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Comment on Harry and Ron were always bored in class because Rowling's magic system is boring as hell

This is the one thing I really appreciated about the Discworld books on a recent re-read. The wizards are hilariously incapable of doing anything useful. Terry Pratchett doesn’t give a super clear series of rules for the magic system but it’s abundantly clear that the wizards are incapable of actually useful magic, and mostly just get too tired up in internal power struggles to ever do anything. And in the book Sourcery, the first sourcerer (one who can create new spells) to grace the disc takes over the world, realizes running the entire world is too stressful and tedious then creates his own pocket dimension to play with magic in instead (I’m oversimplifiing here, skipping over a bunch of interpersonal stuff related to a sentient wizard’s staff run by a dead guy who tricked Death among other details but that’s the general gist)

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philthi@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
The wizards series of the discworld books are by far my favourite, but for exactly the reason you’ve set out. (Similarly with the witches)

The dialogue between the faculty is so believable and so stupifyingly inane and political that it’s hard to say that anything is more probable.

Anyone actually interested in how magic works gets ignored and all that really matters is where the next good meal is coming from.

Just one of the countless reasons that Terry pratchett is a gem of an author.

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thedeadwalking4242@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
One of the big ideas about magic in his universe isn’t just that the wizards are useless but that using magic is more trouble then it’s worth. It creates all sorts of left over magic residue that can build up to a myriad of effects.

We see the wizards preform powerful spells, showing that they can do have power and do have a certain degree of knowledge, but rather choose not to.

The duty of the wizards is more to make sure no one preforming magic willy nilly and to prevent people from making sorcerers.

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- Trainguyrom@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  You’re right! I finished Sourcery like 6 months ago and have read a bunch of other books since then so my memory was kinda foggy. But that’s exactly it, the magic exists and can be powerful but it’s simply more trouble than it’s worth
  
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Muaddib@sopuli.xyz ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
Rincewind isn’t useless at most things, he’s only useless at magic.

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tux@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
I don’t know about that. They literally introduced time travel and then never bring it up again except for one sentence where “oh they all broke”.

Like don’t get me wrong it’s not horrible but it’s also not great. It is good enough for a kids story which is what it is, not something to build your life off of

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- Trainguyrom@reddthat.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
  I think you might have responded to the wrong comment?
  
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  - tux@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago
    Yup looks like it. Stupid app lol
    
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