Opinion: Stories where weapons are magicked into existence are doing it wrong

[moonfly7]

This is mostly a stupid opinion I have so feel free to ignore it.
I absolutely Hate fantasy stories where weapons and armor are simply created with magic. Specifically I'm talking about stuff like My wife is a demon queen where they just draw swords and bam they're great and perfect, Just an uncle who owns a weapon shop where he just slaps metal to shape with magic and says done, and any other story where they don't actually put a blade in the fire.
There's a lot of complexities to smithing I'm not going to get into. But I doubt that swords drawn on metal and made 3D are tempered, but it's magic so who knows. But beyond that, hand forging a blade is important, it's hard to explain, but a hand forged piece of armor or a weapon feel like they have, for lack of a better term, souls.
They have personality and feel almost alive in your hand. Even ones made by amateurs that are wobbly and bent feel that way, at least to me, and I know plenty of other smiths feel the same.
You would think that in a world with magic they would hit on that and show that while a magicked up sword gets the job done, properly forged blades should be explained as better and alive.
But they never are and they act like the magicked up crap is fine. Which it isn't. And it pisses me off for no good reason.

[Razade]

How do you know that weapons made with magic don't have the same feel as those not made with magic? What's your area of expertise on magical smithing to argue that a show is somehow missing out on what is otherwise a completely subjective feeling you have? What's your experience with worlds with magic to make any estimation on what they might hit on? Maybe they have hit on it and the magic makes it so not even physical forging has this utterly subjective feeling you have? Maybe that's part of the magic? Do you know that it's not? Are you more of an expert in magic than the people using it to make weapons?

How do you know that the magicked "crap" as you call it is in fact "crap". Have you tested it out yourself? Where are you getting this information from that tells you it's crap if not from your own trials with it? You speak rather definitively on this subject so I'd really rather like to know where you tried them out and exactly what magic was used. Mostly so I can go and learn how to do it because knowing magic would be awesome and knowing magic in specifics that let me conjure physical matter just from a drawing would make me the richest man on the planet.

I'll buy you a forge so you can make all the living, soulful weapons you want if you do.

[moonfly7]

How do you know that weapons made with magic don't have the same feel as those not made with magic? What's your area of expertise on magical smithing to argue that a show is somehow missing out on what is otherwise a completely subjective feeling you have? What's your experience with worlds with magic to make any estimation on what they might hit on? Maybe they have hit on it and the magic makes it so not even physical forging has this utterly subjective feeling you have? Maybe that's part of the magic? Do you know that it's not? Are you more of an expert in magic than the people using it to make weapons?

How do you know that the magicked "crap" as you call it is in fact "crap". Have you tested it out yourself? Where are you getting this information from that tells you it's crap if not from your own trials with it? You speak rather definitively on this subject so I'd really rather like to know where you tried them out and exactly what magic was used. Mostly so I can go and learn how to do it because knowing magic would be awesome and knowing magic in specifics that let me conjure physical matter just from a drawing would make me the richest man on the planet.

I'll buy you a forge so you can make all the living, soulful weapons you want if you do.
I'm glad you asked. Your right. Magic is non existent so there's no way to prove anything about it. I'd like to point out I dint think there's a right or wrong here before I continue, this is just how I feel about it when I see it and I don't expect anyone to agree with me, it's just something that bothers me.

Disclaimer aside, weapons and armor crafted by magic in these stories are created near instantly, near flawlessly, and generally with minimal effort or personal involvement on the part of the crafter. They're very very much like mass produced knives, swords(yes they sell mass produced swords, yes it's a little strange, but props are fun so *shrug*) and the like. And these things always feel to me, once again because I lack a better term, dead.
In any art you put a piece of yourself in what you make. Chefs impart feelings with food, painters bare their souls on canvas, and weapon smiths leave a bit of themselves behind on every piece as well. Mass produced things don't have that.

Now the drawn items are actually drawn, so, art, creativity, should be the same as normal forging yeah? But if I draw a beautiful awesome, completely original weapon for a story or book, or what have you, and then it's made using machines and mass producing methods, it's going to feel "lifeless" whereas the same sword concept, smithed put by hand, even by someone else, will have that special quality. So based on that, I don't think that a drawn or magicked up sword would feel the same.

If I might make an example: if someone used magic to make a perfect physical copy of a person, that looks 100% like them and has all of these memories but none of the emotions that come with those memories, then they wouldn't feel the same. The created being would look the same, have all the same memories, but it would lack something intrinsic and impossible to explain.

Now I get that humans are way more complex than objects, but we share similarities with swords. We are who we are because of every mistake we make, every hardship we overcome, or don't overcome. The process of becoming who we are is just as important as being who we are. The same is true for weapons and armor. The process of making something in the forge isn't easy. It's taxing and difficult, and honestly it really can be described as a journey. The piece you make always varies from what you set out to make, most of the time just slightly, but sometimes drastically. But the differences often times make the finished product better. I can't tell you how many times I've made anything, be it a knife or a drawing of a tree, where a mistake or deviation I made ends up making the finished product better than what I wanted.
My issue with the magicked up swords and other weapons thing isn't the inherent use of magic, but that it's almost always impersonal and lacking the chance for errors or mistakes. That's what makes a piece "alive" with any art.

[The Glyphstone]

What stories are you talking about, specifically? I can't think of a single story I've read where magic swords are made instantly and effortlessly.

[moonfly7]

What stories are you talking about, specifically? I can't think of a single story I've read where magic swords are made instantly and effortlessly.
I did give 2 examples. Admittedly the "Uncle who runs a weapon shop" addresses the issues with just instantly creating swords, as they don't have what the MC calls a "Framework" and he's instructed by an actual blacksmith that tempering the blade is what gives his weapons a soul. So arguably it's more an example of how I like it done, but it's mostly a side thing. Also the swords themselves don't have to be magical.
Hold on, there was this TV show I watched when I was like 8 that was a perfect example of what rubs me the wrong way and for the life of me I can't remember what it was called.

[Razade]

I'm glad you asked. Your right. Magic is non existent so there's no way to prove anything about it. I'd like to point out I dint think there's a right or wrong here before I continue, this is just how I feel about it when I see it and I don't expect anyone to agree with me, it's just something that bothers me.

How could you make any conclusion when you have no examples in the real world or even theoretical examples to test? It's weird to be so annoyed at something that not only isn't real but isn't even proposed by the medium for you to infer anything from.


Chefs impart feelings with food

As a chef, both for work and for hobby, no I don't. This is just really poetic claptrap that doesn't really mean much. I make food and I hope people like it. I don't "put my anger into my food" or "my love." It's cool that you think in these terms but it's really unbecoming to try and pass it off as if it just something we both agree on and understand as pure fact. A chef doesn't impart feelings into food. A smith doesn't actually leave a piece of them in their work in any broader sense than they made it with their hands. A painter doesn't "bare their soul" in their art any more than Dale the Auto Mechanic bares his soul in your tire realignment. It's weirdly fetishistic and fundamentally condescending to say that there are jobs and there is art and the toil the former endues is somehow less because it's "mass produced".


Now the drawn items are actually drawn, so, art, creativity, should be the same as normal forging yeah?

I don't know that. I don't think you know that either.


But if I draw a beautiful awesome, completely original weapon for a story or book, or what have you, and then it's made using machines and mass producing methods, it's going to feel "lifeless" whereas the same sword concept, smithed put by hand, even by someone else, will have that special quality. So based on that, I don't think that a drawn or magicked up sword would feel the same.

See above. I think this is really just a perception you have and not something you can even begin to think a wider audience will agree with you on. We as people impart such specialness to objects. My have a chef's knife that is absolutely mass produced but because I've used it for so long it's special to me. I'm used to the weight in my hand and the feel of the grip and everything. It's not because some ancient smith in the bowels of the Earth forged it from pure meteoric iron and spent twenty hours making the edge perfect. It's because it's my knife and I've used it and I am human and I get emotionally attached to things that are both familiar and comforting to me.

If someone however does want to, at no cost to me, forge a chef's knife in the bowels of the Earth from pure meteoric iron I will take it.


If I might make an example: if someone used magic to make a perfect physical copy of a person, that looks 100% like them and has all of these memories but none of the emotions that come with those memories, then they wouldn't feel the same. The created being would look the same, have all the same memories, but it would lack something intrinsic and impossible to explain.

How do you know that? Do you have an example for that? I've never met a doppelganger of a person. Where are you getting that assertion?

[endoperez]

You're talking about Japanesr light novels, web novels, etc. They, together with Korean web novels (mostly about VR, MMO etc games) and Chinese cultivation novels are mostly trash.

(That said, I've been reading them for close to a decade now. They're trash, bit also very enjoyable.)

I've been trying to find a good crafting themed novel among one of these, but haven't found anything. I've read many stories and I enjoyed most of them, at least for a while, but the crafting systems are not usually very well thought out.

That doesn't matter though. They're rarely the focus of the novel.


Here are some examples from non-Japanese web novels:

Release that witch
An engineer finds himself in fantasyland. He saves a fire-manipulating witch. Industrial revolution follows. Turns out heat control, immunity to fire, and ability to manipulate fire into very precise three-dimensional shapes lets you skip all kinds of steps related to making high-quality steel, guns, rifles, cannon, steam engines etc.
The theme is 'engineering and science yay!', so magic augments crafting instead of replacing it.


Legendary Moonlight Sculptor

A poor dude without any money spends a lot of money to start playing a VR game so that he can make money. He accidentally gets a secret class. A super duper secret... crafting class. In a game he plays for combat. Of course the class is the most OP thing ever, and our dude is also the most OP thing ever, up to being able to sculpt ice in the real world on first try without practice.

While the novel is trash, some of the sculpting related chapters were very good. He can engrave and decorate existing objects for small buffs. Actual sculptures are magic items with long-term buffs either to the area, or the people who see them. The bigger the sculpture, the higher the potential buff can be. He dreams *big*.

The actual sculpting is all magic - use a magic knife on a raw material, add skill, luck, and the right mood, and you get a finished object. The process is unimportant to the story, though... and in a few occasions, this trash novel managed to be actually beautiful.



Cultivation novels

Cultivation novels are a genre of Chinese fantasy. The simple version is that it's like a mobile mmorpg, and pills and cultivation resources are the pay to win stuff.

The long version is that meditation gives you exp, exp gives you level-ups, level-ups let you fight, fighting wins you stuff. Basic meditation techniques are too slow to level up fast enough, so various cultivation resources are very important. They give you permanent buffs, faster exp gain, special powers, and some rare pills even straight up give you exp or level ups. And all kinds of healing potions and antidotes exist too, of course.

There are all kinds of items - plain magic items like swords, spears and axes, armors and shields, strange weapon-like objects like fans, alm bowls, prayer beads, hidden flying needles, mirrors, and more. There are support items like bags of holding, special items focusing on illusions, ghosts, blood sacrifice, vanquishing evil, controlling fire and so on. There are single-use items similar to D&D spell scrolls, there are consumable objects that release various elemental attacks or teleport the wearer away from life-threatening danger, and so on.

In many cultivation novels, the hero cheats by being way too good at creating some of these, basically magicing them out of thin air.
This doesn't matter, because they're about having adventures and kicking ass. Most novels don't care how a group of mountains were made into a magic item, the only thing that matters is that this mointain chain is now an epic bow used to fight world destroying entities. And this is fine.

Some novels focus a bit more on it. Items are still magiced out of thin air, but making them takes resources, and an item's particular properties are important.

Regular Mortal's Journey to Immortality
In this novel, the main character has tons of cool items he made or found and later upgraded. A set of lighting infused flying swords that become more powerful when used together, a fan forged in the middle of a volcano able to send out immense bursts of fire, and an unexpectedly large supply of low-level 'spell scrolls'.

These are all created with magic with no real world basis, but it works, because the focus is on the long, long journey that it takes to go from a mortal to a flying epic-level immortal, (and the items you gather, bond with and upgrade along the way).

Upgrade Specialist in Another World

A dude finds himself in Chinese fantasyland, and has the unique power to pump magic into an item. A sword becomes a sword +1, in a world where a sword +1 is an unfamiliar concept. Magic items already exist, though - use fire-attribute materials to make a sword, and it burns. Use high quality materials, and the sword deals more damage. Our dude can take a flaming spear and make it into a flaming spear +1... or, as the story goes on, +10.
Upgrading items is his unique thing, but he's clever enough to keep it a secret. Instead, he decides to apprentice himself to a school of magic item crafters, to get a better understanding of what's going on. Most of the story is about punching people in the face with upgraded items, but some sections are dedicated to the crafting and the upgrading.

Oh, another interesting one is Lord of the Mysteries. Power is power. A magic item is a magical creature killed, its power manifested as an item bearing its ill will (it was killed, after all). Some items have drawbacks that can be managed, like only killing their wielder under specific circumstances, or forcing the owner to act in a manner that's merely annoying instead of dangerous. That's the good stuff. The bad stuff is sealed away.

[BeerMug Paladin]

To more generalize the idea, it seems to me that one might say....

"Handwaving things in my specific field of expertise in a story is unappealing."

If that's the case, then I agree. Stories are much better when one doesn't notice the glaring flaws.

[Anonymouswizard]

God, now I'm trying to remember how much detail Fate/Stay Night goes into in the VN. Because that's the story I associate magically created weapons with.

So FSN has two characters able to make magical weapons using magecraft. The key part of this, Projection, is available to pretty much every mage, but the objects are fragile and don't last long, and so it's generally just used to make ritual implements on short notice.

Except for Archer and Shiro, who have the ability to analyse and reproduce magical weapons that they see and use this to fight (being denied most other forms of magecraft). There is a somewhat spoilerific explanation about about they do this, which I'll leave out, but the weapons still aren't identical, being generally worse than the originals in every way, and Shiro generally can't make his swords stick around after damage because he expects them not to break. Archer's stick around longer, because he understands how it works so much better and doesn't expect his weapons to be indestructable.

There are exceptions to the 'generally worse in every way' rule (at least once a weapon is created representing the potential of it's template), a lot of niggles and asterisks around the prana cost of doing this (Shiro is established to get around six projections before running out), and being able to make anything other than just a mundane item somewhat worse than a normally crafted is incredibly rare (it requires something very specific generated by a very focused mindset). To literally anybody else using a length of steel pipe is just better than using a projected sword.

As a side note, one character in the work looks down on the two who can do this, because they're using copies whereas he has the originals of thousands of magical weapons. Although the story is more concerned with 'original versus replica' than the actual process of crafting, it does put forward an argument of 'there's nothing saying a replica can't surpass the original'.

[moonfly7]

You're talking about Japanesr light novels, web novels, etc. They, together with Korean web novels (mostly about VR, MMO etc games) and Chinese cultivation novels are mostly trash.

(That said, I've been reading them for close to a decade now. They're trash, bit also very enjoyable.)

I've been trying to find a good crafting themed novel among one of these, but haven't found anything. I've read many stories and I enjoyed most of them, at least for a while, but the crafting systems are not usually very well thought out.

That doesn't matter though. They're rarely the focus of the novel.


Here are some examples from non-Japanese web novels:

Release that witch
An engineer finds himself in fantasyland. He saves a fire-manipulating witch. Industrial revolution follows. Turns out heat control, immunity to fire, and ability to manipulate fire into very precise three-dimensional shapes lets you skip all kinds of steps related to making high-quality steel, guns, rifles, cannon, steam engines etc.
The theme is 'engineering and science yay!', so magic augments crafting instead of replacing it.


Legendary Moonlight Sculptor

A poor dude without any money spends a lot of money to start playing a VR game so that he can make money. He accidentally gets a secret class. A super duper secret... crafting class. In a game he plays for combat. Of course the class is the most OP thing ever, and our dude is also the most OP thing ever, up to being able to sculpt ice in the real world on first try without practice.

While the novel is trash, some of the sculpting related chapters were very good. He can engrave and decorate existing objects for small buffs. Actual sculptures are magic items with long-term buffs either to the area, or the people who see them. The bigger the sculpture, the higher the potential buff can be. He dreams *big*.

The actual sculpting is all magic - use a magic knife on a raw material, add skill, luck, and the right mood, and you get a finished object. The process is unimportant to the story, though... and in a few occasions, this trash novel managed to be actually beautiful.



Cultivation novels

Cultivation novels are a genre of Chinese fantasy. The simple version is that it's like a mobile mmorpg, and pills and cultivation resources are the pay to win stuff.

The long version is that meditation gives you exp, exp gives you level-ups, level-ups let you fight, fighting wins you stuff. Basic meditation techniques are too slow to level up fast enough, so various cultivation resources are very important. They give you permanent buffs, faster exp gain, special powers, and some rare pills even straight up give you exp or level ups. And all kinds of healing potions and antidotes exist too, of course.

There are all kinds of items - plain magic items like swords, spears and axes, armors and shields, strange weapon-like objects like fans, alm bowls, prayer beads, hidden flying needles, mirrors, and more. There are support items like bags of holding, special items focusing on illusions, ghosts, blood sacrifice, vanquishing evil, controlling fire and so on. There are single-use items similar to D&D spell scrolls, there are consumable objects that release various elemental attacks or teleport the wearer away from life-threatening danger, and so on.

In many cultivation novels, the hero cheats by being way too good at creating some of these, basically magicing them out of thin air.
This doesn't matter, because they're about having adventures and kicking ass. Most novels don't care how a group of mountains were made into a magic item, the only thing that matters is that this mointain chain is now an epic bow used to fight world destroying entities. And this is fine.

Some novels focus a bit more on it. Items are still magiced out of thin air, but making them takes resources, and an item's particular properties are important.

Regular Mortal's Journey to Immortality
In this novel, the main character has tons of cool items he made or found and later upgraded. A set of lighting infused flying swords that become more powerful when used together, a fan forged in the middle of a volcano able to send out immense bursts of fire, and an unexpectedly large supply of low-level 'spell scrolls'.

These are all created with magic with no real world basis, but it works, because the focus is on the long, long journey that it takes to go from a mortal to a flying epic-level immortal, (and the items you gather, bond with and upgrade along the way).

Upgrade Specialist in Another World

A dude finds himself in Chinese fantasyland, and has the unique power to pump magic into an item. A sword becomes a sword +1, in a world where a sword +1 is an unfamiliar concept. Magic items already exist, though - use fire-attribute materials to make a sword, and it burns. Use high quality materials, and the sword deals more damage. Our dude can take a flaming spear and make it into a flaming spear +1... or, as the story goes on, +10.
Upgrading items is his unique thing, but he's clever enough to keep it a secret. Instead, he decides to apprentice himself to a school of magic item crafters, to get a better understanding of what's going on. Most of the story is about punching people in the face with upgraded items, but some sections are dedicated to the crafting and the upgrading.

Oh, another interesting one is Lord of the Mysteries. Power is power. A magic item is a magical creature killed, its power manifested as an item bearing its ill will (it was killed, after all). Some items have drawbacks that can be managed, like only killing their wielder under specific circumstances, or forcing the owner to act in a manner that's merely annoying instead of dangerous. That's the good stuff. The bad stuff is sealed away.

Some of these sound great. Also gotta agree about most of the light novels and stuff, but they're fun and I somehow can't stop. Read a good one recently about a crafter, it's an isekai, and it doesn't focus a lot on the crafting(although he actually has to use materials, worry about chemical reactions, and the like), but it's really seeious without a lot of the cringe I'm used too. I'll try to remember the name.

[thethird]

You're talking about Japanesr light novels, web novels, etc. They, together with Korean web novels (mostly about VR, MMO etc games) and Chinese cultivation novels are mostly trash.

(That said, I've been reading them for close to a decade now. They're trash, bit also very enjoyable.)

I personally enjoy overgeared, for what is worth and has a pretty strong crafting Focus. And given OP's description it might not trigger the red flags.

[moonfly7]

God, now I'm trying to remember how much detail Fate/Stay Night goes into in the VN. Because that's the story I associate magically created weapons with.

So FSN has two characters able to make magical weapons using magecraft. The key part of this, Projection, is available to pretty much every mage, but the objects are fragile and don't last long, and so it's generally just used to make ritual implements on short notice.

Except for Archer and Shiro, who have the ability to analyse and reproduce magical weapons that they see and use this to fight (being denied most other forms of magecraft). There is a somewhat spoilerific explanation about about they do this, which I'll leave out, but the weapons still aren't identical, being generally worse than the originals in every way, and Shiro generally can't make his swords stick around after damage because he expects them not to break. Archer's stick around longer, because he understands how it works so much better and doesn't expect his weapons to be indestructable.

There are exceptions to the 'generally worse in every way' rule (at least once a weapon is created representing the potential of it's template), a lot of niggles and asterisks around the prana cost of doing this (Shiro is established to get around six projections before running out), and being able to make anything other than just a mundane item somewhat worse than a normally crafted is incredibly rare (it requires something very specific generated by a very focused mindset). To literally anybody else using a length of steel pipe is just better than using a projected sword.

As a side note, one character in the work looks down on the two who can do this, because they're using copies whereas he has the originals of thousands of magical weapons. Although the story is more concerned with 'original versus replica' than the actual process of crafting, it does put forward an argument of 'there's nothing saying a replica can't surpass the original'.
This sounds pretty awesome actually. If they can't use the normal options, and they figure out how to use a generally weaker new way, I'm all for it, I love an underdog and creative use of abilities termed "weak" always make me smile.

To more generalize the idea, it seems to me that one might say....

"Handwaving things in my specific field of expertise in a story is unappealing."

If that's the case, then I agree. Stories are much better when one doesn't notice the glaring flaws.
Yes, that pretty accurately sums up how I feel. It also has to do with how magic is generally portrayed as a sort of "epic mega super awesome switch army knife that does everything" but we generally don't get to see the characters actually struggling to learn it, or doing anything but "bam, I outdid everything you did with magic because I felt like it". It isn't always like that(harry potter, although a regular book, is a good example, but it had its moments.)

I personally enjoy overgeared, for what is worth and has a pretty strong crafting Focus. And given OP's description it might not trigger the red flags.

I'm going to check that sucker out now. Thanks for the suggestion. I love crafting stories period, and I generally overlook the stuff I don't like in favor of a good story, but it's nice when I don't have too.

[Anonymouswizard]

This sounds pretty awesome actually. If they can't use the normal options, and they figure out how to use a generally weaker new way, I'm all for it, I love an underdog and creative use of abilities termed "weak" always make me smile.

I'll make this explicit: Shiro and espexially Archer aren't 'weak'. What they are is weird and unusual, they exploit one rule of the magic system to break another.

[moonfly7]

I'll make this explicit: Shiro and espexially Archer aren't 'weak'. What they are is weird and unusual, they exploit one rule of the magic system to break another.

That's actually even better, sounds vaguely like how I play casters in dnd (Exploiting one rule to break another)

[Radar]

Yes, that pretty accurately sums up how I feel. It also has to do with how magic is generally portrayed as a sort of "epic mega super awesome switch army knife that does everything" but we generally don't get to see the characters actually struggling to learn it, or doing anything but "bam, I outdid everything you did with magic because I felt like it". It isn't always like that(harry potter, although a regular book, is a good example, but it had its moments.)
Then I recommend Trudi Canavan - specifically the Black Mage trilogy, the prequel and all the sequels. The magic system is well established and drawn to its logical conclusion. At the same time it is very simple and the reader is never drowning in unneeded details.

[Prime32]

I'll make this explicit: Shiro and espexially Archer aren't 'weak'. What they are is weird and unusual, they exploit one rule of the magic system to break another.Well, they are, sort of. Shirou's mana reserves are explicitly terrible, and Archer is the skill-over-strength type. Shirou would ever call himself strong, at least. And basically the only reason Nasu writes rules in the first place is so that someone can break them.

[Anonymouswizard]

Well, they are, sort of. Shirou's mana reserves are explicitly terrible, and Archer is the skill-over-strength type. Shirou would ever call himself strong, at least.

Eh, Archer is clearly weak for a Servant, Shirou is weak for a Magus but in this situation this isn't a massive deal as he's on the same relative level as everybody else who isn't a Servant.

Shiro also has a lot of self image problems, I wouldn't really trust his view on how strong he is.