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justanorthernlightI've been rereading Tamora Pierce's Emelan books (and catching up on the few I didn't get to the first time around), and I'm feeling fannish enough to start plotting fic and digging into the worldbuilding for it and a certain plot point from WotE has suddenly stopped making sense.
After The Will of the Empress, Tris plans to go to Lightstbridge to get her credential in academic magic. The fic I'm working on is about Tris returning to Summersea after Lightsbridge and trying to find her footing as a working mage (with a murder mystery thrown in), but I can't quite get my head around how Tris is supposed to do academic magic.
Academic magic is established as something very different from ambient magic. Tris was tested multiple times for academic magic and she "hasn't a speck of it." Her magic is ambient weather magic.
How is she getting a credential in academic magic when she doesn't have any?
Even thinking back on how it's presented in Shatterglass (between Keth, Glacki, and the various mages at the institute/school place Keth first goes to when trying to figure out his own magic), you can't work ambient magic like academic magic, it just ... doesn't work that way.
From Tamora Pierce's website it's unlikely that any new Emelan books will ever be published, but one of her concepts for a fourth Circle Reforged book was Tris studying at Lightsbridge under an assumed name, so clearly there was thought put into it, but it seems to contradict much of Tris's previous backstory. If there's any Emelan fans out there who can square this circle for me, please chime in!
This may or may not turn into an actual fic, I often get very involved in plotting/backstory/worldbuilding and then abandon the project within a chapter or two of the actual writing, but I'm enjoying the process for the first time in a while.
After The Will of the Empress, Tris plans to go to Lightstbridge to get her credential in academic magic. The fic I'm working on is about Tris returning to Summersea after Lightsbridge and trying to find her footing as a working mage (with a murder mystery thrown in), but I can't quite get my head around how Tris is supposed to do academic magic.
Academic magic is established as something very different from ambient magic. Tris was tested multiple times for academic magic and she "hasn't a speck of it." Her magic is ambient weather magic.
How is she getting a credential in academic magic when she doesn't have any?
Even thinking back on how it's presented in Shatterglass (between Keth, Glacki, and the various mages at the institute/school place Keth first goes to when trying to figure out his own magic), you can't work ambient magic like academic magic, it just ... doesn't work that way.
From Tamora Pierce's website it's unlikely that any new Emelan books will ever be published, but one of her concepts for a fourth Circle Reforged book was Tris studying at Lightsbridge under an assumed name, so clearly there was thought put into it, but it seems to contradict much of Tris's previous backstory. If there's any Emelan fans out there who can square this circle for me, please chime in!
This may or may not turn into an actual fic, I often get very involved in plotting/backstory/worldbuilding and then abandon the project within a chapter or two of the actual writing, but I'm enjoying the process for the first time in a while.
