"Natural" laws of the paranormal in fantasy

[mtbc]

As a teenager I read some books where there was some kind of quantitative science of magic such that for a powerful spell one might calculate the number of mages or whatever one would need; I don't recall titles or author.

Anyhow, very commonly in fiction there is some kind of conservation of life or other kind of balance: sacrifice one to resurrect another, that kind of thing. This is somewhat true in science fiction as well as fantasy: I'm reminded of Mawdryn Undead. Whereas, in real life, longevity isn't at all conserved: at least on average we get to live for longer simply through a more healthful lifestyle. I might donate bone marrow, an unnatural procedure indeed, but I get to fully recover afterward.

I suppose that such laws of balance are a useful plot device: they create some conflict, tension and pathos and prevent one's powers from being used wantonly to achieve goals too easily. I guess there's another popular device: from not spending too long inside one's direwolf to not too habitually wearing the One Ring, there is significant cost to overly employing these abilities. Even a powerful hero should have to struggle and decide.

Still, given the lack of conservation-of-life in real life, I couldn't help but be struck by its ubiquity in fiction.

Comments

[jack]

I think it's something like, humans *notice* fairness, and so when they make up a world, at least some of the time, fairness is built into the magic system. Whereas in the real world, fairness never happens automatically.

[mtbc]

That's interesting. I suppose a way to test that is to notice unrealistic fairness that doesn't much serve the plot.