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branchandroot) wrote2007-04-14 04:31 pm
branchandroot) wrote2007-04-14 04:31 pm
Entry tags:
Magic and rationalization
Some ruminations on magic in CCS. This will likely eventually become a page on a CCS website, because a brief look around the web shows that all the extant pages, including Wikipedia, are focused exclusively on the anime. Other pages may well include "Why Clow Reed is a right selfish bastard".
Things we are shown about magic in the CCS universe:
Magic is an inborn quality; some people have it and some people don't; it is not a skill gained by study or effort. We are told that Sakura, a ten-year-old who has no knowledge of magic at all and must be coached through every step, has, by the end of the story, greater power than Clow, who studied extensively for several hundred years (according to Keroberos during the death scene). We see Sakura gaining more strength as time goes on. However, at each step, Keroberos says that she must have more magic than he realized.
Magic is a skill that can be strengthened with use and practice over time. Eriol states, at the end of the story, that Sakura is stronger than Clow/himself and will be able to control her forsight--that she will not forsee unless she chooses to do so. However, all through the second half of the manga, Sakura has been having forseeing dreams without any effort or understanding on her part. This indicates that her strength, the key to control of her foresight, is currently low and will grow greater. In addition, when Sakura first starts to change the Clow cards to Sakura cards she is exhausted by the effort. As time goes on, though, she becomes more able to sustain it and less tired by it.
The core or source of magic is manipulable; it can be extracted, divided and donated. We have to examples of this. The one most pertinent to the main plot is that Clow failed to divide his own magic when he divided his soul, and must have Sakura do it for him. The key issue here seems to be that magic can only be manipulated by a greater power. Eriol tells Sakura that she had to become stronger than he to do this, implying that this was why he could not do it himself. The other example is that Touya gives Yue all his magic, to sustain him when Sakura cannot.
The only way I see to reconcile these points is to suppose that a person's ability to access or manipulate their magic can be strengthened by practice, but that the total amount or capacity of magic is constant and inborn. This, however, stumbles over the outright contradictions embedded in the narrative.
For example, when Sakura is distressed by her inability to supply enough magic to sustain Yue's existence, he comforts her that she is only a child, and that it is unreasonable to expect her to have the same level of magic as an experienced and studied magician like Clow Reed. This implies that magic might be expected to increase with maturity. However this is said mere weeks before the conclusion, during which Eriol informs Sakura that her power has surpassed his. How can she be stronger than Clow, yet not able to sustain Yue?
Eriol tells us that only a greater power can manipulate the wellspring of a person's magic, yet Yue takes Touya's magic at a time when Yue barely has the power to hang onto his existence and could not reasonably be stronger than Touya. If we assume that Touya himself effected the transfer, then it should follow that Clow could have done the same, and Eriol tells us that this was not possible. We might assume that this is a special case, because it is Yue's nature to feed on magic, but taking the whole bundle cannot be his normal method since he clearly did no such thing with Clow.
Indeed, this begs the question of renewability of magic. If Yue must feed at a constant rate, then did he draw down the total of Clow's magic, or did the magic regenerate itself, as blood after donation? Indeed, Sakura uses this very metaphor for Touya, but goes on to say that Touya's magic will not return. If magic is not, then renewable, and Yue did draw down the absolute level of Clow's magic, and Clow wanted to be less powerful, why did he not simply create more magic creatures with an alignment to the Moon in order to draw his power down critically? If Yue is naturally capable of taking the source of a person's magic, why did Clow not allow this, instead of his extremely complicated scheme involving Sakura?
These contradictions can be rationalized, to be sure. Sakura's final access of the whole of her power might not have taken place until the very last moment, fueled by her desperation to protect and save her friends, family and love. Perhaps Yue just barely missed being able to feed from her by a fluke of timing. Perhaps Yue's natural ability to feed on magic was intensified due to his magical starvation, and this was what enabled him, as a one-time event, to take the whole and source of Touya's magic. Perhaps Clow used the means he did because he still wanted to have some magic, and thought it would be more fun to mess with the future of his decendants than to make a lot of Yue's and, upon his death, have them sleep until he reincarnated whole.
All this is possible. Yet no scrap of any such explanation appears in the narrative. In particular, the complete transfer of Touya's magic appears to have been written that way purely because it would provide greater angst.
This is, to be sure, about the level of coherence, or incoherence, I have come to expect of CLAMP.
Things we are shown about magic in the CCS universe:
Magic is an inborn quality; some people have it and some people don't; it is not a skill gained by study or effort. We are told that Sakura, a ten-year-old who has no knowledge of magic at all and must be coached through every step, has, by the end of the story, greater power than Clow, who studied extensively for several hundred years (according to Keroberos during the death scene). We see Sakura gaining more strength as time goes on. However, at each step, Keroberos says that she must have more magic than he realized.
Magic is a skill that can be strengthened with use and practice over time. Eriol states, at the end of the story, that Sakura is stronger than Clow/himself and will be able to control her forsight--that she will not forsee unless she chooses to do so. However, all through the second half of the manga, Sakura has been having forseeing dreams without any effort or understanding on her part. This indicates that her strength, the key to control of her foresight, is currently low and will grow greater. In addition, when Sakura first starts to change the Clow cards to Sakura cards she is exhausted by the effort. As time goes on, though, she becomes more able to sustain it and less tired by it.
The core or source of magic is manipulable; it can be extracted, divided and donated. We have to examples of this. The one most pertinent to the main plot is that Clow failed to divide his own magic when he divided his soul, and must have Sakura do it for him. The key issue here seems to be that magic can only be manipulated by a greater power. Eriol tells Sakura that she had to become stronger than he to do this, implying that this was why he could not do it himself. The other example is that Touya gives Yue all his magic, to sustain him when Sakura cannot.
The only way I see to reconcile these points is to suppose that a person's ability to access or manipulate their magic can be strengthened by practice, but that the total amount or capacity of magic is constant and inborn. This, however, stumbles over the outright contradictions embedded in the narrative.
For example, when Sakura is distressed by her inability to supply enough magic to sustain Yue's existence, he comforts her that she is only a child, and that it is unreasonable to expect her to have the same level of magic as an experienced and studied magician like Clow Reed. This implies that magic might be expected to increase with maturity. However this is said mere weeks before the conclusion, during which Eriol informs Sakura that her power has surpassed his. How can she be stronger than Clow, yet not able to sustain Yue?
Eriol tells us that only a greater power can manipulate the wellspring of a person's magic, yet Yue takes Touya's magic at a time when Yue barely has the power to hang onto his existence and could not reasonably be stronger than Touya. If we assume that Touya himself effected the transfer, then it should follow that Clow could have done the same, and Eriol tells us that this was not possible. We might assume that this is a special case, because it is Yue's nature to feed on magic, but taking the whole bundle cannot be his normal method since he clearly did no such thing with Clow.
Indeed, this begs the question of renewability of magic. If Yue must feed at a constant rate, then did he draw down the total of Clow's magic, or did the magic regenerate itself, as blood after donation? Indeed, Sakura uses this very metaphor for Touya, but goes on to say that Touya's magic will not return. If magic is not, then renewable, and Yue did draw down the absolute level of Clow's magic, and Clow wanted to be less powerful, why did he not simply create more magic creatures with an alignment to the Moon in order to draw his power down critically? If Yue is naturally capable of taking the source of a person's magic, why did Clow not allow this, instead of his extremely complicated scheme involving Sakura?
These contradictions can be rationalized, to be sure. Sakura's final access of the whole of her power might not have taken place until the very last moment, fueled by her desperation to protect and save her friends, family and love. Perhaps Yue just barely missed being able to feed from her by a fluke of timing. Perhaps Yue's natural ability to feed on magic was intensified due to his magical starvation, and this was what enabled him, as a one-time event, to take the whole and source of Touya's magic. Perhaps Clow used the means he did because he still wanted to have some magic, and thought it would be more fun to mess with the future of his decendants than to make a lot of Yue's and, upon his death, have them sleep until he reincarnated whole.
All this is possible. Yet no scrap of any such explanation appears in the narrative. In particular, the complete transfer of Touya's magic appears to have been written that way purely because it would provide greater angst.
This is, to be sure, about the level of coherence, or incoherence, I have come to expect of CLAMP.
no subject
And that's the thing, see. It's /possible/ to rationalize all of the shortfalls in the plot. But a competently told story should, in some way, indicate what the rationalization is. CLAMP consistently fails to do that, which is a major problem I have with them. I like their characters, but their narrative generally sucks.
I totally agree that CLAMP magic, in all their 'verses, really, runs on emotion and need. Their consistent moral, if you can always call it that, is that instinct wins over technique and the heart conquers all. But, whereas in Rayearth they made that an explicit part of the world, in CCS the story just bumbles along on hidden assumptions.
Of course, any story functions on the basis of "suddenly, by amazing coincidence", otherwise there wouldn't be a story. But CLAMP stacks the coincidences up like they're playing Jenga or something. The incoherence jars me while I'm trying to have a nice time with the pretty relationships.
... and nothing will make me believe that Sakura was /actually/ more powerful than Clow, by the end of the story. My disbelief is already suspended like the Brooklyn Bridge, by then, and can't go any higher.
no subject
I sometimes wonder if CLAMP does that deliberately - they leave things vague because they figure their audience will have more fun if they try to fill in the gaps themselves.
But then, I also remember that in XXXholic all of the male characters are drawn by one person and all of the female characters are drawn by another, and I put it down to brainstorming sessions where a lot of things come up but nobody remembers exactly what was supposed to happen.
no subject