Category: Fantasy

The Rules and Reasons of Magic

Leave a comment

Usually when people talk about magic in novels, they also talk about rules. What limitations are there on magic? Who can perform it and when? Under what circumstances? What can’t magic control? Do you have to be born with magical abilities or can anyone learn?

Most people agree that your system of magic needs some rules; otherwise your main character would never be in any real danger. But N.K. Jemisin’s post at io9 takes the opposite view. It’s magic–why do we need to explain it?

“Because this is magic we’re talking about. It’s supposed to go places science can’t, defy logic, wink at technology, fill us all with the sensawunda that comes of gazing upon a fictional world and seeing something truly different from our own. In most cultures of the world, magic is intimately connected with beliefs regarding life and death – things no one understands, and few expect to. Magic is the motile force of God, or gods. It’s the breath of the earth, the non-meat by-product of existence, that thing that happens when a tree falls in the forest and there’s no one around to hear it. Magic is the mysteries, into which not everyone is so lucky, or unlucky, as to be initiated. It can be affected by belief, the whims of the unseen, harsh language. And it is not. Supposed. To make. Sense. In fact, I think it’s coolest when it doesn’t.”

My first reaction was, admittedly, a bit of pearl-clutching. “Of course magic needs to make sense! How else will we understand your world? How else will there be tension?”

But I don’t think Jemisin’s saying that creating a magical world is akin to playing wizards as a kid. (“Zap! I got you!” “No you didn’t, I’m wearing an invisible shield that protects me from spells!” “Well my spell destroys invisible shields!”) I think the point is more about over-explaining magical systems. At some level, the audience just has to buy the fact that magic exists and that it works a certain way. In Harry Potter, every wizard has a wand that’s specially tied to him. Although JK Rowling goes into a little background on what makes a wand, we don’t get pages of the history of wand-making and what exactly ties a wizard to his particular wand. Harry goes to Ollivanders, tries a few wands, and eventually get to his. Rowling doesn’t need to stop the action to explain why wizards have wands outside of “they help perform magic.” At some level, the reader just has to buy that wizards need wands.

That said, I don’t think you can just throw magic on the page and assume it’s all okay. You still need some limitations and a level of consistency. In Doctor Who, the Doctor carries a sonic screwdriver that can pretty much fix/adjust/open/etc. anything. Except a natural substance like wood. Having a limitation like that means that the Doctor can’t just go around screwdriver-ing everything; it would make for a fairly boring episode. There’s always the threat that his magical device won’t be able to help him out of a jam.

Also, I think it’s good for a writer to have worked out their magical system in detail. It doesn’t have to go on the page, but it’s good for you to know in advance so you can heighten tension and get your characters out of binds in a way that’s still exciting for the reader.

(via bookshelves of doom)(image: Kaptain Kobold)

The Art of Imaginary Friends

Leave a comment

My friend Ron alerted me to an awesome upcoming exhibition at the William Baczek Fine Arts gallery. From May 2-June 2 they’ll be featuring Travis Louie and his series, The Secret Pet Society. An example is Julia & Her Swamp Friend, 2012, acrylic on board, 20 x 16″:

What dreamy, eerie, cool art. From the description for this piece: “Julia discovered him while she was collecting red-spotted salamanders in the swamp behind her parent’s farm house. She mistook the crown of branch-shaped tendrils on its head as a thicket of dead birch trees. The creature turned out to be quite harmless.”

Need to make a road trip to check out this exhibit.

(image: Travis Louie)

Let It Snow (White)

Leave a comment

By now, you’ve probably noticed that Snow White is having a good year. There are two Snow White-inspired movies out or coming out, both featuring some pretty major Hollywood actors. NPR takes a look at why 2012 might be Snow’s year. One theory looks at Snow White and our contemporary interest in the aging process (and trying to stop it):

“What’s interesting now,” [Mirror, Mirror screenwriter Melissa] Wallack says, “is that almost the first time really in history, you can remain young. Everyone now is out there shooting themselves with Botox.” In the movie, in fact, Julia Roberts gets an Evil Queen spa special with scorpion bites, bee stings, bird poop and grubs digging around in her ears.

Although Botox and other treatments claim to keep you young, there’s still a stigma about resorting to these methods. And they don’t always make you look exactly like you did twenty years ago. I can understand a social anxiety about aging and the next generation creeping up. (Even now I feel kind of old when I see teen tv stars. Who are these kids?)

Another theory involves mother/daughter struggles:

The tension between the princess and the queen, says Harvard professor Maria Tatar, might also help explain Snow White’s recent revival: “Maybe the mother-daughter rivalry that has caught our attention with so many women trying to remain youthful now.”

You can even see that, says Tatar, on a reality show fairy tale like Keeping Up with the Kardashians. It’s filled with beautiful princesses, sham weddings — and, like Snow White, an older-versus-younger-woman dynamic. “The mother is constantly competing with her daughters for attention, and she’s got these gorgeous daughters; she becomes more anxious than ever about aging.”

This makes sense to me. Between Amy Poehler’s hilarious interpretation of a “cool mom” in Mean Girls to real parents who buy their babies designer clothes or t-shirts emblazoned with indie rock band names, parents are increasingly trying to maintain a sense of youth. And who can blame them? Just because you have kids doesn’t mean your life is over. But problems can arise when you value being cool or beautiful over being a parent.

Also, it’s kind of nice to see (what I assume are) more active roles for Snow White. She was never my favorite fairy tale princess because she a) doesn’t understand that you shouldn’t take candy from strangers, and b) passes out. I haven’t seen the movies so I’m not sure how their roles are actually handled, but it’s nice to get a glimpse of Snow White as someone more in control of her own destiny.

(image: Rob Webb)

Links Galore

Leave a comment

Lots of fun links for the afternoon:

A Big Year for Epic Book Adaptations

Leave a comment

Like pretty much everyone else in the YA world, I saw The Hunger Games this weekend, and I was very satisfied by the adaptation. Overall I think they edited well in terms of what they could/couldn’t add into the movie (even if it got a little exposition-heavy at times; tracker jackers, anyone?). The performances were all fantastic. I’d been hesitant about Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss just because she looked older than I’d imagined Katniss to be, but she was fantastic. Lots of the more minor characters were excellent, too. (Rue destroyed me!) I’m very excited to see upcoming versions of Catching Fire and Mockingjay.

Another big movie adaptation coming up this year is The Hobbit, which is set to be released in December. The trailer for this one looks great, so hopefully it’s going to be an excellent year for book adaptations.

If you’re so excited about these movies you just want to squish them together into one giant epic, check out this fun quiz, which examines your knowledge of quotes from The Hunger Games and Lord of the Rings. Probably not too hard for fans, but I like getting validated for my knowledge of movie/book trivia.

Your thoughts on The Hunger Games or The Hobbit adaptations?

Red and the Wolf

Leave a comment

A really arresting take on Little Red Riding Hood:

Between the silhouetted animation, the intense music, and the take on violence in the fairy tale, I found it captivating. Even though it’s a somewhat gruesome take, I’m very intrigued by the idea of how the hero doesn’t necessarily live happily ever after, even if she’s survived. Kudos to directors Jorge Jaramillo and Carlo Guillot.

(via Alyssa at Think Progress–more on fairy tales there too)

Into the Woods

Leave a comment

When I was five or so, Disney was able to release The Little Mermaid. I was intrigued by the trailer and asked my brother what the story was about. His version: the little mermaid falls in love with the prince. To stay human, she has to stab two holes in her feet and throw herself overboard. I had great fun throwing my dolls off the couch, cheering about their sacrifice. Of course, when the movie came out I realized that my brother’s version wasn’t entirely accurate. (I was obsessed with the movie, by the way.)

Even though my brother missed a lot of major points, it’s probably closer to the original tale than the Disney version is. Most fairy tales from Hans Christian Andersen, the Grimm brothers, or any other pre-20th century storyteller are a lot darker than the stories we tell children today. Granted, these were folktales, and not specifically children’s stories, so it would make sense that they’re a lot more violent or scary than most picture books. In a recent article, the Globe and Mail took a look at what it means for fairy tales to be dark and gritty or sanitized and safe. One point I liked:

“In his 1976 book The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales, the late child psychologist Bruno Bettelheim argued that the frightening elements of fairy tales helped children “grapple with emotional problems,” as Prof. Zipes puts it. Fairy tales give children a symbolic space, removed from reality, in which to deal with – and conquer – their anxieties safely.”

I think the idea of using stories as a safe way to grapple with personal fear and anxiety is huge. The evil stepmother can be scary, but she almost always fails and is brought to justice. This can help kids understand that even if things scare us, that doesn’t mean we can’t face our fears, like going to school or sleeping alone.

Still, it’s wise to understand that not all children are always ready to hear scarier stories:

But many feel that young children are too vulnerable to be exposed to the gory details from the original stories – such as Snow White’s stepmother being forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes until she died. “As adults we can see the innocence in fairy tales, but a five-year-old with an overactive imagination could take things too literally,” Steve Hornsey, of the television channel Watch, which commissioned the British study, told the Daily Telegraph”

As with any media, it’s necessary to know what your child’s personal boundaries are, and to talk about potentially scary topics with your child in a safe setting. And maybe some fairy tales are best held until a child is a little older and can understand better what stories are. I thought it was cool to find out that the Disney fairy tales, which I loved as a kid, weren’t the same as the stories they were based on. I was much older by that point, and it didn’t ruin the “safer” versions either–it expanded the world of fairy tales.

Check out the rest of the article for lots of other good points about presenting fairy tales for modern audiences.

(image: Arthur Rackham, via Fantasy Art Workshop)