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Giles and Ethan and Magic and Change
Apr. 3rd, 2024 08:22 pmToday I did most of the Wednesday tasks (cleaner day worked, laundry didnt)
and continued rereading a very long fic
https://archiveofourown.org/works/13727895?view_full_work=true
I've reread Initiation more, by the same author, and have left myself a to do item to comment on it because it is very very good, but so far I continue to be quiet. So I'll rec it here.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/28820259
I keep trying to think up a story that changes things the way I'd want to, to imagine something that doesn't leave me with that bitey feeling of things need done, but I am currently stuck on All Problems All The Time.
Specifically with Giles and Ethan I find myself thinking nothing is really solved if Giles has his canonical attitude to magic. Ethan's attitude to magic makes things difficult for everyone, but also shows them possibilities they hadnt thought of. Which generally pisses them off. But. They live in a world where this very real avenue to power is cut off by pure ideology and refusing to teach.
But the other fiction world I spend a lot of time imagining, Pathfinder rpg's Golarion with the attempted apocalypse at least every six months, seems like it illustrates what happens when everyone and anyone can get magic. Lots of kaboom. Extraordinary amounts of kaboom. And a lot of undead even compared to the Buffyverse.
People want magic the other guy doesnt have. When everyone has magic you spend most of yours on protection spells or you get flattened going out the door. Or mind controlled. So so much mind control. You boost your resistance at every opportunity or do someone else's bidding.
Kind of reminds me of the early promise of the internet vs actual ai spewed garbage and malware. Something that should be magical is mostly tedious because otherwise it's all... Warren and the Trio.
But trying to keep the power safely controllable is how the Buffyverse ended up with One Girl In All The World.
... would be nice if the follow up stories after season 7 actually played through like handing out power had up sides...
Trying to imagine a balanced sort of attitude to magic, a safe enough world, an ethical framework you could teach at magic school, entrance exams for magic school... I mean unless literal everyone has magic you get a form of inequality as unequal as the magic economy is from the everyday survival sort of money in rpgs. Magic users have choices, everyone else has problems.
But if everyone has magic everyone also has problems.
So it's a tricky one to imagine.
But if I read in fic Giles swearing to never do magic again, or even never do magic with Ethan, that's... wrong. Like swearing to make himself small. That's not a useful or self actualising response to realising how bad he screwed up. Power is still there, still part of him, so even without the metaphor layers the idea the only right thing he can do with power is give it up or give it away is just... too limited.
So it's a difficult problem.
Even before you get to the specifics of
what is magic for
and what do they need magic for?
Because he used it for escape, the sleepwalker, and that goes poorly.
But there's so much else.
Unless it's a magic as drug use metaphor again, which goes poorly with the gay metaphor magic and the magic as actual power.
I have a little daydream about entrance tests for magic school
where they screen out all the TERFS and transphobes
because the fundamental principle of magic
the one thing you have to believe in order to do magic
is
Things Change, If You Make Them Change.
I kind of think that's what Giles gave up. To do his tweedy best to fit in and make himself safe. He wrapped himself in tradition and gave up on change.
Which changed in later seasons.
So he logically should go back to magic.
But I keep turning the thoughts over a bunch without coming up with anything solid or story worthy.
As I have been for rather a lot of years if I think about it.
Ah well. Worth thinking anyway.
and continued rereading a very long fic
https://archiveofourown.org/works/13727895?view_full_work=true
I've reread Initiation more, by the same author, and have left myself a to do item to comment on it because it is very very good, but so far I continue to be quiet. So I'll rec it here.
https://archiveofourown.org/works/28820259
I keep trying to think up a story that changes things the way I'd want to, to imagine something that doesn't leave me with that bitey feeling of things need done, but I am currently stuck on All Problems All The Time.
Specifically with Giles and Ethan I find myself thinking nothing is really solved if Giles has his canonical attitude to magic. Ethan's attitude to magic makes things difficult for everyone, but also shows them possibilities they hadnt thought of. Which generally pisses them off. But. They live in a world where this very real avenue to power is cut off by pure ideology and refusing to teach.
But the other fiction world I spend a lot of time imagining, Pathfinder rpg's Golarion with the attempted apocalypse at least every six months, seems like it illustrates what happens when everyone and anyone can get magic. Lots of kaboom. Extraordinary amounts of kaboom. And a lot of undead even compared to the Buffyverse.
People want magic the other guy doesnt have. When everyone has magic you spend most of yours on protection spells or you get flattened going out the door. Or mind controlled. So so much mind control. You boost your resistance at every opportunity or do someone else's bidding.
Kind of reminds me of the early promise of the internet vs actual ai spewed garbage and malware. Something that should be magical is mostly tedious because otherwise it's all... Warren and the Trio.
But trying to keep the power safely controllable is how the Buffyverse ended up with One Girl In All The World.
... would be nice if the follow up stories after season 7 actually played through like handing out power had up sides...
Trying to imagine a balanced sort of attitude to magic, a safe enough world, an ethical framework you could teach at magic school, entrance exams for magic school... I mean unless literal everyone has magic you get a form of inequality as unequal as the magic economy is from the everyday survival sort of money in rpgs. Magic users have choices, everyone else has problems.
But if everyone has magic everyone also has problems.
So it's a tricky one to imagine.
But if I read in fic Giles swearing to never do magic again, or even never do magic with Ethan, that's... wrong. Like swearing to make himself small. That's not a useful or self actualising response to realising how bad he screwed up. Power is still there, still part of him, so even without the metaphor layers the idea the only right thing he can do with power is give it up or give it away is just... too limited.
So it's a difficult problem.
Even before you get to the specifics of
what is magic for
and what do they need magic for?
Because he used it for escape, the sleepwalker, and that goes poorly.
But there's so much else.
Unless it's a magic as drug use metaphor again, which goes poorly with the gay metaphor magic and the magic as actual power.
I have a little daydream about entrance tests for magic school
where they screen out all the TERFS and transphobes
because the fundamental principle of magic
the one thing you have to believe in order to do magic
is
Things Change, If You Make Them Change.
I kind of think that's what Giles gave up. To do his tweedy best to fit in and make himself safe. He wrapped himself in tradition and gave up on change.
Which changed in later seasons.
So he logically should go back to magic.
But I keep turning the thoughts over a bunch without coming up with anything solid or story worthy.
As I have been for rather a lot of years if I think about it.
Ah well. Worth thinking anyway.
