I'm in a sharing mood this morning. Here's a little bit of business I wrote for the hypothetical Utena Step, but it applies as much to the discussion of the DW cosmology and Hexe's origins over in the DW2 forum as to Utena proper.
---
There's a big difference between the High Magicks and the kind of stuff most spell-slingers do. For one thing, you don't need a magegift to do them. Yeah, I know that sounds like it doesn't make sense. The thing is, there's magic, and then there's Magick. Spellcasters and mage-freaks like me, well, what we do is use local power for local effects. The magegift lets us find, tap and shape that power, but with a few exceptions ( Lina Inverse Willow Rosenberg ) we can rarely affect an area larger than, say, a small town. And that only if we're lucky and have a lot of power handy.The High Magicks, well, they're closer to priestly rites than spellcasting. They're often like little plays -- dramaturgy, I guess you'd call it -- where each participant has a specified role. And it's the roles that are important. Because in the High Magicks, the partipants don't just draw or call on power, they *become* Powers. The ritual makes its participants, however briefly, one with the Forces and Beings and, and... Things that they are representing, which they can then alter -- and be altered by, in turn, because it's a reciprocal relationship. That's the danger of the High Magicks -- the loss of self, the immersion in the cosmic forces you are calling on. You tell it how you want it to control you, and if you bungle it, well... I sometimes wonder if Hexe came into the world because a certain young German girl named Helene accidentally -- and more or less fatally -- invoked her with a High Magick ritual, many years ago.Another of the differences between spellcasting and the High Magicks is that the Powers don't mind the High Magicks. Spells to call upon the Powers (or worse, physically manifest Them) usually leave Them pissed off -- I suspect it's the metaphysical equivalent of a really obnoxious telemarketer calling at dinner time. But when it comes to the High Magicks... Well, I'm not sure why, but They respond willingly to the rituals and are bound by the results. It's probably the reciprocal nature of the process. Or maybe it's because for the time the ritual is performed, there is no real difference between the participants and the Powers, and thus there's no level of coercion or supplication. The question that was foremost in my mind right now was, just what rituals, involving which Powers, were played out on the rose-shaped Circle of the duelling floor?And which Power was Himemiya Anthy, really?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
---
There's a big difference between the High Magicks and the kind of stuff most spell-slingers do. For one thing, you don't need a magegift to do them. Yeah, I know that sounds like it doesn't make sense. The thing is, there's magic, and then there's Magick. Spellcasters and mage-freaks like me, well, what we do is use local power for local effects. The magegift lets us find, tap and shape that power, but with a few exceptions ( Lina Inverse Willow Rosenberg ) we can rarely affect an area larger than, say, a small town. And that only if we're lucky and have a lot of power handy.The High Magicks, well, they're closer to priestly rites than spellcasting. They're often like little plays -- dramaturgy, I guess you'd call it -- where each participant has a specified role. And it's the roles that are important. Because in the High Magicks, the partipants don't just draw or call on power, they *become* Powers. The ritual makes its participants, however briefly, one with the Forces and Beings and, and... Things that they are representing, which they can then alter -- and be altered by, in turn, because it's a reciprocal relationship. That's the danger of the High Magicks -- the loss of self, the immersion in the cosmic forces you are calling on. You tell it how you want it to control you, and if you bungle it, well... I sometimes wonder if Hexe came into the world because a certain young German girl named Helene accidentally -- and more or less fatally -- invoked her with a High Magick ritual, many years ago.Another of the differences between spellcasting and the High Magicks is that the Powers don't mind the High Magicks. Spells to call upon the Powers (or worse, physically manifest Them) usually leave Them pissed off -- I suspect it's the metaphysical equivalent of a really obnoxious telemarketer calling at dinner time. But when it comes to the High Magicks... Well, I'm not sure why, but They respond willingly to the rituals and are bound by the results. It's probably the reciprocal nature of the process. Or maybe it's because for the time the ritual is performed, there is no real difference between the participants and the Powers, and thus there's no level of coercion or supplication. The question that was foremost in my mind right now was, just what rituals, involving which Powers, were played out on the rose-shaped Circle of the duelling floor?And which Power was Himemiya Anthy, really?
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.