Really, if you haven’t read at least The Name of the Wind by now – or heard someone raving about it – I’d be… surprised. So it’s past time I covered it here, with one of its two main magical systems: sympathy (also known as ‘another excuse for Kvothe awesomeness’ to the faithful).
It’s rare I get to say this, but there aren’t really any spoilers here – though you’ll want to find out more about the system by reading Rothfuss’ words rather than mine, if you haven’t already.
ROLE
Kvothe gets another arena to show off his skills? Aside from this, sympathy is the province of Arcanists, trained at the University. To those outside its halls, it’s relatively unknown, and even nobles – as we see in book two – know it simply as ‘magic’. Within the University, however, it’s more of a science than anything arcane, and is governed by a series of principles and bindings – with the addition of one more personal quality that I’ll be discussing later.
However, it’s also pretty dangerous! Sympathy is used to bind entities together in various ways – transferring heat (boiling someone’s blood), momentum (throwing things at them), or even magnetic force (laws of attraction and restraint) between them. As such, infractions are strongly punished, including one simply for ‘reckless use’!
IDENTITY
Sympathy, as its name suggests, forges a link between two objects – transferring energy between them in various forms. At its simplest: what happens to one happens to the other (voodoo dolls…). It’s used for various things, including sympathy lamps – which convert heat into light. The better the sympathetic link, the less energy wasted in transfer, which means that in order to be effective, the objects need to have some form of connection. One having been part of the other increases the efficiency immensely, which is why leaving blood or hair around is so worrisome.
The actual binding is accomplished through the sympathists will – or Alar. This involves the capability to believe contradictory things at once, and to divide the mind into parts. Which is why sanity, unlike intellect, can be a rare quality in the University. And also why they have their own asylum.
DANGERS AND COSTS
Well, the dangers to others are apparent: really, boiling alive isn’t fun. But what about oneself? Firstly, there’s sanity: dividing one’s mind into contradictory beliefs isn’t fun, and may get you a quick trip to the Crockery, the University’s private madhouse. Secondly, there’s your source – your energy has to come from somewhere, and if you’re drawing it from yourself… Well, best watch out for potentially lethal binder’s chills if you draw too much. Finally, there’s spill – working with too much energy and being sloppy with it can cause some to leak into the sympathist. And with momentum or heat, the results aren’t pretty!
There are some serious dangers for such a seemingly academic system of magic, as opposed to the less-limited system of naming.
MYSTERY vs. RULES
You can probably guess this one! Sympathy falls firmly on the rule-based side. Though fairly unlimited in application, sympathy does follow a strict system of rules and principles which govern the efficiency of a link and what energy can be drawn and bound. With one exception – the Alar, a personal quality of will. This, however, governs how many bindings can be made at once and the strength of binding with other sympathists attempting to stop you, but cannot break the stated rules.
CONCLUSION
Altogether, sympathy is a rarity – a magic system which is immediately more useful in artifice than warfare, and this is made apparent! Kvothe’s improvisations are risky and rare as opposed to his endeavours in the workshop. It’s a handy system which allows avoidance of any deus-ex-machina resolutions, though it does suffer a little for the lack of any overwhelming aura of mystery surrounding it!
Which magic system should I cover next month? Comment below with your suggestions.
Jacob Topp-Mugglestone is an SFF reader and reviewer over at Drying Ink. Though whim provides an essential part of his choices, his favourite authors include Steven Erikson, Kate Griffin, Robin Hobb, and Brandon Sanderson, which he reads while waiting for the rain to stop. Living in the UK as he does, this rarely happens, and his current TBR pile rarely lasts very long.
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