The Magic System in WOT

[Ashaman Kovan]

Ok I think starting now everyone should agree on pain of death to stop using the word "Magic" to in any way refer to any entity, ability Etc having anything to do with WoT. :-X

 

True but I can't think of any other word! ::)

 

How about ummm.....Power?

[RAND AL THOR]

Ok I think starting now everyone should agree on pain of death to stop using the word "Magic" to in any way refer to any entity, ability Etc having anything to do with WoT. :-X

 

True but I can't think of any other word! ::)

 

How about ummm.....Power?

 

But this thread is there to discuss the 'magic' system in WOT in relation to that in other books. So I have to use a fairly common term. :D 'Power' applies in WOT but not in many others books. ;D

[Ashaman Kovan]

How about ummm...Arcane?

[Lord Nik]

How about ummm...Arcane?

Arcane is unknown... We know what Saidin and Saidar is... Its not unknown (well to channelers at least) So arcane doesn't work.. I think calling it power works best..

The WOT is magic

Seems a rather weak way to put it :(

[Ashaman Kovan]

arcane –adjective

known or understood by very few; mysterious; secret; obscure; esoteric.

 

So that seems to fit. But either way my first choice was power. So thats still my first choice.

[Bob T Dwarf]

Not to get toooo nitpicky, but Jordan didn't have a problem with "magic."

Ern: Speaking of world building, the world, and the magic of The Wheel of Time universe is quite involved, quite complex...yet you keep a high degree of consistency. How to you keep things straight?

 

Robert: Every time I think of something new I jot it down in my notes. And I've built a sort of logic tree...if this is so and that is so, then this other thing cannot be so. Sometimes you reach a point where if you follow one line a thing cannot be so, but if you follow another it must be so.

 

Ern: So, you write fantasy "with the net up".

 

Robert: I look at the magic as though it were technology in a ways...as though it were science. The One Power and Channeling follow rules...it's not simply free wheeling and anything goes, it follows specific rules. Those rules are pretty well worked out now.

 

[CUBAREY]

Not to get toooo nitpicky, but Jordan didn't have a problem with "magic."

 

Quote

 

Robert: I look at the magic as though it were technology in a ways...as though it were science. The One Power and Channeling follow rules...it's not simply free wheeling and anything goes, it follows specific rules.

 

There is at least an ambivalence in RJ when its called "magic". When the rules of majic are known and inherently consistent we of the West have changed the name to "science". Thus, what I think RJ was getting at was the the power in WOT is "science" not "magic"(an admittedly made up science but a scirnce nevertheless).