#insp by convos with thrandilf

[raayllum]

i’ve talked about stories Choosing to create malevolent (magic corrupts), neutral (magic is a tool and good or bad depends on the user), or benevolent (magic renews/is sustainable/low cost) magic systems, or subsets, but i really think in TDP’s case, the people who cannot accept that yes, it doesn’t matter how many regulations there’d conceivably be, dark magic is bad, is like

a massive red flag of “i didn’t read and/or understand the Story Contract i was signing”

cause like, I’ve been playing “tears of the kingdom” a ton this week, and the game is effectively using dark magic; you kill mindless ‘monsters’, slap their body parts onto your weapons and shields to use in other battles, or make potions and shit. now TOTK (or indeed “breath of the wild”) isn’t interested in the ethics of this. it’s a game mechanic, monsters are spawns of the villain, they don’t seem to be any more sentient than animals, and they will attack you if you don’t attack them in most cases. this is an example of a game having a ‘magic system’ if you will and going “this is neutral, if not good, because of the positioning of the game’s morals and narrative.” 

TDP is not that. it has never been that. it will never be that. it has a similar magic system, yes, but dark magic actively weakens the user the more they use it. it takes from creatures that are on a ‘human level of intelligence’* (*whatever people have historically decided that to mean is a slippery slope, as we know) with cultures and world views and a range of thought. it’s not sustainable, it’s not neutral. it is actively harmful to both the caster and just about everything it uses for spells, and it can use everything for spells, being a personal moral free-for-all for each individual mage. just a candle and viren’s smoke magic was able to use the assassin’s remains (and souls, implied by through the moon) to wreck international havoc. 

TDP’s story contract uses dark magic to explore the corruptive force of power and desperation. to ignore that is to completely disengage with everything the story tries to explore with its magic systems and its mage characters; if you act like it should all be sunshine and rainbows, you completely de-fang every character that is tethered to dark magic, and reduce them to pointless husks.

TOTK/BOTW isn’t wrong for its more neutral/positive leaning state. it wanted a more neutral/positive leaning magic system for its game play. but TDP also isn’t wrong for having a malevolent magic system. it’s a Chosen Feature, not a bug or a flaw.

you may not agree with dark magic’s in-universe foundation (humans were backed into a corner, yes, but we’ve known they can have access to primal magic for 3+ seasons now) but that’s what you signed on for. it’d be like complaining that the main characters are children when it’s a kid show, or that a fantasy series has magic at all. it’s in the story’s Contract. if you don’t like it, go find other stories with magic systems you groove more with; i promise they exist, and everyone wold probably be happier if you did, yourself included