witchcraft and the law

[marycatelli]

How would you go about prosecuting a witch in a world that had functional witchcraft?

A witch makes a little ship of eggshell, and sinks it -- and leagues away, a ship wrecks, and all its crew are lost.  A child dies of fever, because hidden somewhere in the village is a poppet that was burned.  Witches cook up a cauldron, and a horrific hailstorm tears up the crops and breaks all the tiles on all of the houses.  And all three hit the problems that in real life, brought down the witch hunts.  How did you prove that it was witchcraft and not natural occurrences?  And even if it were overtly magical in origin, how would you track down the culprits?

Worse still if all that witchcraft really was diabolic in origin, so you couldn't call in counter-magic.  Divination would be needed at the very least to find out anything.  And a heavily forensic magic would be useful.  Perhaps something could be whipped up with theurgy, and directly calling on angels or other good supernatural, but that has a long history of being impiety -- which is not exactly what you want to indulge in when facing devils.

Of course, if it were heavily dependent on Stuff, as many historical practices were, that might help.  Learned magic for instance -- great thumping books of spells would tell you what spells were cast.  And other things might be distinctive.

Might.  What fun.

Comments

[mythusmage.livejournal.com]

We have a talent for getting things wrong. We'll use bad words for things that scare us, and good words for things that delight us. And don't forget, originally we called them daimons and saw them as inspiration.

But always remember that a fantasy doesn't have to strictly follow our reality, so long as is it consistent.

[marycatelli]

"And don't forget, originally we called them daimons and saw them as inspiration."

Why not? Are you saying it is illegitimate to forget it entirely and instead build a world on a later conception? It's not as if things that scare us can't be bad, or even evil, and things that delight us can't be good.

[mythusmage.livejournal.com]

No, more limiting, for the real world is a complex, complicated, and confusing place. And more often than you'd think honesty can be misleading and destructive. Don't forget the part in the oath given in court where the witness swears he will tell the whole truth.

[marycatelli]

Was this supposed to mean something?

Limits are the artistic essence of world-building. To include this and not that is how you define the world.

As opposed to the limits you are offering here, which is that you aren't allowed to choose the later conception -- now that's really limited, and a peril to the writer who accepts the imposition.

As for the rest of it, I have no idea how it has any relationship with anything in the discussion.

[alan kellogg (from livejournal.com)]

While you, on the other hand, insist that the limitations of your sub-creation be that of reality.

I don't believe in real world magic. I believe a thing can be magical, but that is an indiviudal response, moderated by hormones and pheromones, and not a sign of working magic aat all. A lake becomes magical when you're in the right mood and with the right person.

I submit, Ms. Catelli, that in any world where magic works, it will have an impact on people and society. It will be used. Using some of it will earn you a stiff penalty, not because you are committing fraud, but becuase you are making people do things they would not otherwise do.

When magic works we call it technology. And even today there are many who consider our technology a type of magic. We call magic wondrous because of our ignorance. When we know a little of it, we stop seeing it as wondrous. When we have an even better understanding, it becomes wondrous again.

How is it tasmanian devils bond so quickly with us? Or barn owls for that matter. Both are wild animals, they're supposed to be afraid of us. But tazzies will cuddle with us, and owls express happiness when a favorite human appears.

My point in all this is, accept your world as it is, but don't expect it to conform to your expectations. The people of that world may have ideas as to how things work, that doesn't mean they are going to be rigth. For thousands of years we just knew that the Sun Orbited the Earth. It explained things. It was just the wrong explanation. We learned better. There are people who deny what we have learned, but there is so much that relies on a Heliocentric Solar System the fact the Earth orbits the Sun cannot be ignored.

So let your characters be wrong, for how they undeerstand their world depends on what they know, and what they know depends on what they learned as children.

Thanks for your replies, I am learning that I need to address your objections, and to address them as clearly as I can.

[marycatelli]

Earth to Alan, come in Alan.

I started with a "what if", namely "what if a world had functional witchcraft?"

To call this "insist[ing] that the limitations of your sub-creation be that of reality" when you "don't believe in real world magic" is -- err -- gibberish. To say nothing stronger about it.

"In any world where magic works, it will have an impact on people and society."

And the impact will depend on HOW it works, in which the world-builder has a lot of leeway.

"Using some of it will earn you a stiff penalty, not because you are committing fraud, but becuase you are making people do things they would not otherwise do."

Only if you are caught. Which is the question at hand.

"When magic works we call it technology. "

Only magica. Not goetia or theurgia.

"My point in all this is, accept your world as it is, but don't expect it to conform to your expectations"

My very own imaginary world, built by me for my very own purposes, is going to conform to my expectations. It could hardly do otherwise. I'm the author.

"The people of that world may have ideas as to how things work, that doesn't mean they are going to be rigth."

Moot point. The author has to know how and whether they can detect witchcraft and defend themselves against it. Otherwise the world-building will be too weak to support the story.

"So let your characters be wrong, for how they undeerstand their world depends on what they know, and what they know depends on what they learned as children."

Only it makes a good story for that to come back and bite them. Because -- remember the what-if? -- having false ideas about whether they can detect and defend against witchcraft is really going to bite them. Hard.