Magic Is 100% Reliable

I recently got an email from a student stating that I sometimes I make magic seem unreliable in the way I discuss it. I hope that this is not the case, because magic is in fact 100% reliable.

That’s right. I said it. Magic is 100% reliable.

So why do spells fail then? Why does my hip still ache? Why did I not win the power ball last week? Why am I not being paraded around on a palanquin carried by supermodels?

Well to answer this problem of magic’s reliability, let’s take a look at the reliability of more common items. A broom maybe. Is your broom 100% reliable? Of course, it is! If I take a broom to my deck, I will sweep up dirt and leaves no problem. It works every time, doesn’t even need batteries.

Sometimes though, something sticky gets on the floor, and the broom just smears it around. Does this mean my broom is unreliable? No, it’s just not something that the broom can clean up.

If I try to push my truck out of the way with the broom, I likewise fail in my objective. The broom just isn’t made to move a 5000-pound object. Is this my broom’s fault? Nope. It is exerting force, just not enough. If I was able to put enough force into the broom to move the truck, the broom would break. The broom is 100% reliable for what it is made for.

Now let us take this into human terms. If you get in legal trouble you hire a lawyer right? The lawyer does his job and another lawyer does their job. If you lose, is it because the lawyer was unreliable? Maybe if they did something wrong, but if they presented their best case they simply lost. The force exerted was not enough to achieve the desired result.

Its the room vs the sticky mess or the truck again. Life is filled with things like this. The doctor does what they can, but treatments don’t always overcome the disease. The Olympian does their best, but they don’t always get their best score. Shit happens, ya know?

So when I say magic is 100% reliable, I mean that if you do it well, it has an effect. Like the broom, the lawyer, or the medicine.

The problem is that magic is occult, which as you know means hidden. The mechanisms that magic works through are not easily observable. So sometimes we try to push a Toyota Tundra with a push broom and get no result. Other times we are cleaning up a few crumbs with a 60V leaf blower, and we get an over-the-top miraculous result.

So, what do we do?

1. Divine to see what kind of influence your magic is likely to have.
   2. Approach from multiple angles to cover all your bases. Something that is not enchantable from one angle may be very easily swayed from another.
   3. Know your magic, so that you have an idea of what measures you will need to achieve a given result. Experience will often also give you a “feel” for what is enchantable and what is not. Hard to describe, but it’s there.
   4. Weave magical and mundane efforts together so that you don’t get stuck trying push a truck with a broom.