Today is the Twelfth Day of Christmas, when it is traditional to wear masquerade. (The various antics of disguise and mistaken identity in Shakespeare’s TWELFTH NIGHT reflect this the theme of the day, hence the name of the play). And it is also the Feast of the Epiphany, which commemorates, among other things, the adoration of the Magi of the Christ child.
Who and what the Magi are is unclear. They may have been devout Jews from Babylon, astrologers, or may have been the Magi of the Zoroastrians, who are the ruling priest class of ancient Persia. Ironically, Zoroastrianism is a faith that utterly rejects the use of magic or divination, but such is the wisdom for which the magi of old were known, that our word ‘magician’ comes from them. So it seems, for several reasons, a good day to discuss magicians in their various disguises.
I frankly admit that I am sick to death of vampires as portrayed as protagonists in stories. They are properly villains and vermin, antagonists to be exterminated, not friends afflicted with angst and waiting to be understood. I am weary of friendly werewolves, and disgusted by friendly dragons, and I wonder about friendly witches, particularly when none of them are old crones. And, in honor of the day, I should admit that while I am not sick yet of friendly magicians, I am suspicious and annoyed by stories where magic is treated like a technology, that is, like an art which is lawful and harmless to practice, a thing without a terrible price.
If I were only slightly shallower obscure midlist writer, or had slightly more time on my hands, I would write a new literary manifesto and start a new literary movement. It would be something like the “Mundane SF” movement in how significant and world-shaking it could be: namely, something halfway between a joke and an unsightly spasm of self-importance. Writers have no business writing manifestos. Our business is not to improve the world, but to entertain it.
But since I am a speculative fiction writer, allow me to speculate. If I were to write a manifesto in favor of mundane fantasy, the cause I would pick would be the “Retro-fantasy” movement, also called “Yesterday’s yesterdays.” Catchy, huhn?
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