Magician (fantasy) - Use of Magic

Use of Magic

Larry Niven once urged, in a twist on Clarke's third law, that "any sufficiently rigorously defined magic is indistinguishable from technology",. Many other writers have observed that functional magic could replace technology in many situations - several of them, (Robert Heinlein in Magic, Inc., Poul Anderson in Operation Chaos and Harry Turtledove in The Case of the Toxic Spell Dump), depicting a recognizable modern society (specifically, a recognizable contemporary United States) in which various extensively-used forms of magic largely or wholly replace modern technology.

Nevertheless, many magicians live in pseudo-medieval setting in which their magic is not put to practical use in society; they may serve as mentors (especially if they are wise old men), or act as quest companions, or even go on a quest themselves, but their magic does not build roads or buildings, or provide immunizations, or construct indoor plumbing or printing presses, or any of the other functions served by machinery; their worlds remain at a medieval level of technology. In many, perhaps most, high fantasy works, this is treated as an intrinsic feature of the world, requiring no explanation.

Sometimes this is justified by the use of magic bringing about worse things than it can alleviate, and the need of wizards to learn restraint. In Barbara Hambley's Windrose Chronicles, the wizards are precisely pledged not to interfere because of the terrible damage they can do. In Terry Pratchett's Discworld, the importance of wizards is that they actively do not do magic, because when wizards have access to lots of "thaumaturgic energy" they develop many psychotic attributes, and would eventually destroy the world. This may be direct effect, or the danger of a miscast spell wreaking terrible harm.

Also, sometimes they are in hiding, with normal people having no idea about them, because the wizards and witches feel that if they revealed themselves, regular people would persecute them, a justified fear, or they would want them to fix all of their problems instead of doing it themselves. An example of this is when Hagrid explains the latter to Harry in Philosopher's Stone.

In other works, developing magic is difficult. In Rick Cook's Wizardry series, the extreme danger of missteps with magic and the difficulty of analyzing the magic has stymied magic, and left humanity at the mercy of the dangerous elves, until a wizard summons a computer programmer from a parallel world — ours — to apply the skills he learned here to magic.

At other times, a parallel development of magic does occur. This is commonest in alternate history genre. Patricia Wrede's Regency fantasies include a Royal Society of Wizards, and a technological level equivalent to the actual Regency; Randall Garrett's Lord Darcy series, Robert A. Heinlein's Magic, Incorporated, and Poul Anderson's Operation Chaos all depicted modern societies with magic equivalent to twentieth-century technology. In Harry Potter, the wizards have magic equivalent or superior to Muggle technology; sometimes they duplicate it, as in the train that brings students to Hogwarts.

In the Dungeons & Dragons campaign setting Eberron, masses of relatively weak wizards mass-produce spells and magical items for public consumption.

The power ascribed to wizards often affects their role in society. In practical terms, their powers may give them authority in the social structure; wizards may advise kings, such as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, or Belgarath and Polgara the Sorceress in David Eddings's The Belgariad, or even be rulers themselves as in E.R. Eddison's The Worm Ouroboros where both the heroes and the villains, although kings and lords, supplement their physical power with magical knowledge, or Jonathan Stroud's Bartimaeus Trilogy, where magicians are the governing class. On the other hand, magicians often live like hermits, isolated in their towers and often in the wilderness, bringing no change to society. In some works, such as many of Barbara Hambly's, wizards are despised and outcast specially because of their knowledge and powers.

In the magic-noir world of the Dresden Files, although wizards generally keep a low profile, there is no specific prohibition against interacting openly with non-magical humanity. The protagonist of the series, Harry Dresden, openly advertises in the Yellow Pages under the heading "Wizard", as well as maintaining a business office. His main source of income in the series is derived from acting as a "special consultant" to the Chicago Police Department in cases involving the supernatural. Dresden primarily uses his magic to make a living finding lost items and people, performing exorcisms, and providing protection against the supernatural to ordinary humanity.