Literature Xanth Discussion

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Candi Sorcerer in training Since: Aug, 2012

Sorcerer in training

Dec 26th 2013 at 2:10:44 AM •••

invoked To be fair, if you told a random yuppie off the street that all you had to do is make their kid drink something and they'd forget everything about curse words, dirty jokes, video games, violent movies, etc... you wouldn't be able to bottle the stuff fast enough.

Removed this as natter and discussion on the main page. Yes, if you could bottle Lethe to make a kid forget apparent crap, you could sell it for a fortune... but it still doesn't add to how the entry is an example of the trope.

Memetic Creep: Doubly invoked. First, the long term side effects of living in a land of concentrated magic wafting off of Demon X(an)th cause beings to become more and more magical. Good Magician Humphrey is slowly becoming an out and out gnome since he has managed to avoid dying for a long, long time. Humans, over the generations, end up breeding with creatures and/or gain stronger and stronger Talents, veering toward the transhuman as a result. Only regular infusions of humans from Mundania stave off the loss of humanity in Xanth. Second, Demon X(an)th has acknowledged humanity and the other intelligent races living in its effective area (Xanth), and this (coupled with the feedback of beings like Bink and Ivy) is influencing Xanth as a whole in return.

Memetic Creep doesn't seem to be any kind of article, and the Xanth page is the only one in the first page of results to show it at all.

Edited by 97.113.45.122 Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett

Freezer Keeper of Porn Since: Jan, 2001

Keeper of Porn

Aug 28th 2012 at 4:52:07 PM •••

Removed this:

Fridge Logic: Chameleon doesn't have a talent, she's a magical mutation/being, like a nymph. She then married Bink, who is intensely magical. What would have happened to Dor if Bink hadn't gone on that quest in the second book causing Dor to be given a magician-level talent as part of the blessing of Bink's descendants? Ending up like Hugo (the son another magician had with a gorgon) is the best they could have hoped for, and Bink is far more powerful than Humphrey.
- Princess Ivy's talent alters reality to conform to how she believes it to be. Knowing that, look again at how different the series is from Dragon on a Pedestal onwards. Xanth has never really recovered from being ruled by the beliefs of a toddler.

First item is more Wild Mass Guessing than any logic. The second is just wrong: Ivy's talent is enhancement of magic. Her twin sister Ida is a Reality Warper, but not like that.

My name is Freezer and my anti-drug is porn. Hide / Show Replies

Freezer Since: Jan, 2001

Dec 1st 2012 at 1:24:57 AM •••

Reverted the Blessed with Suck entry back from this (spoiler tags removed):

Bink's talent is that he cannot be harmed because he is so lucky. In the first book Trent thinks that it's protection from magic only because Bink lost a finger, but it turns out that his talent will allow Bink to be harmed as long as it pays off in the long run (in the case of his missing finger it let him recognize a healing spring because it healed his finger). It further protects him by disguising its own existence, so that he appears to avoid harm through clumsiness, luck, or freak accidents. It doesn't care whether or not his dignity gets through unharmed, so long as he does.

Where did this luck thing come from? "Can't be hurt by magic" has been explicitly stated, more than once in canon, to be Bink's talent. If this is a retcon from one of the latter books, feel free to revert.

My name is Freezer and my anti-drug is porn.


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Discussion Literature / Xanth