Why Potions?

Magic in fantasy stories can be produced/focused/controlled in a variety of ways. Sometimes magicians (mages, wizards, sorcerers, witches, warlocks, what have you) use magic words, other times wands, and other times potions concocted from strange ingredients. Each method conjures particular questions—for example what exactly do words do? Do they focus the mind in a particular way (in which case any word might do) or do they call upon an intelligence to command it (as magicians were thought to do in our own history) or do they tap into an original spoken creative language? Each answer brings with it different consequences for the imaginary world it inhabits.

But today I want to particularly focus on the concept of potions. On first glance, this may seem to be a simple matter: a potion allows its creator to store a magical effect for use at a later time, instead of performing it now. Gamers particularly appreciate this, as this means they can travel around with on-demand magical buffs and heals. But surely there are other options for this storage—orbs, talismans, scrolls, etc.—so why do we tend toward potions specifically (other than out of convention)?

But it gets even trickier; for sometimes potions are used to accomplish immediate effects, such as when the evil queen in Disney’s Snow White transforms herself into an old crone. Additionally, there seems to be a particular potency to some potions that cannot be achieved through a verbal spell: Liquid Luck, for example, may be brewed in the Harry Potter Universe, but there doesn’t seem to be a spell for it. (On a side note, I do wonder why people aren’t brewing Liquid Luck with much greater frequency than they do.) So, why potions? Why are witches often portrayed around some boiling cauldron?

As with many elements of literature, many reasons led to the use and re-use of potions as a fantasy trope. One reason is that potion-brewing is actually a quite familiar and understandable practice, since brewing alcohol and medicines were already parts of everyday life. And if a cup of fermented fruit juice could affect the mind or the heart, it is easy enough to imagine some other brew creating madness or making someone fall in love. People already knew through experience that certain herbs and unguents affected the body, and recognized with wonder that the world was filled with many unknown items (and combinations); what else might such mixtures accomplish?

Such wonder and investigation actually fueled the historical study of alchemy. Alchemy, pursued for centuries before itself being transmuted into the hard science of chemistry, investigated both the physical and the spiritual world. Much of the physical paraphernalia of alchemy and early chemistry continues to show up in illustrations of wizards’ studies today, as an easily identifiable signifier of research and experimentation. But curiously, that same paraphernalia does not commonly feature in witches’ brews, which continue to be made with strange ingredients around that boiling cauldron—an image at least as recognizable and evocative.

I’m sure some feminist scholar might posit some sexist explanation for this, with male wizards getting the benefit of the “scientific” apparatus while female witches must be relegated to the kitchen utensils. But this possibility would not explain potion-brewing before the development of such alchemical tools, and their subsequent inclusion in literature. So what else has contributed to this image?

One thing I note is that witches’ brews often include “creepy” ingredients—eye of newt and all that. And I think, from a storytelling standpoint, that this constitutes a significant part of the magic or potion-making. You see, magic is “other,” strange, esoteric, and frightening; consequently, magical ingredients also should be “other,” strange, esoteric, and/or frightening. (That is, depending upon the type of magic you want in your story. But traditionally, magic has been at least part-way frightening.) A storyteller, by describing such ingredients going into a potion, creates a kind of atmosphere for the story, which cues the readers/listeners to feel and to anticipate certain things. This description, this cueing, is itself a good reason to have potions instead of scrolls for certain kinds of magical—and narrative—effects.

Try it for yourself. Imagine some magical effect, and then write a description of it featuring potion-brewing. Then write the same magical effect using scrolls instead. Then wands or other artifacts. Then words or music. You’ll find the form of magic affects the flavor of the story. Practice enough, and you’ll develop a preference for which methods are best for producing which effects.

Thanks again to Rose Tursi for a little art to grace my blog. Check out more of her stuff on her site. And if you’re an artist yourself, let me know. I’m particularly interested in posting illustrations for The Servant and the Scepter (read an excerpt here) or Almost to Adulthood (sample here).

Of Dragons and Flight

I was watching an old movie the other day ago and noticed it had a flightless dragon. No wings, I thought; that’s right—dragons don’t necessarily have wings. At least, in the old stories they don’t; I’m not familiar with any contemporary pieces which feature such dragons. For the most part, writers and readers both just assume that dragons have wings and fly. So it can make for an odd surprise to read, say, Tolkien’s Silmarillion and read all about the first dragon, imagining it to have wings despite the fact that it is never described as having wings; and then noting your mistake when the author talks about the first winged dragons some pages later.

Anyway, winged dragons are the standard in modern fantasy stories—but that raises an interesting question: just how do such massive creatures actually fly? Depicting them with wings is good enough explanation for kids and cartoons, but adults know that just putting wings on such a body does not automatically make it a flyer. And don’t invoke “suspension of disbelief” here to wave the problem away—unless you are going to provide a warrant (such as magic) for such suspension; for without the warrant (without the magic), you are asking us to suspend our belief in physics and anatomy.

Now I have heard of an attempt at a non-magical solution: dragons are buoyed up by the lightness of the gasses inside them. But this solution does not fit my own taste: for I quite expect a dragon to look more like a blimp if it is to have enough light gas to accomplish such a thing. So, magic then.

But—if they fly magically, why have wings at all? So maybe a combination of magic and natural flight: perhaps the wings, while not powerful enough to manage flight on their own, at least contribute enough to make the magic take less effort (Joel Rosenberg takes this tact in his Guardians of the Flame series). Or maybe they are used for steering, or gliding…

Another question: if magic, is this magic innate, or learned? If innate, then dragons can be depicted as either beasts or as intelligent beings; if learned, then intelligence is definitely required. And so is some kid of child-rearing and family structure, then—not very common or fitting in the dragon mythos. Perhaps dragons are innately magical, but learn more about their magic through experience, experimentation, and insight.

In The Servant and the Scepter, dragons’ flight is part magical, part physical. But the real reason for their wings is that at the beginning of time, their flight was entirely physical. But after they learned magic, the first dragons altered their own forms to become more formidable, gaining in bulk, adding scales and claws—and growing to such size that they could no longer fly without the aid of magic. Now only magic can keep them aloft, and at great effort; consequently, when a dragon wants to use magic for other ends, it almost always lands first, and casts from the ground.

I like this solution, as it explains why magic-using dragons can’t act as invincible orbital death-dealers, throwing down huge magical effects from far in the sky out of bow range.