Akamatsuverse Negima: Farewell to the Flesh
- Thread starter Alzrius
- Start date
I don't disagree with you here, and indeed not all liches are necessarily evil - you mentioned the arch-lich, which is specifically a good-aligned lich.
That said, I'm of the opinion that undeath in general, and lichdom in particular, causes a person's mind to become warped. I don't just mean the loss of several forms of sensory input (touch, taste, and smell) or the weight of the years passing, though those certainly contribute - rather, becoming undead isn't a change of status that leaves your mind untouched.
Undeath is caused by negative energy, and flooding your body with it to the point where it animates you warps how you think. The same way that drugs can affect thoughts, or severe radiation sickness can make it hard to think, being that saturated with the energy of death is going to change a person. That energy is like a poison for your thoughts, as well as your body.
That's without even going into the fact that, unlike other forms of death, lichdom is intentionally self-inflicted. The would-be lich is preparing a ritual to harness and shape the negative energy going through himself, so he's making sure that it does affect his thoughts and mind - just in a way that will leave his knowledge and intellect intact (and even enhance it, thanks to the bonus to his mental ability scores), but that will also strengthen and fortify his mind so as to stand up to the rigors of undeath and an eternal existence.
There's a reason why liches don't get all emo and crazy over time the way vampires do.
This, to me, is also why the arch-lich and the lich are considered different creatures to the point of having two different names for them - the ritual for creation is fundamentally different in that the arch-lich is going way out of its way to make sure the negative energy infusion isn't driving it crazy. I also suspect (though the rules in recent editions of D&D have largely glossed this over) that the ritual that prepares one for lichdom is filled with vile acts that no non-evil person would perform anyway...likely another area where the arch-lich ritual is widely divergent.
For those who've read Van Richten's Guide to the Lich, you can tell that I'm drawing a lot on the ideas presented there.
I would posit that Evangeline isn't a standard D&D vampire; which isn't that hard of a case to make - with all of the supplements by TSR/WotC alone, and the huge market of third-party materials, one can easily find a paradigm that more closely matches Eva's canonical appearance. (Though, to be perfectly frank, I think we've yet to see any truly evil people in Negima at all.)
Of course, I'm not limiting myself to the canon for this fic - when I finally manage to kick my ass into continuing it - anyway (see below).
By the time the person commences with the lichdom ritual, they've already passed the point of that decision. Becoming a lich shouldn't be an off-screen process that you can undertake so long as you're high enough level and have the proficiency in magic item construction to make a phylactery - those are the prerequisites to simply having the capacity to make the undertaking.
Actually attempting to become a lich should, to me, involve preparations that are already monstrous in nature - for example, requiring the heart of a living humanoid to be ritually harvested and prepared (and no, you jokers, I wouldn't allow that to work if done on some brain-dead organ donor; the victim's pain and fear is part of what makes the heart a viable component).
In other words, it's not just the nature of a lich to be evil (though that's part of it) - it's also that they've chosen to do evil before they became that way.
Sexy comedy was never the focus of this fic.
Hm, I think that plays more to the idea that lichdom can be attempted in stages over time, instead of an all-at-once ritual. I've never cared too much for that idea.
Yeah, the whole "accidental lich" thing also isn't something I'm fond of - most forms of undeath are unintentional; being a lich isn't.
It sounds like it could be a fun fic, but it's not this one.
I'm still working on that part; it doesn't help that the only really major item Negi has and seems to care for a lot is his wand.
Oh, so true.
In truth, I've been thinking of coming back to this fic, but that means little coming from me, as just thinking about something isn't worth much if I don't take action.
The major problem is that my idea for where I wanted to take this fic has become corrupted over time. Initially, I wanted to just write a story about an evil, necromancer Negi; a change from the usual sexy-comedy routine that we'd been seeing over and over in Negima fics. In this, he'd be the antagonist, with the story being the developing hostilities between him and the girls of Mahora.
However, that idea didn't develop very well, as there were a lot of problems with making the plot work. Evil!Negi likely wouldn't go to Mahora in the first place, or at least wouldn't stay very long when he realized he was surrounded by good mages, most of whom would oppose him on general principle. Things would quickly turn into a battle, which didn't flow with the story I wanted to tell.
So instead, I reimagined things. Instead of starting with evil!Negi, I decided to model him (figuratively, not literally) more after Lex Luthor, from Smallville - a morally-gray character who honestly does want to be a good person, but all of his experiences and inclinations run in the opposite direction...from his necromantic magic to his experience with women, his instincts don't go where a good person's would.
This particular idea seemed much better. The fic would be the story of Negi trying to become a good person, and ultimately failing, embracing evil and eventually lichdom as the climax of his fall from grace. The story would deal with Negi's relationships to the rest of the cast as they went from friendships with some tentative possibilities for love, to the bittersweet fallout as those relationships sour, to eventually becoming enemies as Negi becomes more and more evil. That was certainly the sort of fic I'd want to read, and seemed like a great idea to write.
But unfortunately, I found that I couldn't stop tinkering with the idea. Not the overall plot - the premise, described above, didn't need to be changed, save for coming up with an ending - but with the details.
Having introduced an element of D&D into the story (those who know me will know that I'm a huge fan of D&D v.3.5 and Pathfinder) I found myself trying to work in other aspects of D&D as well to replace various things about Negima I didn't like, or simply thought could be better.
For example, I hate the magic system in Negima. I find it to be self-contradictory, unimaginative, and little more than an excuse to introduce high-powered martial arts into the story. So, that was tossed out, replaced with D&D spellcasting (or at least, with some form of D&D spellcasting, maybe from a sourcebook somewhere).
Further, why not tweak some of the other characters also? Not their personalities, which work fine as they are, but their abilities? I've read a LOT of sourcebooks, and I started imagining what if Yue was a runesmith, or what if Kotaro was originally a human kid who at a young age gained his supernatural nature and powers from a dream companion such as Yinsloth? (By the way, both of those are based on the d20 variant point-buy system presented in the free third-party sourcebook Eclipse: The Codex Persona, which I've recently become quite taken with).
Once I came up with that idea, I started to rewrite some of the larger premises of the fic. Mahora, for example, is pretty much the same, but has a new mission statement - ALL of its students are somehow magical/supernatural.
The idea here is that the various Magic Associations of Japan (either working together, or separately - not sure yet) work to regulate magic in society. Each Association has mages who go among the general populace and check young people for magical power; they don't check the nature of the power (they just don't have the time, given how many young people there are to check and how few of them there are to do the checking), but instead note the ones who test positive, and pass the information on.
The Kanto Magic Association then steps in, and through some trickery has the kid sent to Mahora, apparently as a normal student. And they do receive an education like at any other school; however, every teacher is also a mage tasked with figuring out what magic their students have. Are they a mage with latent potential? A supernatural being? Living under a curse? Magical girl in training? The teacher has to figure it out without the students knowing they're being investigated...and when the results are in, then the Kanto Magic Association has to figure out what to do with the kid, whether it's nothing at all, offering formal mage training, or something more drastic.
So now that's Negi's task at Mahora, which factors into his more troubled character, since he's now being pushed to get closer to his students (though a few, such as Eva and Asuna, will already be known), even as he's trying to figure out their power without them knowing anything's up. That seems to work well for troubled relationships, which'll help push Negi towards the edge.
Hence, this fic has taken quite an evolution in my mind from how I first envisioned it a few years ago. Now I just have to sit down and actually write the damned thing rather than keep tinkering with it. :headbanger:
Wish me luck with that.
That said, I'm of the opinion that undeath in general, and lichdom in particular, causes a person's mind to become warped. I don't just mean the loss of several forms of sensory input (touch, taste, and smell) or the weight of the years passing, though those certainly contribute - rather, becoming undead isn't a change of status that leaves your mind untouched.
Undeath is caused by negative energy, and flooding your body with it to the point where it animates you warps how you think. The same way that drugs can affect thoughts, or severe radiation sickness can make it hard to think, being that saturated with the energy of death is going to change a person. That energy is like a poison for your thoughts, as well as your body.
That's without even going into the fact that, unlike other forms of death, lichdom is intentionally self-inflicted. The would-be lich is preparing a ritual to harness and shape the negative energy going through himself, so he's making sure that it does affect his thoughts and mind - just in a way that will leave his knowledge and intellect intact (and even enhance it, thanks to the bonus to his mental ability scores), but that will also strengthen and fortify his mind so as to stand up to the rigors of undeath and an eternal existence.
There's a reason why liches don't get all emo and crazy over time the way vampires do.
This, to me, is also why the arch-lich and the lich are considered different creatures to the point of having two different names for them - the ritual for creation is fundamentally different in that the arch-lich is going way out of its way to make sure the negative energy infusion isn't driving it crazy. I also suspect (though the rules in recent editions of D&D have largely glossed this over) that the ritual that prepares one for lichdom is filled with vile acts that no non-evil person would perform anyway...likely another area where the arch-lich ritual is widely divergent.
For those who've read Van Richten's Guide to the Lich, you can tell that I'm drawing a lot on the ideas presented there.
I would posit that Evangeline isn't a standard D&D vampire; which isn't that hard of a case to make - with all of the supplements by TSR/WotC alone, and the huge market of third-party materials, one can easily find a paradigm that more closely matches Eva's canonical appearance. (Though, to be perfectly frank, I think we've yet to see any truly evil people in Negima at all.)
Of course, I'm not limiting myself to the canon for this fic - when I finally manage to kick my ass into continuing it - anyway (see below).
By the time the person commences with the lichdom ritual, they've already passed the point of that decision. Becoming a lich shouldn't be an off-screen process that you can undertake so long as you're high enough level and have the proficiency in magic item construction to make a phylactery - those are the prerequisites to simply having the capacity to make the undertaking.
Actually attempting to become a lich should, to me, involve preparations that are already monstrous in nature - for example, requiring the heart of a living humanoid to be ritually harvested and prepared (and no, you jokers, I wouldn't allow that to work if done on some brain-dead organ donor; the victim's pain and fear is part of what makes the heart a viable component).
In other words, it's not just the nature of a lich to be evil (though that's part of it) - it's also that they've chosen to do evil before they became that way.
Sexy comedy was never the focus of this fic.
Hm, I think that plays more to the idea that lichdom can be attempted in stages over time, instead of an all-at-once ritual. I've never cared too much for that idea.
Yeah, the whole "accidental lich" thing also isn't something I'm fond of - most forms of undeath are unintentional; being a lich isn't.
It sounds like it could be a fun fic, but it's not this one.
I'm still working on that part; it doesn't help that the only really major item Negi has and seems to care for a lot is his wand.
Oh, so true.
In truth, I've been thinking of coming back to this fic, but that means little coming from me, as just thinking about something isn't worth much if I don't take action.
The major problem is that my idea for where I wanted to take this fic has become corrupted over time. Initially, I wanted to just write a story about an evil, necromancer Negi; a change from the usual sexy-comedy routine that we'd been seeing over and over in Negima fics. In this, he'd be the antagonist, with the story being the developing hostilities between him and the girls of Mahora.
However, that idea didn't develop very well, as there were a lot of problems with making the plot work. Evil!Negi likely wouldn't go to Mahora in the first place, or at least wouldn't stay very long when he realized he was surrounded by good mages, most of whom would oppose him on general principle. Things would quickly turn into a battle, which didn't flow with the story I wanted to tell.
So instead, I reimagined things. Instead of starting with evil!Negi, I decided to model him (figuratively, not literally) more after Lex Luthor, from Smallville - a morally-gray character who honestly does want to be a good person, but all of his experiences and inclinations run in the opposite direction...from his necromantic magic to his experience with women, his instincts don't go where a good person's would.
This particular idea seemed much better. The fic would be the story of Negi trying to become a good person, and ultimately failing, embracing evil and eventually lichdom as the climax of his fall from grace. The story would deal with Negi's relationships to the rest of the cast as they went from friendships with some tentative possibilities for love, to the bittersweet fallout as those relationships sour, to eventually becoming enemies as Negi becomes more and more evil. That was certainly the sort of fic I'd want to read, and seemed like a great idea to write.
But unfortunately, I found that I couldn't stop tinkering with the idea. Not the overall plot - the premise, described above, didn't need to be changed, save for coming up with an ending - but with the details.
Having introduced an element of D&D into the story (those who know me will know that I'm a huge fan of D&D v.3.5 and Pathfinder) I found myself trying to work in other aspects of D&D as well to replace various things about Negima I didn't like, or simply thought could be better.
For example, I hate the magic system in Negima. I find it to be self-contradictory, unimaginative, and little more than an excuse to introduce high-powered martial arts into the story. So, that was tossed out, replaced with D&D spellcasting (or at least, with some form of D&D spellcasting, maybe from a sourcebook somewhere).
Further, why not tweak some of the other characters also? Not their personalities, which work fine as they are, but their abilities? I've read a LOT of sourcebooks, and I started imagining what if Yue was a runesmith, or what if Kotaro was originally a human kid who at a young age gained his supernatural nature and powers from a dream companion such as Yinsloth? (By the way, both of those are based on the d20 variant point-buy system presented in the free third-party sourcebook Eclipse: The Codex Persona, which I've recently become quite taken with).
Once I came up with that idea, I started to rewrite some of the larger premises of the fic. Mahora, for example, is pretty much the same, but has a new mission statement - ALL of its students are somehow magical/supernatural.
The idea here is that the various Magic Associations of Japan (either working together, or separately - not sure yet) work to regulate magic in society. Each Association has mages who go among the general populace and check young people for magical power; they don't check the nature of the power (they just don't have the time, given how many young people there are to check and how few of them there are to do the checking), but instead note the ones who test positive, and pass the information on.
The Kanto Magic Association then steps in, and through some trickery has the kid sent to Mahora, apparently as a normal student. And they do receive an education like at any other school; however, every teacher is also a mage tasked with figuring out what magic their students have. Are they a mage with latent potential? A supernatural being? Living under a curse? Magical girl in training? The teacher has to figure it out without the students knowing they're being investigated...and when the results are in, then the Kanto Magic Association has to figure out what to do with the kid, whether it's nothing at all, offering formal mage training, or something more drastic.
So now that's Negi's task at Mahora, which factors into his more troubled character, since he's now being pushed to get closer to his students (though a few, such as Eva and Asuna, will already be known), even as he's trying to figure out their power without them knowing anything's up. That seems to work well for troubled relationships, which'll help push Negi towards the edge.
Hence, this fic has taken quite an evolution in my mind from how I first envisioned it a few years ago. Now I just have to sit down and actually write the damned thing rather than keep tinkering with it. :headbanger:
Wish me luck with that.
As of chapter 240 (the latest one in the domestic releases, which I'm not reading past), I haven't seen anything to make Tsukuyomi look any worse than "sorta bad" rather than truly evil. That's my opinion on her, anyway.
Tsukuyomi seems to be a lesbian who takes erotic pleasure in fighting the girls she's attracted to. Now, that could certainly be played up as her having some sort of sadism fetish, but that's not really there in the canon. Instead, like the rest of the bad guys in Negima, Tsukuyomi doesn't seem to take any sort of spiteful pleasure in someone else's pain, but rather seems to take things with an attitude of "it's just business" and/or "this is fun!"
Tsukuyomi seems to be a lesbian who takes erotic pleasure in fighting the girls she's attracted to. Now, that could certainly be played up as her having some sort of sadism fetish, but that's not really there in the canon. Instead, like the rest of the bad guys in Negima, Tsukuyomi doesn't seem to take any sort of spiteful pleasure in someone else's pain, but rather seems to take things with an attitude of "it's just business" and/or "this is fun!"
The thing is, if you change too much, like say the incantation based magic system, then you risk it no longer being a negima story, but rather a D&D story with negima characters.
There seems to be two systems at play, the incantation based magic system, and the Ki/Chi/etc based martial arts systems.
A mage being able to do martial arts is rather reasonable. I've yet to see a culture that doesn't use them in some way.
Most folks don't use both Ki and Magic spells though. It seems to largely be one or the other, save for folks like Asuna. Then again, she's almost using just raw mana, and not a refined spell.
There seems to be two systems at play, the incantation based magic system, and the Ki/Chi/etc based martial arts systems.
A mage being able to do martial arts is rather reasonable. I've yet to see a culture that doesn't use them in some way.
Most folks don't use both Ki and Magic spells though. It seems to largely be one or the other, save for folks like Asuna. Then again, she's almost using just raw mana, and not a refined spell.
I find myself disagreeing with pretty much everything you said.
I think that'd be more true if I drastically changed the characters, rather than any of the aspects of the world they operate in. The story wouldn't be a Negima story anymore if the characters were all essentially different characters who just happened to have the same name - taking the existing characters and having them react to different situations and developments the way the canon characters would have preserves the essence of the original story (and is pretty much the foundation of fanfiction...or at least good fanfiction).
I'm not saying there's not room for changing the characters too - I'm changing Negi for this story, certainly - but there's much less latitude there than there is with changing aspects of the setting.
Also, unless I'm misunderstanding you, you're worried that the "incantation-based" magic will be too different. I don't think that's a factor, really, but even if it were, D&D's own "Vancian" spellcasting system uses verbal components for casting most spells anyway.
It's more of the underlying principles for how magic is used in Negima that I dislike anyway.
For all the difference there is between them here (which is to say, almost none). Oh, I know Akamatsu has minor dissimilarities between the two, but when both are used as a way to perform super-powered martial arts, are they really that different?
As a general principle, I disagree. It's not just a case of a wizard who also does some training in hand-to-hand combat on the side - it's that wizardry is specifically based around the idea of using magic to augment and enhance one's physical prowess in a fight. That's just not my natural inclination when I think of how mages operate.
Now, I'm certainly open to the idea of a character who's chosen to severely limit their spellcasting abilities by focusing on using magic as a path to combat-enhancement the way Negi does. But Negima makes it clear that high-level magic almost invariably leads in that direction. If you're going to be a powerful mage, that necessarily entails being a powerful martial fighter. Which, to me, isn't reasonable.
You've yet to see a culture that doesn't have mage-martial artists in some way? :blink:
It's largely a moot point that most people don't have both - they might as well be identical for all the difference it makes:
If you use ki, you'll become a fighter of supernatural speed and strength, throwing blasts of energy at your enemies.
If you use magic, you'll become a fighter of supernatural speed and strength, throwing blasts of energy at your enemies.
If you use both ki and magic, you'll become a fighter of supernatural speed and strength, throwing blasts of energy at your enemies.
Why have both if you're not going to make them distinctive from one another?
I think that'd be more true if I drastically changed the characters, rather than any of the aspects of the world they operate in. The story wouldn't be a Negima story anymore if the characters were all essentially different characters who just happened to have the same name - taking the existing characters and having them react to different situations and developments the way the canon characters would have preserves the essence of the original story (and is pretty much the foundation of fanfiction...or at least good fanfiction).
I'm not saying there's not room for changing the characters too - I'm changing Negi for this story, certainly - but there's much less latitude there than there is with changing aspects of the setting.
Also, unless I'm misunderstanding you, you're worried that the "incantation-based" magic will be too different. I don't think that's a factor, really, but even if it were, D&D's own "Vancian" spellcasting system uses verbal components for casting most spells anyway.
It's more of the underlying principles for how magic is used in Negima that I dislike anyway.
For all the difference there is between them here (which is to say, almost none). Oh, I know Akamatsu has minor dissimilarities between the two, but when both are used as a way to perform super-powered martial arts, are they really that different?
As a general principle, I disagree. It's not just a case of a wizard who also does some training in hand-to-hand combat on the side - it's that wizardry is specifically based around the idea of using magic to augment and enhance one's physical prowess in a fight. That's just not my natural inclination when I think of how mages operate.
Now, I'm certainly open to the idea of a character who's chosen to severely limit their spellcasting abilities by focusing on using magic as a path to combat-enhancement the way Negi does. But Negima makes it clear that high-level magic almost invariably leads in that direction. If you're going to be a powerful mage, that necessarily entails being a powerful martial fighter. Which, to me, isn't reasonable.
You've yet to see a culture that doesn't have mage-martial artists in some way? :blink:
It's largely a moot point that most people don't have both - they might as well be identical for all the difference it makes:
If you use ki, you'll become a fighter of supernatural speed and strength, throwing blasts of energy at your enemies.
If you use magic, you'll become a fighter of supernatural speed and strength, throwing blasts of energy at your enemies.
If you use both ki and magic, you'll become a fighter of supernatural speed and strength, throwing blasts of energy at your enemies.
Why have both if you're not going to make them distinctive from one another?
Its a matter of style. Martial arts is a category of styles, and magic is a category of styles. Both increase speed, strength, et cetra, both allow energy blasts, its just that they do it in different ways, and may be using different energies.
Karate and Kung Fu both allow you to fight hand-to-hand, but use different methods (and both have a lot of styles under that heading, like Shotokan Karate, or Praying Mantis Kung Fu). If you know an opponent's style, you may also know the weaknesses of that style. If you know more than one style well enough, you can switch between them and confuse your opponents.
If very few people use kanka, very few will be able to exploit whatever weaknesses it has.
Karate and Kung Fu both allow you to fight hand-to-hand, but use different methods (and both have a lot of styles under that heading, like Shotokan Karate, or Praying Mantis Kung Fu). If you know an opponent's style, you may also know the weaknesses of that style. If you know more than one style well enough, you can switch between them and confuse your opponents.
If very few people use kanka, very few will be able to exploit whatever weaknesses it has.
By that philosophy, the differences are going to be largely semantic to anyone but a rigorous practitioner of one of those styles. To an outside observer who isn't trained that way, one is essentially the same as another...because they are. Does it really matter that much if the kick someone hits you with was a crescent kick or a snap kick? Does it make that much of a difference if the energy that hit you was ki or magical force?
I'm of the opinion that magic unto itself isn't a style of combat; it's a methodology of manipulating ambient energy to produce a vast array of different effects. Yes, you can use it to increase your speed, strength, and throw some lightning at the other guy. But that's ignoring 99% of its other applications, like turning invisible, predicting the future, and animating the dead, to name just a few.
This goes back to my earlier point, though. If martial arts already allow for that level of intricate battle tactics, what is magic bringing to the story that's not already there? They're filling the same function in terms of what you want to convey, and so one is redundant. Just call what Negi's doing "martial arts" and be done with it.
That applies to anything that's uncommon; if very few people use scrying magic, very few will be able to protect themselves from being scryed upon by it (more or less).
I'm of the opinion that magic unto itself isn't a style of combat; it's a methodology of manipulating ambient energy to produce a vast array of different effects. Yes, you can use it to increase your speed, strength, and throw some lightning at the other guy. But that's ignoring 99% of its other applications, like turning invisible, predicting the future, and animating the dead, to name just a few.
This goes back to my earlier point, though. If martial arts already allow for that level of intricate battle tactics, what is magic bringing to the story that's not already there? They're filling the same function in terms of what you want to convey, and so one is redundant. Just call what Negi's doing "martial arts" and be done with it.
That applies to anything that's uncommon; if very few people use scrying magic, very few will be able to protect themselves from being scryed upon by it (more or less).
1. Whats wrong with the system? You can use it for ranged attacked, or self buffs, etc. It's all based off an activation key + some sort of spell. the stronger the attack, the longer the spell.
2. There is a huge difference between them. See how Ki users (kaede, setsuna, Kotoro, Ku) use their abilities verses how Mages (nagi, negi, eva, Al, Yue) use theirs.
Different styles and modes of attack. Pretty much approach a fight in different ways as well.
Now mages can be battle mages, or more traditional ones, as Eva mentioned early on. Negi is following in his fathers footsteps, so hes more a battle-mage. Someone like Al seems to be the more traditional type. He can go hand to hand, sure, but hes better at range. Yue seems to be falling into this as well, ditto for Konoka.
3. A mage would learn to defend himself at close range, else your a sitting duck. That means some form of martial art would be very handy. wither it's fencing, bo-jutsu, more traditional martial arts, etc.
Now in negima, what we see a lot are the battle mages, but you see a few of the other types around. But even Ala Rubia was a mixed bag. Nagi is a battle mage, Eisen a ki user, Rakan something like the magical world version of a ki user, and Al a more traditional spellcaster.
4. The culture thing meant i've yet to see a culture that didn't develop martial arts in some form. So wizards, mostly, would have some form of their own.
5. And that's just not true. We've seen ranged only, close quarters, support, etc. How magic is used depends on the user and their role.
2. There is a huge difference between them. See how Ki users (kaede, setsuna, Kotoro, Ku) use their abilities verses how Mages (nagi, negi, eva, Al, Yue) use theirs.
Different styles and modes of attack. Pretty much approach a fight in different ways as well.
Now mages can be battle mages, or more traditional ones, as Eva mentioned early on. Negi is following in his fathers footsteps, so hes more a battle-mage. Someone like Al seems to be the more traditional type. He can go hand to hand, sure, but hes better at range. Yue seems to be falling into this as well, ditto for Konoka.
3. A mage would learn to defend himself at close range, else your a sitting duck. That means some form of martial art would be very handy. wither it's fencing, bo-jutsu, more traditional martial arts, etc.
Now in negima, what we see a lot are the battle mages, but you see a few of the other types around. But even Ala Rubia was a mixed bag. Nagi is a battle mage, Eisen a ki user, Rakan something like the magical world version of a ki user, and Al a more traditional spellcaster.
4. The culture thing meant i've yet to see a culture that didn't develop martial arts in some form. So wizards, mostly, would have some form of their own.
5. And that's just not true. We've seen ranged only, close quarters, support, etc. How magic is used depends on the user and their role.
In my opinion, what's wrong with the system is that it's horribly limited. There should be more to magic than just self-buffs and ranged attacks; magic is about more than fighting. True, the manga has shown a few other uses for magic, but these have been either A) glossed over, or B ) used for combat purposes also.
I find them to be very minor differences. Kotaro hits things really hard; Negi hits things really hard. Kotaro fires inugami at people; Negi fires magical blasts at people. Rinse and repeat.
I will admit that Albireo's style of magic is different enough to be worth noting - presuming I'm not misremembering, he behaves more akin to how I think a mage would in a fight; staying away from close combat and using various applications of magic to damage the person from a safe distance.
But beyond that, it's almost all the same. Sure, there are individual differences, like Kaede and Kotaro using kage bunshin (by another name, at least), but that's not enough to seriously say there's a major difference between using magic and ki in a fight. They don't have to be absolutely identical to be so similar as to be virtually indistinguishable.
The problem I have with magic in Negima is that it's horribly limited. It can't do very much at all that we've seen; battle mages seem to know exactly three different magical abilities - move faster, hit harder, blast things. That's boring, and already well covered by ki-users.
What I want to see more of are other kinds of magic-users, ones which deal with a wider variety of effects, and as such have to deal with things more intelligently than "hit it until it stops moving." We know they're in the manga - though even then, they mostly seem to be restricted to a single thematic element - but there's no greater potential for what they can do.
I firmly admit that I'm bringing my own bias to the table, here. I'm used to seeing magic as an endless well of possibilities, and the more you study it (and it requires intense study to master) the more you can do. Hence, you can quickly move up past simply brawling and start getting into some truly imaginative effects. Sure, you can hit someone with a lightning bolt...or you can just stop them from ever reaching you to begin with by surrounding yourself with a prismatic sphere of seven colors, each of which blocks a different effect, and does something different to those who try to pass through it.
Which one sounds cooler?
No, they wouldn't; it'd be nice if they could, but if you want to master something highly intricate and complex to the point where it'll take years to be able to do in a split-second, second-nature manner - which describes both magic and martial arts - then you can't divide your focus.
It's why Olympic athletes don't study martial arts in case someone tries to beat their knees in with a pipe - they have one primary field that they have to work hard at to excel, and a dedicated study of combat would be far and away too much of a drain on that.
Even leaving aside how marginalized that handful of other types are, they suffer from pretty much the same problem I have with "battle mages" in Negima; lack of imagination.
This is especially frustrating since, mostly early on, Akamatsu dropped hints that a wizard could master other sorts of spells. Negi reading Takamichi's thoughts on Asuna's behalf, for example, or casting a spell to refresh the girls for a test, or a lot of the other stuff we saw at the beginning. But then he moved away from that, and now it's all "I can hit things even HARDER now!"
Bear in mind, I don't dislike martial arts manga; in fact, I get quite a kick out of it. But Negima presented itself as one thing early on, and then morphed into something else over time. It's magic system started with the promise of being diverse and full of myriad spells a mage could learn and cast...and then contracted to very little beyond just "powering up."
Wizards aren't a culture; they're a profession. Them having their own style of fighting is like salarymen having their own style of fighting.
The manga has done very little to support the idea that there's more to magic than faster/stronger/blaster bit; the fact that it has supported that idea at all only makes it more frustrating for me that it's so reluctant to step outside of that zone. Yes, Akamatsu, we've seen magic used to make the user into a martial artist...now please get back to some of those earlier references you made where it can do so much more!
Actually, I find that such a stimulating discussion as this one is really making me want to write more of it. What better way to showcase what I mean, after all? ^_^
I find them to be very minor differences. Kotaro hits things really hard; Negi hits things really hard. Kotaro fires inugami at people; Negi fires magical blasts at people. Rinse and repeat.
I will admit that Albireo's style of magic is different enough to be worth noting - presuming I'm not misremembering, he behaves more akin to how I think a mage would in a fight; staying away from close combat and using various applications of magic to damage the person from a safe distance.
But beyond that, it's almost all the same. Sure, there are individual differences, like Kaede and Kotaro using kage bunshin (by another name, at least), but that's not enough to seriously say there's a major difference between using magic and ki in a fight. They don't have to be absolutely identical to be so similar as to be virtually indistinguishable.
The problem I have with magic in Negima is that it's horribly limited. It can't do very much at all that we've seen; battle mages seem to know exactly three different magical abilities - move faster, hit harder, blast things. That's boring, and already well covered by ki-users.
What I want to see more of are other kinds of magic-users, ones which deal with a wider variety of effects, and as such have to deal with things more intelligently than "hit it until it stops moving." We know they're in the manga - though even then, they mostly seem to be restricted to a single thematic element - but there's no greater potential for what they can do.
I firmly admit that I'm bringing my own bias to the table, here. I'm used to seeing magic as an endless well of possibilities, and the more you study it (and it requires intense study to master) the more you can do. Hence, you can quickly move up past simply brawling and start getting into some truly imaginative effects. Sure, you can hit someone with a lightning bolt...or you can just stop them from ever reaching you to begin with by surrounding yourself with a prismatic sphere of seven colors, each of which blocks a different effect, and does something different to those who try to pass through it.
Which one sounds cooler?
No, they wouldn't; it'd be nice if they could, but if you want to master something highly intricate and complex to the point where it'll take years to be able to do in a split-second, second-nature manner - which describes both magic and martial arts - then you can't divide your focus.
It's why Olympic athletes don't study martial arts in case someone tries to beat their knees in with a pipe - they have one primary field that they have to work hard at to excel, and a dedicated study of combat would be far and away too much of a drain on that.
Even leaving aside how marginalized that handful of other types are, they suffer from pretty much the same problem I have with "battle mages" in Negima; lack of imagination.
This is especially frustrating since, mostly early on, Akamatsu dropped hints that a wizard could master other sorts of spells. Negi reading Takamichi's thoughts on Asuna's behalf, for example, or casting a spell to refresh the girls for a test, or a lot of the other stuff we saw at the beginning. But then he moved away from that, and now it's all "I can hit things even HARDER now!"
Bear in mind, I don't dislike martial arts manga; in fact, I get quite a kick out of it. But Negima presented itself as one thing early on, and then morphed into something else over time. It's magic system started with the promise of being diverse and full of myriad spells a mage could learn and cast...and then contracted to very little beyond just "powering up."
Wizards aren't a culture; they're a profession. Them having their own style of fighting is like salarymen having their own style of fighting.
The manga has done very little to support the idea that there's more to magic than faster/stronger/blaster bit; the fact that it has supported that idea at all only makes it more frustrating for me that it's so reluctant to step outside of that zone. Yes, Akamatsu, we've seen magic used to make the user into a martial artist...now please get back to some of those earlier references you made where it can do so much more!
Actually, I find that such a stimulating discussion as this one is really making me want to write more of it. What better way to showcase what I mean, after all? ^_^
That depends on how you interpret their combat stats, as well as the phrase "how to fight."
They have the lowest Base Attack Bonus (equaled only by sorcerers among the PC classes in how poor it is; all other core PC classes have a better BAB progression), and are proficient with no armor and only five specific simple weapons.
I suppose that's slightly better than the commoner NPC class (who has the same BAB, lack of armor proficiency, and can use only one simple weapon), but hardly enough to say that they've received dedicated combat that's at all comparable to fighter, who has full BAB progression, and is proficient with all armor and simple and martial weapons (not to mention their fighter bonus feats, etc). It's certainly not comparable to the high-end cast-as-you-punch martial training that Negi's received in the manga.
Truly intelligent wizards have some magic items to fall back on when they run out of spells so that they don't have to wind up on melee combat (not very long, at least). And any truly intelligent adventuring party lives by the old axiom of "protect the mage."
They have the lowest Base Attack Bonus (equaled only by sorcerers among the PC classes in how poor it is; all other core PC classes have a better BAB progression), and are proficient with no armor and only five specific simple weapons.
I suppose that's slightly better than the commoner NPC class (who has the same BAB, lack of armor proficiency, and can use only one simple weapon), but hardly enough to say that they've received dedicated combat that's at all comparable to fighter, who has full BAB progression, and is proficient with all armor and simple and martial weapons (not to mention their fighter bonus feats, etc). It's certainly not comparable to the high-end cast-as-you-punch martial training that Negi's received in the manga.
Truly intelligent wizards have some magic items to fall back on when they run out of spells so that they don't have to wind up on melee combat (not very long, at least). And any truly intelligent adventuring party lives by the old axiom of "protect the mage."
I assume that the simplification on my part that you're referring to is the following, right?
If so, I don't think that could really be called a simplication on my part; rather, it sounds simple because it is simple - that's the system we're being given in Negima, and it's grossly simple. (Admittedly, I'm skimming over the details that the manga does present, but these are so minor and lacking in any practical impact that it's of no real consequence).
In other words, don't shoot the messenger.
By contrast, it seems like a stretch to say that your statement of "magic-as-martial-arts-styles" is equivalent - albeit in a "simplified" manner - to my statement of "magic-as-potentially-able-to-do-anything." To put it another way, the differences between, using your examples, Karate and Kung Fu are not, as I called it, "a vast array of different effects."
If so, I don't think that could really be called a simplication on my part; rather, it sounds simple because it is simple - that's the system we're being given in Negima, and it's grossly simple. (Admittedly, I'm skimming over the details that the manga does present, but these are so minor and lacking in any practical impact that it's of no real consequence).
In other words, don't shoot the messenger.
By contrast, it seems like a stretch to say that your statement of "magic-as-martial-arts-styles" is equivalent - albeit in a "simplified" manner - to my statement of "magic-as-potentially-able-to-do-anything." To put it another way, the differences between, using your examples, Karate and Kung Fu are not, as I called it, "a vast array of different effects."
It seems as if you're just complaining because the direct combat magic tends to be more memorable than many of the other kinds. It's perfectly possible to do more versatile things with magic in the Negima universe, but it seems as if you're just not thinking about them.
Why don't we go over the things we've seen magic used for that doesn't fall under the categories you're complaining about (strength buffing, speed buffing, and magic attacks).
Off the top of my head, I can think of the following.
Why don't we go over the things we've seen magic used for that doesn't fall under the categories you're complaining about (strength buffing, speed buffing, and magic attacks).
Off the top of my head, I can think of the following.
- Mind-reading (Negi used a very limited version back in the earlier chapters, and Nodoka's artifact uses a very advanced version)
- Healing (anywhere from minor injury healing to re-attaching severed limbs, plus disease curing)
- Promise-binding (Fate tried setting one up on Negi when he tried to convince him to leave the Magic World)
- Elemental spirit manipulation (Negi's magic duplicates, and the 'breast expansion' gags, those were both applications of commanding wind spirits [I don't recall whether or not Negi animating Asuna's bath tools was this, or a different application of magic], and there must be similar applications for other elements)
- Creation of demiplanes (from Eva's resort to the dimension trap used against Rakan)
- Time travel (admittedly this involves magitech many, many years ahead of Negi's time period)
- Mind-influencing magic (from memory-wiping to love potions to Chao's plan during the Mahora Festival)
- Teleportation (the gates linking the Magic World and the Old World, one power of the Keys of the Lifemaker, and one benefit of a Pactio)
- Gravity distortion (from the obvious uses to things like what Rakan did to break the demiplane Fate's girls trapped him in)
- Transformation (several kinds, such as the age-altering pills, the ermine transformation punishments, and the Signum Biolegens artifact that Fate and Shiori/Luna use)
- Petrification spells (Negi's hometown, several of Fate's spells)
- Demon summoning [summoning probably counts as a subcategory of teleportation, but still...] (see the Kyoto arc, and it's another use of the Keys of the Lifemaker)
Is it "complaining" to outline the things you dislike and why? I don't care for the magic system in Negima, and I think I've done a fair job explaining why, but it's just my opinion in a discussion that is a frank exchange of opinions and ideas. That's hardly complaining.
It's also not that the combat magic in Negima is more memorable; it's that it's so heavily focused-on that it marginalizes all other sorts of magic use. If you read my previous posts, you'll notice that I say that other magic is clearly present in the series; it's just near-totally ignored in favor of the combat stuff.
Fixed it for you. ^_^
See, I think you're proving my point here. It's not that Negima doesn't have other sorts of magic; it's just that it doesn't care for anything else very much. If it'd focused on any of that - any at all - to even half the degree that it has on combat magic, I'd like it much more.
Instead, most of these are quickly used as a one-off and then forgotten. There's no greater application of how to use them, nor strategies formed around them. The best these can hope for is "use it once so it can help in a fight."
After seeing the third or fourth training sequence of Negi practicing the faster/stronger/blaster routine, I'd have been overjoyed if we'd instead focused on greater and more intricate ways of summoning creatures to fight on their behalf, or Nodoka exploring ways of deepening her mind-reading power (I say that even though I think the artifact-system is incredibly stupid, but that's another post).
You've tossed off a dozen other applications of magic which Negima would do very well, I think, to give more proverbial screen-time to. But it doesn't seem to want to go in that direction, which is a shame, since there's other ways to be captivating instead of engaging in a series of ever-escalating brawls.
It's also not that the combat magic in Negima is more memorable; it's that it's so heavily focused-on that it marginalizes all other sorts of magic use. If you read my previous posts, you'll notice that I say that other magic is clearly present in the series; it's just near-totally ignored in favor of the combat stuff.
Fixed it for you. ^_^
See, I think you're proving my point here. It's not that Negima doesn't have other sorts of magic; it's just that it doesn't care for anything else very much. If it'd focused on any of that - any at all - to even half the degree that it has on combat magic, I'd like it much more.
Instead, most of these are quickly used as a one-off and then forgotten. There's no greater application of how to use them, nor strategies formed around them. The best these can hope for is "use it once so it can help in a fight."
After seeing the third or fourth training sequence of Negi practicing the faster/stronger/blaster routine, I'd have been overjoyed if we'd instead focused on greater and more intricate ways of summoning creatures to fight on their behalf, or Nodoka exploring ways of deepening her mind-reading power (I say that even though I think the artifact-system is incredibly stupid, but that's another post).
You've tossed off a dozen other applications of magic which Negima would do very well, I think, to give more proverbial screen-time to. But it doesn't seem to want to go in that direction, which is a shame, since there's other ways to be captivating instead of engaging in a series of ever-escalating brawls.