Poll of the Day > Should magical ability be hereditary?

(+) Yeah! (+)

What does PotD think on the matter?

I imagine the prevailing view will be some amount of hereditary talent and aptitude, that still requires training and dedication.
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I would be very confused if Luke skywalkers kid couldnt use the force, or if harry potters kid was not a magic kid.

So.. yes

I think it depends on the world that you are building, and the impact that magical abilities would have on it. You would have to consider if hereditary gifts fit the narrative, or if something else does.
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MICHALECOLE posted...

if harry potters kid was not a magic kid

Yeah, but Argus Filch's parents had a kid with no magical ability.

Entity13 posted...

You would have to consider if hereditary gifts fit the narrative, or if something else does.

I can already imagine a very generic fantasy world where magical ability is passed down to people only by possessing royal blood.
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MICHALECOLE posted...

I would be very confused if Luke skywalkers kid couldnt use the force, or if harry potters kid was not a magic kid.

So.. yes

The odd thing about this is, no one seems at all surprised that Luke and even Leia are strong with the Force due to Anakin, and yet, you'd think it would be more of a revelation since Jedi were chaste, and thus wouldn't know one way or another if the Force was hereditary.

Then again, being Force sensitive doesn't make you a Jedi, so I suppose it could be observed in non-Jedi.
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Yes. It's too dangerous of a thing to be able to just learn. Further, those ambitious enough to learn it probably wouldn't be the most saintly people.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh_son_of_a_seventh_son


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KJ StErOiDs posted...

Yes. It's too dangerous of a thing to be able to just learn. Further, those ambitious enough to learn it probably wouldn't be the most saintly people.

While true, being genetic usually leads to an "us and them" attitude with those who can't use magic being looked down on and often used.
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I don't see why not.

Makes more sense than The Last Jedi claiming The Force is distributed to wherever the plot requires it.
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TigerTycoon posted...

Makes more sense than The Last Jedi claiming The Force is distributed to wherever the plot requires it.

Ehh. It's always been established canon in Star Wars that the Force is literally everywhere, and that the ability to sense and influence it is theoretically inherent in every living thing.

While it's also implied that being really strong in the Force like Anakin/Luke/etc is rare, it's also implied that even something as mundane as "being lucky" is a subconscious manifestation of the Force, so there's a metric shitton of people in the universe who are at least potential Force users. Or who are actively using the Force every day of their lives without even realizing it.

Then you get into implied questions of the nature of training (ie, training to be a Jedi may make a person's innate connection to the Force stronger, but someone would have to have been fully manifested as a Force user long before the Jedi existed to create the Jedi in the first place) and opportunities (ie, in the Old Republic the Jedi would track down children strong in the Force and train them to be Jedi, but for the last few decades many of those people will essentially have lain dormant with no one to teach them - but they'd still have their inherent affinity, and some of them could easily manifest on their own in some way with or without a teacher).

If anything, perhaps the lesson of the sequels should have been that there will ALWAYS be those who can use the Force in the universe, and that without a group like the Jedi to shepherd and police those people, it's almost an inevitability that Dark Side users like the Sith would arise again (and worse, because the "new Sith" would effectively lack the self-control and limiting factors like the "Rule of Two" to keep them in check - now imagine dozens of Force-powered warlords scattered across the galaxy, raising their own private armies, and waging war on each other to establish final dominance).


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No, GILGABOT decides if youre worthy of having a casting class.

http://fourjobfiesta.com
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

TigerTycoon posted...

Makes more sense than The Last Jedi claiming The Force is distributed to wherever the plot requires it.

Ehh. It's always been established canon in Star Wars that the Force is literally everywhere, and that the ability to sense and influence it is theoretically inherent in every living thing.

While it's also implied that being really strong in the Force like Anakin/Luke/etc is rare, it's also implied that even something as mundane as "being lucky" is a subconscious manifestation of the Force, so there's a metric shitton of people in the universe who are at least potential Force users. Or who are actively using the Force every day of their lives without even realizing it.

Then you get into implied questions of the nature of training (ie, training to be a Jedi may make a person's innate connection to the Force stronger, but someone would have to have been fully manifested as a Force user long before the Jedi existed to create the Jedi in the first place) and opportunities (ie, in the Old Republic the Jedi would track down children strong in the Force and train them to be Jedi, but for the last few decades many of those people will essentially have lain dormant with no one to teach them - but they'd still have their inherent affinity, and some of them could easily manifest on their own in some way with or without a teacher).

If anything, perhaps the lesson of the sequels should have been that there will ALWAYS be those who can use the Force in the universe, and that without a group like the Jedi to shepherd and police those people, it's almost an inevitability that Dark Side users like the Sith would arise again (and worse, because the "new Sith" would effectively lack the self-control and limiting factors like the "Rule of Two" to keep them in check - now imagine dozens of Force-powered warlords scattered across the galaxy, raising their own private armies, and waging war on each other to establish final dominance).

Yeah, there are sometimes babies born with force powers even if their parents didn't have it, this happens in many stories that feature magic, but The Last Jedi went out of its way to explain that the force will always equally balance light and dark for the purposes to ensuring they can make movies forever, because it means no side can ever win forever or even for long because "the force" will just keep creating new light and dark users out of nothing.

That's just stupid.
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If there was science to it, it would no longer be magic
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Mead posted...

If there was science to it, it would no longer be magic

I think Marvel, where magic and science coexist, just says magic is a form of energy manipulation, and there have been cases where they can use science to manipulate magic.
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TigerTycoon posted...

but The Last Jedi went out of its way to explain that the force will always equally balance light and dark for the purposes to ensuring they can make movies forever

But we've already been told that. The entire point of the prequels was that the Force was unbalanced, and apparently the Force itself literally manifested a divine birth godbaby to restore equilibrium.

In other words, the Force always seeks balance. If either the Dark OR the Light grows too strong, the Force will likely start fucking with things to rebalance the universe (and an argument can be made that Anakin bringing balance to the Force actually meant destroying the JEDI, since they were the galaxy-spanning organization of hundreds of influential warrior monks while there were only two Sith). Kreia explicitly mentions this sort of thing in Knights of the Old Republic as the reason why she hates the Force. It's been a concept long before Disney owned the franchise, let alone before they let a lunatic write and direct The Last Jedi apparently without any real supervision or direction.

And to be fair, it's not even necessarily a terrible narrative concept if handled correctly. It was a core theme in Final Fantasy III, certain settings assume it in D&D, every story Michael Moorcock has ever written, and so on. Hell, there was even a storyline in X-Men back in the 80s where they effectively manage to imprison the literal avatar of chaos for all eternity, only for the official overseer of universal order to set him free again, because the universe needs chaos to exist.

A lot of settings that use the "balance is better than extreme good or extreme evil/extreme order or extreme chaos" logic also tend to couch it in terms of the constant dynamic struggle between the two forces being what powers the universe, acting as the engine for growth, change, and renewal.

In the context of the Force, it's kind of a given that you can't have new life without death. Decay, while something we fear and shun in the specific sense, is also necessary to recirculate resources back into the circle of life.


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TigerTycoon posted...

Mead posted...

If there was science to it, it would no longer be magic

I think Marvel, where magic and science coexist, just says magic is a form of energy manipulation, and there have been cases where they can use science to manipulate magic.

That's more of a 90s Valiant line of thinking, where magic is literally the manipulation of specific energy fields modern science simply has yet to discover.

Marvel tends to operate more on the lines that magic is a distinct thing that can't really be quantified or defined, and which often flows directly from cosmically-powered godbeings who are the fundamental cornerstones of existence. Yes, magic can be treated like a science, and even understood like a science (and to some degree, the highest echelons of science can be treated like magic - see also, Hank Pym: Scientist Supreme), but there will always be some ineffable aspects of magic that can never truly be understood by mortals on any conscious level.


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