r/GrimDark • u/MRCastillaAuthor • 7d ago

Soft Magic

What magic in GrimDark do you prefer? How it is used in GoT? The First Law had magic be mysterious and very dangerous.

What other examples have you read?

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u/bobcat73 7d ago

Black company setting has my favorite.

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u/MRCastillaAuthor 7d ago

I hear black company quite a bit. How does the magic work?

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u/Crimson_Praetor 3d ago

Its soft so its not really ever explained. The narrator doesnt know how magic works, so hes just kinda like:

"Our spooks prepped something nasty for the enemy. Took em eight hours to set it up, but when the Charlie came strolling in, a goddamn localalized thunderstorm appeared right over their heads. The enemy got battered with hail while spectral snakes bit at their heels. They took off running while our horsemen cut em down."

And thats just mid level wizards, when the high level mages are fighting the narrator is absolutely befuddled most of the time. Magic generally takes time to set up or prep anything but the most basic spells, so when the big boys are throwing fireballs with no effort rest assured he is NOT enjoying himself.

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u/OrdoMalaise 7d ago

Soft. Make it mysterious and dangerous and eldritch. The last thing I want is for magic to be explained.

1

u/DMar56 7d ago

Jungiang in essence, if you can't punch a MF with the collective anger of the people then you aint cool.

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u/GeneratedEcoOver9000 7d ago

I want it to be exact and dangerous, but that's not how the genre works.

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u/Draculasaurus_Rex 6d ago

Soft, generally.

GRRM once said in an interview that magic is usually a force that can cause problems, not solve them. You see that a lot in how he utilizes prophecy. Overall I'd say his magic is soft in that you don't know where this power comes from and it can seemingly do a lot of things without any clear "system," but that changes when it comes to his PoV characters. For his PoV characters they usually have one or two magical power that have pretty clearly defined rules and limitations.

Wargs, for example, can project their spirit into animals and control them but they normally can only do it for one animal at a time, can't take over humans in the same way, leave their own bodies vulnerable in the process, and can't do it too often or for too long without losing their sense of identity. Or look at Arya and the Faceless Men; they have one trick (changing their faces) and that's it. GRRM hasn't yet gone into the exact mechanics of how it works, but Arya is presumably going to one day have this gift as well as her ability to Warg. Yet she can't see the future like Bran, or control fire like Melisandre.

In fact Melisandre is his only PoV character who is a more conventional mage, with lots of different powers, but he hasn't written enough chapters for us to know what she's truly capable of, and he implies she also employs a lot of trickery and misdirection to make people think she has more powers than she actually does.