This is another trope review, not a book review. (I did the first one of these a couple years ago.) This time, I'm reviewing the trope I've termed "Magic Is Banned™". You may be able to tell from the title that it's about... magic. Being banned. (This is going to be slightly tongue-in-cheek because I still can't fully take literary-analysis-esque things seriously when I'm doing them myself.)
The quality of this trope, as well as what it means, depends a lot on three factors: who's doing the banning, how complete the ban is, and most importantly, what the magic represents within the story.
Who's doing the banning is important because it provides insight into why they banned it. If the magic is banned by a governmental organization, it's likely to either be banned for a good reason or to accentuate the government's despotism. If the banning is done by an instance of Organized Religion Is Evil™, they usually don't have a reason other than Being Evil and wanting to keep everything under their control. If the good guys are banning magic, it's usually only partial (see below) and almost always targeted at some sort of dangerous evil thing.
The completeness of the ban is another factor, with three levels: total ban, hypocritical total ban, and partial ban. A total ban is when nobody at all is allowed to use or have magic, no exceptions; this is the second-most-common type. A hypocritical total ban is when nobody else is allowed to use or have magic, but the people who banned it still do; this is the most common type, possibly because it allows the bad guys to be even worse. A partial ban is when only sections of the magic system are banned; this is the least common type, and the one most often used by the good guys.
The final point is the most important. In a meta sense, when magic is banned, it is almost always because the magic represents something. What exactly it represents depends on what point the author is trying to make; I have seen it highlight the rationality of the authorities by being something that really shouldn't be messed with. I have also seen it represent free will in a dystopian setting, and seen it not represent anything discernable.
In conclusion, a ban on magic is a trope most often used to help make the author's point or to emphasize traits of the in-universe people instituting the ban. Unlike YLASE, it's not a great-or-terrible trope for me; including it won't change my overall opinion of your book.
(Endnote: Magic Is Banned™ is totally not a registered trademark of The People Who Banned Magic, Inc. No rights reserved. Used without permission because I made this up so nobody actually owns it, and therefore I can't get their permission.)
You know, Sam, your thought processes are so unique!!! How do you come up with these ideas?
ReplyDelete-Grammy
Thank you! I got this particular idea from reading Balefire, which is the one where I couldn't figure out what magic represents, and thinking "Hey wait a minute, there's a bunch of other books where magic is also banned!" and then realizing that said trope should really be its own post.
DeleteIt's pretty much always about power and corruption and the misuse of power, yeah. It often represents religion or freedom of speech, but can represent weapons (like bans on guns) too.
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