Magic:
The Cure All of Fantasy
by Rival Gates
I am not only a writer of Fantasy novels. My obsession also makes me a fan. I am always up for a good Fantasy story that
takes me away from the everyday and transports me to another time and
place. There are some really good
writers out there and I am glad to see the genre is still doing well. As I considered my series, “The Sapphire
Chronicles” and my first book “Quest for the Red Sapphire” I could not help but
ruminate on something that has never sat well with me in many fantasy
books. The issue was magic. I love magic in books. It really opens the imagination. The problem I found was that it was often
used as a ‘cure-all’ for gaps in a story.
A character has magical abilities and at one point has tremendous
power. At other points, they can do almost
nothing. I like consistency. If the magic is not consistent then at least
tell me why. Otherwise, the story begins
to lose credibility. This piece is in no
way meant to demean any particular author or their hard work. It just seems to me like too many times
authors don’t have an answer to a problem and just use magic to cover the hole.
The other question magic posed to me is what I like
to refer to as the “Superman Theory”.
Like many fantasy fans, I loved comics.
The one I never developed a taste for, however, was Superman. Here you have a hero who is impervious to
everything except Kryptonite. Where’s
the drama in that? If the hero can’t be
hurt either everyone has to have Kryptonite or there is no danger and the story
is flat. Magic is used in some stories
that way. Some wizards have almighty
power and are nearly invulnerable. There
is never an explanation why they are so powerful and what their limits are.
In writing my books I decided to address both the
explanation and the limitations of magic.
I based the theory on color. As
the story goes, the Father Creator gave Colorful Magic to a select few to help
safeguard the peoples of the world of Lavacia.
Their power was nearly unstoppable and they did not tire from using
it. Such power ultimately corrupted them
and the Maker saw the error in his ways.
He created a Great Prism of the Cosmos and used it to take back the
power from the evil magicians and disperse it in colored form to a larger segment
of people.
There is a hierarchy to magic. Red and Blue are opposites and are the most
powerful.
Then I had to negate the “Superman Theory.” The answer was simple. Magicians attain their power by channeling
the force of nature through their bodies and expending it though their hands in
whatever form they choose. Doing so,
however, is very taxing on their bodies, physically. It is much like lifting a weight. The heavier the weight you lift, the more
tired you become. The more magic you
channel, the more fatigued you are.
Thus, a young person in good shape can channel much more power than an
aged person in poor health. It forces
magicians to use their power conservatively.
I am proud of “Quest for the Red Sapphire” and the
sequel which will be released in the next couple of weeks called “The Sapphire
Crucible”. The explanations are simple
but plausible. I hope you take a moment
to check them out on Amazon.com. “Quest
for the Red Sapphire” will be .99 starting on April 5th for a short
time. I want to thank the good folks at
“To Read Or Not To Read” for having me on this excellent blog. Enjoy your reading!
Check out http://www.rivalgates.com/ and on Twitter I am rivalgates1 to find out more about this author.
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