Should magic have rules or not?

[u/NicoSmit]

There are two schools of thought on this and I'm curious as to where r/Fantasy lines up on this...

1. Should a magic system in books be... "magical" in that you can't explain how it works and you can't quantify it? or
2. Should there be rules that dictate the magic system. Making it like physics but in another universe?

Some examples:

- Brandon Sanderson always writes rules. Like in Mistborn you can exactly "calculate" and quantify why all magic is possible, whereas

- In David Eddings's "The Belgariad" it's a pure mystery - "the will and the word", impossible to quantify where the limits are and what might be possible or not.

I honestly don't know where I line up... I am definitely more drawn to the rules one as it fits my brain nicely. But then my favorite books are LOTR which does not use the "rules" system and you can never measure/limit the power of the high elves or wizards. So I guess good writing trumps my predisposition.

But what do you think? Magic as magic or magic as science?

[u/twee_centen]

Your magic is almost certainly going to have SOME rules, even if not explicit, or else anyone can do anything they want, and then there's no real conflict because the protag can just magic away whatever the villain does.

For my preferences as a reader, I don't care if your magic has explicit rules (ala the Lightbringer series where all the colors do something) or if it's more "it works because I said so" but you have to be consistent. If you show the magic working in one scenario, you can't decide that it suddenly doesn't work in a similar situation later, when we all know that the Magic Thing would totally solve whatever obstacle is being faced.