Link to the first one here. This is mainly going to go over some of the stuff I missed, and add a couple of new things.
Alright, so first things first, I neglected to mention that magic is literally born from pure evil, or, to be more precise, Chaos. It’s actually funny how well this fits, and as @diamondkfc pointed out, it literally empowers you the more evil you are.
There were also arguments about how things would be the same way with or without magic, as stated in the second comment by @Pedro,
at that point everything would be boring, religion would take over humanity just like it did with us, pointless wars over beliefs would begin causing thousands of information stores like libraries to be destroyed, and countless lives being taken away just because someone didn’t have enough proof to believe in whatever.
but these were just illogical from the start, as the pure destructive capabilities of a person with magic far outstrips any number of normal human beings without it. Until @techlevel80 gives us more lore about the war ages, we are just going to have to assume that they weren’t nearly as bad as the wars after magic was introduced. This is supported by the fact that the world was destroyed twice, once, between the clash between two extremely powerful wizards, and secondly, the Cursebeard War, which had Durza blow up a chunk of the planet, if I recall correctly, and polluted that entire part of the ocean.
This is another point I’d like to point out actually. Magic is actually a pollutant. We’ve seen its effects in making entire ecosystems devoid of life, destroying islands with large waves and tsunamis, as well as generally mutating life and making things worse for the environment. And remember, the first of these was between 2 people.
There were also comments like the one from @Pip_Zog, such as this one:
This is a bad argument right here, guns are created and give evil people power, humans are created they destroyed the world, it really depends, some people can use it for good and some people can use it for bad and there would always be bad that is how the universe works it doesn’t matter what happened really bad always exist.
which I also found problematic, as there is a difference between a manufactured gun, which is usually regulated by the government, and magic, which anyone can be born with, and is also magnitudes greater in the potential damage it could cause. This also brings in the argument for whether or not power itself is what is evil, as it is a corrupting force, that only begets more power, but that’s philosophy and I suck at that.
and then there’s @Dragon, who had some, uh, contreversial views. To state his comment:
and we’d be better off without magic?
even if the world didn’t get fucked a few times, humans would of still done war, no?
the war ages lasted for a fucking thousand years before prometheus introduced magicyou could also say magic being in the hands of less people grants less opportunity for crime
even if only 5% of people were wizards, thats a 1/20 chance out of anyone becoming a criminal
not to mention, many wizards join the MC and guilds, which actively enforce and hunt criminalsis inequality of positions a bad thing? would you rather promote someone who can tear apart mountains as a general or a regular peasant?
just because there is inequality doesn’t mean its a bad thingeven with the presence of magic, theres still plenty of bandits and mercs, which would exist even with the absence of magic
wealth redistribution is dumb,
yeah but the whole thing about criminals… is that they break laws lmao
only POWERFUL wizards can live for centuries, meaning the amount that could actually live that long is incredibly low
assuming magic is only destructive only takes to account what we see in the game
you could use it to protect shit, transportation, etcto an extent this is already true with cerulean blood, but it isn’t that big of a deal, not like “better heir” and shit thats just horny talk
uh.
yeah.
So, I feel like maybe he was trying to argue a point there, but the execution was… subpar, to say the least. He stated that
just because there is inequality doesn’t mean its a bad thing
which is just wrong, which I hope we can all agree on, and as I explained in my rebuttal, this still meant the concentration of power within the elite minority, who more likely than not powerful in other areas as well, being rich as well as filling roles in the government, and seems to miss my point entirely, by saying that
yeah but the whole thing about criminals… is that they break laws lmao
yeah no shit sherlock. My whole point was that they shouldn’t just be given power at birth that allows them to fuck over an entire town of innocents, that of course, needs even more magic to solve the problem. Power begets power, magic begets magic. It’s even shown during gameplay. Have you ever slaughtered an innocent village at max level for fun? It’s fun as hell and shows how deeply skewed the power imbalance in the world is. Even the most heavily armored man here is still just that: a man. In WOM/AO however, this simple man, if you can even call them that at this point, are powerful enough to completely wipe out anyone who’s weaker than them, and then some MC captain has to come over to blow up half the town to kill this one guy. The whole property damage thing, while it is a meme, actually makes a lot of sense. We glorify these epic battles, but what eventually happens to the people who are forced to simply watch as bystanders, not knowing whether the next stray blast will hit them. Let’s not forget that the world blowing up after Durza and Theo’s fight was because Durza missed an attack. It doesn’t matter how many heroes there are to stop the villains if simply fighting causes almost as much damage as the person they are fighting against.
There were also people making connections to wealth inequality and gun control, which was fine, I just wanted to remind them to keep it to WOM specific metaphors, please.
And… that’s it for this post. I’d like to see what you think of my theory.