Elves and Technology

[kippurbird]

Brain Chewage.

Not quite an essay rant thingy.

A friend of mine, obadiah gave me some critic on the three chapters of the novel that I'm going to send out to the Tor editor. One of the things that he mentioned in the critic was how the magic of the world felt "humdrum". It was an every day thing that everyone had and everyone used. He wanted to have the magic more magical and fantastic. For it to be more mysterious. He felt it would make it more exciting. For me though, I want the magic to be purely a "background" thing taken for granted. That way the threat of having the magic taken away and not being able to do things like turn on lights would be more acute. And besides the non-wizarding lands aren't so magic reliant.

But it got me thinking. If in a technology heavy world magic is seen as amazing, wouldn't it be the same the other way around? If magic were everyday then technology would be a novel thing. In my world technological growth has been seriously stunted by the fey. The fey fear that technology will lead to greater iron usage which would prevent them from manipulating and existing in the "human" world.

Which now that I think about it is rather opposite of what other fey and elves do where instead they generally allow themselves to fade away and be trapped in Fairie because of the iron that men make. My fey actively cause technology to not be worthwhile to keep their hold on the human realms. Basically if anyone starts making a big production with iron the fey send them a warning of stop. If that doesn't work BOOOOOOM. After all if the fey are so powerful, why would they just let themselves go and fade away? I mean humans wouldn't do it. It's rather suicidal of the fey/elves to do such things. (My elves are different?)

Anyway, I digress. So I think I will try and make technology the sort of magic that a magic user would find magical and novel. Alec's older brother, Greywolf, is already fascinated by technology and is a tinker. Which will likely lead into trouble. But he's one of those people who want to know how things work. So, I'm going to try and interject that sort of thing into the world as the writing progresses.

In the mean time, I got one of the new eggs!

Comments

[faded-enmity.livejournal.com]

See, the thing with this is that I, as a reader, would think: but why not just use magic? That'd be the intelligent thing to do.

That's the problem with high magic settings. There is no reason for technology as we know it to ever exist because magic would have taken over completely. It would even be more widespread than technology because every one of these settings inevitably has more magic users than the real world ever had master craftsmen and inventors, given the same relative time period.

[ravenswept.livejournal.com]

No matter how saturated a world is with magic, there are going to be a minority of people, somewhere, who do not have any magical gift. Unless they let themselves be babied by everyone around them, they'd come up with ways around not having the ability, then new ways to make that way even easier.

There's also the people who do something differently just because they can. Just because there is "better" way to do something, doesn't mean there isn't someone who has a way they just enjoy more. Look at steampunkers, they go out of their way to remake new technology back into the old ways, some just by aesthetic, some all the way to pure function.

[faded-enmity.livejournal.com]

There's a majority of people who were never mechanically gifted. They bought the watches and clocks, pistols, churns, etc. because they couldn't build them.

Why would the same not hold true for magic items?

[acdragonmaster.livejournal.com]

That depends entirely on the nature, power, and extent of the magic. If everyone can use it for every little thing (such as, for example, most all Dragaerans in Steven Brust's books) then of course they will, and will never bother with anything else! (which is, in fact, the case with said Dragaerans) On the other hand, if there's any sort of limitations, people will find other means to get what they want done. A good example of a hybrid sort of setting would be the Fullmetal Alchemist manga/anime series, in which "alchemy" can be used to do juuuust about anything, but there's a very strict price to be paid, and it takes research and knowledge to use it well in the first place. So a lot of people and places make considerable use of it, but they also have guns and cars and radios for all those little things that alchemy would be too much of a hassle to bother with. So it's very possible to do hybrid settings, it's just a matter of balance to make it work logically.

[kippurbird.livejournal.com]

What about settings where only a specific group of people have access to the magic, would that make it high magic?

[faded-enmity.livejournal.com]

That would depend how large the group is, how powerful said magic is, and what the magic is used for.