The paths of magic **spoilers up to and including 'rides a dread legion"

[MrWall]

Someone help me here. I havent read the latest book so please no spoilers for that... but I have a question on the paths of magic.

Now aside from rides a dread legion it has been a long time since i read a feist book - and most of the more recent ones I havent bothered rereading. but in rides a dread legion there are, quite frankly, a lot of rather powerful spells knocking about and, more importantly, a lot of rather powerful spell casters.

Now back in Magician we knew there was no 'greater path' on midkemia because of the death of the god of magic. Now I am not sure if it returned thanks to pug (vaguely remember it did) and to what extent (full extent despite the god still being dead?) - but given that there has been about 100 years between Magician and now (iirc) and they keep talking about magic users being centuries old, spending decades perfecting one skill (teleportation for example) there seem to be a huge number of very, very powerful greater path magicians running around - and not just new to the game but magic users who really know their onions.

How has this happened? Am I missing something obvious due to my length away from feist (a year or so without a reread is unheard of for me) or my lack of rereading his more recent (and far weaker since serpent war imo) efforts?

Or does it all not just make any sense at all?

 

[nj1]

I didn't think that there were that many magicans around, those i can remember...

Pug (main man)
Mirander (his wife, Macros' daughter)
Macros (in various forms)
Nakor (orange thief)
Magnus (pugs son)

Theres a few great ones from Kelewan floating in here and there and a couple of appearences from the Elf spell weavers but aside from them, I can't think of anyone else?

 

[MrWall]

I didn't think that there were that many magicans around, those i can remember...

Pug (main man)
Mirander (his wife, Macros' daughter)
Macros (in various forms)
Nakor (orange thief)
Magnus (pugs son)

Theres a few great ones from Kelewan floating in here and there and a couple of appearences from the Elf spell weavers but aside from them, I can't think of anyone else?

sidi and bros had access to greater magic, or so it seems. i think i might have to go back through the books as i know I kept thinking - 'another magic user?'

could be wrong though, was mostly thinking on it again when it seems sidi and co had their powers from a young age, and that was awhile ago. trying to work out how that worked in the greater timeline.

panathian priests - holy magic or normal magic? or something else?

 

[Fake Vencar]

Well Pug obviously learnt about the Greater Path on Kelewan, so we know how he came to power. Quite a few of the younger magicians must have thus learnt the skills of the Greater Path from Pug at either Stardock or Sorcerer's Island. You must remember that Pug also 'hired' beings from other worlds to teach his students, so this could account for the width and breadth of skills that some of the younger ones have. This then accounts for Magnus as well.

Macros and Nakor are 'avatars' of Gods so they'd obtained their powers from him without, probably, even needing to 'learn' them, just homing them in. They don't seem to follow a particular path; I remember Macros telling Pug that he follows 'many paths'. As Miranda is the daughter of two powerful magicians, she's probably in the same boat as in discovering her powers slowly over time (remember she's a good century or two older than Pug, but Pug is still much more adept at magic than she is, the exception being the teleporting skill she perfected).

As for Sidi and co, I don't think they follow the Greater Path. Two of them practice necromancy, which I don't think is governed by the God of Magic somehow, and more than likely learnt their skills through experimentation over the course of hundreds of years. The other is a demon master and I can't quite remember how he realised his power, but probably through experimentation again. If I'm mistaken and it is the Greater Path, I remember what Kulgan said to Pug in Magican, something along the lines of 'even if you hadn't been to Kelewan, there would have been a path for you to follow'. Maybe the Greater Path can be learnt after time without Sarig?

 

[fingy773]

vencar preety much sums it up there. and yes, Amirantha, Sidi anf Belasco all leart there powers/skills through experementation. along with some help from their mother in the early years.

 

[ratsy]

Also there are some magic users that were on Novindus that would not have been introduced until after its discovery.

 

[darkfox]

I think a lot of that had to do with Macros' lying to Pug all the time.

Miranda appears to have been nearly as powerful as Pug, obviously a Greater Path magician. Macros supposedly made a deal with the God of Magic, but I don't see how his power was passed onto Miranda without her having to take a similar deal. So I think it's a case of something being decided by REF without the knowledge that he'd be writting about Midkemia for almost 30 years. lol

 

[Morvai_]

The concept of Greater and Lesser paths is picked apart by Pug/Milamber between Silverthorn and Darkness at Sethanon,

There is no limitation on the path a magician may follow save his own inherent nature. His personal limitation is all there is (as proven when he utilises a lesser path magician spell to overpower Ergonan making him attack the Warlords torturer).

In regards to why there are so many magicians running about remember that just after the riftwar Stardock was founded by Pug, Kulgan and a few others and after Silverthorns events (mostly the warlord being hung by Ichindar) several Tsurani great ones (Hochopeppa and Elgohar to name a couple) spent time in stardock training other magicians.

After several years Pug gave up on stardock as far too political and retreated to Magicians Isle, where he followed Macros's example in allowing anyone who was prepared to serve in exchange for learning to stay, as a result there were a great number of new magicians from various worlds. Also bear in mind by the point in time you are referencing quite a few rifts have been opened and closed, not to mention the Hall of worlds as ways for magicians from other worlds (and logically other realms of existence) to cross over into midkemia.