If you had to live in a fictional magical world, but you wouldn't be magical, what world would you pick?

JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 68 points –
84

I'd aim for one of the rural areas in Discworld.

Relatively calm life, as long as you keep the local witch on your side.

I'd have spend a year or two wildin' out in Ankh-Morpork.

I'd go to uberwald

That’s just Twilight with another faction, much higher body count, and way too much Europe

Idk, maybe Xanth would be better than Discworld. Slightly less likely to die in Xanth, and most decent guys end up with a beautiful wife.

And if you ever get stuck you can always take a stroll down the Runthis Bayou and everyone you meet along the way will give you some ideas for what to do with yourself.

Lord of the Rings, but fuck Gondor... I'll be chilling in the Shire living like fucking king.

Same, but I'd probably go with Bree. I'm a bit tall for the Shire. Also, Bree seems a little more lively and they have a thing called 'pints.'

Live in the Shire, start up a pub called "Giant Beers" which serves pints, be beloved by the Shirefolk and live in pastoral luxury

Pokemon sounds pretty nice, they even have free healthcare in the american stand-in

Everything goes dark. You open your eyes. You are standing on a bridge. A warm salty breeze is in the air. Birds fly over. A fish splashes in the water. You could go anywhere, do anything, a whole new world is open to you. But you stay put for now and enjoy this peaceful bridge.

A child runs by. She avoids making eye contact and runs behind you. Then another, and another. “Kids these days”, you think, “always in a hurry.” Another child approaches, before he can slip by, you turn, and make eye contact. It’s on!

You each bring out your Pokémon and oh god, oh god, oh god, it’s god. The unfathomable, immortal deity who shaped the entire world, and it is taking orders from a child! and you have… a magikarp.

Before you can even speak, a blast of energy strikes your fish, killing it instantly. You are knocked back, stunned. The child frisks your pockets and takes your wallet. Everything goes dark. You open your eyes. You are standing on a bridge. A warm salty breeze is in the air…

Only for pets, not for humans

Ash Ketchum gets bankrupted paying for his mother's hospital bills. The End.

Does that count as a magical world? There's some sci-fi technology in it and the Pokémon seem to be able to manipulate some forces a bit mysteriously but they seem more like exaggerrated fantasy versions of real life animals. Seems like magic usually involves a bit more explicit reference to "magic" which is usually a singular force responsible for many feats very strongly linked to will of individuals.

Not something from an anime because by season 4, there's like a dozen people that can destroy a small town with one move. By season 8, they're doing planets.

But at the same time, if you train very hard you'll be able to do that too. That's how it usually goes for characters without magical abilities.

Train for years and you too can hold water inside an upside down glass.

A quick reminder that Muten Roshi lived through the entirety of Dragon Ball (bar the couple times literally everyone in the planet died, temporarily)

I appreciate the bracketed comment and double down on my original statement lol

In the Harry Potter universe non magical people live blissfully unaware of magical people and are pretty much left to our own affairs with little to no intervention or malicious actions by the magical, the magical even setup an entire ministry dedicated to maintaining that status quo. It's probably the most boring and unimaginative choice but it sounds like the one in which I could live with the greatest ease and safety.

Hard disagree. Muggles are kept shrouded in ignorance, but they're still fairly routinely terrorized by dark wizards and magical beasts. The Ministry makes an effort, but fails when the going gets tough.

Except for the early 90's in the UK. That wasn't so great.

Hey you, you're finally awake....

Do innate powers count as magic? Because if they do, living in Tamriel would suck... unless you happen to be born a god, of course.

I'd just go be a bard in a tavern. Drink, sing and play instruments.

Don't tour around Helgen

I think Ragnar the Red was kind of a pig, so really just don't be a pig.

Earthsea seems pretty chill. Especially Ged.

Roshar. With all the spren and fabrials, I could still have a decent time.

Besides continuous war and blatant racism/classism in every aspect of every society, most of them with either fully blown feudalism and slavery or a untouchable aristocracy :D

Spren are cool though...

PS nice username!

Interesting choice. As much as I love the setting, I couldn't see myself living in a place that has hurricanes on a weekly basis.

I’m an expert on one-armed Herdazian jokes. ‘Lopen,’ my mother always says, ‘you must learn these to laugh before others do. Then you steal the laughter from them, and have it all for yourself.’ She is a very wise woman.

Really? I feel like Scadrial is the better choice here. Though I haven’t finished the Lost Metal yet, so something crazy may happen at the end that makes me reconsider this lol.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magicka Obscura

I’d get to laugh at every single wizard trying to board a train without it blowing up due to magic fucking up technology before I get screwed over by one of the soulless, greedy, vapid, mouth-breathing creatures known as gnomes.

I cannot understand why there's no modern sequel in the works. A well loved classic RPG with steam punk elements and union themes seems like a no-brainer in the current environment.

And the all string soundtrack was a perfect choice.

I think the modern equivalents sort of got swallowed by Eberron - to make the setting not-shitty for tabletop Eberron removed the opposition and the setting ended up much less thematic... but it sort of stole the spotlight.

Harry Potter. I'd be a normal muggle, blissfully ignorant of all the drama going on :)

So nothing changes?

Not at all! The entire Harry Potter franchise wouldn't exist!

Exactly. That's the entire point lol

But you’d be living in England and probably get stabbed by some chav’s unregistered butter knife

The rest of the world exists in hp, not just the UK.

If you live in the magical world in Harry Potter, wouldn't that make you a squib?

And if you really wanted to, you could go to Diagon Alley and pretend to be a wizard... You wouldn't need magic to get in, you just need to walk diagonally.

Does Star Trek count as magical?

I think it's just sci fi

But there's Q, the traveller, Wesley, that old guy who wiped out an entire species with a thought... Pretty magical stuff there...

Any sufficiently advanced technology would appear as magic to the primitive. This is a theme repeated frequently in the show. 

The life forms you mentioned are simply more advanced than humanity can comprehend, they are not magical. 

The Q are pretty fucking magical, to be honest. DeLancie's Q even suggests that all of their powers come from the mind, not from technology.

Wow, I had completely forgotten about the Wesley Traveler thing.

You may be more familiar with it than me.

Well then, I'd say this is a good excuse to familiarize yourself with it and tell me for sure.

I'll leave it to your best judgement.

My best judgment is that you should go and binge watch DS9 because that show is amazing.

"A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Does that apply to any universe or just Star Trek?

Any universe. I recall reading a fun fantasy book that played with this idea under the premise of a guy who discovered he was in a simulation and hacked admin access, decided to go back into Arthurian medieval times to be a wizard with his new tech powers, and ended up there with a number of other sysadmins who had the same idea.

It wasn't the best written book, but the concept was definitely novel.

Ooo, if you aren't magical when you get there. There is an infinite number of things that will make you. But more importantly I want to live in a place that silly.

Star wars. Apparently anyone can learn to be a magic user jedi if they try hard enough. But even if that isn't an option, spaceships are also fun.

Objection! Evidence: everything pre-Didney.

What counts as "magic", exactly? E.g. the world of BLEACH has 3 wholy distinct sources of supernatural power, only one of which looks like traditional, wizards & witches magic. Is vampirism magic? What about superstrength in Norse mythology?

Excluding wods with magic in a contemporary or utopian setting, maybe some DnD world? You don't need to have magic abilities to use magic items and plenty of settings are reasonably advanced.

You don't have to exclude worlds with magic in a utopian or contemporary setting, what examples do you have?

Well Harry potter has already been mentioned as a contemporary example. Can't think of any utopian examples tbh, reckon they are hard to write good stories for. But since these sort of worlds works be obvious picks I figured I'd post the next next thing.

Wakfu's World of Twelve. I wouldn't mind being an ecaflip or pandawa or even just an ouginak but knowing me I'd just end up as something lame like a Iop or Enutrof or some other boring class.