Magic, also known as magick, is the application of beliefs, rituals, or actions employed in the belief that they can manipulate natural or supernatural phenomena. There are nine types of magic systems, including elemental magic, time magic, space magic, life and/or nature magic, death magic/necromancy, order and chaos magic, creation and destruction, and instrumental magic.
Elemental magic involves harnessing the power of nature, while time magic involves working with elements and local land spirits. Time magic is a form of magic that relies on time, space, life and nature, death magic/necromancy, order and chaos, creation and destruction, and the destructive nature of magic.
Integrative magic is the most common type, involving abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy, and transmutation. The eight schools of magic include abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy, and transmutation.
There are also known types of magic such as absorption, acid magic, African mysticism, akashic magic, alchemy, alien magic, ancestral magic, and animal magic. Some types of magic to use in writing include learning magic, training magic, within magic, life and death, and kinetic magic.
The ancient Egyptians also believed in another form of magic power called Akhu, which was malign and closely associated with beings of the underworld. By understanding the various types of magic systems and their practices, readers can better understand the diverse ways in which witchcraft has evolved over time.
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How many magic types are there?
Arcane theory categorizes magic into eight schools: abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy, and transmutation. The origins of magic are believed to have been used by gods who created their domains in the heavens. These powers were gifted to mortals who devoted their lives to these gods, eventually learning to replicate them. As mortals mastered the various forms of magic, they bound their will to the formless powers of the universe and invoked it with arcane power. Magic spread across the planes as mortals mastered the various forms of magic.
What are the super types in magic?
A supertype is a distinct category that encompasses an object’s card type and subtype. Unlike the latter, a supertype can be modified without affecting the former. Typically, these are displayed on the line indicating the card’s type, preceding the main type, and are often accompanied by associated rules. To illustrate, an object designated as a “Creature” may possess subtypes “Human” and “Wizard.” Its supertype remains unaltered by its card types or subtypes.
What is the greatest magic in the world?
The World’s Greatest Magic was a series of American television specials that showcased magic acts. The first of five shows was broadcast by NBC in 1994 and continued with annual editions until 1998. The specials were most often first telecast during the Thanksgiving holidays when special programming would occur. They reran occasionally on ABC Family from October 1996 to early 2002. The first episode was hosted by Robert Urich, the second by Alan Thicke, and the final three episodes by John Ritter.
All of the specials were narrated by Don LaFontaine. In the Mac King School of Magic segment, Mac King showed viewers a simple magic trick before each commercial break, breaking it down after the commercial break for the audience to perform for family and friends. The first special featured teach-a-trick segments featuring various magicians and a special guest celebrity.
What are the 8 types of magic explained?
Magic, one of the oldest forms of entertainment, has been captivating audiences for centuries. Magicians perform eight tricks: appearance, levitation, penetration, prediction, restoration, transformation, and transposition. These tricks manipulate perception, making it seem impossible. Some types are more common for beginners, like card tricks or sleight of hand. Most magicians know a core base of tricks and develop their repertoire around a few favorite pieces. Some magicians may use card tricks or sleight of hand.
What are the 12 elements of magic?
The author is working on an elemental magic system consisting of 12 elements: Fire, Light, Lightning, Wind, Sound, Water, Shadow, Wood, Earth, and Metal. They have only listed 10 elements and are struggling to find the remaining two. The system works with four main elements, each associated with a season: Water (Winter), Earth (Spring), Fire (Summer), and Wind (Autumn/Fall). Each element has two derivative elements that branch out from it. The elements they are trying to determine must be a Water derivative and either a Fire or Earth derivative. Feedback on the existing elements is welcome.
How do you classify magic?
There are nine distinct categories of magic systems, including those based on natural forces, divination, conjuring, psychic abilities, those pertaining to life and death, those exclusive to animals or creatures, magiciantech systems, and eclectic magic.
What are the 4 types of magic?
The chart consists of four types of magic systems: hard-rational, hard-irrational, soft-irrational, and soft-rational. The hard and soft axis represents the amount of knowledge or understanding available about a magic system. This axis is based on Sanderson’s First Law of Magic, which states that the more knowledge a magician has, the better their magic system is. The chart is a useful tool for understanding and improving one’s magic system.
Which type of magic is strongest?
The article discusses the strongest magic types, including blood magic, enchantment, elemental magic, life and death magic, rune magic, cosmic magic, illusion, and alteration and transmutation. It also highlights a previous video ranking the strongest magic types, which can be accessed in the blog post. The article also provides context for the rules for each type, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the topic.
How to learn magic in real life?
Those new to the art of magic should engage in regular practice, recall that the essence of magic is the art of acting, and perform for an audience as often as possible. It is essential to cultivate confidence, infuse one’s performances with a distinctive personal style, and engage in consistent practice.
What are the 8 effects of magic?
Magicians often discuss the number of tricks, but it is possible to break them down into categories. Some magicians believe there are only eight general effects: Levitation, Penetration, Prediction, Restoration, Transformation, Transposition, Appearance, and Vanish. However, Dariel Fitzkee, also known as Dariel Fitzroy, wrote in 1944’s The Trick Brain, which explains that all tricks can be broken down into 18 types. This summary focuses on the 18 types of magic tricks that can be observed.
What kind of magic do wizards use?
The wizard, also known as the magic-user or mage, is a standard character class in Dungeons and Dragons. They use arcane magic and are less effective in melee combat. The Magic-User class was inspired by spell-casting magicians in folklore and modern fantasy literature, such as Jack Vance’s The Dying Earth short stories and John Bellairs’s novel The Face in the Frost. Other influences include Gandalf, Saruman, and Merlin from Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and King Arthur. Wizards memorize their spells and forget them when cast.
📹 The Four Universal Types of Magic Systems
It’s here. The time has finally come for us to talk about the types of magic systems. So in this video, we’re going to talk about the …
My favorite magic system of all time is the one of Norse mythology and Norse paganism. Everything in the world is connected to an energy field or a force called “megin” (from the Old Norse word for magic). Megin is the devine power that gives everything life. Every thaught, decision and action affects this energy, which in turn affects you back. For every action there is an equivalent reaction from the devine, the “magic”. This system is very logical, thus making it a rational system. It’s very surprising how this can be so logical given it’s over a thousand years old. The gods themselves are the imbodiments of the consepts of what the magic can do. Great article! It was really helpful!
My fave magic system is in the manga/anime ‘Hunter × Hunter’. I’m pretty sure it’s a hard rational system, as it’s so complex you can read ESSAYS on how it works and everything about it kinda ‘makes sense’. The same with the system in Animorphs; strict rules that are set out from the beginning and stories that go into creative ways to use these powers within the ruleset.
And then there’s Divine Throne of Primordial Blood, which has a hard rational magic system but the main character is a research maniac. So at the beginning if you were aware of how complex the magic system actually was then you would consider it a soft magic system, but because of people’s limited knowledge of how much they don’t know it always feels like a hard magic system.
This is the first I have heard of the rational/irrational angle I am attempting to write something, my system is going to be on the extreme end of both hard and rational. If there was one thing I always wondered when reading or perusal fantasy magic, it was definitely the “how” of magic. I can simply enjoy something but after it’s over I just ponder. I think the Wheel of Time comes quite close as far as getting into the nitty gritty of magic. The One Power certainly is documented well in the series. It is shown how they access it, what it is composed of, where it comes from, some hard “what you can’t do” limits and yet some innovation still occurs. With any magic battle, if you know the participants and what they have you could gauge who would might win. The real soft part of WoT is the artifacts, made from a previous age of “modern magitek” they can seemingly do anything. Ter’angreal, like, one controls weather, some are light bulbs, some make portals to other worlds, it is wild. I like knowing the intricacies of what one must do in order to make magic function, don’t ask me why I am like this, Lol, I just am. And the way I am going, I might have an actual text book on my magic before I actually begin writing.
This is a really useful article, thank you. I have been reading Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series. I find this very interesting because the magic system seems very rational combining elements in weaves of varying complexities to achieve effects. On the hard/soft axis, I am slightly less sure where to place it because it seems to depend on which groups are using magic, ranging from Wilders who have had no magical training and are operating purely on instinct (very soft), to Aes Sedai who have undergone a very formal training process of how to use elements and weaves (slightly harder) and then onto The Forsaken, who comment more than once that Aes Sedai are weak and ignorant compared to themselves because The Forsaken have access to magical knowledge from the previous age of the world when magical knowledge was more advanced(much harder). Yet even the Forsaken are sometimes surprised by the magical innovation displayed by Rand Al’Thor, the Dragon Reborn. Then there are the groups such as the Aiel Wise Ones, the Atha’an Miere sea folk Windfinders and the Seanchan who all have access to limited, but still frequently powerful magic that I am not sure where to place on the axis. I am working on a system to embrace this roughly based on the Legend of the Five Rings RPG where player characters with magical talent can use their individual ring scores to attempt basic magical effects. As they gain experience and either training or intuition, they can learn weaves combining different levels of each element.
I have a third axis I sort my magic systems by – the degree to which they violate physics. Like, can you violate causality? Can you violate conservation of energy? Can you remove entropy from a system? Can you transmit information faster than light? I made one system of magic, low on the scale, which was sorted into different schools based on where they got their energy. There were the lightning wizards who went around with huge batteries on their back, the biomancers who were overweight so they could draw on their fat deposits, the illusionists who were near-useless at night, the fire wizards who went around with gasoline to set everything around them on fire if they needed power… In my favorite home-made system, higher on the scale, wizards store up on anentropic mana, and can just get their energy from leeching heat from their surroundings or something, so they get sorted into schools based on methodology and effects. What I like about it is that the elementalist blowing-shit-up magic is one school out of eight, and the rest of them have to get creative if they want to do damage. (That, or multi-class.)
“Superman is hard, and irrational.” Oh I think we’ve all been ‘there’ before. 😛 On a more serious note, I’ve been working on a system for an original setting that would land somewhere in the region of ‘core of a collapsed star that is also a flat earther despite being a literal celestial object.’ on your chart; so getting on the harder/basket case-ier side of the spectrum. So far I’ve completed the framework for like half a dozen systems, except it was all just in the one system, which I retconned over and over again until it was so lacking in any focus or theme that it became the simulacrum of nutrient paste-magic systems; technically a very decent option, still I’d rather take a suppository.
Really glad I came across your website, I was gripped by inspiration recently and have been working to design a Table Top RPG and had zero ideas how to begin building a functioning hard rational magic system from scratch. Your articles have begun to clarify a path. It no longer seems impossible if still daunting.
I already knew of hard and soft magic systems *but this*, this clean explanation of rational to irrational was new to me. This clear explanation will help my session 0 so much, thank you. But I’d love constructive criticism on my take (to all who might read this, all 3 of you lol) & I’ll be using this world for years to come so no reply is ever too late! Divine, faith & religious types fall under hard rational. Even certain runic tech or steampunk styles too. Magical machines can be explained by just taking them apart carefully and with a magical eye (like a “carpenter’s eye”) Darker practices of faith or weaker gods (little “g” was intentional) might be closer to soft rational. Kinda discovering how to help make their faith stronger via certain sacrifices over others or weird practices to gain a boon “running naked in a forest, my gods like dis!” for example. I’ve kinda lumped the irrational hard & softs together. Kinda explaining there functionality on ruined civilizations/forgotten knowledge but artifacts of bullshittery still exists & can be found. How hard or soft are these artifacts? Up to me 😀
3rd axis: It can also be useful to distinguish between low and high magic Shadow of the Colossus would be a low magic setting, as magic is used sparingly and seems like a rare capability. World of Warcraft would be a high magic setting, where entire cities run on magical abilities/technologies. LotR, esp. by the books, would perhaps be low magic. Magical creatures may be around and about, but they behave largely like creatures and animals, not spitting fireballs freely. Harry Potter would certainly be high magic. Magic is either scarce and diminished in impact, or it’s extremely accessible and commonly used.
I have an idea to use subatomic particles as an idea to be able to move, transform, heat up etc any type of object. Some of the downsides can include that an organism that’s capable of this has to live inside your body, but there will be way more other ways to obtain magic in this system. Basically in this example the parasite takes over your nerves, which means you will always be in pain until you get used to it. However, you will immediately be able to feel the magic particles in everything, and with a lot of practice, your body might accept the parasite and you can unconciously communicate with it, making it do tasks for you like transmutate a type of material into another, but even tens of years of practice with this method of doing magic only makes you able to do simple things like oxidize a material, or maybe turn water in cells in a plant to make the plant grow, shrink and move it however you want. Some of these methods will have a set in stone idea of what you can and can’t do, but I’m not that far at all.
This article helped me have some clarity for how my story will be develope further in editing. Tysm for the free knowledge! Id say the one im writing is soft-rational. There are a lot of cause and effect relationships happening that I know but the characters dont. Its basically the standard mana pool combined with animism. So everything has a mana pool since everything was created with magic or at least a few characters claim. Its mostly basic elemental but also light and darkness magic and a little bit of necromancy. The climax is gonna have some weird shit tho. Idk if it’s super original but its gonna be weird
So, I started working on my magic system… It’s mythological magic; gifts granted to the mortals by the gods. It’s common place and some of the gifts are actually curses; and most gifts come at some kind of cost. I am figuring that this would be a hard-rational system because the natives of this world are used to these magical abilities. My issue is that I have brought in people from another world who use technology and believe in … science. So I guess their technology is like magic to the natives and therefore is another layer or magic system. I think I am on the right path… I’ve been reading the Magic System Blueprint and following the prompts. Thanks for writing it… it’s been a godsend…
Hmm, so magic in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel mostly falls into soft irrational, because no one really knows how magic works, beyond a few spells they work out over the course of the story. And anytime Faeries start doing stuff, the only thing you know is that they could quite literally do anything, and they do not think like humans…it’s pretty terrifying. Which is one of my favorite things about soft irrational magic: it can be amazingly beautiful and intensely terrifying at the same time. I think my own magic system is…well, the one side is more hard rational; magic allows communication with plants and animals, and how strong you are is directly related to your physical size and skill level. Because I love the idea of tiny battle mages running around trying to cause famine or vermin infestations in the enemy camp rather than throwing fireballs or laying waste to armies. It amuses me. But the other part of my magic system is far more soft rational. Everyone knows you can access spirits to make deals or ask favors, but every spirit is different, so getting one to notice you, let alone listen, is anything but scientific.
I only just learned about this sliding scale thing, and it def gave me a lot to think about. In the primordial soup of worldbuilding in my head, I’d have to say I have a soft-irrational system in place. One of the key examples of why is a specific character. He’s bound to the life of the planet, and he cannot truly die. Even if his body is turned to dust, it will be reborn as it was before, rising from the ground like a stereotypical zombie, but with all memories in place. How did he get bound to the planet? Why? How does he remember after becoming dust? Even he can’t explain it, and he’s *ancient*. And then there’s certain ‘beings’ out there that I call ‘Aspects’. By any rights, they should not exist, but they do. If anything, they should just be a concept, and not something that can interact with the physical world and beyond. But they can. And yet, aware of it, they only rarely actually do so.
Thanks for the perspective, really helped me understand something odd about magic spell casting vs magic items in Dungeons and Dragons. I started on 2nd ed and found 3rd ed on to have magic items that never felt as “magical” as 2nd ed and prior versions. Your point about the need of D&D to have a hard and known magical system for use and balance, but the older magic item creation was irrational and unpredictable with even vague rules let alone components. 3rd Ed and onwards the items felt industrialised and formalized, but gave me a feeling of annoyance as I lacked the vocabulary to state what was different.
I think in the current game I’m making, the world’s magic system is soft rational. The details go into the science of your cells collecting atmospheric mana and converting it to usable forms, then societies/evolution finding ways to store that mana for bigger uses. However, the same magic system will be one of three(4 of you count technology or Earth mythology, 5 if you count both) magic systems available, and will be a rational magic system that becomes harder as the player progresses through understanding it. The energy system would be soft rational, as mechanically it’s predictable, but it is canonically a articlegame magic system created by a canonical character. The third, Tar, should be irrational soft, despite it having somewhat mechanical functioning. It’s an alien eldritch substance that theoretically exists in all living things, but you canonically don’t want to think about what it is.
Thank you. Useful article. It has helped clarify the journey on which my series will take the reader. A thread running through the series is ‘WTF is magic?’ – a question that has plagued me for 50+ years, ever since D&D was first published. Now retired and with the time write, I am finally ready to answer that question. All story characters who discover magic for themselves find they can change their perception of time and move their perception around remotely – separate from their bodies. This system will seem Soft+Irrational to the reader at first. As the series progresses and readers find out more, I think the system will start to appear Hard+Irrational. In the finale of the series, when the source of magic is fully revealed, the system will be exposed as the Hard+Rational system I know it to be. Wish me Luck!
I have a lot of magic systems, faith is one, circle magic, rune magic, wizardry, witchery, cultivation, aura. I’ve created an multiverse and i have an mechanic called “seeds of infinite”, they are things that can become anything, anything at all, there was 13, one became a tree, that itself grew so much that became an universe, one became an castle that has infinite rooms and each room is kinda of an personal universe of the owner of said room, other became an vine that flowered 13 magical gourds that can reproduce any liquid that is put inside of them indefinitely and the other 10 are unused, i mainly use the tree universe, which was “engineered” by a higher existence, but it lost the control of the power of the seed as the tree roots started to devour the void outside of existence to sustain itself, its a tree so big that literally everything on the universe is beneath its branches, they are like golden veins racing the skies, there is no stars, the only glow comes from the tree and there is an constant aurora shining, its like its always night in this universe, there is no blue sky, the “daytime” is when the tree is glowing the most, it shines for about 16 hours and rests for 10, so their “day” has 24 hours, the universe is “flat” so there is little shadows, cuz the light is always shining from above, they don’t have the concept of moons, stars, suns or anything like we do. This universe was origally supposed to be just a “farm” in which a god would plant an seed of infinite in order to try to grow more seeds from the tree, so it was kinda of a “demi-plain” created by this god, it had a perfect balance in the elements which an state of the art elemental cycle to ensure that the tree would grow healthy inside the demi-plain, but the roots of the tree pierced through the barrier that shielded the plane from non-existence and the void, the roots started to devour the void, making the plain itself expand both in space and time, getting out of the control of the god, and an plain that is expanding is called an universe, therefore a new universe with the tree as its center was born.
Balancing this has been pretty difficult for what I’m writing. My magic system is incredibly rational because it’s based on geometry. This means that it’s wildly variable in hardness depending on, say, whether the reader understands Klein bottles and imaginary numbers. Exposition helps to a degree, but not everyone is going to be able to keep up with the mathematical abstractions, so I’m having to simultaneously write as though it’s hard and as though it’s soft.
Can I ask for the entire image sketch from the segment at 7:12? I would like to use it in a PowerPoint presentation. I want to talk about magical systems within the context of a college course focusing on literature. The presentation will not be recorded/published, and I would credit you as the source. So, if you don’t mind. Thanks for reading the query.
I like a concept I have for a magic system which would be inspired by the classical elements system. Fire – Chi Energy user so think of like Dragon Ball Z. Water – Psychic Energy user so basically Mob from Mob Psycho 100. Air – Spirit Energy user so similar to Yusuke from Yu Yu Hakusho. Earth – Beast Energy user so this would need explaining. The user could talk to animals, shapeshift into one so werewolf, or draw the power of them. Even evolve if you will like alter DNA and speed up the evolution of being human.
A great in-depth explanation. You’re defining hard as simply what can the magic-user do? Example: telekinesis While your defining Rational as defining the limitations and costs of telekinesis Example: You can only use telekinesis on objects you can physically lift and it drains you of happiness.() This is a very interesting spectrum I think it’s a bit confusing because the Hard and Soft doesn’t really need another axis. I feel like Rational/Irrational can be swapped out for Hard/ Soft. How is Hard and Rational different to you? I’m curious.
3:47 As a superman fan I’m going to partially disagree. What his powers are is well defined but how strong they are is not. “Superman is as strong as he needs to be” (which also means he’s as weak as he needs to be) is the rule. 5:18 ah I see that’s what the irrational label is for. 10:09 I think there needs to be more digging on these axes. I’d split hard/soft into “how likely is a character to pull out a whole new thing we’ve never seen” (how well we know the character or setting) and “how consistent is a thing once introduced” (how well we know the magic). Rational could be split into “how well do the pieces fit with each other” (predicting how they interact) and “how well do they fit with the world” (predicting how they can be used in unseen ways). 12:00 Star vs the forces of evil (season 1 mostly) is interesting for this. Star has a magic wand that can do anything but it’s hard to control which is soft magic causing problems but those problems (and others) are solved by the same wand. She learns that it’s best to stick with spells she knows and thus only uses a couple of them becoming more hard-irrational magic. The season 1 finale introduced a very hard magic villain who uses 1 simple but effective rule: if you break it, it will regrow twice as strong. So even though we don’t know exactly how strong Star’s magic is, we can reason that this thing will quickly become too strong and that she needs another solution (no spoilers). In early season 3 (episode 5?) Star does a thing (sorry this will be hard to describe without spoilers) that’s seemingly soft magic to beat a villain.
I have two stories with magic right now. I think the first one is confusing because there’s two types of magic. Magician magic and Fae magic. Magician magic is more soft rational while fae magic is hard irrational. Fae magic is an elemental magic with a lot of rules that they already know but I don’t know where it comes from, but when a fae dies, their magic is released into the world. The magicians utilize this magic and shape it to their will and the rules for this are a little unknown but I think readers would be able to make rational assumptions based off of what the fae magic does in the surroundings. So I don’t know quite where my magic system would fall because it seems to be smack dab in the middle and maybe a little complicated but I don’t know it’s a little strange I guess
I heard of Soft vs Hard magic spectrum, but I never heard of the rational vs irrational spectrum. another spectrum I heard of is high vs low magic which speaks to the ubiquity of magic. Can anyone in the world weald magic, high magic system. Is magic only available to certain people born under a full moon with a particular blood type that have passed an arcane quickening, low magic system. Then their is the strong vs week magic systems which speaks to the scope of magic. With the right training, can you make magic do whatever you wish, strong magic system. Is magic limited to only a few things no matter how much you try to make it do other things, week magic system.
A limitation I see in this categorisation is that knowledge of a system and ability to apply logic to it are generally quite strongly linked. Can you really have high knowledge of a system that has no logic to show that it has given all of the knowledge? Similarly if a system has provided the how/why, then knowledge of the system will surely progress towards complete, is it not mostly just a matter of how far the story explores it? Also, knowledge and rationality are already pretty well covered by normal discussions of hard/soft system. This does add some depth to categorisation of hard/soft systems, for sure, but I’m not sure just how much that is. It feels like rationality and knowledge is just the hard/soft slider split into two with a 30° angle between them. Edit: After discussion with a friend, we’ve landed upon the idea of ‘scope’ (or whatever term fits best). Basically the range of things a system could do, not so much about the scale of things done (fireball and ‘bigger fireball’ explore the same magic, unless there’s something beyond narrative progression to the bigger fireball). Think of scope as ‘the ability to completely explore the system.’ For example: Nen is hard with a broad scope. We can see a new ability and get how it works, but said new ability could be basically anything. Allomancy is hard with a narrow scope. There’s only so many metals, so many abilities, so many interactions between them and we could potentially see and understand all of them. Magic in Harry Potter is leaning towards soft with a broad scope.
Breaking things down into smaller categories is very useful. After mulling on it for a few minutes, I really like your use of rational and irrational. I don’t like your use of hard and soft. In the three of your articles I’ve watched so far, it’s amazing how much you’ve presented that I simply use different labels for. Normally, I think it’s fine, good even, for different people to come up with different terms to describe the same concepts. I think, this time, you’ve made a mistake. Hard vs soft are the labels used when putting a magic system on a single, linear spectrum. When doing so, being more rational makes something more hard, and being more irrational makes something more soft. These labels include your other labels, as well as what you’re using them for, and a few other concepts. I would advise using labels like “clear” and “obscure” where you’re currently using hard and soft. This would disambiguate your definitions from the more general and vague definitions that are already in use for the terms. A few other fun axes are real vs unreal (what Elyandarin in his/her own comment describes as “the degree to which they violate physics”), consistent vs inconsistent (you can include that in rational vs irrational, or separate it to good effect) and technological vs phenomenological (whether characters can manipulate, or only experience it). There are so many more ways to categories magic systems, I’d list more, but then I’d be at this forever. Your pair of axes are an excellent level of analysis for magic systems, especially for writing, as they relate directly to the reader experience.
Actually, I disagree about the magic system of Tolkien. There is more than it meets the eye, but you have to go through more than one book. Gandalf, simply put, is a divine being, a Maiar. It is of the lesser orders of the divine, more akin to an angelic patron than a true wizard. The scope of his powers is never explicitly said, but we know that he is the lesser of his order, and most of the time, he deals more with wisdom and experience than true flashy powers. We know that he is in mortal form, so he isn’t exactly very powerful in strength or magic, but he is WISE. Very, very wise. We are talking at least thousands of years of experience, knowing all it is to know about the world, because he participated in its very creation. Sauron, in fact, its from the same order of beings than him, a Maiar, but more similar to the Valar, the “gods” of Tolkien (there is truly one god, but the Valar are the demiurgs of the world) because he uses his knowledge to create artifacts that uplift them. We know that Sauron has lost the ability to walk in spirit form, and he is bounded to a charred, diminished figure, very capable of being slain by mortals. About Gandalf, we know that his powers, in mortal form, are mere tricks and gunpowder, apart from being immortal and having more stamina than anyone. He can create lights and some fireworks, but not much else. His will, on the other part, is incredible: that’s why he can deter the Balrog, another Maiar. When he dies, his spirit goes back to the west, and recovers many of his demiurgic powers.
I do not like this formulation. I too use a Cartesian-like graph, but ‘irrational’ and ‘rational’ are synonyms for ‘hard’ and ‘soft’. Simply out, Hard magic systems are usually formulated, and ergo could be ‘rational’ and soft magic systems are usually theorized and ergo could be ‘irrational’. Sanderson made this distinction as a prescriptive claim and thus his laws of magic follow. I find it odd to use another prescriptive claim for a Y Axis that is already very similar. I personally prefer ‘Intrinsic’ and ‘Extrinsic’ for the Y Axis, mostly because it fulfills unique need each story tends to have. >Stories that have magic as a personal power or ones that have it kind of like a law of nature. >Stories that make distinction between personal ‘energy’ units as a conversion for the actual magic vs natural energy ‘forces’ that empowers for the actual magic. >Stories that tend to have many nested, albeit similar magic systems. I think the best one I can maybe steel man your idea too maybe is Harry Potter. Wandlore and Wandless Magic have the same use case (do fun magic) but employ different strategies and even implementations. (Heavily Implied Wandless Magic is more of a talent while Wand Magic is more universal, sort of like a skill.) >Stories that inversely make distinctions about magic systems that need to be studied, or ones you ‘just’ know would also fit your system and mind. But lets be honest, alot of magic systems blur the line. The Force and Force Sorcery in Legends immediately comes to mind.
Explanation of my magic system, Cana means magic energy, arcana is artificial Cana and Natcana is naturally occurring Cana, mages and other magical entities can make images in their heads of the environment in which Cana which acts a certain way occurs, and then that arcana materializes near the mage, natcana is stronger than arcana, creating arcana takes mental strength, nature is controlled by a god, this god has more mental strength than mortals, the strength of the god is given in a diluted form to nature, Natcana is more potent than arcana, this system is made by me, and I would say it is 3/4 hard, 2/4 irrational.
I appreciate the thought you put into this, but it seems to me to have the same issues that the political compass does, namely to take a single scale and separate out parts of it into a second scale without renaming the first scale. In the political compass, left vs right is already the same as libertarian vs authoritarian. The other scale should be something like collectivist vs individualist, not left vs right. I don’t mean to compare your compass with the political compass beyond this, as there are many issues with the latter than run much deeper than simply renaming an axis. In this magical compass of yours, hard vs soft is already the same as rational vs irrational, and should instead be something like clear vs obscure, as @thomasjenkins5727 put it. I see little issue with your compass beyond this, and the examples you give are great.
I really don’t get how people can stand given creedence to irrational plot devices. I don’t buy any of this explaination. It seems like its better served by calling it good and bad magic systems. Systems that dont have coherence should be called what they are: plot convenience. If you as a reader allows the authors to use them without stating thier boundries, you are giving them a get out jail free card for plot whenever they want.