Non-Genetic Magic Systems in Fantasy—With Brandon Sanderson, Marie Brennan, and David B. Coe

This was recorded at JordanCon 2021 with Brandon Sanderson, Marie Brennan, and David B. Coe.

[delphynenull]

Regarding the idea they mentioned in passing of “magic gained by being born during a particular stellar alignment, ” that inspires an entertaining idea of a world in which the nobility have highly-paid court astronomers whose job it is to calculate the dates when these stars will align, and then use that research to set dates for massive orgies or amoral breeding programs to guarantee as many magically gifted heirs as possible.

[philippine]

"i like those fun ways of getting magic", proceeds to make magical powers only be given to people with extreme emotional baggage and trauma so severe it literally broke them. Fun, you said ? FUN ???? i mean fun for us, but still....

[LMJeffJones]

I could listen to Brandon talk for days.

Which is great for me because he LOVES talking.

[AmoniaLS]

"Empire expanding and conquering other people's magic systems."
Yeah now I finally know what type of villain Brandon would be!

[andrewhinson]

Brandons entire point is, I think, summed up as follows: It is vital that you build a rational economy with your magic system. No matter how economics illiterate your reader might be, they will intuitively distrust a poorly constructed, or non-existent magical economy. Even with magic, there is no free lunch.

[Kishqui]

"What has t happen in order for a magic system to be believable?"

Two words: Internal consistency.

It has to fit the tone and setting.

It also needs to follow it's own rules. These rules don't need to be explained to the reader - see soft magic systems - but if it's established that magic can't do something, then it can't do that thing without some explanation or reaction of confusion/surprise from the characters.

[waidwn]

Time stamps for different discussion topics in the video (for my own reference mostly, when rewatching it's sometimes nice to be able to jump to a specific part):

0:00 When you think of non-genetic magic systems, what comes to mind?
6:58 What has to happen for a magic system to be believable, and how is it different for a non-genetic magic system?
14:56 Is there anything different about it not being genetic based when you're building the system to make it believable?
20:19 Interesting non-genetic magic systems
28:13 What is your soapbox issue/pet peeve about fantasy and magic systems?
35:17 Anything not asked that they want to talk about (Brandon talks about a non-genetic magic system he outlined)
36:35 Interesting worldbuilding & bland character is usually a bad story, reverse is usually still a pretty good story. Discussion of this idea.
41:47 Where do you prefer to start a project (magic system, story, etc.)?
44:20 For Brandon: the story/magic you outlined, is it Cosmere? (some discussion about what makes a thing Cosmere and how some things don't fit)
49:29 How does Mistborn magic system relate to topic of this panel?
52:11 Difference between something being inborn/part of you vs. inheriting from someone, genetics?
(work in progress)

[drewforchic]

I really relate to their points about magic from D&D or games, because I deal with that one personally when I write stuff for my games. When I write a campaign or setting in D&D, I have to go down this rabbit hole of figuring out how magic affects the rest of the world, because the existence of magic means all the other ordinary stuff we take for granted would also be different. A castle wouldn't just have walls, it'd have forcefields and anti-scrying wards and magic proximity alarms, which really complicates building an interactive story where I'm not in control of what the players do, but it still has to be believable and still has to be fun.

[lucasriddle]

Just from the very first few minutes: "[Genetic magic] has Implications, capital I". I love how this so accurately reflects Brandon's writing; all the important (usually magic) things are just regular words that are capitalised (Diagram, Shards (Stormlight cool-swords or gods), Push or Pull (Mistborn), etc.)

[hecksnek]

An approach I've always liked is magic as transhumanism. Not just something you use but something that actively shapes you as you use it.

[jemm]

This first 3 minutes of the talk immediately remind me of Mashle: Of Muscles and Magic and how its setting is literally a post-genocide world where all non-magic born were slaughtered by the state to “purify” the magical population. It’s all kinds of fucked up and having the genetic component of magic play an integral and frightening part of your narrative can be extremely captivating when actually addressed properly.

[Algardraug]

I don't believe for a second that Brandon wrote his own name tag. I've seen him write on the white board on this very channel

[CosmereInformant]

Robert Jordan’s sword forms stuff was a way to describe what was happening without actually describing the individual sword strokes. The names of the forms were all intentionally evocative in order to paint a picture.

Obviously it didn’t work for everyone, seeing as they didn’t like it, but I always found it very effectively set the tone of the fights.

[rmsgrey]

I just wanted to drop in the observation that while, as mentioned, you can get inborn magic without it being inherited, due to the circumstances of your birth, you can also have inherited but not inborn magic - the magic item that's also a family heirloom, or the ability for individuals to pass on their powers. The overlap of inborn and inherited, obviously, is where genetic magic hangs out (though genetic engineering could shift that), and you can also have magic that's neither inborn nor inherited but acquired through study and ritual.

[muchadoaboutusername]

I think a really cool example of media exploring these two things is the manga Witch Hat Atelier, where the premise kinda is that magic is thought to be genetic by most of the people in the world, but the main character discovers that anyone with the right tools can do it, and it goes on from there. I think that the implications of it as it explores this kinda contrast between the ethics of those who were born being taught magic between those that aren't is just really fun to read.

[sacattaq]

I will give Brandon at least $320.45 of suspension of disbelief. I'm in it for the long haul. I mean, you kinda have to be for the Cosmere since the magic system still has not been (and probably won't ever be) fully revealed in how it works.

Is there a "Adonalsium Particle"? We may never know.

[AikenFrost]

I just gonna hold forever in my heart the fact that Marie Brennan once informally collaborated with me on a homebrew rule for an RPG game. Hahahaha

[napolien]

"It will be fun he said it will be good he said"


Hemalurgy.

[GoErikTheRed]

Brandon: “I outline a lot of books I don’t get to write.”
Brandon a few months later: “So I already wrote that book. And 3 others.”

[DarkSol]

34:51 This is so strange to me because I actually really liked the way sword fighting was done in WOT and think it's one of the best ways to convey interesting imagery in a fight scene. The people actually fighting refer to those sword forms like 'boar rushes down the mountain' in the same way people in wrestling does a 'lariat' or the 'Boston crab' or something like that. The people fighting knows what it's called but they aren't thinking about the imagery of the word, it's simply what the move is called.
However, for the people reading, it gives so much imagery and it allows the reader to fill in the blanks on how the swordfighter is moving with a short one-line thing for each movement to keep the fast pace of a fight scene. I think it was brilliant, especially if you want to show elegance and beauty in a swordfight.