Discussion Main / TheMagicGoesAway

I'm not sure about this:

• As the focus of the books moved from a "straight" fantasy world to be more and more of a satire of our world, the Discworld is charted as moving from one where magic is dominant to one where a sort of Victorian Steampunk ethos is emerging. As the world develops a strictly non-magical form of mass communication (the Clacks) and coal- fired steam railways emerge for mass transportation, it is possible that if Terry Pratchett had not died, the role of Wizards and Witches would have more explicitly become one of managing the dwindling and the decline of magic on the Disc.

It's pretty speculative, and I'm not sure there's any indication in the books as written that the advent of technology on the Disc was causing a decline in magic. It's not like most people were routinely using magic for transport and communication before this, they were using horses. Even amongst magic users, witches might find the train more comfortable long-distance than a broomstick, but we've already seen that, with the Lancre Coven in Maskerade and Miss Tick in Wintersmith deciding to take the stagecoach. The broom continues to be more convenient for making your way round a steading. The most common use of magic in society seems to be the imp-powered devices, and Disc technology is a long way from replacing most of them.

Linking to a past Trope Repair Shop thread that dealt with this page: Name is same as a work., started by DragonQuestZ on Aug 6th 2011 at 3:06:03 AM

I'm going to edit the Mononoke entry for the following reasons: the only animal gods that are shown going "wild" again are the monkeys, because they're under the false belief that eating humans will allow them to defeat humans. To prove the counterpoint, one has to simply look to the wolves of Moro's pack, who sit watch over Ashitaka and San after the climax and don't event attack Yakul (despite that probably being their first "wild" instinct). Also, while San says that the Deer God is dead, Ashitaka corrects her saying that "he can't die. He is both life and death." Meaning that the Deer God is a god that incorporates death into his natural cycle. Also, and I don't know if this is taken from the English version, but in the Japanese original, San does not complain about the magic being gone forever: all she says is that even though it's regrowing, it's not the Deer God's forest anymore.

Does this trope still happen if it occurs midway through a series but the characters manage to reverse it before the end?