Where's the line between magic and superpowers?

[TheIcMan]

Overall, my quick definition would be:

1. Superpowers have a scientific basis, even if their abilities go beyond modern scientific explanation—it is assumed that they are possible. Magic, on the other hand, is an entire science in itself but remains beyond the reach of scientific methods and is often antagonistic to science.
2. Superpowers are personal. Magic often invokes external forces—sometimes intelligent, sometimes not.

>looks at Toaru Majutsu ?

 

[Danja]

Or a superbeing at least - at times she was definitely NOT a hero (though MOST of those times it was "really" her sister... played by the same actress).

She's had her moments (She saved Tony's and Roger's lives in "Guess Who's Going to be a Bride?" She saved Tony's life AGAIN in I Dream of Jeannie: Fifteen Years Later.)

Spoiler: I Still Dream of Jeannie

She saved Tony Jr.'s life in I Still Dream of Jeannie.

Interestingly enough, one of the last episodes I saw of I Dream of Jeannie had a plot recycled from an episode of The Adventures of Superman (a small town cop using a speed trap to make money, with the support of a corrupt mayor, and the hero refuses to pay, instead accepting jail time as a protest) - and the public defendant lawyer brought in to (really mess things up) was the "Second Darren" from Bewitched...

She channeled Carrie in I Still Dream of Jeannie ? :

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Jokes aside.
It's just my personal take, but here goes nothing.

Magic was built upon history, stories, culture, and the metaphyscial. It was something that couldn't be perceived in any scientific spectrum. While science was a study that was built upon logic and taking away the mystique from something, even it has its limitations. After all, it could never touch god, the soul, and a lot of things that we remain ignorant of. After all, how do you know something exists if you aren't aware of it? Thus, the popularization of fortune telling, alchemy which was basically borderline dancing on folklore, legendary stories with treasures, and all manner of folktale. Heck, religion had been a pillar of the mystical for a long time, aren't they?

Superpowers, however, functioned on strict rules and logic, most could be studied and explored with the power of science. We have a lot of examples already in our current reality. Superhumans with strange abilities that we registered as some quirk or genetic defect of sorts... like being unable to feel pain, having calloused skin you'd look like groot, being able to magnetize the body, monstrous strength in exchange of some defect, people with gigantism in a sense could be called superhuman, little geniuses with IQ higher than most smart adults, Magnus Carlsen, Manny Pacquiao, Usain Bolt, Shaq, Goggins, etc. The list goes on.

If you are looking for a fun reference, look for the To Aru series like To Aru Kagaku No Railgun and To Aru Majutsu No Index. They were personal favorites of mine and essentially tackle this question: Where's the line between magic and superpowers?

Give me a like. I believe I've written something rather awesome.

Though some of the classics really blur the lines - is Hercules/Herakles strong because of genetics or magic? Beowulf never has his powers' origins explained - is he trained or just a truly impressive human specimen? Was Cu Chulainn driven solely by a strong willpower or did he have magical gifts and/or the blood of the Tuatha de Danaan flowing through his veins?

But, in general, magic is what people once believed is true - that people could manipulate the weather through will alone, that gods truly walked the Earth, that a person could become an animal or vice versa.

Super Powers are what people believe could one day be real - Superman's powers originally literally came from "a world scientifically advanced" to the point where "nothing short of a bursting shell could penetrate his skin" and he could outrace and overpower a locomotive, leap to the top of a skyscraper from a running start, bend steel beams in his bare hands etc. E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen and his Skylarks had powers that fringe scientists believed were within human grasp in at most a few generations (as we learned to tap the "90% of our brains we did not use").

 

[Danja]

E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen and his Skylarks had powers that fringe scientists believed were within human grasp in at most a few generations (as we learned to tap the "90% of our brains we did not use").

Science has a word for people who only use 10% of their brains: COMATOSE.

The average person uses as much of their brain as Einstein did ... All of it.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Science has a word for people who only use 10% of their brains: COMATOSE.

The average person uses as much of their brain as Einstein did ... All of it.

But there was a belief, until tests made in the mid to late seventies, that we only used a fraction (10% was usually cited but I saw it listed anywhere from 8 to 25% in various sources) - and, in fact, this long-discredited theory was the foundation of the movie Lucy a few years back (which is why I put it in quotation marks).

 

[NotaNuffian]

To me, anything that is beyond normal human is superpower and magic.

Also, both can be obtain by anyone with the means to, nothing is genuinely innate

A quick CGPT had already shown what the first few posts had stated:
1. Superpower is personal while magic can be obtained externally.

Though I would had to add that Heroes spoiled superpower as everyone can just have a jab and now everyone is super.

2. Superpower has a limit while magic due to it's arcane world warping nature, normally doesn't.

Once you put in Superman and Captain Atom, the scale for Superpower is exactly the same as cosmic magic; limitless.

3. Stylistic choice. Superpower is more aligned to superhero style modern day trope while magic is more broad in high fantasy etc.

True, if you put a low rank superhero with lame superpower into a fantasy world, all you get is a slice of life fantasy at best or a power struggle dark fantasy with MC always at the low end.

 

[Alfir]

Though some of the classics really blur the lines - is Hercules/Herakles strong because of genetics or magic? Beowulf never has his powers' origins explained - is he trained or just a truly impressive human specimen? Was Cu Chulainn driven solely by a strong willpower or did he have magical gifts and/or the blood of the Tuatha de Danaan flowing through his veins?

If it's folklore, it's magic. If someone manages to dissect Hercules and demystify him, then it's probably genetics. If not, magic. Who knows, the olympians might be aliens. As for Beowulf, I think he was really strong. Same argument I have with Heacles. If science could demystify his superhuman strength, then its source was probably genetics too. Same argument goes for Cu Chulain, and most legendary and historical figures.
In the end, it depended on the narrative direction. According to MCU, the norse gods were basically aliens and there technology was so advanced it would have been mistaken as magic. Still, if there was something that couldn't be demystified, it was probably magic. Loki's powers for example and there enchanted weapons. What of Thor's superhuman strength? Probably just an innate superpower or racial trait, because his body could be demystified with science.

But, in general, magic is what people once believed is true - that people could manipulate the weather through will alone, that gods truly walked the Earth, that a person could become an animal or vice versa.

And you'd realize magic was essentially just a form of superlative superstition. That's where rituals came from.

Super Powers are what people believe could one day be real - Superman's powers originally literally came from "a world scientifically advanced" to the point where "nothing short of a bursting shell could penetrate his skin" and he could outrace and overpower a locomotive, leap to the top of a skyscraper from a running start, bend steel beams in his bare hands etc. E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensmen and his Skylarks had powers that fringe scientists believed were within human grasp in at most a few generations (as we learned to tap the "90% of our brains we did not use").

Yeah, thus Superman have powers. Essentially, in DC;s narrative, his alien biology was what caused him to possess superpowers. It could be observed, explained, and demystified. As for SHAZAM? The guy's powers couldn't be demystified, so magic it was. I liked seeing everything go into full circle.

 

[DireBadger]

There is no line. Superpowers are literally magic that has a pseudo-scientific explanation of some kind, so parents don't beat their kids for reading about satanic spells when they pick up a Superman comic.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Yeah, thus Superman have powers. Essentially, in DC;s narrative, his alien biology was what caused him to possess superpowers. It could be observed, explained, and demystified. As for SHAZAM? The guy's powers couldn't be demystified, so magic it was. I liked seeing everything go into full circle.

The original idea for Superman was that he came from the future, and was what all humans would evolve to - but some tragedy destroyed the world and he escaped into the past (the VERY first version was a bad guy who didn't have a circus strong man's costume even, but that version did not resonate and three or four months later the pillar of four-color comics was born).

 

[laccoff_mawning]

Ok. I think I've got it.

The obvious difference is semantics. If you're going for a fantasy world, it's magic. If you're going for something with modern technology, probably superpowers. I guess this is because magic is often seen as not having a place in a world of science?

However, this doesn't really feel like a good answer, so I thought about it harder.

Magic seems to be a property of the world you're building. The world has a magic system, and characters in your story all interact with that system.

Superpowers are a property of individual characters. Those individual characters can access the system of powers they own, but other characters generally can't.

It's not surprising if two mages can use the same magic spells. However, if two people have the same superpowers, that's an uncommon thing.

Of course, it's not impossible for two people to have the same superpowers. Flight is a common superpower, and authors often make an antagonist with the same powers as the MC of the story. But that only proves the point: If superpowers were not meant to be for an individual character only, why is an antagonist with the same powers as the MC special?

Ironically, this would imply you could make an argument that magic, as depicted in a lot of modern stories, is probably closer to a 'science' than superpowers.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

None really. Zaytinya and doctor strange are super heroes

 

[CharlesEBrown]

None really. Zaytinya and doctor strange are super heroes

You mean Zatana (hot chick who casts spells by talking backwards), daughter of Zatara (stage magician who could occasionally wield magic but was basically Mandrake Light - minor illusions and master of sleight of hand and escapology - guy who taught Bruce Wayne when the stories were updated and Houdini had been dead for too long to have done so)?
Magic based superheroes have been a staple since the early days: The Spectre, Captain Marvel (Shazam), the original Green Lantern (Alan Scott); even the pulps got in on it with characters like The Green Llama and The Shadow. Modern ones include Neightveil (from AmeriComics FEMForce - the company that brought the pulp hero The Green Llama to the modern world of comics), Doctor Strange, Doctor Fate, John Constantine, Etrigan The Demon (not to be confused with the non magical Ras Al Ghul, The Demon), The Gargoyle, Damon Hellstrom (The Son of Satan), some versions of The Scarlet Witch (but not ALL versions - sometimes she's "just a mutant" and sometimes she's the product of an Infinity Stone and a Hydra experiment) and a large number of villains (Felix Faust, Mephisto, Satannish, and several others)

 

[CarburetorThompson]

You mean Zatana

Probably, autocorrect takes the wheel when I’m on the phone

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Probably, autocorrect takes the wheel when I’m on the phone

For a few days I actually had mine changing "autocorrect" to "autocorrupt" before it ... well... corrected itself.

 

[beast_regards]

The setting that has both superpowers and magic usually put a distinction between the two...

It is a very vague distinction, since there are superheroes with explicitly magical powers, but distinction nevertheless.

Superpowers are usually one of the kind of product of the freak of pure chance ...

In fact, people with the superpowers aren't supposed to have powers, but they got it, by the random, and usually impossible event which is more likely to kill people than anything else. Radioactivity, spiders, chemicals, radioactive spiders, etc. were supposed to kill the protagonist, but the ... universe glitched basically ... and now, the protagonist has superpowers. They could be the powerful, but also unique. It's a glitch, you aren't supposed to have those powers. There is no actual culture, no lore, nothing. It's a glitch. The bite of the radioactive moderator will kill others, it's a freak chance it glitched on you.

...but magic is different.

Magic isn't gained through the glitch in the system. It's learned, it has its own culture, lore, its own mythology, its own method, and could, and should, be reproduced. Methods may be closely guarded, or nearly forgotten, but you didn't get them by the pure chance. Perhaps you found the Forbidden Book of Tentacles by pure chance, but that book could be given away, spells could be casted by more people, and usually, also used by you as well as against you. However, you memorized the incantations from the ancient grimoire or made the pact with the mystical beings, but whatever you did, it could be reproduced, once the one gets the hand on the ritual or the book.

 

[naosu]

It is possible for you to write a world where superpowers are compatible with magic and vice versa. Just depends on how you write it. Good luck to you!

 

[Zagaroth]

In my world building, superpowers would be a manifestation of innate magical abilities. Cultivators/super martial arts fall here as well, as do psionics and so on.

However, it may not always appear to be magic to people with a limited understanding of it. A basic "anti magic" field would only affect spell casters, but a similar suppression effect built by someone who truly understands magic would suppress all special powers. This would also be incredibly difficult to construct, both in complexity and in raw power.

Side note: divine magic is in spells casts via prayer still counts as spell magic, but true, direct divine power surpasses mortal understanding of magic.

 

[Clo]

To me, there's no distinction. Some super hero are sorcerers, wizards, witches. Technological, Magical, Natural, Mutation and Science are the five great power origins.

What makes a story a super hero story isn't the power origin. It's the story. Super Heroes needs Super Villains (usually, at least)

 

[7ydy]

i think that magic includes an assumption of flexibility which superpowers don't. merlin can learn a new spell to fly, but cyclops can't learn to do anything besides eye beams.

there are obviously exceptions, capes will get new powers sometimes, but to me the flexibility is what makes something "magical" and not just a power

 

[naosu]

So... one of you brought up psionics. This is 1 area I'm not really sure how to rectify and make it mesh. For example; in old systems like AD&D (sorrrryyy for referring to this), it had this system where psionics, psionicists all they had to do was connect with your mind 3 times or something and then it would be game over. You were theirs.

But that didn't make sense because... OK say a duel between a wizard and a psionicist... the wizard could be like level 14, and the psionicist level 5,... and see it doesn't make sense that the psionicist would win that but that was the system. And the wizard instead could nuke you and be done with it and it didn't feel like the 2 systems meshed with each other well.

So I get why you are asking about superheroes and magic. But to me superheroes and magic seem to work. its only psionics is like its hard to put a peg on what exactly it is and how it works. I guess that's why that's hard for me to understand.

Hero physics I get. OK, you can translate the hero can punch x times per combat tick, for X damage. But psionics doesn't have that...

So 2 out of 3 can mesh....?

I wonder what others think on this too? Because yes, the system in the story has to work in a way that makes the story flow.