Chapter Text
In the world where Corona and the seven kingdoms exist, there is magic.
As I don’t recall of any canon origin or explanation on how magic works in this world, I’ll present in this annex how I considered magic for this story (might not be the case for my other Tangled stories).
This annex will surely be updated for plot reasons if needed, because the story is far from fully written while I’m publishing this, so it will most certainly evolve, while staying in the rules I already set first hand, of course.
First, we’ll see where magic comes from. Then, the three kinds of magic uses, spells in a way, that I will write in the story.
Magic in the world where Corona is, is everywhere. Everything and everyone hold a part of magic. That’s not to say everyone is a mage. Like most of things that aren’t fully instinct, magic has to be learned. A bit like in our world where there are cars pretty much everywhere nowadays, you still have to learn how to drive.
In Corona and beyond its frontier, every animal, plant, mineral holds a sample of magic. These magics have different uses. A bit like the chemicals in plants that can either heal and cure or injure and kill, or be neutral, or even something totally different. Some things have names that are a nod to their magic use, with the etymology, their forms.
It’s like a kind of doctrine of signatures, applied to magic instead of early medicine. I won’t cite the first example used in later chapters, but let’s take eyebright (Euphrasia officinalis), used in early medicine to cure eyes, could have a magical use to see through someone’s eyes, or even, make them blind for the time decided by a spell and the user’s experience.
As for the things we know in the canon, this works too. Of course, there is already the strong symbolic of sun/life and moon/death, but there’s also the drop/flow and stone/hard. And the Sundrop and Moonstone, as magical artifact of themselves, hold a large inherent power.
Artifacts that hold a power that had been transferred, such as the many artifacts in the Spire, could have gained their magical properties through spells using naturally magical elements, plants, animals, minerals. Or even stronger artifacts, so a non-magical rock could receive power or influence from, on the off chance, the Moonstone, and create the Mind Trap.
Mages, sorcerers, wizards, all those who use magic may have some predisposition to it. That’s not to say you have to be born a way to use magic. It’s an art of sort, like drawing or sculpting, it comes with times. Of course, some beings depending of their origins can be more sensitive, receptive to the magic flow in the world. As for the characters that already appeared in this story, Zhan Tiri and her minions from another world are more sensitive to magic than humans like Demanitus, Xavier and Gothel, Sundrop or not.
There could be a parallel between magic and immunity, diseases. The same way some people are more sensitive to some diseases, some people are more sensitive to magic. Magic would come as well with genetic, more with experience, and in the very least lifestyle (e.g. depending of the quantity of magic in the place you live in).
TL; DR: in itself, the efficacy of the spells mostly depends of the mage’s ability to channel, catalyze in a way, these magical energies resting naturally in the environment.
It is to be noticed too that when a mage uses magic, they will use what is around them, but as well leave a magical trace. Depending of how it was left, with what spell, it can affect other people or not. This kind of residual magic is tricky.
But this is maybe going a bit too far for a simple explanation over magic, so on to the next point ^^
I consider for this story that there are several types of magic uses. Magic can be used mainly in two forms, that are spells and potions.
Spells come from the gathering of magical energy around the caster, energy that is particularly specific, like some sort of magical totipotency in a way, the caster is the one to specialize the energy, to mold it into what spell they want to cast.
Potions, unguents, or whatever physical form this other magic use takes comes from the inborn magic of all that exists, plants, animals, minerals, etc. This magic is already specific, differentiated. And so, the mage has to choose, to select the right varieties, species to prepare the potion, like a recipe.
Among spells and potions, we can distinguish three main types of use of this magic, mostly depending of the importance, danger of said magic and spells, associated to the knowledge of each magic user. I’ll explain here for spells, as for potions, the effects depends of the inherent specific magic in each existing thing.
The first one is the type of common magic.
This magic is a magic basically everybody could learn. It relies mostly on small spells, one words to a small sentence for the most advanced spells of this category. Depending of the wizard’s mastery over magic, some spells may be cast without any words. A gesture, a movement of one or two hands is often needed to cast this spell. These spells could be set in two categories: movement and creation.
Movement spells, as their name says it, can move objects, of a relatively small size, depending of the caster’s expertise. It could include teleportation spells, for humans and objects alike, with the limitation that the caster has to know the destination with exactitude and that the distance depends of the caster’s mastery.
Creation spells can mostly create elements: earth, fire, air and water, even plants, why not (as seen in part I chap 5, Gothel against Zhan Tiri). No kind of advanced bending like in ATLA here, it’s just about making those elements appear and kind of throwing them where the caster decides it, not morphing them somehow.
The second type of magic is one that requires a certain mastery of magic. It’s for advanced users in a way (which Gothel thinks she is… but is she really?).
These spells are much more powerful than common spells, though some can just be advanced common spells upgraded to a higher level. Those spells usually need a receptacle of magic, or a magical artifact, such as the Sundrop or Moonstone. Their powers are released by the caster by an incantation, a spell longer than common spells.
The third and last is the magic of forbidden spells and potions.
This one is tricky, because they include both common and advanced spells, which is why they are dangerous. In itself, forbidden spells are all the spells playing too close to Nature’s biological laws, such as the frail limits between life and death (e.g. resurrection, life creation from nothing or an inanimate object, etc.). Those spells are mostly considered unethical, immoral, hence their prohibition, that we consider acted long ago before even the beginning of this story.
The performance of the magic cast depends also of the practitioner’s state, whatever their mastery. That means a spell cast by a tired or old person may be less effective than a spell cast by someone rested or in their prime… Which may cause a problem to some ever-young looking person we know btw… ^^
Of course, it is to be considered that these sorts of magic aren’t the only one. It’s an ancient art, transmitted by word of mouth for centuries if not millennia, and only recently through books and scrolls. Some of them have been translated, some never.
With these different kinds of magic, it’s to be considered there is not really such things a “good magic” or “bad/dark magic”. It all depends from what the magic is extracted, who uses it, and for what. Though, we could say that, powers and effects-wise, forbidden spells could be such dark magic.
As I said in the intro, this annex is bound to evolve and be updated. Some things I might use about magic might not end up there too, here I wrote mostly the base. Of course, when I’ll update, I’ll inform you in the chapter’s notes.
... Rereading this, I feel I took some inspiration from how magic is in the world of "the Dragon Prince" ^^'
Well, that's a thing... I recommend this cartoon by the way, it's a good one! ^^