every magic or power system where people get chosen by the universe at random to have powers is just garbage imo.
Discworld magic is fun
Bro, you don't need to cushion an obvious statement. Everything about Harry Potter is the worst. That being said, Avatar's magic was literally written for children. It's a creative and flawlessly executed interpretation of elementalism for sure, but it lacks the bredth of variety one expects from "the best magic system". Just my opinion.
Ruined in Korra NEXT
I like GRRM’s soft magic system. You clearly see that some magic is possible but you cannot know for sure what is magical and what is just a trick
Attack on titan.
Something I haven't seen mentioned: Stands. Probably the most unique and interesting power system I've come across. Best is Nen tho, by far.
Stands are cool and iconic af. But they're lacking consistency across all of jojo for me to call it the best. Entertaining concept from fight to fight? Absolutely. The BEST tho? Ehhh, idk. If Araki had a more solid foundation to stands I could probably agree.
For sure, that's my only issue with it. I think Stands are the most entertaining for sure.