Final Fantasy 6 Trivia Time!

[Dark Jaguar]

No, let's not. Look, you need for magic to have a full explanation. I believe you have mentioned in the past that leaving certain things unexplained is not something you like at all. You want a full expose on every single aspect of a story. I'm not the OPPOSITE, oh no, I can appreciate explanations as well. However, leaving things fuzzy does have it's advantages. I'm talking about leaving things PERMANENTLY unexplained too. Lord of the Rings, for example, leaves the nature of magic very much in the dark. I think it's better that way. It's hard to think of it as mysterious if there is no mystery. I think that it is perfectly acceptable for authors to leave thigns unexplained if they believe that either it's not important, or that it IS important that the reader really have no idea how it works, just that it does and is mysterious. All I'm saying is that authors should have that freedom and the lack of an explanation for everything does NOT make a story inherently worse. Sometimes it is better. In a comedy, for example, sometimes the joke is funniest when there is no explanation at all of what just happened, or any attempt at all to make sense of it. Like, if someone keeps showing up RIGHT where you least expect them to. Now, sometimes an explanation is funny too, but not ALL the time. I like the idea of a "you were there, but now you are here" thing having NO explanation sometimes, like in cartoons. This applies to serious stuff too, but in a different way.

All I'm saying is permanent mystery can be a good thing. I'm not saying ALL authors should do it. I'm only saying that using it CAN be a good thing and should not be looked down upon. A fully explained magic system is not ALWAYS better than not, just sometimes, depending on what the author is trying to do.

Well, let me just leave you with this. In a story where humans are set up as ones who can't comprehend certain things, any explanation of all the strange higher plane stuff could only hurt such a mood. The Q in Star Trek have a lot of pretty confusing stuff in their reality. None of what is in it makes any sense, and they make no apology for it at all. And, I think it's better that way. If I could fully understand how it all worked, then the Q really wouldn't be all that amazing to me.