Most people think of magic instruction as being your basic master/student relationship (not least because so many people just think of it as being like how the Jedi do things in Star Wars), and sometimes this is, in fact, the case. Certainly it was the case for Stephen Strange’s introduction to magic, but what many people overlook is that the Ancient One was a fairly gregarious man as mages go in the first place (and quite possibly it is that ability to simply connect with and understand other people that makes for a good Sorcerer Supreme). Indeed, the one master/one student rule exists because most practitioners of magic simply don’t care for other people much, and if the system is to maintain itself then it shall maintain itself with the minimum stress to its users, and that is how it works.
This is not terribly surprising; after all, pursuing magic is in many ways a rejection of society as a whole. In the modern era it is a rejection of science; in the past it was a rejection of religion. Working magic almost always means defying not only societal norms but the things you have been raised and conditioned all your life to believe as true, to reject your own experience as true. Or, to put it more glibly: it is very hard to fire a magical zappy bolt when you have never fired a magical zappy bolt before, and it becomes harder when you have never seen anybody else fire a magical zappy bolt, and when they have never have never seen anybody fire a magical zappy bolt… it adds up. Which meant that many practitioners of magic had (and even today still have) to abandon society just to get anything done, and not coincidentally why the profession tends to be somewhat misanthropic at the best of times.
Still, magicians need to learn somewhere, and for years the only option was master/student in person, typically with the master demanding the student pay him a stipend or be a servant or what have you. This started changing in the mid-18th century as correspondence among the upper classes (who of course had most of the magic, as not having to work fourteen hours a day to avoid starving definitely gives one a leg up in studying magic) became more prevalent. Sir Humphrey Zzaxx-Clarkson, like many other mages of the era, began his career by sending a polite and very carefully worded letter to someone he (correctly) thought knew a few things. The polite response contained answers, and other names a promising young tyro could correspond with. And so the second age of magic instruction began – decentralized and somewhat impersonal, oftentimes limiting the students to basic tricks, and generally lending itself to any number of devastating flameouts (one thing at which master/student relationship excels is “keep student from blowing self up”), but on the whole was vastly more efficient at generating mages in greater quantities than previous years.
And this would have been fine, except for one thing: the extension of mass correspondence to the lower classes. This is not to say that the upper classes were deserving of magic, of course, but it is a simple human tendency that, when you generally have a good life, you’re more wary about risks – say, the inherent risk of binding a minor cacodemon to a candle so you have a permanent source of light, or something similar. Many of the minor aristocrats pursuing magic in the 18th and 19th centuries through correspondence would barely cast more than two or three spells a year. But when you’re the first person in your family to ever be able to read – you’ve usually got need for more than two or three spells a year.
Still, even though poor people now had the opportunity (mostly in America, of course) to learn magic through correspondence, it didn’t really explode until the late 1920s and the dawn of the pulp magazines. Magic enthusiasts followed Weird Tales and all the other fantasy, horror and weird pulps, and if there was only one truly enthusiastic student for every hundred people sending around their homemade fan magazines dedicated to Robert Howard or Lord Dunsany – that was enough, because those homemade magazines were like The Anarchist’s Cookbook on steroids and LSD all at once. The floodgates opened, and they never really closed from then on out, and it is not for nothing that in the Marvel Universe, this was when superpowers started emerging around this time in quantity. (Of course science was involved as well – but not all of the new powers emerging were scientific in their origin.)
This isn’t to say that all of the new superhumans emerging in 616 at this time were magic users; this isn’t even to say all those powers were caused by magic. But magic is fueled by belief and will, and when you suddenly have a lot more of all three sloshing around, there are knock-on effects. (Chupacacabras did not, in fact, exist until 1922, at which point they always had.) Magic is not predictable; loose, wild magic being powered by extraneous belief can do almost anything, and usually will.
Why does this matter to Dr. Strange in the present day? Well, it matters for three reasons. Firstly, it matters because quite frequently the answer to a magical dilemma can be found in correspondence between two sorcerers who have both been dead for over a century, which means negotiating with the people who now hold those letters. (Dr. Doom, unsurprisingly, has a large library of it.) Secondly, it matters because it’s still happening today via email and secured forum posting – and, yes, snailmail for the traditionalists – which means at any given point there are literally dozens of would-be wizards casting spells and unintentionally (one hopes) causing chaos that can be a tremendous bother when you are Sorcerer Supreme.
And thirdly, it means that someone clever enough and reckless enough will eventually realize that if he can make magical communication hit critical mass – by popularizing it, getting people to challenge themselves, ideally without them even knowing that they’re doing so – he can change the world itself forever, even if he’s not sure what result he’ll get. And preventing that is definitely part of the Sorcerer Supreme’s job, because one of the things you have to realize about magic is that by its very nature it can’t be for everybody, no matter how antidemocratic that may sound.
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36 users responded in this post
Please tell me this is kicking off a new series of “Why I Should Write Doctor Strange”.
This was an interesting read. The comments about the inherently elitist and misanthropic nature of magic, in particular, shows an understanding of the themes that I rather like.
On a less faux-high brow level: dude, keep these up. I always love your ‘I Should Writes.’
I have truly missed this feature. Just picturing Doctor Strange heading to Latvia to go through Doom’s library was enough for me to want to see these happen.
And, of course, my personal favourite: Fin Fang Fear.
It also seems like this would cause many magic users to browse flea markets, estate sales, and storage container auctions looking for letters and magazines that contain hidden information their sellers don’t realize the value of. Imagine Storage Wars combined with hypnosis, mind control, and the occasional outburst of crude offensive magic like lightning bolts and fireballs.
I think Tales to Enrage has hit upon a new reality program…or Warehouse 13, I’m not completely sure.
Kind of makes you look at those 60’s and 70’s ads in comics a bit differently, doesn’t it?
“The Demon Who Made a Mage Out of Mac”
“The Demon Who Made a Mage Out of Mac”
I read this as “out of a Mac”… and now I can’t get the idea of sentient, magic-capable iPhone assisting Doctor Strange out of my head.
Hello, Siri. Please cast the Shield of Ra spell please.
I really would love to see more about this, short stories or books or whatever. One series it reminds me of a little, re the master-apprentice relationship, is Barbara Hambly’s wonderful Sun Wolf series (starting with The Ladies of Mandrigyn). In this world, magic has been nearly eliminated, and surviving sorcerors are in hiding. A budding magician looking for a trainer has a hard job, and the potential teachers he finds are unreliable and agenda-ridden, at best.
God, now I want to read about a Magic 4Chan page (MG) where the internet trolls and actual trolls.
This is interesting, and reminds me of the episode of the Tennant Doctor Who “School Reunion” in which the bat-people enslave the kids to solve a Super Powerful Mystery Algorithm.
I mean, imagine if some dumbshit grad student in Math who has been tinkering with magic comes up with a Sudoku-like puzzle that anyone can work on. It sends him a little tiny bit of magic every time one is solved to pump up his spells. So many ways that could go wrong; the puzzles could be opening up a doorway to a Big Baddie, or the puzzle could become wildly popular and this poor guy could just detonate with magical energy in the middle of campus one day.
Really fun concept!
This is a fun concept. And as many have said, doesn’t need to be for Doc Strange specifically.
The image text made me think of a correspondence course like in “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” and but the synopsis brought to mind the accidental spells in Chuck Palahniuk’s “Lullaby”.
The thing I most love about this particular one is that the question I was asking myself (“If magic could be taught like this, why isn’t everybody doing it?”) is the question that we were promised an answer to in the final paragraph. That’s a sign of a good, smart writer who shakes their ideas to see if they break. 🙂
Bah, we know what Doom’s secret library is really full of…
My Little Pony Comics…
and now i’m thinking of both Grant morrison’s magic talk about chaos magic, bringing that to the masses… and avenger’s dissambled dr. Strange proclaiming there’s ‘no chaos magic.’ a likable populist bringing chaos to the masses when it’s not that chaos magic (in the marvel universe) doesn’t exist, but for the sake of the universe it NEEDS to not exist. eh, something like that.
@Brandon: knowing MGK, it wouldn’t be a sudoku-alike, it would be a German board game. You think you’re trading guilders for tin for wool for pepper for bishoprics, but really you’re modeling vishanti->dormammu favor arbitrage. And more than modeling….
“The floodgates opened, and they never really closed from then on out, and it is not for nothing that in the Marvel Universe, this was when superpowers started emerging around this time in quantity.”
The next time I run a superhero RPG campaign, I am sooooooo stealing this.
(Speaking of tabletop RPG’s, I don’t know how familiar you are with them beyond D&D, but I suspect you would enjoy reading through the Unknown Armies RPG book – parts of your post here reminded me of the ‘feel’ of magic in UA)
“the occasional outburst of crude offensive magic like lightning bolts and fireballs.”
There is nothing crude or offensive about three damage for one mana. And fireball, while often more trouble than is worth, is never a bad card to have.
So you’re blaming Lovecraft? (And not undeservedly so.) What if the Anti-Life Equation was published in a comic book that nobody ever read? (I know, I’m “corssing the streams”, as it were.) And I love the idea of Dr. Strange being able to access Doom’s library because, y’know, Sorceror Supreme. (“Stephen, good to see you again. Tea?” “Not now, Victor. I need to know if you have BOOK X.” Doom [playing for time] “Let’s see. Well, I might. Are you sure you won’t have any tea? Coffee, perhaps?”])
YOU SHOULD write Dr. Strange. Hell, and the Legion.
I still hold out hope of getting to write the Doctor one day. DC, though, is not happening, and even if it were happening, at this point I wouldn’t.
I was just about to post about Unknown Armies too before seeing Knightsky’s comment. If you’ve never read any Unknown Armies stuff, you really ought to, MGK. From your Dr. Strange stuff, it’d definitely be right up your alley.
What MGK writes: “the occasional outburst of crude offensive magic”
What I imagine: a storage shed that spontaneously erupts into farts, belches, and swearing…
or years the only option was master/student in person, typically with the master demanding the student pay him a stipend or be a servant or what have you.
While I greatly enjoyed your writing, this part shows a great misunderstanding of a master/student relationship. Having been a member of a small scientific lab for seven years (started out as an undergraduate research assistant and left as a Ph.D.), I know a thing or two about being in such relationship. For a grad student in a physics lab with a good professor is in a relationship that is based on similar loyalty and respect as the master-apprentice relationship of old.
A learned man does not, unless his inherently greedy or desperate for living, want to make money by teaching. When you take a student under your wing, you do it for other reasons: building a cadre of followers, encouraging learning by a promising youth and personal liking. On the other hand, when you become a disciple (or a junior member of a lab) your position as a servant is not a way of payment. It’s a prerequisite to learning the craft which you can’t learn by yourself. Although having students may be necessary for the teacher to get things done in the workshop or in the lab, this is not the primary reason to take them.
Most importantly, it would have been this way especially in magic. Because a magic user would be already wealthy, he would not have a need for tuition money or a bond-servant. In a pre-capitalist world, teaching for money would simply hurt his standing. Instead, an established magician would be bound by custom and love of his craft to take students. And the students would be his servants as any apprentice of craftsman was, by custom and the practical needs of instruction.
This reminds me of a comment I made on a previous post about the DCU, that taking 1% of the US population an appropriate number of times still leaves you room for there to plausibly be a couple super villains themed off of any popular American series you care about.
And I totally approve of this post being the Marvel equivalent of that comment. (Where the logic is 1% is really passionate about magic pulp type literature, 1% of those actually can do something with it, and 1% of those are actually dangerous.)
@squishydish oh yah Sunwolf stories, those were excellent books, showing how having even a bit of working knowledge of magic can be dangerous is just one of its themes. Hambly is an excellent writer.
The reference to the “good old days” of the aristocracy reminded me strongly of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
As for the “I Should Write…” series, I have to say that I personally would eagerly anticipate “I, Flapjacks Should(n’t) Write”
As for the “I Should Write…” series, I have to say that I personally would eagerly anticipate “I, Flapjacks Should(n’t) Write”
Seconded.
It’s back! The promised days are upon us!
@Ben: I thought the ‘master/apprentice vs. correspondence/found information’ dynamic was a lot more representative of Lev Grossman’s The Magicians and the Magician King. Hedge witches messing around with powers they only half understand is a pretty dangerous thing for everyone.
I see DC becoming more like the OLD 52 at some point, so it could happen.
As for the idea, I always figured most magic users were self taught
Some of the comments here remind me a bit of Charlie Stross’ Laundry series where maths can affect the universe and if you write the wrong computer program Lovecraftian horrors can come out of the walls.
I would imagine that, as the practice of magical correspondence expanded to include more particpants, protocols were devised by which one sorceror could gain access to the archives maintained by another.
So Strange discovers an old letter that hints at a great threat, but vital pieces of the puzzle are held by others such as Doom, Mordo, etc, and Strange has to negotiate the very treacherous waters of protocol to assemble the ritual he must perform without giving his host an excuse to destroy him.
@mymatedave: MGK’s last paragraph-and-a-half is Stross’ Laundry series, only with an arcane spy agency doing the watchdogging (the closest thing that they have to a Sorcerer Supreme is based directly on James Jesus Angleton, and he’s not a very nice fellow). People who accidentally (or not-so-accidentally) stumble across the universe’s cheat codes are given the choice to join the Laundry, and they usually accept when they find out what the alternative is.
Feh! I meant, “only the Laundry is an arcane spy agency” blah blah.
“(Speaking of tabletop RPG’s, I don’t know how familiar you are with them beyond D&D, but I suspect you would enjoy reading through the Unknown Armies RPG book – parts of your post here reminded me of the ‘feel’ of magic in UA)”
This does remind me of UA magic, which is the best of all possible magic, the magic of obsession and lost things.
If MGK were writing Dr. Strange I would be reading comics again.
This reminds me a great deal of the “will and vision vs. consensus reality” conception of magic in the old Mage: The Ascension RPG. Politicizing magic (at least, with a real understanding of politics) is an all-too neglected aspect of fantasy, and a perfect angle for the MU.
Also:
(Chupacacabras did not, in fact, exist until 1922, at which point they always had.)
Sentences like these are why I come here.
I absolutely LOVE these! I stop back every few months to catch up on new ones and reread the older ones!
Tales to Enrage’s comment had me thinking: I could totlly see Dr Strange going to a comic book show, looking for old magic papers and stuff! See him hanging out at SDCC or talking to one of the guys who scripted or drew his comic book, assuming it exists in the Marvel Universe. Or maybe it does, but he buys the original art, just to make sure it doesn’t get published…