thought

[permetaform]

I've seen many stories where the source of magic is tied to inner purity, ie. Healers have White Magic and thus are Pacifist and Good whereas Mages have Black Magic and Destory stuff and are Evil.

Well, see, that don't much make sense to me completely. It might be too much reading of the Devil's Fairytales (or some such title along those lines) where a painter was brilliant and nice and painted these eeeeeevil pictures. So Hell really really wanted the painter to go to hell so he could work for them; and they set about corrupting him. Well, what do you know? The painter became corrupt and wretched and mean but could only paint these highly religious pictures, so in the end the painter went to Hell and his latter paintings were admired in Heaven.

Along those lines, why aren't there more stories where, to be able to produce Good Magic you become mean-spirited? Like, by creating light, you become not-light to offset the balance? Conversely, by creating dark magic, you become more not-dark?

Comments

[permetaform]

What I was thinking of specifically is that by, say, performing a healing act (or anything that "grows") the one using the magic gets an equivalent urge to destroy something. A small act of growth causes a small urge to destroy. A big act of healing causes a big urge to hurt.

So it's less a fact of debatable/questionable morality of good v. evil I'm looking for, than an actual *twisting* of one's personality due to one's magic use, as in magic use *directly* affecting mental state and/or spiritual state, to the opposite effect of one's using magic.

I would love book recs of stuff that explores this! ::bounces:: It's tricksy stuff but I'm not sure that I happened upon it in any appreciable form.

[ranalore.livejournal.com]

What you're talking about here sounds less like twisting to me and more like a certain kind of balance. You're not likely to find much of that in works based on the more popular Western mythologies, but I'm pretty sure I have read such things. More often, though, such a balance comes out as the energy needed to do the magic is actually drained from elsewhere, be it the caster or the caster's assistant or the land or spirit realm or what-have-you. Just as one example, the mages in Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry use "anchors," people who are bound to them magically and who act as their strength and source of power. Use of magic drains that person, much like physical labor wears you out.

[permetaform]

More often, though, such a balance comes out as the energy needed to do the magic is actually drained from elsewhere, be it the caster or the caster's assistant or the land or spirit realm or what-have-you. Just as one example, the mages in Guy Gavriel Kay's Fionavar Tapestry use "anchors," people who are bound to them magically and who act as their strength and source of power. Use of magic drains that person, much like physical labor wears you out.

::nods:: yeah, I've read alot of stories like that, though I'm curious to see if there's actually more stories where, say, healing causes the equal and opposite reaction of wishing for destruction in the healer themselves.