How the Buffyverse is like Windows

[snick_backup]

Suppose that when the earth was young and demons walked it, magic was inherent in life, in blood, in stone - all the usual things. It was a part of the earth, but it couldn't really be manipulated yet except at the most primitive level. 'Doing' magic was like programming a computer in binary.

But some sorcerers (probably demons, at that stage) came along and, with a lot of tedious work, arranged all that magic just sitting around into something with some structure - something they could talk to with the mystical equivalent of machine language. Much easier! They laid lay lines, they introduced the principle of sympathetic magic (I poke my voodoo doll, I poke you!), etc. Communicating with the gods was the equivalent of sending a request to a network. So far, so good.

The next sorcerers developed more languages (Latin and Sumerian both being key mystical developments) with which to manipulate magic. Magic became more accessible. Software was developed and made more and more user-friendly, so when you locked yourself out of your hut, all you had to do was say "Open Sesame."

But the sorcerers never bothered to talk much to each other, so sometimes memory errors would pop up, or two spells would interact badly and crash the whole system. (See: Apocalypse.) Meanwhile, there ended up being umpteen millions of ways to do the same thing, starting with "Open Sesame" and working all the way back to binary, if you felt like it (which Willow did, there in S7 - "I suck at Latin anyway, just do what I say!").

By the modern day, magic might involve herbs, blood, auras, powder, little colored lights, little Tinkerbell lights, swirling vortices, living languages, dead languages, noncorporeal entities, illusionary injuries, real injuries, urns, crystals, precious metals, garlic, sunlight, mirrors, and the judicious application of right angles. Among other things.

This is why magic in the Buffyverse makes no sense.

(Disclaimer: I'm not actually a CS person. I just hang around them a lot. For a less silly approach to Buffyverse worldbuilding, see stormwreath's Magic in the Buffyverse.)

Comments

[blackoberst.livejournal.com]

Funny and disturbingly insightful way of looking at things. Loved it!

[quinara]

I like this! :D

(Though I still think magic in the Buffyverse does make a certain sort of sense most of the time. Of course, I think that about computers. :P)

[rahirah]

That explains so much!

[snickfic]

Hee. Glad you enjoyed. :)

[snickfic]

All right, so maybe "no sense" was a bit of an overstatement. But just a wee little one.

(Honestly, the cavalier anything-goes Buffyverse magical system just pains my fantasy-lovin' heart.)

[snickfic]

Hee. :)

It occurred to me after the fact that you'd already drawn a connection between Willow's programming days and her magic use, in A Raising in the Sun. That happens to be one of my favorite bits of Willow meta ever, actually.

[quinara]

Honestly, the cavalier anything-goes Buffyverse magical system just pains my fantasy-lovin' heart.

See, my fantasy-loving heart is a chaotic polytheist, so likes it when there are multiple orders of magic that do different things and follow different rules and affect people in different ways and, and... :D

[snickfic]

But... but there's supposed to be an organizing principle! I want to know there's a reason that multiple orders of magic exist and that they affect different people differently and, and...

I think the discovery of a grand unified field theory would be pretty neat, too. *g*

[quinara]

Pfft, organising principle! How very monotheistic...

I think this metaphor is without end!

[rahirah]

I've always thought that it would have been interesting to have Willow go the technopagan route instead of the ALL POWERFUL route - just as much potential for badness, and a lot easier to deal with on a story level because you don't have to constantly be going "Well, why didn't Willow just cast a spell?"