so some of you guys have been very supportive of my first video on magic systems that's not magic you don't know what you're talking about this is just sanderson's laws with pictures so I thought today we'd go a little deeper into magic systems because I like the abuse and because I finally watched Arcane so everybody wins I guess since you guys like that video so much we're just going to ignore everything I said in it and do other stuff no rules no laws no pants I don't care it's a free country unless you're watching this in can anyway magic can do more than when guardium some Leviosa or send your stepmom back to hell where she came from Magic can boost story tension add to narrative depth increase the Curiosity in a story and frustrate the absolute hell out of the three and a half people actually watching this channel for writing tips so break out your hextech fisting gloves as we plunge into this list with Point number one all magic systems have a backbone you get to pick what this backbone is but then you have to build something special on top of it think back to high school biology when you had to dissect one of the summer school kids that failed the course the previous year there was some crazy stuff in there lungs heart a tagachi collection Miss Johnson didn't let you keep kidneys but none of this stuff works right without a spine to build off of for magic systems this can be any variation of stuff Elemental systems special physics systems time alteration teleportation the power to make your parents love you nothing is too impossible with magic in Arcane we get two forms of magic systems hextech which is like if Diagon Alley had a Home Depot and Shimmer a drug that's also gasoline but why does the foundation of a magic system matter it's magic I can make it do whatever I want look magic isn't your high school girlfriend that you can just use because she has no self-esteem different magic systems are going to have unavoidable implications even when they're soft systems biology based systems these would be magic powers people are born with discriminate harder than the Harvard admissions which is part of their fun typically when a magic system is biology based you either are or aren't magical people are born Wizards in Harry Potter or born Jedi in Star Wars even though there's then a spectrum of great magic users all the way down to crab and Goyle meanwhile in a Technology based AKA sci-fi based system like Star Trek space Professor Xavier wasn't born commander of the USS Enterprise nobody made him turn his head and cough while they checked his medoran but the magic system still has its own form of discrimination he only has access to the craziest future technology because he ascended the ranks of space Navy or whatever the hell it is I don't watch a lot of Star Trek but then this brings up a question often discussed at Clan meetings what are the pros and cons of these different forms of discrimination specifically for these two systems biological magic is the Russian Roulette of magic because you don't get to pick who is the most powerful wizard ever born sometimes you're lucky and you get a Dumbledore sometimes you get a vort sometimes you get an umbrage and none of these characters can be stripped of their powers unless you feed them to the Centaur compare that to a technology system where you have one or two inventors controlling the technology or you have a company board that votes or you have a baby with a number wheel calling the shots the danger then becomes making sure the magic doesn't fall into the wrong hands or maybe the magic is in the wrong hands to begin with in your own writing you want to consider the implications of your magic who gets it how why can you improve upon it can it change or if you're born a Snorlax are you stuck being a Snorlax Arcane addresses all of these possibilities by making hextech and Shimmer accessible to anyone with the right connections or Misfortune anyone can have titanium socum boers if the council allows them anyone can have superhuman speed or biological appendages if the local drug lord decides to sell it to them or just jab them in the back in both cases the powers are controlled by a select few either the pilt over or silco but the effects of either magic system are similar not just physically but thematically a shimmer addict will risk their life for another hit meanwhile we see that Victor also comes to a point where he's willing to risk what life he has left to unlock the hexe oh wow will you look at that it's like looking at these two magic systems make me ask a question like will hextech get to the point where other characters are willing to risk their lives for its power or become addicted to the power it provides I'm sure you were all thinking that which leads us to point number two magic can be used to enhance a story's theme Arcane is a pretty straightforward story upper Society doesn't care about the lower class so the lower class gets mad and decides to do something about it roughly where Arcane gets a lot of its well-deserved credit comes from its multiple story threads how they are all unique but each character is subject to the effects of Shimmer hextech and the overarching themes of ultimate power power corrupts and that one crazy bit ruin your life ask me how I know we see this all of the time in fiction you know for all of you that made it through high school this was what Frankenstein was about should a man have godly power and if you didn't make it through high school this is what Jurassic Park was all about should a man have godly power Harry Potter has a theme that magic is cool but what matters is what you do with it Star Trek has a theme that science is wild but we still struggle with being human Etc so now how the tits are these themes presented in Arcane well for starters we have Heimerdinger a wise muskrat who warns Jace about the dangers of hextech stating that he's seen where this research ends suggesting it's someplace not good complimentarily I think that's a word Silko says that real power comes to those who will do anything to achieve it even though that kid is definitely dead 10 minutes later we know this is silko's driving philosophy whether we're looking at hextech or Shimmer we see that they give the wielder power and that wielder can be a naive but ambitious kid as seen in Jace or a manipulative and driven drug lord like Silko the end result is the same the road to hell is paved with good intentions so let's just cut out the labor costs and drive straight there so does it really matter that's the question Arcane really asks its audience and it does so using its two magic systems sure hextech was made with the best of intentions but the council is a bunch of hoes and Heimerdinger is a Furby in a suit nobody on that Council is going to make a good decision so once we have hextech we have to ask what happens when we let it out of the bag or Worse what happens when people crawl into the bag and [ __ ] it up for everybody else now conversely Shimmer is presented as this evil drug that makes mice kill cats but it's also used to save V's life after getting liver punched by the girl from Mortal Kombat I mean I think it's Shimmer why the hell are all the drugs and Arcane the same color my point is is that there are pros and cons to both match systems depending completely on the individuals using them it amplifies the themes that power corrupts and also the theme that having power does not matter as much as what you choose to do with it every story is going to have a theme whether you want it to or not using your magic system to reinforce what you want that theme to be ensures your message is clear and exemplified in the story and that you don't get an entire subreddit about how your book or show about magical kittens is actually a metaphor for genocide what's nice about this is that now you have a magic system with a purpose it's not just there to look cool it's there to make a statement by amplifying a message that's already in your story and that is our third Point your magic system should add pressure and another layer to your story and this is actually pretty cool so we have a plots and B plots in stories right our main goal is to stop a terrorist from blowing up the world but then also our two heroes are trying to reconcile their floundering marriage while deactivating a nuke you know every day the a plot is something like save the world and B plot is something like be a better dad those two plots are layers of a story or better yet aspects of the same cake get ready for one of my fat boy analogies in Arcane we get a lot of B plots which are layers from the same cake we have the layers of Jace and silco silco and Vander Jinx and v v and Caitlyn Jace and Victor you get the point they are all tiny character interactions all taking place in the cake of piltover and the unders City at the same time serving to complement one another and therefore the overall flavor of the cake what the magic systems do is add icing on this [ __ ] not only do we have character tension between silco and Jace a tiny representation of the tension between piltover and the unders City but now we have another layer above that the tension and conflict between the use of hextech and the use of Shimmer for power and control it's tense chocy deliciousness that you just want to roll around in and this applies for every character pair within the story Jinx has been mind [ __ ] by Shimmer while V has been screwed over by the upper societies withholding hextech and the two sisters are in conflict with one another jaay has discovered this awesome new technology but only because Victor an unders City Civilian trained by singed believes in him it's like Flavor pairing where you have jalapenos and honey then you have chocolate and bacon and then somehow you put those together and it doesn't taste like crap I am definitely diabetic but enough about my unresponsive pancreas let's get back to Magic and point number four magic systems can create a sense of mystery which keeps the story moving forward so I'm going to come clean I never played League of Legends I was too busy failing out of college to have fun or be happy also I could one day make videos on YouTube please subscribe so watching the show this leaves me to wonder what the [ __ ] is Shimmer used for what is hextech more specifically what is a hex core so when you're watching or reading a story with a soft magic system you usually just roll with the punches and accept the extent and limitations of the system I understand hextech 1.0 makes a ship go fast and is essentially a Duracell battery for Hulk Hands and a hammer with a laser pointer I don't understand the transitive properties of its power and I don't care I'm just enjoying the ride it's like a relationship with a hot girl who isn't the sharpest light bulb in a Happy Meal if you catch my drift just enjoy it and don't ask questions now looking at mid-range magic systems we have Shimmer I understand that Shimmer is like Bane's juice from Batman nectar from hay or meth from my street corner it's a drug which according to the fan Wiki can heal wounds in small doses or turn you into the Hulk in large doses it also appears to be a fuel source so essentially it's crocodile from the mid-2010s you kind of know what to expect but there are some not so great consequences here and there finally with hard magic systems you and your audience have a set of parameters to work with these are boundaries set in stone like the laws of physics unless your hard magic system plays with physics like portal in which case they're more like the laws of society which state everyone must follow these rules unless you're the politician that wrote them anyway every problem your magic system solves is a type of riddle that must be fixed while abiding by these rules otherwise you're a cheater and you're spoiling the fun Arcane has a nice mixture of magic systems because we have some definitive uses of hextech and Shimmer some gray areas of both systems and at least two major unknowns one being the hexor what appears to be the blue-eyed brother of Sauron and the second being singed and his use of Shimmer to keep his pet salamander alive in both cases we are shown potential without explanation and if we do some math that adds up to curiosity in our Audi audience this technique is smart because it allows you to play with magic and follow the rules of that magic system while also one freeing up the writer to work without full constraints moving forward and two keeping the audience curious about the other aspects of the magic system It's the Best of Both Worlds it's like going 50 over the speed limit in a school zone and getting a medal from Miss America when you get pulled over it gives you a lot of freedom in your writing to make the story exactly what you want it to be and that's the point of this channel besides distracting you from the hollow tedium of everyday life to provide you with the tools to tell better stories and make something you're truly proud of now get out there make me proud and write the best story possible the end