User:Vordur Steel-Hammer/Fiction/Schools of Magic: A Scholar's View

Schools of Magic: A Scholar's View

by Vordur Steel-Hammer, Scholar of the United Explorers of Scholarly Pursuits

A treatise upon the concept of the schools of magic in the eyes of a non-mage scholar

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The topic of dividing magic into schools or other categories has always been controversial among the circles of mages, whether of the Mages Guild or other magical institutions such as the College of Winterhold or even the College of Sapiarchs in Summerset. The former has only recently adopted the categorization based on the structure proposed earlier by the academy of Shad Astula in Morrowind, refined by Magister Gabrielle Benele of Daggerfall. In her work, Magister Benele already refers to the schools as arbitrary, and many experienced Guild mages have shared or expanded upon her concern, most notably Magister Salagar Feynn of Eyevea. This has led to an increasingly popular perception, common among adepts but not that rare among senior Magisters either, that schools of magic are not something "real", and that the concept is nonsensical because "magic is magic". Thanks to my close ties to the Wayrest chapter of the Mages Guild, I had an opportunity to hear many such opinions, and I came to a conclusion that, at least among younger mages, it might stem from the lack of understanding what the schools of magic really are.

Now, before I delve further into the subject, I have to warn the reader: I am not a mage, and I do not possess any knowledge about the nature of magic or its intricacies. What I only wish to discuss here is the concept of schools, which is nothing else but a categorization, and thereby it is not related to magic itself, but to the scientific method, which falls within my sphere of interest as a scholar.

The most famous book on the subject is no doubt Magister Feynn's "Rethinking the Schools of Magic", where he argues that accepting the schools as proposed by Magister Benele is not beneficial to the Guild and echoes her concerns about the supposed arbitrary nature of the proposed categories.

I would like to begin with addressing the opinion that the schools are not "real", or are not "inherent categories of magic", as worded by Magister Feynn. One should remember that the schools are nothing else than a system of categorization, one of many that are used throughout all fields of science, not just magic. Therefore, they are not something physical or tangible by itself, but rather a construct of the mind, which of course has to be based on physical properties of the categorized subject. Categorization is the act of grouping entities in accordance to one or more physical criteria, and naming the groups accordingly, in order to easily recognize which entities share the same traits and which do not.

Now, of course, it may happen - and in the scholarly practice, it often does - that it is hard to evaluate the categorization criteria for some examined entities, which results in borders between categories becoming uncertain and not so well defined. As far as spells are concerned, Magister Feynn provides a lot of examples in his work, and even today, prominent mages such as himself still often disagree upon the categorization of certain spells.

This, however, does not mean that the categorization system is flawed, but might merely reflect the limited understanding of the entities - in this case spells. Let me bring up two important fields of study as examples: zoology and botany. In these fields, scholars scrupulously place living organisms in different taxa based on common traits. For example, domestic dogs, Colovian dire wolves, and Hammerfell jackals are all canines, whereas domestic cats and all kinds of senche-tigers, lions, panthers, and leopards, belong to a taxon called felines. But there are some animals that display some traits of more than one taxon, or display some traits just partially. Zoologists might then disagree about such an animal's placement. But more importantly, as they learn more about the animal over time, they might conclude that the taxon they once put it in is not correct anymore and they can move it to another, or they might even decide that the whole taxon does not make sense anymore and discard it. And yet, despite this, no one calls for abolishing this system because it is inaccurate and "animals are animals". Scientific models evolve along with the state of knowledge of the reality they model, and magic is no exception in this case.

As far as spells are concerned, it is immediately visible that many of them fall under a few common groups of effects (Magister Feynn noted this himself). It is, however, to be expected that some spells will be hard to place in one category, as well as that the nature of spells, their placement in schools, and the schools' defining criteria, will undergo refinement as our knowledge of magic increases. Some schools may be even dropped in the process (Magister Benele suggested this herself) or new ones may be created. Refining the model is a valid part of the scientific process.

In the end, a system of categorization should not be rejected just because it is not ideal - because none of them ever are. It should be refined over time, perhaps replaced by another system if the contemporary state of knowledge justifies it. Adepts should also be wary of thinking of the schools of magic - or any other categorization system - as something that should be tangible, which often leads them to arguing that the contrary is the grounds for their abolishing. In fact, I think a lecture or two about the scientific method would do the Mages Guild curriculum well.