Imaginary Worlds - Magical Thinking

Episode Date: October 6, 2016

Hocus Pocus. Abracadabra. Those words imply that magic is silly because it can solve problems far too easily. Fantasy novelists strive to avoid those types of situations when they design magic systems from scratch. Patrick Rothfuss (author of The Kingkiller Chronicle) explains how most magic systems can be divided into two camps: poetic magic and scientific magic. Tor critic Martin Cahill appreciates Rothfuss's work because he weaves both types of magic into his stories. And psychology professor Carol Nemeroff reveals why our brains are hardwired to believe in magical thinking. **This is part 3 in a 6 part series on magic and fantasy.**Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Last year, I did an episode about Dungeons & Dragons, which I'd never played before. I'm very deeply into it still. In fact, my character is a sorcerer who is trying to control his magic. Before playing D&D, I was more of a sci-fi guy, but D&D has become like my gateway drug into the fantasy genre. And as I keep reading more and more fantasy books, I keep thinking about something that Lev Grossman, the novelist, said in that episode. When Gandalf wanted to do a spell, he had his staff and whatever, he waved it around and yelled something, and then something exciting happened. But you never had a sense that there was an orderly system well dungeons and dragons rationalized all that in this really radical way suddenly all these questions had answers

well if you want to cast a spell what kinds of materials do you have to have on hand is it are you talking are you waving your arms It became very specific and very much in the way that novelists describe things, especially the way novelists describe things now. Patrick Rothfuss is also a fantasy novelist. He's best known for The Kingkiller Chronicles. He doesn't think that D&D deserves all the credit for changing the fantasy genre, but he agrees that casting a spell was much simpler back in Tolkien's day. You know, his magic isn't ever explained. It's not part of a system that you can

kind of explore. But that's kind of fair because Tolkien's world, it's kind of painted in broad, impressionistic strokes a lot of the time. Now, since Tolkien died in the early 1970s, the fantasy genre has expanded and divided into many different subgenres. And each fantasy author has a chance to invent a brand new universe with its own rules of magic. Writers, critics, and fans are often sizing up these magic systems, praising the ones that they think are original, poking holes in the ones that they think are original, poking holes in the ones that have faulty internal logic. Now, I find this fascinating because magic is inherently illogical. Unlike science fiction, it is based on pure imagination, and there's no reason why magic

couldn't solve any problem. But that's why magic is so challenging for storytellers, because how do you strike a balance between the unlimited potential of magic and the need for a story to have a conflict? Now, Patrick Rothfuss says you can separate all these different magic systems into two basic categories. He calls the Tolkien school of magic poetic magic. Its opposite would be scientific magic. school of magic, poetic magic. Its opposite would be scientific magic. Now that's similar to Brandon Sanderson's magic systems, which you may have heard of, although he sorts everything into soft magic or hard magic. A lot of Brandon Sanderson's work, the magic systems he creates in his worlds are very specific and made explicit to the reader. And part of the joy of one of those systems

is that you get to understand how everything fits together. And because you know how it fits together, if somebody is clever in that system, you can appreciate their cleverness. On the other end of the spectrum is the wondrous and the implicit, and that's where Gandalf is. But here's the secret. There are still rules on that side of the spectrum. It's just that they're very difficult to define, if not impossible to define.

I like both. They're both very useful in their own way. like both. They're both very useful in their own way. Marty Cahill writes about fantasy for Tor.com and he really admires Patrick Rothfuss as a novelist because he created a universe where scientific magic and poetic magic can coexist. You have the scientific magic of that world is known as sympathy and it's this very scientific approach to the forces of the universe. So there are rules, there are laws, there are texts you can read, there are histories, you have professors, you have this magical school. The main character, Kvothe, starts with the hard magic, but then discovers this other mystical type of magic called naming. It's not a matter of manipulating two iron pennies or a matter of manipulating

the heat of fire to be transferred to another object. You're talking about manipulating the very wind itself. You're manipulating the very fire itself. You're talking about wrangling with these larger aspects of the universe. A lot of the fun in his first two books comes from both trying to figure this out because he has a very scientific method mind. And every teacher who's trying to teach him naming is knocking him on the head saying, no, no, you need to stop that. This is not this. This is not that. This is a different and deeper process. A lot of people really enjoy that because a lot of geeks work in engineering or they know chemistry or thermodynamics. And so they read the books and they're like, oh, wow, that does make total sense. There is a

trade-off though, because a lot of people, if they do really understand how the world fits together, then they can start to question that system or question what gets done. And they're like, question that system or question what gets done. And they're like, well, what about entropy? You know, well, what about angular momentum? And so you really have to work for that. Now, you can break those two different systems of poetic magic and scientific magic into many subgenres based on the questions the authors have to ask themselves. Like, is magic a secret in this world? Or does everybody know about it? Is magic hereditary? Or is it something that anyone can learn? Is your magic neutral? Or is there light magic and dark magic that's forbidden? As I'm ticking off all these

questions, I bet you are thinking of different movies or TV shows or books that embody every one of those subgenres. But Marty says there is one trope that runs throughout all of them, the mentor. I think we go back to this mentor-mentee or, you know, wise old man trope or magic school because they're very easy ways to introduce your world and your magic and your characters to the reader. And when they're learning, you're learning. So when they level up, you level up. That's when you can start seeing, you know,

how they've changed as a character. And there's one big famous example of that. It turns out a lot of fantasy writers and critics don't like J.K. Rowling's magic system. I was surprised to learn that because I thought she laid everything out really thoroughly. In fact, when I was reading the books, I felt like things were a little too thorough. Like when Harry finally faced down Voldemort at the end of the series, he practically presented

a thesis dissertation on the appropriation of wands and the legal loopholes around the intention of their owners so that we knew that he had outsmarted Voldemort. or on the intention of their owners so that we knew that he had outsmarted Voldemort. It kind of looks like it should be over on the scientific end of the spectrum where they're like, you have to turn your wrist or you have to say, you know, it's Leviosa, not Leviosa, you know. But the system itself is very inconsistent. The perfect example of this is the time turner.

Like, if you have a time turner in the world, you would use that to solve all sorts of problems. And Dumbledore doesn't? It's funny. These things never occur to me when I read fantasy novels. Then again, logistics is not exactly my strong suit in life. We'll talk more about that later. Patrick says when he takes on the challenge of designing a magic system, he knows that he's breaking the rules of reality. So he feels compelled to chase down every implication, every unintended consequence.

So he's very careful about how many rules of reality he's going to break. Whereas in Harry Potter, it's like you do have things like teleportation. And the fact that the world isn't significantly different because of that, that bugs me. I always thought magical stories were about wish fulfillment. There have been many times that I've thought to myself, if only I had a magic whatever that would solve all my problems. But Marty says a really good magic system should actually disprove that wish. Because, yeah, life could be easier if I could open a portal back to my apartment in Queens.

But to have me doing that untrained or unchecked, the consequences of that magic could be dire. Because if you have magic, they have magic too. Yeah, exactly, exactly. I teleported into my job on time. consequences of that magic could be dire because if you have magic they have magic too yeah exactly exactly i teleported into my my job on time well my boss has a future seeing powers and he already gave me a too much to do wow yeah exactly yeah do you feel like the best well this is my bias do you feel like do you don't you agree that the best magic systems are ones where a price needs to be paid or a sacrifice needs to be made to make the magic work. I agree.

I think, well, I mean, you can put the $20 away. I am saying this of my own free will. I agree. I think magic is hard and magic asks a lot of people. And if you're going to do it, then it's going to tax you and toll you beyond all recognition in the end. Either you're going to change or the way people see you is going to change or the way you interact with the world is going to change. Magic can hurt you.

Patrick Rothfuss did not go for my theory. He thinks this idea that magic comes with a heavy price has become a cliche. Well, here's the thing. Does chemistry have a price? You know, it's like, oh, you've meddled with the chemistry, you know, like, does plumbing have a price? And that's kind of a stupid thought, you know, oh, no, I've, you know, exercised my craft of the plumbing. Now there's a price. But that said, you know, chemistry and plumbing absolutely do have limitations. I mean, you can only solve so many problems with plumbing. You know, one of my writing teachers back in the day, Larry Watson, he wasn't a fantasy writer or even much of a fantasy reader, but I approached him and kind of freaked out about writing my book. And I said, how do I know what's important to the story? Because if I know what's important to the story, I can take everything else out.

making because the person, the main character of the story made gloves. And so you learned a lot about making gloves in this story. And a lot of people were, you know, they were irritated by that. And he kind of shrugged and he laughed. He goes, I thought it was really interesting learning about the glove making. And, you know, that's true. I mean, we learn, if you read the Odyssey, you know, Odysseus makes a freaking boat. And so, like, the reader learns how to make a boat. If you read The Old Man and the Sea, you learn about how he fishes. If you read Moby Dick, you learn about whaling. And so if you learn about a young orphan boy who goes to a school of magic, yeah, you're going to learn about magic.

But again, that doesn't have much to do with the magic. That just has to do with how stories work. But glove making and fishing are real. Magic only feels real to people with very active imaginations. Or so I thought until I met a scientist who studies how our brains work and why magic makes sense to us. And it turns out scientists have developed their own magic systems. More on that after the break. One of the reasons why I'm interested in magic is because as I've gotten older, I've realized that many of the decisions I've made in life were based on magical thinking. Like there are things that I wished for, and I just assumed they would happen because I wish for them. There are also things that I didn't want to have happen,

and I thought all I had to do was wish against them. Also, sometimes I come across something in the world that confuses me. And deep down, I have a feeling I'm not going to like the answer. So I come up with a different explanation that feels better, but really only makes sense if you believe in magic. So congratulations, you're human. Carol Nemiroff is a professor of psychology at the University of Southern Maine. In terms of thinking something will happen if you wish it hard enough, that is exactly what happens every time you move a body part.

You know, you want to lift your arm, boom, you lift your arm. That's mind over matter. So the principle of mind influencing matter is something we see in action every day. The question is, to what domains does it actually apply? Carol has done a lot of experiments to test magical thinking. And the key ingredient is a dead cockroach, which sounds like the kind of thing that a witch would tell you to find to put in your potion. But scientists like cockroaches because disgust is a really simple and clear emotion to measure in a lab, especially when the dead cockroach has been thoroughly chemically sterilized. So in one experiment,

Carol asked people what their favorite juice is, pours them a glass, and drops in the cockroach. And then took it out with tweezers and made sure that people counted the legs to ensure that nothing had fallen off in there, but also to get them to attend to the disgusting object. And then we asked them to rate again

how much they would like to drink the juice. So obviously most people say, I don't want to drink the juice, and they give it a very, very negative rating. Now you pour in new juice, you ask them now would they like to drink the juice? No, they wouldn't like to drink the juice. You pour out the juice again, you wash the glass thoroughly, I believe we washed it three times, and then pour in new juice of the same type, and you ask them how much would they like to drink the juice, and they say, ew, I still don't want to drink the juice. So she's ruined their favorite juice through the power of association.

That is one of the first rules of magical thinking, the law of contagion. Which can be summarized as once in contact, always in contact. The second law is the law of similarity. Like if you have a lock of hair from Elvis Presley, you can auction that off for over $100,000 because it supposedly contains his essence. These were pulled out, these were abstracted from a 12-volume compilation of magical practices and superstitious beliefs worldwide by Sir James Fraser, the anthropologist. And he identified them as principles that underlie

virtually all examples that he could come up with, that he could identify. And that's across cultures across the world. Exactly. But across cultures, what you find is that the form of these things remains consistent, but the details get filled in differently by the culture. So an example here, the principle of you are what you eat. It says that whatever you take into your body and digest, you will manifest the characteristics of it. And we find that all over the place. So the question is, what characteristics are we talking about? So if I eat bunny rabbit, in some cultural context, that might make me timid, and I would want to avoid doing that. Whereas in other cultural contexts, it may make me fertile, and I would want to do that. Or it might make me fleet of foot,

you know, bunnies are fast. So the principle remains absolutely consistent, but the way in which it's enacted and the specific characteristics that are focused on can differ. So there is room for creativity in magic. That's getting into a whole other area area because magical thinking is, it turns out, linked with creativity. Oh, really? No, that's fascinating. Tell me more about that. This is Eugene Sabatsky's work. He's a brilliant colleague.

He shows children clips from the Harry Potter movies. And he shows them either clips involving magical scenes or clips involving mundane scenes. clips involving magical scenes or clips involving mundane scenes. And he finds that their scores on tests of magic, excuse me, of creativity skyrocket when he shows them scenes from the movie that are magical in content. Now, Carroll approves of J.K. Rowling's magic system because Rowling almost always follows the psychological laws of magical thinking. The law of contagion. Once in contact, always in contact.

And the law of similarity. The image equals the object. We'll have exactly one hour before we change back into ourselves. For example, the polyjuice potion, which Ron, Hermione, and Harry use to transform into other people so they can sneak around. You have to get a piece of the person. You have to get a piece of the person. You have to get a piece of hair.

I believe something was horribly wrong for poor Hermione at one point when the hair that she thinks belongs to the person she's trying to look like turns out instead to have been a hair from their cat. Look at my face. Look at your tail. So this is a combination of contagion and similarity because it doesn't turn you into them and it doesn't link you irrevocably with them. It helps you take on the appearance of them.

Carol says there's only one example in the entire series where J.K. Rowling invents something that breaks those two laws of magical thinking. The horcrux. In case you don't know, Voldemort split his soul up into several different objects or horcrux. In case you don't know, Voldemort split his soul up into several different objects or horcruxes. If you could find them all, if you did destroy each horcrux... One destroys Voldemort. How would you find them? One of the interesting elements of mana is it's always unitary.

So if I get a lock of hair or even a single hair, all of the important aspects of the source are in that tiny little piece. We call that the holographic principle. So with the Horcrux, you're splitting the person's mana, and you shouldn't be able to split it. You should be able to take bits of it all over the place, but each bit should be complete in itself. The Horcrux is actually my favorite invention of J.K. Rowling.

Maybe that's because I like stories where magic takes a toll on you or carries a heavy price. I don't know what that says about me, but Carroll says that trope is based on a fear that your essence or your mana can only be stretched so far. That's actually one of the core differences between magic and religion. You know, in religion, you are appealing to external sources. But in magic, you're doing it yourself. It's your own energy that is driving this, basically. Even though this thinking starts to become illogical, I assume it must serve some kind of evolutionary survival purpose.

There are many different ways to get here, and some of them are probably not linked to evolutionary functioning. But I think that positive contagion, because magical contagion can be positive as well as negative, I think that that's related to bonding. Why is food from mom or dad's plate always better? Why is food from your boyfriend's plate always better? Why do girlfriends steal their boyfriend's sweaters? It's because his stuff is in it. And that's actually an indication of bonding. And bonding is very useful. It's funny that when you're talking about your mother or your boyfriend, because I was just thinking about how often in the Harry Potter books, you know, Dumbledore keeps saying, keeps trying to explain to Harry, this is, you know, love is essentially the most powerful magical spell. And, you know, it trumps everything.

And that's why, you know, there's this love shield that was around the house and everything like that. And so it sounds like love to some extent follows these rules of magical thinking. Yes, it absolutely does. The negative is probably more powerful simply because it's really never as urgent to approach something with love

as it is to get away from something dangerous. Either way, the emotions that motivate us on a core level, like disgust or love, have been essential in keeping the human race alive for hundreds of thousands of years. And I think if there's one thing that unites all these different magic systems, it's the power of our thinking. It's like the old saying that, you know, your life isn't defined by your circumstances, but how you react to them. And I've seen this over and over again in fantasy stories,

where a character masters a magic system, and they have to realize that their thoughts are essential to keeping them alive in times of danger. But seeing the world in radically new ways can help you thrive. Well, that's it for this week, but not it for Harry Potter. My next few episodes are going to be about J.K. Rowling's world and the impact it had on a generation that aged with her characters. Special thanks to Patrick Rothfuss, Carol Nemiroff, and Marty Cahill, who is a big Game of Thrones fan like me, but agrees the way that Melisandre brought a certain character back from the dead

was a pretty lame bit of soft magic. She just walked over and she's like, I will ask the Lord of Light to bring him back and give him a bath, a sexy bath. The Lord of Light thinks you should shave. You look better without a beard. The man bun will truly make you alive. Are you saying this? Or is the Lord of Light making you say this? That was pretty good. Do you do all the characters? Uh, I can, but not sober. Imaginary Worlds is part

of the Panoply Network. Today's episode featured original music by Phantom Fauna and Sono Sanctus. You can like the show on Facebook or leave a comment at iTunes. You can also support the show on Patreon, a crowdfunding website. I tweet at emalinski and and my website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org. Panoply.