I came across this cryptic phrase in a description of an old D&D adventure Tale of the Comet . In context, it seems to describe the designer solving a problem of game balance by having the powerful technology items have limited charges / uses before expiring. But I cannot parse prophet-squeeze-monster and I certianly don’t recognise it as a classic trope. Any ideas?
I’m willing to bet that there was a cultural shift between when that module was written and now. I am willing to bet that the author and all his friends knew what a prophet-squeeze-monster trope is because it was nearly ubiquitous at the time, but then people stopped using it (likely because it was seen as the “obvious” option) and as a result it stopped being a classic trope.
As a comparison, I am working on a novel with a soft magic system. However, I tend to forget that it is a soft magic system when I am explaining it to friends because it has strict rules for how it works, and more importantly i am a huge Tolkien nerd and forget other people dont even know who Morgoth is. At one point, I made the mistake of telling a friend that “its a pretty standard fantasy magic system” which they interpreted as “it works like D&D instead of like Mistborn”. They then had to double back and ask me what I thought a “standard magic system” was when I started talking about legal standing and precedent letting my wizards cast spells. To me, this seemed normal because that’s how Gandalf does magic. But the current high fantasy landscape has trained people to think of magic as an alternate science where specific inputs get specific outputs, so people tend to instinctively think of soft magic systems as working the same but with less control over the inputs or less reliable outputs.
That sounds super interesting! I’d love to hear more about middle earth magic as law, if you can be bothered saying more (or if you know of any articles or videos) about it. I assume by legal standing you mean how gandalf’s authority (once returned as ‘the white’) is what grants him power over saruman, and such. Is that right? What do you mean by precedent?
Magic in Tolkien’s Legendarium has two main parts: authority and secret knowledge. Secret knowledge allows those who have seen the light of the two trees to use the dual nature of the world to make artifacts that work in ways we can’t explain, and is effectively just science we can’t ever have access to. Anyway, you wanted to know about authority:
Looking at the example of Gandalf breaking the bridge, he says “I am a servant of the Secret Fire, wielder of the flame of Anor. The dark fire will not avail you, flame of Udûn. Go back to the Shadow! You cannot pass!” and then strikes the keystone with his staff. Let’s break this down:
This entire scene can be compared to a police officer showing up to a house, showing their badge and a warrant to search the place, announcing their intent to search the place, and then entering. Miss a step, and it doesn’t work.
Precedent has more to do with the powers that kings have. For example, Denethor’s line presides as the Steward of Gondor for so long the authority of his line seems comparable to Aragorn’s at some points, and this allows him to do some things that look like magic. One thing that comes to mind is that he seems to have a supernatural ability to spot falsehoods, which Sauron takes advantage of by feeding him half-truths. And let’s not forget this man held a Palantir in his hand for decades, stared Sauron in the face for decades, and he did not break. This man had a stronger will than Saruman!
There were arguably more examples of this variety of magic, where a king seems to have supernatural abilities because they are kings, and promises seem to have more power than laws. But if I detailed every little moment of magic i would be typing here all day.
Super interesting! Thanks !