Many years ago, I did a bit of role-playing. I played various characters in that time, but my favourite one – and the one I advanced to the highest level – was a mage. I remember a particular game when my party was planning to go treasure hunting in a trap-infested dungeon. As you do. […]
Exactly! If you get too technical with magic, it becomes science fiction. Which is fine if you're writing science fiction, but it's not if you're writing fantasy. I mean, we don't want to know which specific genes in Harry's genome carried the magical ability genes via his mitochondrial DNA. Or whatever. All we need to know is that Harry is a wizard because he was born that way. Learning throughout the series how magical abilities are handed down (or not) makes it more interesting, but we're never given a real scientific explanation for magic. And I'm fine with that.