HMMM, hey, what do you think of this idea: if you rework the fic, I'll write Lancelot's letters from Indonesia for it?
lol Gaius's special science. Hmm, maybe ppl still look askance at good luck charms, and the line between "they're wary of it because they're genuinely wary of magic" and "they're wary of it because Uther overreacts to everything and they don't want to be accidentally implicated" is getting blurry.
Yes, too weak after the purges! Like maybe Uther ordered a huge autodafe of grimoires and other magical artifacts, and then mowed down the writers, intellectuals, teachers, and philosophers of magic, which greatly handicapped the magical community. Knowledge is power, and Uther just destroyed a lot of it. Their books, their tools, and thus essentially their identity.
OMG WHAT IF THIS IS WHERE GAIUS'S DUBIOUS MORALITY COMES IN. Gaius is the magician Uther hires to find counter-enchantments to undo the spells that protect the magic books, artifacts, whatever from destruction. Gaius also breaks Fidelius spells, so to speak, so Uther can find insurgents in hiding. Up to what extent Uther trusts Gaius though, I'm not so sure.
Maybe this is all why Nimueh ends up working alone. "We rely too much on books and wands and other trinkets. We entrust too much of ourselves and our power into them. The oldest magicians needed no such things. Our ceremonies have made us lazy. Our rituals have made us weak. We need to go back to the source." So essentially, Nimueh = Martin Luther. She begins to talk of an ideology of magic from within, free of intermediaries. Her disciples grow in number and they spread her gospel across the land, through drunken debates in speakeasies, through pamphlets hidden between the pages of books passed from one revolutionary to another.
And maybe this is why Nimueh is dangerous. She wants magic free of symbolism and avatars, and so what can Uther strike but the magicians themselves? His own citizens, still his subjects, subversive as they are -- but if the body is the weapon, then you must destroy the body. It would be an autodafe of people -- a massacre. Uther would be condemned internationally, and he may be bull-headed, but he is not that stupid. (Or is he?)
no subject
lol Gaius's special science. Hmm, maybe ppl still look askance at good luck charms, and the line between "they're wary of it because they're genuinely wary of magic" and "they're wary of it because Uther overreacts to everything and they don't want to be accidentally implicated" is getting blurry.
Yes, too weak after the purges! Like maybe Uther ordered a huge autodafe of grimoires and other magical artifacts, and then mowed down the writers, intellectuals, teachers, and philosophers of magic, which greatly handicapped the magical community. Knowledge is power, and Uther just destroyed a lot of it. Their books, their tools, and thus essentially their identity.
OMG WHAT IF THIS IS WHERE GAIUS'S DUBIOUS MORALITY COMES IN. Gaius is the magician Uther hires to find counter-enchantments to undo the spells that protect the magic books, artifacts, whatever from destruction. Gaius also breaks Fidelius spells, so to speak, so Uther can find insurgents in hiding. Up to what extent Uther trusts Gaius though, I'm not so sure.
Maybe this is all why Nimueh ends up working alone. "We rely too much on books and wands and other trinkets. We entrust too much of ourselves and our power into them. The oldest magicians needed no such things. Our ceremonies have made us lazy. Our rituals have made us weak. We need to go back to the source." So essentially, Nimueh = Martin Luther. She begins to talk of an ideology of magic from within, free of intermediaries. Her disciples grow in number and they spread her gospel across the land, through drunken debates in speakeasies, through pamphlets hidden between the pages of books passed from one revolutionary to another.
And maybe this is why Nimueh is dangerous. She wants magic free of symbolism and avatars, and so what can Uther strike but the magicians themselves? His own citizens, still his subjects, subversive as they are -- but if the body is the weapon, then you must destroy the body. It would be an autodafe of people -- a massacre. Uther would be condemned internationally, and he may be bull-headed, but he is not that stupid. (Or is he?)