Well, if just aging is considered the absolute pinnacle of magic by Twilight, who's definitely someone who would know (if not through experience, then through having spent all but the last two years of her life living in the Canterlot Royal Library and being the personal protege of the most powerful mage on the planet)...

I suppose it's possible Celestia could do it and just hasn't told anyone, but that's an entirely different level.

Well, Twilight did straight up confirm that it was impossible for unicorns. There could easily be some other magic out there that does it. Heck, I bet Poison Joke could do it if it's ironic enough to the victim.

edited 7th Dec '12 6:40:48 AM by PerpetualLurker

I asked this before but...we've seen unicorns learning spells out of a book...but how are these spells made?

It seems to me that Twilight is applied magic...what about theoretical?

A magic potion maybe?

edited 7th Dec '12 6:41:24 AM by ApplelightLimited

I think it varies. Some spells are just instinctive, like Rarity's gem finding spell. Some spells need to be learned and practiced and most importantly understood before they can be cast. Some seem to be able to be cast from physical materials as a one-shot deal with out any learning.

That still doesn't make a whole lot of sense when you consider that when Twilight unleashed her full magical potential, she succeded in turning her parents into potted plants. Now, I understand that those were very unusual circumstances and Twilight has a long way to go before she can use her full potential, but essentially what this is all saying is that "no, unicorns could never rearrange the sexual anatomy of living organism, but they are capable of turning said organism into a completely different kind of organism."

I'm sorry but unless Unicorn magic happens to be very arbitrary in what it can and can not do, then that whole statement by Twilight is just silly. Then again it wouldn't be the first time she got something wrong about the nature of magic.

Or, on the other hand that the rules of magic depend on the writer.

A combination of meditation and scientific experimentation?

edited 7th Dec '12 6:50:52 AM by Mio

Well, as I understood her comment, an age spell is a top tier spell, but she never said it was the only one.

@ Mio

That works for me.

In any case, when it comes to spells, technically, there are only so many types of spells, and any new spells are just variations of the superspell. Transformation, transportation, illusion, fabrication, detection, and projection is how I'd categorize it. All that changes with the specifics of each spell is what the target/output is. Understanding the mechanics of a certain type of magic would make learning or inventing similar spells a lot easier.

edited 7th Dec '12 7:01:24 AM by PerpetualLurker

Honestly, Twi has to set up an institute for magic research when all this is over.

It always annoys me when people try to 'technologize' magic, though - what with subroutine spells or trying to explain how the magic is rearranging atomic bonds or bullshit like that.

It's magic. I don't have to listen to you try to explain shit.

@Mio: I think the difficulty comes in the fact that you're trying to change only one aspect of the target while keeping everything else basically intact. Turning a pony into a cactus is easier because you're overwriting them entirely; you don't have to worry about keeping some bits the same. With a gender-morph or age spell, you'd have to be a lot more careful in keeping some aspects of the pony the same while only modifying others, and it could easily be more difficult to figure that out without messing up the pony in question.

Schools of magic are a fantasy staple, though, and I'm sure Twilight herself would love to talk about the technical and scientific aspects of magic. I'm not over-explaining anything, really.

I know, I know. Analyzing magic as magic is a lot of fun, and is consistent with this setting. I just don't like it when people try to arbitrarily apply our physical rules to a practice that violates as many of those physical rules as it follows.

By which I mean, it feels like arbitrary skepticism to me when someone tries to figure out transfiguration from a rock to a cactus would work while following what we know of physics when magic also includes things like full-body teleportation, ice spells, violation of entropy and blah blah blah.

edited 7th Dec '12 7:09:06 AM by RedSavant

She's certainly liable to think of it in scientific terms, even if it's not strictly speaking our science. Like, maybe she's aware that a mood-altering spell 'alters the balance of the four humours in the body'. In technical fact it would alter the chemicals in the brain, but it's close enough to her explanation, hers is just more old-fashioned. I do kinda feel like they need to know what's going on in a spell, at least if they're trying to invent one - they develop a minor effect intend to cause a major effect.

@J Teeth: On the other hand, in order to get the rest of the transformation right you have to summon completely new material, banish unneeded material, and rearrange the material in such a way that is completely contrary to how it was arranged before. While the others may involve slightly more precision (and really not that much), I would think that a spell that completely transforms something would be much more complex, involving, and taxing on the unicorn.

@Kegi: Augh, no, sorry, that's exactly the kind of thing that bothers me. I mean, thanks for an example. XD

@Mio Conservation of Mass doesn't seem to be a complex issue for most any kind of magic.

I have nothing to add to this discussion, here have Pinkie biting Apple.

http://lifelessshadow26.deviantart.com/art/Pinkie-Pie-is-best-laptop-decal-341593701

(Thats really clever).

Oh. Um. Thanks? Sorry?

I dunno. I just don't see why they wouldn't try and analyze it. Twilight tried to analyze Pinkie's magic 'scientifically', even if she was bad at it.

Perhaps their equivalent of science would just be different. Based more on the inherent unpredictability of magic, developing sort of formulas and the like to control it. Like, say, instead of elements they have runes that cause magic to work in a certain way, and spells are just based on the right combination of runes, mimicking what we consider chemical reactions. Or is that still too much 'science'?

I read that as "cookbook", and now I'm imagining a Magic Kitchen Stadium.

@Kegisak: I think the problem is less analyzing magic, and more analyzing magic in light of our own scientific knowledge that may or may not apply to the setting. Saying "a spell probably works like this" is one thing, saying "The spell probably works like this because according to scientific law X" is different. To use the example you gave, we don't really have any reason to assume that their brain chemistry is at all comparable to human neurology. We know the ultimate result is similar, but it might end up that way by an entirely different mechanism.

Basically, magic can be analyzed, but consistency within the setting is far more important than consistency with Real Life science. For all we know, when it comes to magic Conservation Of Mass And Energy isn't as big of a deal.

edited 7th Dec '12 7:24:32 AM by JapaneseTeeth

@lurker: It still doesn't really demonstrate why a full transformation should be possible while a gender-swap is impossible, unless it's just arbitrarily impossible because "that's just how unicorn magic works".

Though I have to admit, it would be the first time I've seen the "it's magic, I don't have to explain it" reason used to show how something cannot happen.

I dunno, I just prefer a scientific approach to magic that's still at its core magic, even when you break it down to its smallest elements. Reducing a spell that, like you said, changes someone's mood to forcibly altering their brain chemistry makes it sound like it's just that mages don't understand 'real' science. A cantrip to make a flame appear over your finger shouldn't work because it excites hydrogen atoms above your finger, but because it's a little connection with the Plane of Fire, or something like that. Does that make sense?

I still hold to the "all ponies have a natural degree of spell resistance that screws up spells on them". The reason age magic is possible is that aging is a natural process that actually happens to ponies, and as a result magic can emulate the effect. Any given pony was a foal at some point, and they're going to be old, and magic is able to temporarily manifest that. Whereas a pony is never at any point going to arbitrarily switch genders, so magic has more difficulty creating that effect.

@Red Yeah, I get it. I kinda sit in the middle of all that. A fire spell isn't doing crazy subatomic things, but it isn't summoning fire from another dimension, either. I see it as a simple projection of heat.

Of course, now we're into subjective headcanons again, so it doesn't really matter.

edited 7th Dec '12 7:30:51 AM by PerpetualLurker