Question Powers? Magic? Avatars? (rambling)

To the writers of Whateley Academy.

This is something that's been bouncing around in my mind for years now, and it's a bit hard to explain so please bear with me.

It's like you're putting a few things into boxes that didn't really need them, and losing compelling parts of the universe because of that.

Take magic. Magic, in the older stories, was something far more mysterious. In new stories all you're doing is focusing on essence. It's just essence essence essence. Now, I'm not saying this is wrong, it obviously should work like that for many of the characters. But all of them? Similar to this, spirits and avatars. They used to be a far more nebulous thing, but it seems that now you've cleanly delineated exactly what they are, as if the explanations of the underlying system are more important than the big picture.

For an example of magic, compare the fanfic version of Whisper to the canonized one. Most things are pretty much the same, except there is one stark (to me at least) difference. In one scene where Whisper learns a bit about magic from Sir Westmont. I think that someone told Sleethr that that scene needs to be changed. But I can't help but feel like Sleethr had a better understanding of the narrative nature of magic in the Whateley verse than whoever wanted that change.

For an example of this in general as it applies to all powers, take Tennyo versus Negator (or whatever his name was). Was that scene a good one or a bad one, looking at the underlying principles it implied things about? I'm sure this is something that people would answer in very different ways, but in my opinion it was one of the most important and interesting parts of the entire Whateley verse. Not because it glorified Tennyo or whatever, but because it showed that there isn't a single explanation for absolutely every phenomenon. It drove home that fantastic powers aren't a simple and trivial thing. And they shouldn't be, that would be very boring. Perhaps they weren't even a thing in the first place, but many things instead.

I just think it was so much more interesting before, back when not everything followed the same ultimate explanation. Not every power was the same thing even if it was explained by the power testers as falling under the same acronym. Were characters like Bladedancer, Tennyo, Fey, etcetera avatars? Yes, no, maybe. Were they mutants? Technically no, at least not in the same sense that human mutants are typically created, but they weren't baseline humans either obviously. The newer characters, both in gen 1 and gen 2, are very different from this.

I know I'm probably rambling and not making much sense, but basically I'd like to say that, in my humble opinion, you should consider not stomping down exceptions to the rules of supernatural powers in the setting, but to let them thrive instead. I think it lead, in the older stories, to a much more interesting and exciting place.

I have no doubt that you'll get a reply from Kristin, but let me throw in my .02 worth (possibly before she or other canon authors do). The one difficult factor in a multi-author universe like Whateley is consistency. That's hard to do unless some things are defined. Have we over-defined things? Maybe. Would we have as much consistency without those definitions? Perhaps not.

One important thing to bear in mind is that the explanations given are the best THEORIES of the day. They're not scientific explanations, they will be subject to change - but they're the universe's theories.

Take avatars. Is Aquerna different from Kayda who's different from Fey? Yes. (Note that EE and I have both made note of 'different type of spirit - sentient spirits - becoming more frequent - which is baffling!') Have we totally explained it? By all means no. But we HAVE made it easier for the writers to be consistent. Have the Whateley scientists got a firm understanding of it? Absolutely, positively NO. (Ever read Forever War - the part how the scientists kept having to change the theory of their interstellar drive because they kept finding out new little facts that screwed up the old theories and math? Same here - some new mutant power or trait or such will come through and they'll all throw up their hands - "Well, back to the drawing board!")

Think of the stories this way - a Kayda POV story is like a "this is what it was like when I was a teen" story a grandmother or great-grandmother would tell little kids (or biographers) - long AFTER the events. (the unreliable narrator gig). ("Back when I first became the Ptesanwi, we did ....!" "Really Great Grandmother? Wow!") Another way to look at it - if you studied something in high school, and since then the theories changed due to better science, would you have kept up with all that (absent being a research scientist in the field)? Most likely NOT. Listen to your grandparents or great-grandparents talk about things scientific that they learned in high school - it's a surprise how much is now better-understood, only not by the older generations.

So yeah, if you consider all the factors, we have been a little more consistent, and some of the mystery is gone. Or is it? Is it maybe a 'this is the latest explanation' phenomenon, and in time, it'll get refined, or some other physical phenomenon will pop up and it'll be "back to the drawing board"?

As to magic, the way Kristin has been explaining it beats the hell out of the D&D model - the higher level you are, the neater / wilder / stronger spells you can cast. (Damn! I have to fight a level 32 dark mage who can transform the rocks into Galaxy Quest style rock monsters while morphing himself into a 25' long fire-breathing red dragon armored against anything short of a 120mm DU anti-tank round, while at level 2, the most powerful thing I can do is give him a very minor case of diarrhea or jock-itch? I'm supposed to live to advance in levels HOW????")

Just my view.

Woop wrote: To the writers of Whateley Academy.

This is something that's been bouncing around in my mind for years now, and it's a bit hard to explain so please bear with me.

It's like you're putting a few things into boxes that didn't really need them, and losing compelling parts of the universe because of that.

Take magic. Magic, in the older stories, was something far more mysterious. In new stories all you're doing is focusing on essence. It's just essence essence essence. Now, I'm not saying this is wrong, it obviously should work like that for many of the characters. But all of them? Similar to this, spirits and avatars. They used to be a far more nebulous thing, but it seems that now you've cleanly delineated exactly what they are, as if the explanations of the underlying system are more important than the big picture.

For an example of magic, compare the fanfic version of Whisper to the canonized one. Most things are pretty much the same, except there is one stark (to me at least) difference. In one scene where Whisper learns a bit about magic from Sir Westmont. I think that someone told Sleethr that that scene needs to be changed. But I can't help but feel like Sleethr had a better understanding of the narrative nature of magic in the Whateley verse than whoever wanted that change.

For an example of this in general as it applies to all powers, take Tennyo versus Negator (or whatever his name was). Was that scene a good one or a bad one, looking at the underlying principles it implied things about? I'm sure this is something that people would answer in very different ways, but in my opinion it was one of the most important and interesting parts of the entire Whateley verse. Not because it glorified Tennyo or whatever, but because it showed that there isn't a single explanation for absolutely every phenomenon. It drove home that fantastic powers aren't a simple and trivial thing. And they shouldn't be, that would be very boring. Perhaps they weren't even a thing in the first place, but many things instead.

I just think it was so much more interesting before, back when not everything followed the same ultimate explanation. Not every power was the same thing even if it was explained by the power testers as falling under the same acronym. Were characters like Bladedancer, Tennyo, Fey, etcetera avatars? Yes, no, maybe. Were they mutants? Technically no, at least not in the same sense that human mutants are typically created, but they weren't baseline humans either obviously. The newer characters, both in gen 1 and gen 2, are very different from this.

I know I'm probably rambling and not making much sense, but basically I'd like to say that, in my humble opinion, you should consider not stomping down exceptions to the rules of supernatural powers in the setting, but to let them thrive instead. I think it lead, in the older stories, to a much more interesting and exciting place.

This is my impression on how Magic/Essence/Wizard Trait kind of works. If you think of Magic as an Internal Combustion Engine, and Essence as Gasoline, experienced Wizards, and Sidhe Wizards, have already built gas tanks to hold their Essence. Pejuta, The Three Little Wizards, Phase, and others are still building or learning how to build their tanks. Pejuta has one, but it is leaky. Phase and the TLW are still working on their Engines too.

So just like it would be difficult to have an in depth talk about Internal Combustion Engines without talking about the fuel, the authors are removing some of the mystery by talking about Essence.

As for Avatars, I don't think that Bladedancer was ever considered an Avatar. Tennyo and Fey were mutants, and still are in some ways.

Kristin Darken wrote: Unfortunately, that perspective is countered by the many readers who fill these forums with speculation and questions about how the powers work... some of which are so outrageously wrong that we incorporate greater detail in the stories to explain how the in-universe theorists look at things.

Yes, I understand and expect that, but why is squashing them down a good idea? They're wrong, but they're speculations by people who don't know the whole story, it's expected that they're wrong. Is there any reason the amount of wild speculations needs to be minimized?

Kristin Darken wrote: And there are plenty of stories that do NOT focus on the powers or on the mechanics of the setting

Yes, I never wanted to imply otherwise. I was only talking about the ones that are. Like you said somewhere else, the story is about the people. The issue I'm trying to bring up here isn't with the story in that sense, it's more about the mood that the setting creates and casts on the story.

To reuse an example, when Tennyo wasn't affected by Negator, the mood that created for me was wonderful. It was an incredible moment, to me. It felt like the clearcut and dry explanations are FAR from everything that there is to be said about the setting, and therefore the underpinnings of the stories. It was a reminder that there is still plenty of wondrous and unknown things to find out there, in future stories. It seems like that magic was lost in recent years.

And don't get me wrong, that is partly expected. You learn more about a world, and some of the wonder is inevitably gone. But the thing here is that it seems like it's not only because of learning more about the world, it seems like you were helping it along by forsaking certain mysterious elements.

Kristin Darken wrote: Oh, and ya... I was the one advising Sleethr on Whisper's Wiz trait and magick ability in general. Whisper couldn't be canon without the 'nerf' to use the gaming term. I think our end result (which you probably do NOT know, because we've played our cards fairly close to our chests so far) will still be surprising and show that just because we give you information about an aspect of our magick mechanics, it does NOT take all the mystery out. In fact, having that foundation can create MORE options.

The most important thing to remember about Whisper is that she was a character in an MMO. You cannot necessarily transpose the the abilities of a game character into the outside world and expect everything to work identically. If they do, you should ask why... because THAT would be strange, wouldn't it?

I probably should have pointed out the exact thing that irked me there. You misunderstand the issue I have with the change between the whisper fanfic and the canon version. I'm perfectly fine with whisper's magic being nerfed, that's a non-issue to me. I don't care that any element of transposition from the MMO was taken away either. What bothered me was the scene where essence was given the royal treatment.

I mean, I realize that by now you might think that I have some sort of strange grudge with the word essence or something, but that's really not it. It's the way everything is getting less and less mysterious for seemingly, to me as a reader at least, no real reason. Did the Whisper story actually gain anything when Westmont explained how essence is like a candle and so on (just an example from memory here, I don't have the story open)? It doesn't feel like it to me at all.

That said, I'll trust you when you say that there's still plenty of mysteriousness there. Also, I wasn't sure if Whisper was getting any attention anymore, so I'm very glad to hear that she is.

Your stories about Fling are one of my Whateley favorites, by the way. I could have used examples from there for that sense of wonder I've been talking about too, if I thought of any at the start and probably if I'd read them recently enough for it to come to mind. Maybe one of them would have something to do with that ATM he stole money from, I remember that very fondly for some reason, though maybe that has nothing to do with this sense of new wonder I'm talking about.

Kristin Darken wrote: However, understanding the Wizard power rating (the difference between a baseline becoming a mage and a mutant with an evolutionary advantage for using magick)...

Well, maybe this is where my different perception for magic comes from. Fey, the first mage that the whateley verse focused on, doesn't really have a WIZ rating, does she? She's not even a mutant to qualify for it, she's something more exotic.

That's still a disappointing conclusion to me, though. I think there should be more exotic things like that. And I don't mean that in the OP sense that some of the original characters like Fey were. I just mean things that are different on some more fundamental level.

Like that The Abyss Winked story. A good example of this element that I'm talking about in a character that definitely isn't OP. That story was great, even though it was a bit of a segue into very strange places.

Valentine wrote: Tennyo and Fey were mutants, and still are in some ways.

Are they? They're classified and labeled as mutants by the people in-setting, sure, but when I say that they aren't I mean it in a more strict sense. They're not baselines, but they're not human either. And mutants are supposed to be human.

To look at it from a different angle, the reason why they became non-baselines have nothing to do with the reason why most non-baselines in the setting become non-baselines. Nick and Billy would/could have become classic mutants, but that's not what happened to them. They're a special case, just like Sara for example.

Woop wrote:

Valentine wrote: Tennyo and Fey were mutants, and still are in some ways.

Are they? They're classified and labeled as mutants by the people in-setting, sure, but when I say that they aren't I mean it in a more strict sense. They're not baselines, but they're not human either. And mutants are supposed to be human.

To look at it from a different angle, the reason why they became non-baselines have nothing to do with the reason why most non-baselines in the setting become non-baselines. Nick and Billy would/could have become classic mutants, but that's not what happened to them. They're a special case, just like Sara for example.

Remember that Negator's power still works on Tennyo. It doesn't suppress the powers, but suppresses the presence of Billie. So Billie is still a mutant, if her body isn't.

Sara was likely never a mutant, she is a half GOO, that is now likely all GOO.