History Main / MagiBabble

* The Bob Howard / [[TheLaundrySeries Laundry]] stories by Creator/CharlesStross are *made* of this trope. The magic in this setting is based on mathematics and computer science -- Alan Turing invented the local {{Magitek}} -- and it reads like a cross between MIT's 6.001 and Abdul Alhazred.

* ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' official {{manga}} ''Silent Sinner in Blue'' has a number of the cast using ''Shinto-Babble'' to power a three-stage rocket that will take them to the moon. The explanation of the three-stage rocket and its power source and very much in-character for the series: ''real'' logic can go take a hike. While a cursory glance at other source material does imply there are certain rules to using magic in the ''Touhou'' universe, ClapYourHandsIfYouBelieve and [[FauxSymbolism What Do You Mean It's Not Symbolic]] seem to be the only things that really matter in the long run.

* ''TabletopGame/TheDarkEye loves to do this, often quite consciously.

** Eric, the demonology hacker in [[Discworld/{{Eric}} the book of the same name]], uses Magi Babble that sounds suspiciously like computer babble. "You see, if you rewrite the source codex and, this is the difficult bit, reroute it through a high-level..."

** ''Literature/{{Discworld}}''
* Ponder Stibbons, a {{Magitek}} {{Geek}}, uses a combination of MagiBabble and TechnoBabble to describe the devices created in the High Energy Magic Building (or more often, to hide the fact he's got no idea how they work, even though he built them). Wizards, and indeed some others, also use the catch all explanation of 'It's probably Quantum' or something being weird "'cos of Quantum" to explain anything significantly baffling. It appears to fulfil the same function as saying 'It's magic' in RealLife, though it is usually incorporated with other MagiBabble.

* Ponder Stibbons, a {{Magitek}} {{Geek}} in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novels, uses a combination of MagiBabble and TechnoBabble to describe the devices created in the High Energy Magic Building (or more often, to hide the fact he's got no idea how they work, even though he built them). Wizards, and indeed some others, also use the catch all explanation of 'It's probably Quantum' or something being weird "'cos of Quantum" to explain anything significantly baffling. It appears to fulfil the same function as saying 'It's magic' in RealLife, though it is usually incorporated with other MagiBabble.

* Comes up often when Jeff Grubb gets his hands on franchise fiction. Notable works include the Warcraft novel ''[[Literature/WarcraftTheLastGuardian The Last Guardian]]'', and his ''MagicTheGathering'' novels set during the Brothers' War (the Antiquities and Urza's Saga sets) and the Ice Age. Seeing as how Grubb often produces some of the better novels in these franchises, his tendency towards magi babble is either forgivable or awesome, especially since the rules he sets down tend to make magic more consistent in later works by others.

* ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'' often has Touma frustrated when Index or another magical character starts explaining things this way.

* ''{{Castlevania}}'' avoided this for most of its history, with the nuts and bolts of Dracula's constant [[BackFromTheDead resurrections]] and his [[ChaosArchitecture haunted castle]] elided or [[HandWave hand-waved]], but then along comes ''Aria of Sorrow'', and Genya [[spoiler: (aka once-proud series hero Alucard)]] is largely there just to grease the plot with this stuff.

* Ponder Stibbons, a {{Magitek}} {{Geek}} in the ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' novels, uses a combination of MagiBabble and TechnoBabble to describe the devices created in the High Energy Magic Building (or more often, to hide the fact he's got no idea how they work, even though he built them). Wizards, and indeed some others, also use the catch all explanation of 'It's probably Quantum' or something being weird "'cos of Quantum" to explain anything significantly baffling. It appears to fulfill the same function as saying 'It's magic' in RealLife, though it is usually incorporated with other MagiBabble.
* This is literally Bob's entire purpose in ''TheDresdenFiles''. He knows the rules better than any mere mortal like Harry could ever know them.

* This comes up quite often in the ''SwordOfTruth'' series. In the earlier books, the in-world magic system seems fairly standard for a fantasy series; i.e., one uses their "gift" to achieve the desired results. After perhaps the third or fourth book, the author [[DoingInTheWizard does in the wizard]] with an ever-increasing amount of magispeech to explain an ever more convoluted system.

* Taken to the logical extreme in ''TheDeathGateCycle'' by MargaretWeis and Tracy Hickman: the magi babble is literally indistinguishable from TechnoBabble and ''almost makes sense''.

* The Bob Howard / [[TheLaundrySeries Laundry]] stories by CharlesStross are *made* of this trope. The magic in this setting is based on mathematics and computer science -- Alan Turing invented the local {{Magitek}} -- and it reads like a cross between MIT's 6.001 and Abdul Alhazred.

* Earlier, in a scene in ''Blood of the Fold'', a character's MagiBabble is interrupted and it is explained (via more MagiBabble) that the character he's talking to already knew everything he was telling her.

* The ''HarryPotter'' books have a fair bit, especially ''DeathlyHallows''. In it, we learn that "food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp's Law of Elemental Transfiguration". When Ron repeats this tidbit later on, others are amazed by his SesquipedalianLoquaciousness.

* ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' frequently has MagiBabble, on the premise that "alchemy is a precise science, really!" The basic rules being that they can't create matter from nothing, but the energy source is unknown to most people. This is where the Philosopher's Stone comes in. It's essentially a free gift of ludicrous amounts of energy, which would be necessary to create matter from "scratch." Free, that is, in that [[spoiler:someone had already paid the terrible price in advance]]. It required [[spoiler:Father with Truth inside]] to even master ''nuclear fusion'', not to mention matter creation.

-->'''Ancotar''': You're about to quote Vanto's Third Law... don't worry! I have not actually found a way to violate the Conservation of Perception!