magic vs. tech

[marycatelli]

One thing in world-building is that a lot of writers -- particularly those with cross-world travel in their worlds -- say that "technology" doesn't work in the magical world.  Just because it's magic.

I hate it, I hate it, I hate it.  If your gunpowder doesn't explode, you should be dead, and your fire shouldn't be burning; they all run on the same process.  If your watch doesn't run, lightning shouldn't strike -- or else that mill shouldn't be grinding grain and the carts going to it should not have their wheels turning.  Technology doesn't use some fundamentally different processes than everything else.

And, anyway, what is technology?  Why is the steam engine technology and the water mill not?

And worst of it, it's never caused.  If Lud the Purple had cast a spell to ensure it, it would have to be motivated -- with difficulty -- and defined, and I would be very suspicious if people didn't try to pry around the edges.  But it's treated as a natural aspect of magic.  As spontaneous as the sun rising.  Selectively turning off the laws of nature for certain applications developed after a certain era leaves the question of why.

Comments

[dirigibletrance.livejournal.com]

I have to disagree with this.

It's the writer's playground. They can do what they want with it.

Furthermore, the Amber books did exactly this, and they kicked complete ass, so your arguement is invalid. Anyways, "The Guns of Avalon" is all about Corwin trying to get around this rule and make a way for gunpowder to burn in Amber anyway, even though it shouldn't, so it's not like both the writer and the characters themselves weren't aware of the dilemmas presented.

[marycatelli]

They can do what they want, including write a bad book.

And your counterexample is invalid. First, since no book is perfect, the use of something in even a good book is not proof that it is good. Second, the worlds were far more complex than a binary magic-here/tech-there.

[jamesenge.livejournal.com]

Jack of Shadows might be a better example. Technology didn't work in the world's dark zone and magic didn't work in the light zone; they mingled in the twilight belt. But he justified it pretty well, I think.

I would say the writer gets to set certain groundrules--and the reader gets to say, "I hate these groundrules!" and go elsewhere.

[marycatelli]

Jack of Shadows also didn't dwell on it. The attitudes toward this -- strange stuff were more noticeable.

Come to think of it, did anything technological, being brought to the dark side, actually stop working? I don't remember any. Perhaps that shows how little it dwelled on it.

But the reader also gets to say, "These groundrules are aesthetically unsound." 0:)

[norilana.livejournal.com]

Excellent point, Mary, I see exactly what you're saying and agree with you.

[marycatelli]

glad you like it

[osprey-archer.livejournal.com]

I absolutely agree. If someone wants to write a book without gunpowder (or whatever), fine, but saying it's because technology doesn't work is just silly. Maybe the people in that world didn't discover gunpowder because magical fireballs were so explosive and easy to make that looking for an alternate was unnecessary.

[marycatelli]

I did a fantasy gunpowder story once. "Where There Is Smoke" Published in Sword and Sorceress XV

It created certain problems with fire elementals. . . .

[robert-mitchell.livejournal.com]

I think the duality is more a pre-Christian, post Christian thing, which gets translated into Magic vs. Technology. We have seen it in our world. There have been many amazing singular engineering feats in the ancient world, because the men who made them were clever enough to keep their secrets, which were then lost. The essence of Magic is, in my mind, Knowledge is power, and the less who know, the more powerful you are. Science/Technology happened when people started selflessly sharing knowledge, allowing a body of thought to be built. A world of Magic might have clever people who noticed things about the world, but what are the odds that the Mages would let them share?

[marycatelli]

that would argue even more strongly for their miscibility.

[robert-mitchell.livejournal.com]

Sure, on one level. It gets weird quickly if magic is "wide slam open" as it seems to be on most "crosstime" worlds. Magic might allow guns, but if an Archmage casts a ritual to stop them from working anywhere close to him, it ends up much the same. Given that the idea of "Magical duels" is commonplace, and the nature of said duels, the mages would seem to be in a better position to "eccm" the technology then the scientists, who will be hamstrung by the magic which, after all, doesn't (in most crosstime worlds) follow Natural Law. You end up with a situation like we had in the real world, where telephones were not possible in many areas of the world, not because they didn't work, but because the natives cut down the wires. Either way, the phones don't work......