Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-6252544-20160213233306/@comment-25926288-20160214051036

Farerb wrote: Let's not degrade other fantasy works and say that they use magic as just a plot device and not part of their universe. I never saw any inconsistency with magic in Harry Potter, Game of Thrones/ASOIAF, Buffy, Lord of the Rings. The magic in the world they created has consistent rules and usage and they don't break those rules whenever they need "a bottle of magic" to make something happen for plot reasons. Worldbuilding should not be sacrificed for plot.

Here is a good example of how inconsistent they are: in 403, Gold turns Marian's hair into "magic" and says that everyone has their own unique magic (something that was said in this episode only, not mentioned in any previos episodes or the following episodes) and that magic can lead them to the person who did it. Wow, that's great and useful. I wonder why they didn't do it in 210 when Regina was framed for Archie's murder. I guess the plot in 403 needed some convoluted new rule that 210 couldn't do cause it would make things easier. Sigh. But Farerb, magic is a plot decie. That's a fact. It's how you use it. I haven't read HP, but as many reported on it said was that the biggest problem with HP was Deus ex Machina, which magic and macguffins end up being if used incorrectly.

What you diescribed Farerb is improvement. They should be complimented on actually trying (which not really because it's their job). The slight issue with it is they sort of waited too long to realize that every episode has magic in it, so we should have explained it better earlier.

I can literally ask you in regards to Once, Farerb, "What can magic not do?" and I can ask you "What powers are accomplished by hand waving versus potion?" You can try, but there's no real answer. That's why I liked Charmed. The magic was OP and borderline deus ex machina, but we knew Prue was the telekinesis girl, Piper froze and blew up things, Phoebe did her stufff and etc. However, with Once, Regina does a whole lot of things and apparently she's mediocre., yet Rumple has done a handful of magic spells.

Barbara Hershey adds hand gestures to her magic casting, while I love Rebecca, she waves her hand and immobolization, tranfiguration, poofing and sorts of things happen and there's no sense of what is happeneing. We can get excited about Regina's fireball because we know how it's done with anger and a cool hand motion, while everyone else wiggles there fingers and 1001 spells come out.