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Post by thereader88 on Feb 28, 2018 19:53:53 GMT 10
So is it just me or does the fact that Arram spend so much time studying and seemingly has so much talent for healing in direct contradiction to what Numair says in Wild Magic when he has to hold off the dampening spells from the fog during the siege of Pirate's Swoop? He clearly states that he has no healing magic at all... alternately is something going to go horribly awry with his powers at some point in one of the next books that prevents him from healing ever again? After all, he spends a lot of time healing the gladiators and talking to Musenda/Sarge!!! in Tempests and Slaughter, then rather than heal (because he can't?) he has to hold off the dampeners while others work to heal Sarge in Wild Magic. This bugs me so much. I needed somewhere to talk about it. So I looked and looked and found this forum and joined just to have somewhere to talk about it.
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Post by Rosie on Feb 28, 2018 20:54:00 GMT 10
Ahh, I saw this in a synopsis for Tempests, and this immediately came to mind. I hope it is addressed later, but Tammy has form for ignoring her own world rules, so I'm not holding my breath. I did discuss it with Lisa, who posited that it may be the volume that is the issue later on (i.e. he concentrates his magic on the big explosive variety, and then loses his affinity for small-time healing), but we'll see how it pans out. Maybe he does a divine deal and trades it?? |
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Post by devilinthedetails on Feb 28, 2018 23:25:14 GMT 10
Right now my theory for reconciling the differences between the Immortals and POTS series Numair and Arram in the Numair Chronicles is that it is some sort of consequence of his specialization in magic (perhaps as he gains magical abilities in a field, he loses it in others), but Rosie's idea of trading it in some divine deal could be interesting as well. Time will tell whether Tammy explains this, or if we have to invent our own explanations, or just assign a separate canon for each series.
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Post by Idleness on Mar 2, 2018 17:47:01 GMT 10
Yeah, it kind of bugged me too. I don't know about later developments in the series - I mean, even in T&S he already can't light a candle because of the magnitude of his Gift, so even here, how can he be healing people without blowing them apart or doing more harm than help?
It does seem like magic is being treated completely differently in T&S though. In other books it seems to me like mages can train to do some general type spells, but they also have innate abilities in some kinds of magic and not in others. In T&S so far, it's being treated more like any mage can do any magic, only limited by the size of their Gift, and that specialisation is more a case of the mage pursuing their personal interest rather than because their power lends itself to one kind of magic over another.
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Post by devilinthedetails on Mar 2, 2018 23:42:44 GMT 10
Yeah, it kind of bugged me too. I don't know about later developments in the series - I mean, even in T&S he already can't light a candle because of the magnitude of his Gift, so even here, how can he be healing people without blowing them apart or doing more harm than help? It does seem like magic is being treated completely differently in T&S though. In other books it seems to me like mages can train to do some general type spells, but they also have innate abilities in some kinds of magic and not in others. In T&S so far, it's being treated more like any mage can do any magic, only limited by the size of their Gift, and that specialisation is more a case of the mage pursuing their personal interest rather than because their power lends itself to one kind of magic over another. I agree that it doesn't seem consistent that he can't light a candle but can still heal people especially with the way Duke Baird appeared to really link the two things in POTS when discussing the situation with Neal. I think I would prefer to see an explanation why Numair can't heal in POTS and Immortals but can in T&S just since it would be a bridge between the series and also show that Tammy is aware of the contradiction between her books. I would prefer to get some explanation rather than none even if there is the very real chance that the explanation won't necessarily be satisfactory. Right now, I try to sort of construct that bridge between the series in my head but you could argue that is a flaw in the narrative--a sign that my suspension of disbelief is being snapped a bit--because I shouldn't have to be inventing explanations for contradictions between series. I guess where I'm at is I can explain it but I have to jump through some hoops and interpret canon in not the most natural way in order to do it. I agree that the magic in T&S seems to be treated differently than in the other Tortall books. I definitely shared your impression in the other books that a mage can train in general magic but also has natural abilities to some type of magic but not another. T&S treats specialization more as a choice than an innate ability and presents the size of the Gift as the limiting factor more so than the natural inclination of the Gift. I preferred the magical view presented in other books in that way where you have someone like Kaddar who doesn't have a powerful Gift but is still talented at growing plants, for instance. That's why I might have to treat magic in the Numair Chronicles as a bit of a different beast than what we see in the other Tortall books. Sometimes I have to build different sets of head canon when series don't mesh together consistently. |
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Post by Rachy on Mar 18, 2018 11:07:41 GMT 10
In many ways I felt like I was reading an Emelan book rather than a Tortall book. I think the way that Numair’s gift is portrayed feels more like Emelan magic than Tortall magic? Perhaps because it was more elemental and the control issues? And the lightning/water/rock?I suppose when I think about it I should have expected it to be diffferent, as it was spoken about differently eg a healer vs a black mage. I guess Numair’s gift, or Thom’s gift, is more open? Whereas everyone else has a more specialised gift? Re: the healing, I wondered if it was more brute force with the signs and symbols rather than the getting to the root of the problem like we see Neal do?
I hope we see more of the tribal magic, and I would have liked to have seen the wild magic spoken of in the same way.
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Post by Tamari on Jul 11, 2018 4:44:22 GMT 10
Ooh, good point, @rachy. I did get an Emelan vibe from this book. Especially the part where Arram was working with the herbs and coaxing them into strength with his words.
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Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!