Monkey King

We get the whole four element from actually history. Ancient Middle Eastern alchemist came up with it long before we had the technology to discover cells let alone anything as small as an atom.

Chinese has a simlular thought system dating back 4000 years. They have 5 elements though, air doesn't count since you can't see it and metal and wood were considered elements. Fortunatly, skinny little whiney kids with monkeys didn't make the cut (that's a Captian Planet reference for you)

As for why fantasy has claimed the four element air, earth, fire and water, I have no idea. I don't think it's anything getting riled up. We say stuff like "Brave the elements," when some one goes out in a storm but people don't get bent out of shape saying "Snow's not an element!"

As for Verago's idea, I think it's a cool take. I'd also recommend doing something to avoid have it confused with that alcamist show. Maybe you could add, Blend, where the caster combines pure water and pure fire to cast a steam based spell or something like that.

Just spitballing. If the idea's lame I'll blame it on the long night.

__________________
Cut me some slack. I just found out that only I can prevent forest fires and that's a lot of pressure.

Anarkos

I'm not so much annoyed because it's wrong, but because it's tired and been done far too many times before. When people start talking about them as if they are and must be the elements, it's a little irritating. They aren't, and there's no reason why it must be. It's a historical mistake, nothing more. People only think of them as the four elements today because they are so very cliche.

I'd rather see an 'elemental' magic system based on the five Chinese elements, or three, two, six or even one hundred elements created out of the author's fertile imagination. I can think of a few 'elemental' concepts off the top of my head, even ones as simple as two elements of matter and energy, mass and motion. Or what about stone, air, water, and life-force? Or, if we're going alchemical, has everything based on the old staples of lead and gold. Indeed, you could even allude to Plato, and work on a system where all was represented by gold, silver and bronnze...

Verago's idea sounds like an interesting way to build on a cliched premise. I'm sure, however, that he could equally build an interesting system on a new and interesting foundation, elemental or otherwise, rather than resorting to such a tired and plain wrong cliche.

__________________
My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

Verago

I'm actually thinking about implementing a chakra-type system in combination with the alchemy-like magic...

bane

Why not have someone work magic from emotions, say the wizard can only cast meaty spells when someone around him is angry enough for him to pull some power from him...

i.e, he gets attacked by an animal, perhaps he could use it's rage against it, but then you'll have to develope the reasons and stuff for this and how it happens ....

it could depend on things like temperature, the hotter it is, the more likely whatever the wizard pulls from the creature, the more hot it will be (but then that;s verging on the elemental system again...)


Or with love, courage etc, I'm sure you could find an interesting way to use magic with these, I'm not sure anyone else has, but then I don't read much fantasy with magic involved ? maybe.....

demon_

sounds like that online game, Runescape, 4 elements.

__________________
Nowhuttumsayen?
click on the spoiler for YOUR health...

Anarkos

Before I reply, I would like to apologise to Verago for hijacking his thread.

Yes, and the five Chinese elements are also broad. So are the alternative lists of pseudo-elements you and I both listed.

Oh, and a game is not a book is not anime. Remember?

It was a historical mistake. That's not "bash[ing]" it; it's describing it. It was a mistaken idea certain historical civilisations possessed. Now, it has changed into a common cliche, and a dull one at that.

You've never read Plato, have you? Plato described a fictious grounding for an elitest state, whereby all would be indoctrinated to believe that they were forged beneath the Earth, not born, and where the souls of each person was mixed with a different metal. The Guardians/Rulers who made the laws were mixed with gold; the Guardians/Auxiliaries who fought and acted as instruments of state with silver and the commoners with bronze (and/or iron).

So, under a magical system based on such a hierarchy, those with the power over bronze could control the peasants' minds, for example.

Or, in an alchemical system, gold, iron and lead could each represent one element of the world. Gold could sum up beauty; the upper classes, cats and other sleek animals. A gold magician/alchemist could, perhaps, harness the power of gold to control such creatures or to create illusions of beauty and thus deceive. Iron could symbolise the workmanlike beings, classes and so on, and magic derived from the power of iron could build things and control animals that labour in the wild or in factories and farms. Lead could, as it often has, could symbolise weakness, uselessness or poverty, and magic derived from lead could imbue the qualities of lead upon a foe, be it slowing their movements, making others see them as ugly, killing them, or simply making them very, very dense.

Moreover, the fact that many books allow magic to do anything doesn't mean that magical systems have to empower people quite so much. A magical system based solely around blesssings and curses or the transmutation of metals or the possession of others or the creation of zombies without the assistance of the humble pufferfish is just as valid a system of magic as one in which characters who are more 3D6 than 3D cast magic missiles and fireballs.

[I quite like the idea of a magical system based upon the real elements, whereby those attuned to a certain element gain the power to manipulate it. However, this is almost entirely useless because their society believes that there are only four elements. These mages could have control over a compound relative to the proportion of the element they control within the substance. Consequentially, their powers are very limited, and only those who can manipulate plentiful elements (such as carbon) have very much power at all. Oh, and when an oxygen-mage and a hydrogen-mage have sex, the room gets really damp very fast and no one knows why.]

Verago came up with a new twist. Other (published) authors did not.

And, Ilyak, no one uses a cliche because it is a cliche (unless they're attempting irony). Cliches are cliches because they are and have been used too much.

Yes, and you can do these things with entirely different and more interesting and creative magical systems, elemental or otherwise. I would rather start with a new and interesting concept rather than attempting to build upon an old and tired cliche.

I beg to differ. All too many systems are, from my brief reading of a genre which bores me, too damn similar. Indeed, in computer games, the cliche systems of magic seem to be churned out even more tediously and unoriginally.

No doubt someone can build a good story or system of magic with a cliched system of elements. However, I would argue that it would make for a far better story or system to start with a fresher elemental premise.

I would have no desire to make such a system. It would be tedious, and would render most of the story useless. The only (allegedly) fantasy books I actively enjoy (Pratchett) involve a "law of conservation of reality" which works much like our world's laws of conservation of mass and energy. This rule means that while it possible to do just about anything with magic, it (as I recall) takes about as much effort to do something using magic as it does to do it without magic. Consequentially, the wizards who could create fireballs big enough to level cities balk at the sheer effort required and instead argue about dinner.

No, Ilyak, I don't want to follow up on them. Whether I could, if I tried, follow up on them is another matter entirely. These ideas are simply to help explain my position, and to show just how many different other elemental systems could be the basis of a story.

That said, the idea of a steampunk sort of short story based around a system where it was believed that everything was the combination of the elements gold, silver, iron and/or lead is appealing to me. That's mainly because it gives me a nice opportunity to metaphorically bang Marx and Plato together and see what happens.

The first crucial point I have to make here is, of course, that I have never posted a fantasy story here, or, indeed, written one (since I was 13). The second is that I am currently pre-planning a novel which I hope to throw at publishers and agents and all those evil people, and am therefore not posting any of the concepts, characters or narrative I actually intend to use here. First publishing rights'n'all, y'know.

Now, there are certainly writers here who I have a lot of respect for. Examples include Chris Miller, The Hand and others. Now, they may or may not be "better" writers than me; I try not to compare my work to others', as it tends to lead to either an unduly inflated ego or a bout of mild depression. It's a pointless approach.

That said, I wonder how much your vitriol here is due to the fact that I have made it very clear that you are, in my view, a worthless nationalist, and racist and have been fairly open with my contempt. The theory that your own personal enimity towards me is colouring your view of my work is perhaps borne out by your glowing (albeit wrong) comments about my short-story Karl and Joe.

I may. You might wish to avoid it though, as their probably won't be any pseudo-lesbian makeout sessions, fireballs or pink dust. Sorry.

If your character is just a knight or a princess, you don't have a cliched character; you have a plot device in human form. However, yes, I would much rather read a story about a medieval pimp than knight or a fletcher than an archer.

The best way to deal with cliches is to look at them head on and see if they weaken your story. If not, leave'em in. If so, change them. Of course, the thing with cliches is that they generally do weaken the story.

Indeed. We all have our influences. However, we draw from them more or less directly and can craft more or less original tales.

Compare Iain M Banks' Culture novels, especially those focusing on Contact/Special-Circumstances to David Webers' Harrington novels to Feintuch's Seafort novels to Heinlein's Starship Troopers. All are science fiction with a military bent. Some are good. Some are not. Some are original, some are not.

Originality for the sake of originality is pointless, yes. But originality for the sake of writing a new and interesting story that your reader hasn't seen before in seven different novels by three different authors is.

And, as you may have noticed, I don't particularly like most fantasy because I find it same-ish, generic and uninteresting. That is probably because it draws too much influence from too few too cliched archetypes.

__________________
My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

Verago

No need to apologize. Actually, I don't see this as hijacking. I see it as nudging the thread in an interesting new direction.

You and Ilyak both make good points. I think I'm going to start fresh with a new elemental system, possibly based on the Fire, Water, Air, Earth one, but different.

Kokoriet

I'm not sure about this, sorry to be nitpicking
The only problem is that this is tailoring to today's standards isn't it?
This would result in building an artifical people with today's inherent knowledge.
They know about mass and motion in detail, and much of the fundamantals behid physics, when back in their time, something so mystical as fire could be "rightfully" seen as an aspect of the world in it's own right.


Would it be wrong to have a culture in which fire is worshipped, and all acts of creating it being cermoniously enacted - seen as a rite of summoning the warmth of their loving deity?

Like always I am very concerned about cliches, but at the same time, avoiding cliches for various reasons might be just as detrimental. It has me confused and more than a bit worried =P

__________________
In a meadow filled with blossomed flower,
Where satyrs play and demons glower,
A tower stands of unearthed power,
A token to her wish gone sour.

Anarkos

Whoever said magic-using people had to be medieval?

Moreover, why must the people understand why the magic works perfectly? They might have crackpot theories about why they have such powers, but actually be using a subtly more complex system...

__________________
My latest work: Bags - The Hooker - Going Rogue - Flashing Out - The Problem with Being a Grifter
I always appreciate fair criticism, and will endeavor to reciprocate.

Ruben

I've just read this whole topic (wow, Anarkos, never seen such a big post as a reply before )

I've suddenly realised how over-used (indeed) this '4 elements'-thing actually is. I always had a nice story in my head (which I won't bother you with), and I always had problems to nicely fit in the '4 elements'. How stupid actually, since I was simply forcing it in because it was so standard-ish. I even had to kick out my steel-elemental power, since it didn't make sense with the 4 elements, lol.

And Anarkos, about your last post: that very much intrigued me. A world were magic is a vague subject, maybe forbidden by law since there isn't known enough about it (well, sounds very stupid, and probably is, but I'm speaking as a I'm thinking here) And you can only use an element if you count it out correctly (like in science, where the slightest miscalcuation can mess something up big). And how more unstable a thing is, how more powerful. Lol, a magic world where the geeky scientists would rule xD

Verago

I'm gonna go sit and meditate on this, because, as of yet, I've come up with very little. Interesting posts.

Verago

True. Very true.

I'm thinking about implementing the Fire, Water, Air, Earth elements as the Middle Elements in a multi-tiered system. It'd be like:

Upper Elements:
()
()
()

Middle Elements:
Fire
Water
Earth
Air

Lower Elements:
()
()
()
()

JustJim

Really, isn't it a bit similar to the Greek Gods thing. You can use and do whatever you want to as long as it works and you make the story interesting. Besides, it's the characters and their problems and dilemmas that make a story, not the 'elements' used in it. I find much of the present day fantasy stuff unreadable, but that could be because age has jaded my taste.

Just thought of something, you could have a modern scientist suddenly being stuck with only the four elements, or you could have Greek Gods or medievals suddenly in charge of modern scientific chemistry. A thought, that's all.

Verago

Interesting.
And, really, the only reason I started this topic was just to see some opinions and get some suggestions--not because I placed more emphasis on the magic system and not the plot.

I just don't want to put my plot up on here, because, well...it's my baby. I would kill myself if anyone stole it. Don't want to risk it.

...And for my curiousity, how old are you?

JustJim

If that's for me, I wonder if I should be coy and not tell. Yes, I think I will be. But I vividly remember the start of WWII in the UK.