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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27837
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27837
License name: CC BY-SA 3.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

In addition to Lauren's excellent points, I would refer you to this question: ["The flux capacitor--it's what makes time travel possible." When to keep world-building explanations short](https://writers.stackexchange.com/questions/26509/the-flux-capacitor-its-what-makes-time-travel-possible-when-to-keep-world-b). Whether you explain magic or not, set limits on it or not, depends on if it matters or not. In some stories it matters and in some it does not.

There is a huge amount of stuff in our lives over which we have no effective control and little predictive ability. This is actually the source of much of the anxiety in our lives and we do quite a bit to try to mitigate the unpredictability of our lives. Unexplained and unconstrained magic is essentially a metaphor for the monster of unpredictability that dominates our earthly lives. It is why fairy tales are full of imps and giants and ogres and trolls, and wicked witches. Explaining the monster would be to pull its teeth. The point of a story is never how we defeat the monster (whether we do or not), it is how we face the monster. We defeat the monster _because_ we face the monster. How is just window dressing.

In other circumstances you may need to explain magic because some plot point depends on it limitations. But I would suggest caution here. If you make this a mere puzzle then it is likely to be of limited interest. The audience for solving logical puzzles with magic rules is no doubt there, but I think it is pretty limited.

Stories are fundamentally moral in nature. That is, they are about people making choices about values. Many stories feature the use of a McGuffin, the thing everybody wants. It does not actually matter what the McGuffin is or why anybody wants it. It is just an excuse to pit people against each other and see what choices they are willing to make. Will Bogey get on the plane with Bacall or stay and fight the Nazis? Its those kinds of choices that matter in stories. Magic in a fantasy is a McGuffin, or the accoutrement of the McGuffin. Its noblest use, at least, is to shape a focus on a particular kind of human choice.

The key thing, though, if you have unexplained magical powers, is not to use them to solve moral problems, or, at least, not to solve the ones that matter. This is Deus Ex Machina, and it is the ruin of stories. Again, it is how we _face_ the monster that matters, not how we defeat him.

Original score: 4