plot bunny

[deird1]

One of the many (many) narratives I've had at the back of my head is one where magic used to be possible, slowly stopped being possible, but is now gradually becoming possible again (sort of like Shadowrun, but much less dramatically).

It occurred to me the other day that, if you had people passing magical techniques down in the hopes that they'd one day become possible, you'd have a whole bunch of people who were extremely well trained in how to do high-level spells without having any of the safety precautions or common sense that comes from having screwed up the low-level spells.

Much in the same way that you learn your vegetable chopping techniques as a by-product of having accidentally chopped your fingers, and your egg-cracking techniques as a by-product of having accidentally dumped most of an egg shell into your cake batter.

So, there would be apprentices, in their early days of screwing up low-level spells, saying "Master... do you think we should maybe draw a salt circle before..." and their masters cheerfully dismissing this as unnecessary, before accidentally setting fire to the curtains and dying everyone's skin bright blue and saying "...right. So, next time we might... draw a salt circle. Yep."

Comments

[shadowkat]

Read through this and I kept thinking..."if only"...

[conuly]

That sounds completely plausible and I'd read/laugh the hell out of that.

[zeborah]

Not only does this sound plausible in theory but reading I got a vivid memory of my high school chemistry teacher who demoed how bromine gas, in a sealed glass tube, expands to fill the tube when heated over a bunsen burner, and while he was explaining the principles behind this cheerfully cooled the glass tube down under the cold water tap, next minute we had to evacuate the classroom due to the bromine gas continuing to expand after the glass had shattered

so yes not just plausible but demonstrably true.

[thenewbuzwuzz]

Niiice! :)

[bruttimabuoni]

Yessss. This is a background theme in Rivers of London that hasn't ever really been confronted. Magic was dying, but now it's coming back. And not only do we not know why, we don't get all this background to what that means for people who got used to having a lot less SHAZAM at their disposal.

[kryptonitemonkey]

I like it. I've seen hints of such an idea in various things, but nothing exactly like it. Someone recently spoke with me about what chaos it would be if magic suddenly just sprung up out of nowhere for everyone.