Silly Childhood Misconceptions on Fantasy Elements?

[LudicSavant]

I agree. This is the most prevalent and major misconception. The only series I van name that even sort of do it right are the Discworld novels and the original Ghostbusters films.

Try Brandon Sanderson or Patrick Rothfuss.

As a counter-argument I'd like to bring the Psychic Maelstrom in Apocalypse World, which is chaotic, unexplained and has the same kind of unpredictability that you usually have in those various media. Well, countering my own argument it's magic that it is mostly limited mostly to divination until it narratively makes sense otherwise and Apocalypse World is built around the players and GM having both a high level of trust and equal excitement for the PCs suffering horrible fates. The point being, you can have soft magic just fine in rpgs in certain conditions.

I'm not familiar with Apocalypse World. However, nothing in your description of it suggests to me that I could not, as an in-world character, potentially make informed observations about it.