History Main / MagicalUnderpinningsOfReality

In {{fantasy}} settings, magic and mythical creatures aren't supernatural, but a part of the world. It's normal to see wizards, the AnthropomorphicPersonification of love, and even weirder fare sit down every third Tuesday for tea and biscuits (baked by [[OurElvesAreDifferent tree elves]], of course). Many things that are explained by physics in RealLife may even have completely different explanations in this world, such as TheGrimReaper going about ending lives ([[DontFearTheReaper not necessarily killing, mind you]]), that fires are actually small (or enormous) imp-like beings, or that there are {{Nature Spirit}}s that guide nature.

In {{fantasy}} settings, magic and mythical creatures aren't supernatural, but a part of the world. It's normal to see wizards, the AnthropomorphicPersonification of love, and even weirder fare sit down every third Tuesday for tea and biscuits (baked by [[OurElvesAreDifferent tree elves]], of course). Many things that are explained by physics in RealLife may even have completely different explanations in this world, such as TheGrimReaper going about ending lives ([[DontFearTheReaper not necessarily killing, mind you)]], that fires are actually small (or enormous) imp-like beings, or that there are {{Nature Spirit}}s that guide nature.

-->-- '''Maui''', ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}''

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'', the demigod Maui is responsible for essentially every natural phenomenon that occurs. He pulled up the sky, made days longer by lassoing the sun, and even invented coconuts!

** ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': The ponies on that world do everything -- wrap up the winter, wake up the animals, move the clouds to make rain, produce the rainbows and snow, make the autumn leaves fall -- and their [[GodEmperor God Empresses]] are responsible for raising the sun, the moon, and the stars in general. In fact, the [[TheLostWoods Everfree Forest]] is considered an unnatural site precisely because nature takes care of itself there.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Moana}}'', the demigod Maui is responsible for essentially every natural phenomenon that occurs. He pulled up the sky, made days longer by lassoing the sun, and even invented coconuts!

* In ''Film/MagicalLegendOfTheLeprechauns'', Trooping Fairies run nature worldwide, they manufacture leaves, make sure snow and spring and rain all take their due course, etc. But a war with the leprechauns distracts them from their duties, and so natural weather patterns worldwide collapse into chaos.

* In ''Literature/TheDresdenFiles'' the conflict between the Summer and Winter Courts of [[TheFairFolk the Sidhe]] has a major impact on the change of the seasons and the overall climate of the planet. Global Warming is attributed to Summer having a slight advantage over the last few decades.
* In ''Literature/TheKingkillerChronicle'', the moon disappearing from the sky isn't caused by the moon being between the sun and the Earth, it's because when it's not in the sky, the moon is actually elsewhere, serving as the moon of Fae. This phenomenon may have been caused when a boy named Jax (Actually Iax, a long dead Namer, and purportedly the greatest of them all at the time.) learned the moon's name and partially trapped it in a box, hence the JustSoStory of why the moon waxes and wanes.
* In the ''Literature/MuneShinri'' (which the video game ''VideoGame/OracleOfTao'' is loosely based on), reality is run by scientific laws, as much of the empirical world accepts. But behind thoses laws, the people keeping them working are various spirits, and a group of beings called [[{{Shinigami}} Reapers]].

* In ''Literature/{{Pact}}'', a theorized solution to the Fermi Paradox is that demons ate most of the universe. More locally, people are manipulated and guided at all times by small and nearly mindless spirits, who manipulate the connections between people and things to influence their actions and create a system of {{Karma}} where good deeds are rewarded and bad deeds are repaid.
* In ''Literature/TheStormlightArchive'', many natural phenomena are caused not by physics, but by "spren", manifestations of concepts in the SpiritWorld of the Cognitive Realm that overlays the material world. For example, windspren accompany wind, gravityspren are responsible for bringing things down (or sideways, if you can control them), an ancient spren called Stormfather sends forth the highstorms and [[spoiler:the hatespren can create an Everstorm.]]
--> '''Kaladin:''' [Gravity] is a law.\\
'''Syl:''' No, it's more like... more like an agreement among friends. We have to be consistent or we'll [[RealityIsOutToLunch break your brains]].
* ''{{Literature/Discworld}}'': Cori Celesti, the home of the gods, is also the source of the magic which it turns out allows the Disc to exist in the first place.
** When they aren't causing trouble for Death and his granddaughter, the Auditors of Reality see to it that the universe operates as it's supposed to.
* ''Literature/CiaphasCain'', HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, once mentioned the GodEmperor as keeping the galaxy spinning. Though it was a joke, there's probably Imperial cults out there that believe it.

* Done to Tartarus and back in ''Literature/PercyJacksonAndTheOlympians'' and its subsequent sequel series. Because AllMythsAreTrue (so far, Greek, Roman, Egyptian, and Norse religions are all confirmed to exist and are real, and there's a reference to Jesus Christ as a real mythological being as well), there's a good chance you can point to anything and it was created by a god or through magic. Even historical figures aren't exempt, as many of them were either demigods or magicians. The sun is a giant ball of fire, and also the sun chariot driven by Helios and later Apollo, while Chinese celestial dragons also help out...

* ''TabletopGame/{{Exalted}}'' has everything -- ''everything'' -- in Creation made out of [[{{Mana}} Essence]], to the point that motonic theory (referring to "motes," the basic unit of Essence) is the setting's equivalent of atomic theory. Sorcery is the setting's equivalent of understanding physics to the point where you can tell them to sit down and shut up. In addition to that, everything in reality, from a single grain of rice to the sun itself, has a god that represents it. Causality is entirely dependent on the Pattern Spiders weaving the Loom of Fate properly.
** Unusually for this trope, the Magical Underpinnings Of Reality take up a managerial role. If you kill or traumatize the god of a river -- which, as an Exalt, is pretty easy and usually exactly the wrong thing to do -- the river won't disappear or dry up, but it will suddenly become far less predictable.
* ''TabletopGame/ChangelingTheLost'' has it so that this is how Arcadia works. Every thing is a sentient force that requires you to make a Contract with it in order to gain its benefits. For instance, you need to make a Contract with Water in order to quench your thirst, though it can still drown you even if you haven't signed on. [[TheFairFolk The Gentry]] gain most of their magic by forging these Contracts with the forces that technically hold the keys, and their changeling servants gain mastery of them by proxy.

* ''VideoGame/OracleOfTao'' has the entire universe operate not through faeries, but through [[SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic mechanistic laws]] (for instance, fire magic runs on principles of thermodynamics, meteorological principles for thunder and cold magic, et cetera). The DarkWorld works also works, but on entropy rather than energy. But the reverse is true, that everything from electricity to magnetism relies on faith, strong will, or emotions. This would all be normal, except mundane things like cellphones and ATM machines also run on magic, and the former can [[FiveFiveFive literally call God]].
* In ''VideoGame/ZanZarahTheHiddenPortal'', everything in the eponymous AnotherDimension is powered by faeries (small magical mostly non-sentient creatures): stone faeries hold mountains together, nature ones make trees grow, water ones keep rivers flowing, etc., etc.

** ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'': The ponies on that world do everything - wrap up the winter, wake up the animals, move the clouds to make rain, produce the rainbows and snow, make the autumn leaves fall - and their [[GodEmperor God Empresses]] are responsible for raising the sun, the moon, and the stars in general. In fact, the [[TheLostWoods Everfree Forest]] is considered an unnatural site precisely because nature takes care of itself there.

[[folder: Web Originals]]

[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
* ''Series/{{Charmed|1998}}'': The loss of magic is an ecological disaster. When magic disappears for a day as an omen of Wyatt's birth, a warlock visits the sisters under conditions of truce to discuss the crisis and mentions that their garden hasn't died yet but soon will, since nymphs and gnomes are no longer tending nature.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Fan Works]]

* In ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'', magic is a fundamental force of reality, and the likes of the Summer and Winter Courts of the Sidhe greatly influence things like the change of the seasons.

* ''Literature/CiaphasCain'', THE HERO OF THE IMPERIUM, once mentioned the GodEmperor as keeping the galaxy spinning. Though it was a joke, there's probably Imperial cults out there that believe it.

In {{fantasy}} settings, magic and mythical creatures aren't supernatural, but a part of the world. It's normal to see wizards, the AnthropomorphicPersonification of love, and even weirder fare sit down every third Tuesday for tea and biscuits (baked by [[OurElvesAreBetter tree elves]], of course). Many things that are explained by physics in RealLife may even have completely different explanations in this world, such as TheGrimReaper going about ending lives ([[DontFearTheReaper not necessarily killing, mind you)]], that fires are actually small (or enormous) imp-like beings, or that there are {{Nature Spirit}}s that guide nature.

* [[Literature/DoctorWhoExpandedUniverse The Whoniverse]] ''used'' to be like this, until the [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien Time]] [[HumanoidAbomination Lords]] exorcised magic and irrationality from the universe.

* In ''Disney/{{Moana}}'', the demigod Maui is responsible for essentially every natural phenomenon that occurs. He pulled up the sky, made days longer by lassoing the sun, and even invented coconuts!

In most mytholohies, this is how things work by default.