Overview Magic System Time Real Book Examples

Hard vs. Soft magic system


One of the most important things in any fantasy is the magic system and how you approach it. Do you tell the reader exactly what magic is able to do, or do you just have a magical guideline occasionally? This is the difference between a hard magic system (like the force) and a soft magic system (like Gandalf). The force is a force, it moves things and occasionally gives people intuition. We are also told that sith can use force lightning. If any more force powers were to appear randomly, it would be going against the entire hard magic system and would probably be deus ex machina because you were out of ideas (I wonder what I could be referencing here). Gandalf can wizard. I haven't read the entire series, so I don't know of any specific examples to cite, but most of the time we don't know what he's capible of, and some of the times he can't do something. However, It's not "hard good, soft bad", it's more of a spectrum. Harry Potter is a good example of this. Most of the spells we see in Harry Potter are either shown in a class or in some book, but sometimes a spell, like Waddiswazi, is used by a more experienced wizard and we don't actually know what exactly they do. Waddiswazti, for example, is used by Lupin to shoot a piece of gum out of a lock and to where his wand is pointing. Does this mean you could toss people around like ragdolls? Probably not, but does it mean you could use your wand to shoot a bullet out of a gun? Maybe, but we just don't know. We also don't know if wingardium leviosa has a weight limit, but we sure do know exactly what most of the spells do. If you're making a setting, you can usually choose your magic type by deciding how you want wizards to be viewed. If you want wizards to be mysterious figures or only a small group of people, soft magic is usially right. If your main character weilds magic or wizards are common, hard magic is usially right.