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Mages and Wild Wizards (spoilers)

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Mages and Wild Wizards (spoilers)
Post by Morris Darkstar   » Wed Aug 12, 2015 4:41 am

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I noticed two points in Sword of the South that have an interesting sum: 1) The top Mages think wencit lied by omission to them from the beginning, and it's so important a secret that they raise their shields to hint about it and then seal it with a death lock. 2) how fanatical Gwynna is about keeping what she learned from everyone to the point of killing to conceal it.

My take is this: the mages ARE a version of wild wizards. Remember, one if the major points about mages earlier is that they can combine their strength to match black wizards in strength.

So, Wencit is failing from old age. However, he has 1000? or so nascent wild wizards already trained and heavily disciplined in how to focus their minds and energies and share that energy and will power. In the end, wencit is facing the climatic final fight, out matched, and suddenly a good portion of the mage's guild unites their power with Gwynna who is already linked to Wencit and add an enormous amount of wild magic to his effort and thus decisively tip the balance. And that also means that likely Gwynna is a wild wizard of sorts -- and the limit on the power of a wild wizard is how much power their bodies can handle. And we're talking about Bahzell's daughter here who is training with a mishuka in how to enhance and modify her own body to make it even faster and tougher while keeping her mind able to do things mystical at the same time.

There's one other hint that traditional wild wizards aren't the only ones who can use the wild magic. We were explicitly told that Bahzell and his courser joined with Tomanak were able to draw on the wild magic field directly and channel it (smashing the vampire's shields down).

Oh, other indicator: there are no mages where the dark wizards are. If the mages are in fact potential wizards, it's possible that they develop differently where wizard power is highly sought after and trained. But where the wizards are reviled, they instead develop much differently as mages.

Morris
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Re: Mages and Wild Wizards (spoilers)
Post by Jonathan_S   » Wed Aug 12, 2015 4:26 pm

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Morris Darkstar wrote:I noticed two points in Sword of the South that have an interesting sum: 1) The top Mages think wencit lied by omission to them from the beginning, and it's so important a secret that they raise their shields to hint about it and then seal it with a death lock. 2) how fanatical Gwynna is about keeping what she learned from everyone to the point of killing to conceal it.

My take is this: the mages ARE a version of wild wizards. Remember, one if the major points about mages earlier is that they can combine their strength to match black wizards in strength.

So, Wencit is failing from old age. However, he has 1000? or so nascent wild wizards already trained and heavily disciplined in how to focus their minds and energies and share that energy and will power. In the end, wencit is facing the climatic final fight, out matched, and suddenly a good portion of the mage's guild unites their power with Gwynna who is already linked to Wencit and add an enormous amount of wild magic to his effort and thus decisively tip the balance. And that also means that likely Gwynna is a wild wizard of sorts -- and the limit on the power of a wild wizard is how much power their bodies can handle. And we're talking about Bahzell's daughter here who is training with a mishuka in how to enhance and modify her own body to make it even faster and tougher while keeping her mind able to do things mystical at the same time.

There's one other hint that traditional wild wizards aren't the only ones who can use the wild magic. We were explicitly told that Bahzell and his courser joined with Tomanak were able to draw on the wild magic field directly and channel it (smashing the vampire's shields down).

Oh, other indicator: there are no mages where the dark wizards are. If the mages are in fact potential wizards, it's possible that they develop differently where wizard power is highly sought after and trained. But where the wizards are reviled, they instead develop much differently as mages.

Morris

Except at one point in the book it's stated that Mages draw from their internal power store, not from the magic field.

OTOH as a hradani-hybrid Gwynna should have a natural link to the wild magic field; if she can use that to provide not just physical endurance but mage-power endurance... Might help partially explain her uniquely capable mage gifts.
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Re: Mages and Wild Wizards (spoilers)
Post by andrewtater   » Wed Aug 12, 2015 7:02 pm

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Except at one point in the book it's stated that Mages draw from their internal power store, not from the magic field.

OTOH as a hradani-hybrid Gwynna should have a natural link to the wild magic field; if she can use that to provide not just physical endurance but mage-power endurance... Might help partially explain her uniquely capable mage gifts.



Indeed. So, if she had been born fully human, her mage powers would have been average. But mage powers mean that individual is NOT a wizard. Instead, they can tap into the powers within. Gwynna is using her hradani link to the magic field to supercharge her mage powers, like plugging a light bulb into a nuclear reactor. She may not understand that is what's happening, but her internal mage power and internal hradani link to the magic field are intertwined to make her an arch-mage.
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Re: Mages and Wild Wizards (spoilers)
Post by dan92677   » Fri Aug 14, 2015 1:10 am

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And, possibly she can connect with her father (and thusly with Walsharno)and Tomanak giving her access to who knows how much power.

That ought to give Wencit one heck of a battery (in both meanings of the word)to make use of...

Dan
Last edited by dan92677 on Tue Sep 08, 2015 10:29 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Mages and Wild Wizards (spoilers)
Post by PeterZ   » Fri Aug 14, 2015 10:35 am

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I believe the clues to Gwynna's powers are found in Oath of Swords. Wencit described blood magic as using the life essence of human beings as easier than using the energy found elsewhere. The reason he states is that life refines that energy and aligns the chaotic nature so that it might be more easily redirected into the desired spells. He went on to say that wild magic was tapping into the foundational source of not just magic but the very foundations of existence.

Let's tie this to what we learned in Warmaid's Choice. Phrobus describes the shattering of Orr's creative power. What was once completely controlled by Orr is now shattered into pieces that have begun to developed into living universes. That dispersed creative power fuels the continued existence of the universes, it has become the foundation of existence. Sound familiar?

Let's proceed further. Wild magic access that foundational power directly. Mage talents use the energies refined by their own life essence. Wand Wizards use the energies after the universe "processes" it either through life or less thoroughly by other means. All of these talents or gifts manipulate the universe. In other words all of these talents/gifts are pale imitations of Orr's Creative Power.

Furthermore, mages have the same sort of crisis as wild wizards. The mage crisis grows more extreme in tandem with the mage's powers. One suspects that wild Wizards' crisis are pretty severe also. I suspect that part of the reason for the increasing severity is that with greater power mage can more easily consume his essence. That sort of willingness requires both willpower and control. Willpower to risk dissolution and control to stop just short of dissolution. We saw a bit of that in Gwynna's crisis. With Wild Wizards its more endurance and control.

I therefore conclude that wild wizards and mages are extremely similar. That Wencit...adjusted mages from emerging wild wizards to fuel their talents with their own life essences rather than the wild magic field. In this way there is a price that each mage pays for using his gift rather than the addictive euphoria wizards experience from exercising their gift. This would act as the most effective check on the use of magic yet devised after millennia of attempting to do just that by the heirs of Gwynnytha the Wise.

That implies that mages are from the Ottovaran line of Wild Wizards. Perhaps a cadet line but certainly from a line or lines of powerful wild wizards that must have some Ottovaran connections. I suspect that mages are the direct descendants of Torren Shieldarm's brother. Wencit discovered some by blow(s) or rescued an heir(s) that all thought lost. From that individual/group/family he shaped the mages.

We know that Sothoii are from the Ottovaran nobility. We know that Leeana has something of the Gift but not a mage talent. It certainly never manifested. She might yet be a dormant wild wizard, but Wencit asserts that wild wizards show absolutely no signs of that ability before their crisis manifests. That indicates Leeana is not a wild wizard.

Gwynna then is a product of wild wizard ancestry, wand wizard ancestry, Wencit's adjustments for mages and the hradani direct link to the magic field. She has the mage and wild wizard abilities to shape the fundamental creative magic energies. She has the wand wizards gift for using refined wild energies. Lastly, she has the direct link to the magic field that allows her to refine vastly more raw magic energy than purely human mages through their life essences.

She is the confluence of events that Wencit (and his predecessors?) has/have directed for millennia. She is the counter to the Lord of Carnadosa. Just as the mages are the counter to the Council of Carnadosa and wand wizards in general. Kenhodan will lead the armies of Norfressa, not Torren Shieldarm. I believe that personality will be allowed to die and find peace knowing that all is not yet lost.
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Re: Mages and Wild Wizards (spoilers)
Post by dan92677   » Fri Aug 14, 2015 5:36 pm

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Peter,

Excellent! I really enjoyed your thoughts. Thank you for sharing them, especially since I was groping down the same path(s).

I just wish that there were a couple of more chapters of the book!!! Now we have to wait for Book#2. Is there any information about when rfc might have it worked up? A title? Anything?

Dan
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Re: Mages and Wild Wizards (spoilers)
Post by PeterZ   » Fri Aug 14, 2015 10:09 pm

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Not that I've found. Should I find some info I will share.
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Re: Mages and Wild Wizards (spoilers)
Post by Morris Darkstar   » Sat Aug 15, 2015 4:05 am

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I really want to know what mystic power Brandark is calling on in the fight at sea. I'm guessing he may well be a champion now too, likely of the sea god.

I would really like to know if RFC has any plans to publish any of the stories leading up to Sword of the South from Sword Brother / War Maid's Choice.

I'm sorta guessing he may well have a third or so of one or more of the books in draft form that he did just to relax and do something else. I'm curious about the dire cat too. He's left enough things unexplained that I'd definitely buy one of the missing books after the story is finished.

Morris

dan92677 wrote:Peter,

Excellent! I really enjoyed your thoughts. Thank you for sharing them, especially since I was groping down the same path(s).

I just wish that there were a couple of more chapters of the book!!! Now we have to wait for Book#2. Is there any information about when rfc might have it worked up? A title? Anything?

Dan
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Re: Mages and Wild Wizards (spoilers)
Post by Kytheros   » Sat Aug 15, 2015 5:11 am

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I don't think mages were/are created from wild wizards. For one thing, I've always had the impression that wild wizards were fairly rare, even during the height of wizardry, whereas Mages, while uncommon, are not particularly so, and are roughly as common, if not more so, as basic wizard potential is/was.

Gwynna, of course, is unique, and some sort of super-mage - archmage has a few too many connotations associated with it, imo - in addition to whatever other talents she may or may not have.

Magery and (Wand) Wizardry are mutually exclusive talents, but magery and wild wizardy may not be, we don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if Gwynna were both super-mage and had wild wizard potential.
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Re: Mages and Wild Wizards (spoilers)
Post by PeterZ   » Sat Aug 15, 2015 10:09 am

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How does the mutual exclusivity manifest? I suspect it manifests in what each gift/talent uses to power its effects. Wand wizardry uses power from a source that is exclusive to that art. Imagery uses another power sources. The sensitivity of each art to a type of power might not be exclusive to the art practiced.

A mage draws power from internal sources but might have a wand wizards sensitivity to refined magical energy. He can't draw power from any other source outside his life essence, but he is more sensitive to it than other mages without the wand wizard heritage.

As for the wild wizard crisis, recall that it comes to the wild wizard when he faces life and death decision. Does he accept the gift and proceed or reject it and die? At least that is my take on Wencit's description in SotS. Exercising wild magic means letting the fundamental power of the universe change your entire being. That description suggests the wild wizard had that ability all his life. He simply had no reason powerful enough to embrace such a dire alteration of his being. It stands to reason that there are wild wizards that never face a situation dire enough. To bring about that crisis. I believe RFC suggested that the Carnadosans could artificially draw out a wild wizard talent. This supports the idea that wild wizardry exists as a potential in many more people than is actually manifested.

Mages on the other hand can use small parts of their essences to exercise their talents in small ways before without altering themselves. At one point their ability to tap into their life essence can kill them and they do face their crisis.

Consider that Torrent Shieldarm was a wild wizard and Kenhoden is not, yet they both fight with a precognition skill. Several times Kenhoden is described as striking where opponent would be. Precognition is a mage talent, no? Also, didn't the description of Torren's fighting reflect that same precognition? I believe that's a yes to both questions.

Kytheros wrote:I don't think mages were/are created from wild wizards. For one thing, I've always had the impression that wild wizards were fairly rare, even during the height of wizardry, whereas Mages, while uncommon, are not particularly so, and are roughly as common, if not more so, as basic wizard potential is/was.

Gwynna, of course, is unique, and some sort of super-mage - archmage has a few too many connotations associated with it, imo - in addition to whatever other talents she may or may not have.

Magery and (Wand) Wizardry are mutually exclusive talents, but magery and wild wizardy may not be, we don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if Gwynna were both super-mage and had wild wizard potential.
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