Something that has rly influenced me is i listened to a podcast once where patrick rothfuss (i have not read his books but somehow i have listened to many podcast appearances from him by chance lol) describes how to write magic systems that work. And one of the points he made is that vagueness works in your favor, having a magic system with a ton of rules and systems can work but its a lot easier to write urself into a corner, and u cant rely on readers using their imaginations to fill in the blanks in ways that they believe. And i think this is a great point that can considered for a lot of things! I come back to it whenever im stuck on plot or worldbuilding for my larger comics. Sometimes the best answer is to just leave something unexplained.
i think about berserk, my top fave comic ever. And how the first chunk of arcs work so well and are so compelling largely bc the demons/apostles are mysterious and vaguely explained. Makes them seem dangerous and otherworldly. Then schierke comes in and suddenly there are☝️🤓rules and explanations and CATEGORIES (🤮) for the supernatural. And she just infodumps a lot of shit that ruins the magic (lol). Worst decision miura ever made like even worse than adding isidro (my least favorite manga character of all time i hate him he sucks no idc if u think hes a deconstruction of shonen protags because he fails at being a deconstruction). A lot of the writing post-reincarnation of griffith just sucks so much ass. Cus it just spends time explaining stuff that didnt need it. And he falls back on more overt boys manga tropes, its a little lazy and a tonal shift that i dislike.
anyway. I am just talking at this point lol. Point isssss, “less is more” is sooo true
i think this is what i love the most about The Owl House, its magic is just explained enough to cover basic rules and worldbuilding, but not so much that it's impossible to build your own wild magic sigils based off of it without breaking "rules." the only real rules to it that i've been able to discern are as follows:
(spoilers under here)
- the spell glyphs (light, ice, plant and fire) have specific designs that can be slightly modified to change the effect/result of the spell (ex. adding a triangle to the base of the central ice glyph grows a spike of ice from the center of the glyph)
- spell glyphs can be combined in spirals and circles to create extremely complex spells (a teleportation glyph utilizes a large series of light, ice, plant and fire glyphs placed along a "grid" of circles and spirals)
- a titan's innate magic allows wild/sigil magic to function, and each titan's sigil magic language is unique
- the strength of the sigil magic caused by a titan is correlated to their age and strength
beyond this, there aren't any outright rules. one could combine a variety of sigils in a major spell glyph and not have to worry if the sigils are placed or drawn correctly, PLUS with king's dad's magic disappearing, any fanfics that take place after the events of the main show can quite literally disregard every single rule i already described aside from those describing titan magic. King's unique sigil magic language could be entirely different from his father's, resulting in wildly different spell glyph structure!
like, genuinely the best rule in any fictional magic system is not to be too specific about the rules. let your audience's imaginations do all the work, and keep it accessible so even dumbass dorks like me can feel encouraged to explore the world's magic. being hyper-specific not only puts the writer into a corner sometimes, but it also creates an atmosphere where only obsessives will "truly understand" the language of magic in your work and will thus create a sense of elitism and inaccessibility that prevents a majority of the audience from engaging with the fiction of that story beyond what's on the page.
like, TOH fanfiction is fucking endless. the level of depth and specificity these characters have while keeping the world around them just vague enough to let the audience fill in the blanks, means there are a shitload of blanks to fill with countless interpretations and reinterpretations that build upon such a beautifully crafted world. i think the only reason i haven't currently written a TOH fanfic is because i just haven't been in a writing mood, but i like to think that if i ever got into that kind of mood i'd be dumping pages of TOH shit. just because the magic of this world is so beautifully handled.



