I'm not sure about the Discworld example; there's no evidence in the books that conjuring tricks can achieve anything like what wizards do; people find them more interesting simply because they do it without magic.
The analogy Sir Terry uses somewhere is an am-dram stage play versus a Hollywood blockbuster; it's not that the play is better, it's that it's achieving it with less. Creating a dragon with a bit of lighting and sound effects might be less convincing than doing it with the resources of ILM, but anyone could do it if they had the resources of ILM.
I'm not sure about the Discworld example; there's no evidence in the books that conjuring tricks can achieve anything like what wizards do; people find them more interesting simply because they do it without magic.
The analogy Sir Terry uses somewhere is an am-dram stage play versus a Hollywood blockbuster; it's not that the play is better, it's that it's achieving it with less. Creating a dragon with a bit of lighting and sound effects might be less convincing than doing it with the resources of ILM, but anyone could do it if they had the resources of ILM.
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