Re: Thread stolen from rasfw; Magic and Society

In article <ddfr-B683F5.15444515102007@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
David Friedman <ddfr@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In _Salamander_, large effect with small cause doesn't itself involve
magic at all--it's just that magic provides small causes. So becoming a
competent mage involves both learning to use magic to make something
happen--say to start a piece of paper burning--and to use a small
"something happens" to cause a big something happening--the piece of
paper is a message whose destruction will prevent an army from coming to
relieve a crucial hold under siege. The second part of what you are
learning is entirely non-magical--but essential if you are going to be
an effective mage in a world where magic is weak.

I'm writing in a setting where magic is much stronger, and it is
possible to make a large direct effect--but attaining the needed
perspective can be very hazardous, by the nature of large effects.
Certainly it's safer to aim for a small direct effect which can be
built up into a large indirect one.

In RL mythology, the Sumerian goddess Ereshkigal made her own body
the portal by which the dead pour into the underworld. If one wanted
to strike down the army by magic, one could try something like that--
but it's likely to have drastic personal consequences. (Ereshkigal
is depicted as in continual pain, like a woman constantly in labor.
And she's a goddess--being mortal is unlikely to make this easier.)

The main thing I am aiming for is that there is no way to stand
aside safely and push the red button. You have to be out there
embodying the bomb. The most a wizard can really hope for is to
have an experience which will count as doing so once and for all,
so as to be able to use safer spell versions than the ones which
need to do it *de novo* each casting. Shien learned what he needed
to know about death magic by having his master try strenuously to
kill him with it. "You may die, and in that case I will bind your
soul as a slave and go on. Or you may be strong enough to resist,
in which case you live as a mortal. Between is the Mystery, if you
can find it." But he's still being intimate with death, potentially
his own death, whenever he uses it; so he doesn't use it often.

Mary Kuhner mkkuhner@xxxxxxxxxx

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