Something I'm confused about: "kinesis"

I wasn't sure what was right forum for this, so... Yeah, figured this one probably fits closest.

Trope page for Whatevermancy also has list of Whateverkinesis, but it notes that word kinesis is somehow "wrong" in pyro/hydro/whateverkinesis sense, but..

...Telekinesis means you move stuff with your mind. If you move fire then isn't that still pyrokinesis? If you move water then yes it is hydrokinesis. I guess its wrong if you create fire or water, but if you move it then isn't it right word? ._.

edited 25th Apr '14 2:16:20 AM by SpookyMask

Tele- means "at a distance" or "far away", like in telephone or television. -kinesis as you say means "move", "movement".

So if someone move fire or water they use pyrokinesis and hydrokinesis. So creating a fireball isn't pyrokinesis, making one move is. Throwing a water balloon...

-mancy actually means divination, so foreseeing/foretelling by using corpses, fire or water, is necromancy, pyromancy and hydromancy.

Pretty much everyone use these wrong and nobody cares, so you can use them whatever way you want.

edited 25th Apr '14 4:49:20 AM by m8e

If you do want a more accurate suffix, there's also "urge"/"urgy" (as in "thaumaturge" and "thaumaturgy"). It can be awkward in some cases, but can also be reasonably flexible: "necromancy" becomes "necrurgy" or "necroturgy", "pyromancy" becomes "pyrurgy" or "pyroturgy", etc.

I recall seeing another suffix suggested in either this or the Writer's Block forum previously, but alas I don't remember where... :/

My Games & Writing

I do know of those things, I did read the page after all :P I'm just confusing why kinesis word is wrong since... Well, in most cases it is mostly moving it around. I mean, okay, in case of pyrokinesis it IS often just throwing fireballs, but yeah. Without counting firebenders, every other bender type in Avatar would also work with word kinesis since they move stuff.

I'm little confused about use of urge/urgy though. I mean, it means "to work" right and not to create? Then again demiurge can be intepreted as "creator" so what exactly it is? I know thaumaturgy/urge was to make miracles/miracle maker or something...

Though, tt did give me short inspiration magic tier in -mancy < -kinsesis < -urgy way :P You'd just need excuse for why it works like that, something like spirits for example. Like, weakest magic users can only see spirits of whatever element, but that would still allow divinition, stronger can tell spirits do crap and hence kinesis and rarest being ones who can actually create crap to move.

There is one problem with that though: It would make necrokinesis very confusing concept :P

edited 26th Apr '14 5:33:32 AM by SpookyMask

Heh, my apologies—I didn't see it mentioned in the conversation, and felt that it had been overlooked, I fear. ^^;

(I may also be a little biased towards it, confessedly. ;P)

I think that the sense of "work" here is more general than your use in that sentence.

Or think of it this way: one could term an artist an "art-worker", but that doesn't mean that they can only manipulate extant works of art—they can manipulate various materials to create a work of art. Similarly, a "fire-worker" (in a non-magical sense) might know how to create fire, bank it properly, prevent its uncontrolled spread, etc, while a "fire-mover" might be expected to simply know how to move fire around safely.

Look for example at the extant word "dramaturgy".

(Sorry if the above explanation is a bit fuzzy—I'm a little out of it today, I fear. ^^; )

Perhaps a Necrokineticist might be able to "move" death, reviving the dead (at the cost of another life), or killing (if there's somewhere to put the life)?

Otherwise, perhaps the might be able to forcibly "push" spirits into or out of bodies in order to create the lower orders of undead?

(If you want a sorcerer capable of commanding the dead, perhaps something like "Necrovocation" might work. (I think that one might find a better suffix, meaning "command"—I've used "vocation", meaning "calling, summoning"—but I'm not sure of what it is, I'm afraid.))

edited 26th Apr '14 9:24:54 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

My Games & Writing

The other suffix is -genesis. So pryokinesis means moving fire, but pyrogenesis means creating it. The latter is more limited than the former, though, so generally -kinesis is used.

The general all-purpose suffix is -urgy, which means work, and thus covers pretty much anything. Moving fire? That's a kind of work. Creating it? Eating it (-phage)? All work.

I don't think that "-genesis" was the one that I was thinking of in my earlier post (I think that that suffix meant something along the lines of "spell", but my searches through Google Translate have thus far failed me); I do, however, agree with you on its use.

My Games & Writing

Doesn't genesis mean birth? .-.

And just out of curisioty, why would anyone use -phage end? I mean, hydrophage would be kind of.... Well you know

According to Dictionary.com: Genesis: "an origin, creation, or beginning."

Remember too that words needn't be used by their strictest definition; some degree of metaphorical application may be applied. In other words, even had "genesis" strictly meant "birth", a creation—even a non-biological one—can be said to be a sort of birth.

As to "-phage", I could see using it for a magician who powers their magic by absorbing elements and then using them as either fuel or raw materials: a Hydrophage might absorb/consume water and use it to liquefy objects, or to control other bodies of water, etc. Perhaps more easily, a pyrophage might absorb/consume fire and use it to gain a variety of fire-themed powers, such as fireballs, teleportations, flight (by way of creating fiery "boosters"), etc.

(For example, think of the "conduits" in inFAMOUS: Second Son (I don't know about their depiction in the other inFAMOUS games, offhand): They absorb an "element" from a source, and then seem to use it up in applying their powers.)

My Games & Writing

I think whatever term you elect to use, even if you invent one, so long as your clear in your usage, people will be able to figure out what you mean.

Take a look over at Avatar: The Last Airbender. They use the term "bending" for the manipulation of elements, and make clear that for this power to work the element in question has to be present — no "element conjuring". EXCEPT in the case of Fire-Bending where in addition to manipulating fire they can just pull fire out of the air (ostensibly it is produced by their breath but still). They've bent their own rules about this stuff pretty frequently; if you write a good enough story, hardly anyone other than forums like this one will even care, and even then mostly only in a "hey look what I noticed" kind of way.

Ah, I've just found that other suffix: "-kely".

It's apparently a coinage by the poster that mentioned it, based on the Greek "keleo": to charm, bewitch, cast a spell upon. (I haven't confirmed the term myself; a quick look at Google Translate didn't turn it up.)

An example might be "pyrokely", or "necrokely", if I'm using it correctly.

The discussion that suggested it starts here, I believe.

My Games & Writing

Wouldn't "casting spell upon fire" be less using fire spells and more of using spells on fire?

I would interpret "pyrokely" as "casting a spell with fire", not casting a spell on fire. As "necromancy" is "divination using the dead", "necrokely" might be "spellcasting using the dead".

My Games & Writing

I tend to use necromancy as a more general "talking with the dead," often with an additional "and making them do things for you" to explain all the things we traditionally see as necromancy, but which don't fit the real definition. Zombies? You're getting ghosts to possess corpses. Touch of death? Ask a ghost to rip out a target's soul. So on and so on. It bends the definition a little, but that's how language works. Better than flat-out changing the definition.