beccaelizabeth (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccaelizabeth) wrote2024-01-26 04:54 am
beccaelizabeth) wrote2024-01-26 04:54 am
Entry tags:
Wizard school and Gallifrey and a bunch of rambling
I have a new dishwasher that is exactly like the old dishwasher but working and likely to take longer between repair visits 🤞
It got all installed yesterday but I havent run it yet. I need to like actually sleep more than four hours and just cope with the New Thing of it all.
The not sleeping thing is getting old and can go away again any time now.
I read a long fanfic yesterday that was a rewrite of Harry Potter where they thought they had fixed everything but it just made me want to do an entirely different rewrite or just take the interesting bits and run off and file the serial numbers off.
And today I listened a bunch of Gallifrey and got up to when they open the Academy to new people and there's different chapters on Gallifrey but Prydonians are basically if Gryffindor and Slytherin were just one house and also where they put all the ones who look in the vortex and go mad. So. All the interesting is happening in one place and the other places just stand for, like, How About We Do Not Do That.
... which is a very defensible position in universe.
The thing is though they did the education thing completely backwards if they want their own people to accept it, which of course is the basic plot generator. But like, if it was optimised for function not drama, you wouldnt start by inviting people in, you'd send true believers out. And the basic argue against sharing time tech is that most outsiders cant handle the ethical side of it, so they would be spreading Gallifreyan ethics as a primary goal. And *then* when you've got people with a degree in their own time technology and a specific certificate in Gallifreyan ethics you'd invite them for post grad work on Gallifrey, but only the poster grads to start with. And you'd make it a matter of prestige that only the best and most responsiboe Gallifreyan tutors could be trusted with, right? Like, you'd not hand such delicate education to just anyone. So then the stodgy old geeks would be lining up to make sure the lab next door doesnt ruin things by handing all the secrets out indiscriminately, but you would know other labs could poach them if they got a good grant proposal going.
I mean obviously ideally you decide not to be racist and make rules against racism and the new non racist rules mean everyone goes to the same school, that's fair and nice and all, BUT it's somewhat complicated by the question of relative lifespans and how long a Gallifreyan would potentially stay IN the Academy. Or sensory modalities or speed of data input or all the other things that are difficult to get right with different abilities in the same species let alone different races in the sci fi sense.
Just throwing open the doors and letting everyone get on with it *should* work, but the drama happened because no one on Gallifrey was brought along to the idea of the plan, except the Doctor's fans, and the Doctor is... waaaaaaaaaay out there for his people.
So like, magic school, school that can teach you to do things no one at your home can do, is it going to open tne doors and take all students who can pass the tests? Or does it make sense to send magic ambassadors out to teach a track in another sort of school? Would there be magic specific ethics, like in a codified way they consciously think about because they obviously have very different ethics baked in than your average secondary school. Would wizards go out to teach wizard ethics and then, and only then, allow their chosen few in if they're pretty sure they're not into person arson?
... boom boom merchant wizards are very much into person arson, just not on the basis of magical status, so that's an interesting ethical line to draw...
Would it make sense to drop teachers in to university? Technical college? Evening classes?
I mean a class where you learn how to do one specific skill is nore of an evening classes thing than a degree thing, but the number of hours it takes is... not.
Wizard school where there's such a thing as accidental magic and you have to learn to control it has a whole underlying map of human behaviour where we need taming. Which is, you know, weird. I mean discovering you have power that no one else has is one kind of dream, but discovering you now need to learn to never flap your hands in a specific way of maybe go boom is... not? Sorcerer school which focuses so much on sports kind of seems to make sense since that seems like a you're configured for it or you're not situation, but even sport isnt that simple. Like the entire thing where there's a school for people of a special ability sorted at age eleven is a highly specific approach to how children and education work. It's like accepting Grammar schools make sense. Which is one argument to make.
I read people saying the Hogwarts houses map to different models of British education, so you've got private school Slytherin, grammar Ravenclaw, secondary modern Hufflepuff, and comprehensive Gryffindor. Which is a defensible analysis. But then they all *get* the same schooling. So it locates the differences genuinely in the children being taught rather than in the education they are given, which is a Choice, and not a good one.
A lot of stories about wizards are in DnD terms about sorcerers and I dont like it.
What happened to power being something you can learn from books? I like power being something you can learn from books.
I think the magic schooling that made the most sense to me was Diane Wynne Jones Charmed Life, where people offered magic lessons to children the exact same way as music lessons, so it might be fancy courses in school but it also might be a note pinned up in a shop that points to someone's living room. Hmm, think it was Charmed Life, it might have been one of the other Chrestomanci books. But like music you could teach magic as a series of techniques with a lot of underlying theory when you poke it. And some ways would need a group and others you need equipment and some you manage yourself. So there'd be different ways to teach it. And if it was compulsory in school it would be as deathly dull as when they try to teach the whole class the same recorder piece. Because yeah magic but also school.
But also making sense was Year of the Griffin where the first year students at magic university get stuck in to the library and each make a completely different essay out of all the possibilities they see unfolding before them. ... I just double checked on wiki to see if that was the book I meant and apparently reviews called it a spoof? Reviewers are foolish. Riffing on the possibilities to make a scathing commentary on school curriculums set by industry and highlight the problems of effectively post colonial exploitation when the teachers werent properly taught isnt a spoof its being interesting with ideas. Honestly.
School stories have a shape and beats to hit and so forth, like the way you can watch sports movies and know when to skip the embarrassing everything is worst bit, and I am not very familiar with the sort of thing, only having read a few Jennings and a bit of Blyton, and that not recently.
University stories I've not read many of, and the ones I can think of are fanfic.
Or Buffy season four.
Or a really good fanfic of Buffy season four that got Willow and Xander involved with the Initiative.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/28820259
talk about ethical quandries.
There's a line in the original Buffy movies about how their choice of prom theme is supposed to reflect the students growing awareness of and involvement in the world around them. They go with 'hug the world'. It's like shining a spotlight on what school themed stories are about and then, like, making it a very dim one.
So a set of school stories could go with 'high school is hell' but its also providing a set of ethical challenges. And ways of resolving them. ... a stake is a problem solving tool I have several ethical questions about, but, if the hero keeps on using it, the story posits it is a useful tool. Yet at the same time the endless nature of the work kind of suggests its not an effective one, you know?
So learning magic and using magic, you're giving them a tool kit for dealing with the world. And hopefully doing so in a controlled manner that leads to minimum accidental explosions.
Except there's the same problem as with werewolf movies or the hulk, the characters are trying to avoid the exact situation the audience is there for. ... I think I'm quoting Whedon and there's a lot of exceptions but you know... Oz the responsible werewolf doesnt want to change, Banner doesnt want to be the Hulk, but the audience is waiting for 'time's up, rules change'.
So you wouldnt want to hand a child the ability to throw fireballs, because its bad enough when imitable violence just means knives. But the audience wants something spectacular to happen. Something that couldnt happen without magic.
... it's actually a shrinking list, 'couldnt happen without magic'.
People in universe would also be looking forwards to the spectacular. Not if they're smart but, you know, people throw fireworks too.
Thing is though having written that bit about werewolves I... dont agree? Like I know Oz didnt want to change, but he also maybe didnt want to deal with or acknowledge feelings until they got real loud in general, so that's not optimal. We are not vulcans and feelings keep happening. And denying your power because you're too concerned about losing control is not optimal. So a werewolf might start out scared of themselves but there's so many things to be scared and angry about the optimal path is to find something effective to do about it. Like Teen Wolf wolves I've only read fanfic about, pretty much in control mostly, just having to work at it. The appeal of ultra violence balanced by the awareness of the wreckage. Human condition stuff.
Like Willow's problem wasnt addiction like a drug it was just not having a good relationship to her own power. Like the times it was pretty clearly about using it to get high werent well integrated with the times she just, like, wanted things to be sweet and easy. It's quicker. And she can do things no one else can do, so she does them. And then when things get vengeancey the magic is right there.
Like Giles et al summoning demons to get high was a problem of magic misuse but also the overwhelming pressure put on him. He's meant for a career where best case he sends other people to die. Which is also worst case obvs. So he drops out and does many things to avoid thinking and feel like he can do anything he wants.
The problem with magic school is how do you design a system that doesnt make Ripper or Dark Willow.
Which is not an easy problem. See also crime, persistence of. But some things work better than others.
Also also you have to know what the good version looks like and then do a drama anyway.
Like, even the good version has failure modes, and compare contrasting the different possible failure modes is a lot of drama.
But also, the story tends to happen when the good version is currently out of reach, so you need to know how and why and what people are going to do about it.
Because feeling that the good version isnt whats happening is also why the bad guys do things, so, you know, it helps to know why the potential solution of kicking out anyone of the wrong sort is actually not going to work.
Everyone on Gallifrey arguing about the good of Gallifrey.
What kind of behaviour does the school encourage, reward, punish, suppress, both on paper and in practice?
Like in Pathfinder the Academae in Korvosa is supposed to be focusing on devil binding, so theoretically it's about control and power, but in practice it's about corruption and people making dumb deals, because the existing structures of power (Hell) set out some really tempting ways to improve life by just casting a spell on a devil right here, and obviously only losers who get F grades have to worry about, you know, losing your soul etc.
Wolfram and Hart do deals with people who dont believe the stakes. Slightly different problem. Same tempting lifestyles, different traps.
Korvosa's devils are devil shaped.
So many stories have the reason why the good guy is tempted to do the bad thing be that they cant afford the medical treatment. It makes me angry every time. Build an NHS and decrease the actual problems in all directions at once.
So does your wizard world charge money or have an NHS?
I have taken those ideas for a wander for long enough I think.
Sleep would have been more useful. And yet.
*sigh*
But I still kind of want to write a wizard school or three and keep an eye on what they're actually saying about how people work and what should be rewarded and punished. Because that can get weird.
It got all installed yesterday but I havent run it yet. I need to like actually sleep more than four hours and just cope with the New Thing of it all.
The not sleeping thing is getting old and can go away again any time now.
I read a long fanfic yesterday that was a rewrite of Harry Potter where they thought they had fixed everything but it just made me want to do an entirely different rewrite or just take the interesting bits and run off and file the serial numbers off.
And today I listened a bunch of Gallifrey and got up to when they open the Academy to new people and there's different chapters on Gallifrey but Prydonians are basically if Gryffindor and Slytherin were just one house and also where they put all the ones who look in the vortex and go mad. So. All the interesting is happening in one place and the other places just stand for, like, How About We Do Not Do That.
... which is a very defensible position in universe.
The thing is though they did the education thing completely backwards if they want their own people to accept it, which of course is the basic plot generator. But like, if it was optimised for function not drama, you wouldnt start by inviting people in, you'd send true believers out. And the basic argue against sharing time tech is that most outsiders cant handle the ethical side of it, so they would be spreading Gallifreyan ethics as a primary goal. And *then* when you've got people with a degree in their own time technology and a specific certificate in Gallifreyan ethics you'd invite them for post grad work on Gallifrey, but only the poster grads to start with. And you'd make it a matter of prestige that only the best and most responsiboe Gallifreyan tutors could be trusted with, right? Like, you'd not hand such delicate education to just anyone. So then the stodgy old geeks would be lining up to make sure the lab next door doesnt ruin things by handing all the secrets out indiscriminately, but you would know other labs could poach them if they got a good grant proposal going.
I mean obviously ideally you decide not to be racist and make rules against racism and the new non racist rules mean everyone goes to the same school, that's fair and nice and all, BUT it's somewhat complicated by the question of relative lifespans and how long a Gallifreyan would potentially stay IN the Academy. Or sensory modalities or speed of data input or all the other things that are difficult to get right with different abilities in the same species let alone different races in the sci fi sense.
Just throwing open the doors and letting everyone get on with it *should* work, but the drama happened because no one on Gallifrey was brought along to the idea of the plan, except the Doctor's fans, and the Doctor is... waaaaaaaaaay out there for his people.
So like, magic school, school that can teach you to do things no one at your home can do, is it going to open tne doors and take all students who can pass the tests? Or does it make sense to send magic ambassadors out to teach a track in another sort of school? Would there be magic specific ethics, like in a codified way they consciously think about because they obviously have very different ethics baked in than your average secondary school. Would wizards go out to teach wizard ethics and then, and only then, allow their chosen few in if they're pretty sure they're not into person arson?
... boom boom merchant wizards are very much into person arson, just not on the basis of magical status, so that's an interesting ethical line to draw...
Would it make sense to drop teachers in to university? Technical college? Evening classes?
I mean a class where you learn how to do one specific skill is nore of an evening classes thing than a degree thing, but the number of hours it takes is... not.
Wizard school where there's such a thing as accidental magic and you have to learn to control it has a whole underlying map of human behaviour where we need taming. Which is, you know, weird. I mean discovering you have power that no one else has is one kind of dream, but discovering you now need to learn to never flap your hands in a specific way of maybe go boom is... not? Sorcerer school which focuses so much on sports kind of seems to make sense since that seems like a you're configured for it or you're not situation, but even sport isnt that simple. Like the entire thing where there's a school for people of a special ability sorted at age eleven is a highly specific approach to how children and education work. It's like accepting Grammar schools make sense. Which is one argument to make.
I read people saying the Hogwarts houses map to different models of British education, so you've got private school Slytherin, grammar Ravenclaw, secondary modern Hufflepuff, and comprehensive Gryffindor. Which is a defensible analysis. But then they all *get* the same schooling. So it locates the differences genuinely in the children being taught rather than in the education they are given, which is a Choice, and not a good one.
A lot of stories about wizards are in DnD terms about sorcerers and I dont like it.
What happened to power being something you can learn from books? I like power being something you can learn from books.
I think the magic schooling that made the most sense to me was Diane Wynne Jones Charmed Life, where people offered magic lessons to children the exact same way as music lessons, so it might be fancy courses in school but it also might be a note pinned up in a shop that points to someone's living room. Hmm, think it was Charmed Life, it might have been one of the other Chrestomanci books. But like music you could teach magic as a series of techniques with a lot of underlying theory when you poke it. And some ways would need a group and others you need equipment and some you manage yourself. So there'd be different ways to teach it. And if it was compulsory in school it would be as deathly dull as when they try to teach the whole class the same recorder piece. Because yeah magic but also school.
But also making sense was Year of the Griffin where the first year students at magic university get stuck in to the library and each make a completely different essay out of all the possibilities they see unfolding before them. ... I just double checked on wiki to see if that was the book I meant and apparently reviews called it a spoof? Reviewers are foolish. Riffing on the possibilities to make a scathing commentary on school curriculums set by industry and highlight the problems of effectively post colonial exploitation when the teachers werent properly taught isnt a spoof its being interesting with ideas. Honestly.
School stories have a shape and beats to hit and so forth, like the way you can watch sports movies and know when to skip the embarrassing everything is worst bit, and I am not very familiar with the sort of thing, only having read a few Jennings and a bit of Blyton, and that not recently.
University stories I've not read many of, and the ones I can think of are fanfic.
Or Buffy season four.
Or a really good fanfic of Buffy season four that got Willow and Xander involved with the Initiative.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/28820259
talk about ethical quandries.
There's a line in the original Buffy movies about how their choice of prom theme is supposed to reflect the students growing awareness of and involvement in the world around them. They go with 'hug the world'. It's like shining a spotlight on what school themed stories are about and then, like, making it a very dim one.
So a set of school stories could go with 'high school is hell' but its also providing a set of ethical challenges. And ways of resolving them. ... a stake is a problem solving tool I have several ethical questions about, but, if the hero keeps on using it, the story posits it is a useful tool. Yet at the same time the endless nature of the work kind of suggests its not an effective one, you know?
So learning magic and using magic, you're giving them a tool kit for dealing with the world. And hopefully doing so in a controlled manner that leads to minimum accidental explosions.
Except there's the same problem as with werewolf movies or the hulk, the characters are trying to avoid the exact situation the audience is there for. ... I think I'm quoting Whedon and there's a lot of exceptions but you know... Oz the responsible werewolf doesnt want to change, Banner doesnt want to be the Hulk, but the audience is waiting for 'time's up, rules change'.
So you wouldnt want to hand a child the ability to throw fireballs, because its bad enough when imitable violence just means knives. But the audience wants something spectacular to happen. Something that couldnt happen without magic.
... it's actually a shrinking list, 'couldnt happen without magic'.
People in universe would also be looking forwards to the spectacular. Not if they're smart but, you know, people throw fireworks too.
Thing is though having written that bit about werewolves I... dont agree? Like I know Oz didnt want to change, but he also maybe didnt want to deal with or acknowledge feelings until they got real loud in general, so that's not optimal. We are not vulcans and feelings keep happening. And denying your power because you're too concerned about losing control is not optimal. So a werewolf might start out scared of themselves but there's so many things to be scared and angry about the optimal path is to find something effective to do about it. Like Teen Wolf wolves I've only read fanfic about, pretty much in control mostly, just having to work at it. The appeal of ultra violence balanced by the awareness of the wreckage. Human condition stuff.
Like Willow's problem wasnt addiction like a drug it was just not having a good relationship to her own power. Like the times it was pretty clearly about using it to get high werent well integrated with the times she just, like, wanted things to be sweet and easy. It's quicker. And she can do things no one else can do, so she does them. And then when things get vengeancey the magic is right there.
Like Giles et al summoning demons to get high was a problem of magic misuse but also the overwhelming pressure put on him. He's meant for a career where best case he sends other people to die. Which is also worst case obvs. So he drops out and does many things to avoid thinking and feel like he can do anything he wants.
The problem with magic school is how do you design a system that doesnt make Ripper or Dark Willow.
Which is not an easy problem. See also crime, persistence of. But some things work better than others.
Also also you have to know what the good version looks like and then do a drama anyway.
Like, even the good version has failure modes, and compare contrasting the different possible failure modes is a lot of drama.
But also, the story tends to happen when the good version is currently out of reach, so you need to know how and why and what people are going to do about it.
Because feeling that the good version isnt whats happening is also why the bad guys do things, so, you know, it helps to know why the potential solution of kicking out anyone of the wrong sort is actually not going to work.
Everyone on Gallifrey arguing about the good of Gallifrey.
What kind of behaviour does the school encourage, reward, punish, suppress, both on paper and in practice?
Like in Pathfinder the Academae in Korvosa is supposed to be focusing on devil binding, so theoretically it's about control and power, but in practice it's about corruption and people making dumb deals, because the existing structures of power (Hell) set out some really tempting ways to improve life by just casting a spell on a devil right here, and obviously only losers who get F grades have to worry about, you know, losing your soul etc.
Wolfram and Hart do deals with people who dont believe the stakes. Slightly different problem. Same tempting lifestyles, different traps.
Korvosa's devils are devil shaped.
So many stories have the reason why the good guy is tempted to do the bad thing be that they cant afford the medical treatment. It makes me angry every time. Build an NHS and decrease the actual problems in all directions at once.
So does your wizard world charge money or have an NHS?
I have taken those ideas for a wander for long enough I think.
Sleep would have been more useful. And yet.
*sigh*
But I still kind of want to write a wizard school or three and keep an eye on what they're actually saying about how people work and what should be rewarded and punished. Because that can get weird.