I Want To Talk About The Things I Love About Diane Duane’s Young Wizards Series, And Buckle Up Because

I want to talk about the things I love about Diane Duane’s Young Wizards series, and buckle up because I have a lot of feelings. Also, spoilers.

First off, the whole philosophy of wizardry as a force for good and protection is so great. The Oath lays it out for us: “In Life’s name and for Life’s sake, I assert that I will employ the Art which is Its gift in Life’s service alone. I will guard growth and ease pain. I will fight to preserve what grows and lives well in its own way…etc.” Capital L, Life, as though it’s something holy. And that Life is people, and animals, and aliens, and plants, and artificial intelligence, and white holes, and sometimes inanimate objects, because, in a sort of animism viewpoint, everything has some aspect of Life to it and is worth being protected. Nita initially seeks out wizardry as a way to protect herself, and then when she uses it to scare and intimidate her bullies, she realizes it feels wrong…because that’s not what wizardry is for.

In almost every book we usually see wizardry being used in combat to fight the Lone Power or defend somebody, and even then sometimes it’s less of causing physical violence and has more of an emotional or psychological aspect to it and is about making the right choice or convincing someone else to, like in the Song of Twelve - yes, they did some fighting, but the whole thing hinged on Nita’s sacrifice. This combat happens sometimes, because sometimes you have to fight in order to protect Life, but it only happens occasionally. Most of the day-to-day wizardry we see is like, mediating arguments between angry trees, or stopping earthquakes, or relocating endangered species to new planets. Because you don’t just encourage growth and ease pain by fighting bad guys, you do it in everyday things. One thing that really stood out to me was in Games Wizards Play when Nita was mad at Penn and she wanted to yell at him and punch him, but she reminded herself that that would increase entropy and thus went against her duty as a wizard. It was super interesting to see that philosophy of wizardry being involved in her mindset when interacting with other people, and is maybe something more people should adapt into our real lives - taking a moment to think about if our actions will increase negativity in the world when there are better actions to choose.

And that’s what makes Kit and Penn’s duel so irresponsible. Not only is it reckless and immature to fight someone over a girl at a party with a bunch of intergalactic dignitaries present, but the fact that they allowed their anger and jealousy to cause them to deliberately attempt to use their wizardry to potentially cause harm and distress to each other, even with Ronan making sure everything went down safely? For such a frivolous reason? Irina was right to be furious, because that’s not what wizards do.

And then I really like how The Powers That Be are simultaneously incarnations of every religious figure ever, and sometimes not religious, and every interpretation is real and valid. The Lone Power is the same as Betty Callahan’s Devil and Ireland’s Balor. The Winged Defender is Michael, and Thor, and Athene (and Peach!). Mernahz is a wizard who acts at the behest of The Powers That Be, and yet is also a devout Muslim who regularly prays to Allah. With all the diversity in general - gay wizards, autistic wizards, asexual wizards, deaf wizards, whale wizards, alien wizards, robot wizards - we get this incredible sense of simultaneously having diversity and unity. They all took the same Oath, even if they have different versions of the Manual, and they all call each other “cousin” because they’re united in their place in the Universe (or multiverse?) to protect Life.

The science! The blending of magic with science and science fiction feels so natural. Of course if you’re going to use magic to act on the universe, you have to understand how the universe works and how your spell’s going to interact with it, because the universe on most days can’t break the laws of science, and you have to work with those laws. Science does not falter in the face of magic; they coexist. Heck, the entropy that the wizards work to slow is a scientific concept in itself. And of course if you’re a wizard you can go to other planets and meet aliens, and of course some of those aliens might be wizards. And the fact that the wizard’s duel requires them to physically take the form of elements and use their scientific knowledge rather than just hurling flashy spells at each other. And then the whole explanation of how the planets’ form of intimacy is to resonate through time and space, and it was a whole physics-based description but somehow still romantic and powerful? Love it.

Carmela! She’s such a great character, and not just because she’s entertaining. She taught herself the Speech because she thought her brother’s wizard shenanigans seemed interesting and wanted to get involved but doesn’t want to be a wizard herself (and you know, I’d love to know why). She acts not only as a teasing big sister to Kit, but also as sort of an honorary big sister and older female mentor to Nita in her mother’s absence. She loves fashion and shopping, and is also a genius at linguistics and started her own possibly-slightly-illegal intergalactic chocolate trading empire.

There’s a lot more I could talk about, like the Speech and the method for writing spells, and the more fun-and-games side of wizardry, and the repeated concept of Choice (I would willingly write a whole paper on that), and that whole bit about making politicians look at the Earth from the Moon until they understand what they’ve signed up for. But I’m going to end by talking about the transformation of Harry Callahan. Shortly after I read Games Wizards Play, I lent my friend the first book. She texted me going, “wow her dad’s such a jerk, he has such a temper and he gets mad at her for not fighting the bullies instead of being sympathetic” and I got whiplash. I had completely forgotten that he was like that in the first few books - getting angry, yelling, Nita calling him “sir” - because the Harry Callahan of the more recent books - comforting a distressed tree alien, sitting in a lawn chair on the Moon to cheer on his daughter’s mentee, just overall being softer and more supportive and understanding - is practically a different person. It’s been a long time since I read A Wizard’s Dilemma and A Wizard Alone, but I would guess that the change happens somewhere in there, as he suddenly finds himself a single parent of two teenage wizards. It might be that the loss and the shouldering of more responsibility changed him; on a meta level, it might be that we got to see him develop more because we get to see more of him in Betty’s absence. It could be both, and even be partially due to his exposure to the philosophy of wizardry and the growth and responsibility of his children. Either way it’s a drastic transition for the better that happens so naturally and seamlessly that I didn’t even notice.

These are such wonderful books, such a beautiful celebration of life and science and choice and kindness and existence, and I’m so glad that they exist.

In the OH SWEET POWERS THAT BE, HOW DID THEY FIND OUT...? dep't...

I was just ordering some flour from our local miller, Kells Wholemeal. Their big bag of plain flour is way cheaper/better value than buying it bag-by-small-bag from the grocery store. (We "decant" the flour bags into five-kilo plastic birdseed buckets, and stack them up out in the boot room at the back of the cottage.)

The other thing we usually get from them (besides yeast and bread flour) is chocolate for baking. I was adding a bag of this stuff (which is extremely good)...

In The OH SWEET POWERS THAT BE, HOW DID THEY FIND OUT...? Dep't...

... and then noticed something slightly unnerving.

...The notation: "Only for use as an ingredient in food making."

And my first thought, off But what the hell else are we going to be using chocolate for...?

...OH SHIT, THEY'VE FOUND OUT ABOUT CARMELA. THE JIG IS UP.

And then I relaxed. Because (a) She doesn't get that much of her chocolate in this country. If she's after this stuff, she'll grab it elsewhere in the EU.

And (b):

...They've got to catch her first. :)

(per the note from @anoddreindeer: Huh, weird about that. I need to check what the SSL on the main [under-construction] Errantry Concordance site is up to. Meanwhile, dropping the "s" off the "https" seems to sort it for the moment...)

Tags

Young Wizards Series yw Carmela Rodríguez my htg role model ngl

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outofambit

5 years ago

‘fairest and fallen, greetings and defiance’ is still the best Stock Greeting For Our Ancient Enemy ever. it’s got everything. (1) you’re hot (2) you’re evil (3) respect tho (4) anyway i’m here to kick your ass

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outofambit

9 months ago

Fridge thought fully like, twenty years later, when thinking about the concept in Young Wizards about how a wizard is picked to be offered wizardry and given an Ordeal because they're exactly the right person for a particular problem:

So Dairine, given the power of wizardry, decides to go find Darth Vader and kick his ass, right?

And there’s like some discussion about how, if she uses her raw wizardly power to ‘go find Darth Vader’ then she’s inevitably going to end up attracting the attention of the universe’s equivalent thereof.

Which okay I always just nodded along to the logic of, big bad guy=big bad guy.

But what my brain somehow failed to conceptualize, and this may have been obvious to some other people, is what happens to Darth Vader at the end of the movies

Namely. He gets redeemed, because someone is willing to reach out and help him along towards that.

She didn’t just summon the attention of the Lone Power by trying to manifest Darth Vader into the universe by sheer ten year old stubborness, she summoned SPECIFICALLY the version of the Lone Power where Reconfiguration was a built-in possibility.

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outofambit

2 years ago

As someone currently spite-writing the second draft of a project...this fills me with such a sense of purpose and inspiration. XD

What inspired you to write Young Wizards? A relative, a dream you had? Did the story come to you as you were writing it, or was it hammered from bits and pieces of thoughts made plain on text? Were there parts you struggled with, parts that came easier than others? (Have you already answered these questions in an interview you can link to?)

What inspired me to write So You Want To Be A Wizard?

Partly humor. Partly rage. (More about both under the cut...)

The subject's come up in interviews every now and then, but let's tl:dr; it here.

The humor: Often enough while I was nursing, and seeing the bizarre things people would do to their own bodies, I wished out loud to other fellow professionals that human beings came with some kind of instruction manual. Now, I'd known the "So You Want To Be A…" series of (US-published) career books from my childhood. One day when I was thinking about them—and for no reason I can understand at this end of time—the word "…Wizard" plugged itself onto the end of the title template.

Instead of a simple instruction manual for people, I found myself considering what a wizard's manual would look like. Where would it come from? Who would it have come from? Might it, itself, be an entirely bigger manual than the one I'd been joking about—but the full instructions and background material you'd need for (maybe) understanding life, but (definitely) doing magic? A book as big or as small as you needed for the work in hand, and full of the answers to questions you never thought you'd get answers to? ...

From that basic concept, the wider concept of wizardly culture built itself up over the next couple of years. ...Naturally I'd read Le Guin's "Earthsea" books years before, and I'd noted (but decided to pass on) the concept of a school-for-wizards. While it was interesting enough, it'd already been done by a writer far more skilled. What interested me more was a DIY-ish approach, where you learn by yourself, do things that interest you, and join up with other like-minded practitioners when the mood moves you or circumstances require.

Anyway, now comes the rage. While all this was percolating in the background, I was finishing up a YA series by another writer. When I hit the end of it, I was profoundly upset by the events of the series’s closure. They seemed to me to have treated strong and resilient young characters as helpless creatures without agency, subjecting them “for their own good” to an amnesic end-state they absolutely didn’t deserve. I got mad about this. I dove into the writing of the first Young Wizards book with the intention of treating my young characters a whole lot better—since if there was anything I knew about kids from my nursing, it was that a lot of them were tougher than many of the adults around them.

Once I was started, the writing went straightforwardly from book’s beginning to book’s end (because as I was already a screenwriter, and screenwriters outline, the novel was naturally outlined too). The writing took about six months, as right then I was also writing for Scooby and Scrappy-Doo to pay the rent. I turned in the book and didn’t think much more about what might happen next (though I knew there was quite a lot more story to tell) until I ran into Madeleine L’Engle at some event of my publisher’s. She took me aside and said, “I read your last one. I liked it a lot! When’s the next?”

That was when I realized I had a problem... so I got busy. :) ...And I’ve been busy with the Young Wizards universe ever since. I’m busy with that universe right now, though it may not look like it. And I expect to be busy with it for years to come.

HTH!