A Cynical Medicinal: Meds v. Magic

Try to Understand…He’s the Magic Man

Medicine and magic have always had an odd relationship in fiction, dear reader.

Stuck somewhere between frenemies and fuck buddies, the two never quite seem to manage to come together in anything approaching a healthy balance.

Like oil and water they just don’t mix properly: after all, if you have the ability to heal with magic then why need medicine?

Now, you could build a system where magic strains the user or there simply aren’t enough magic users around to make “magical hospitals” feasible (and so leave common ailments for the common physicians) but the fact is that stories set in worlds where magical healing exists inevitably revolves around a character or characters capable of such powers, which tends to rend that point moot.

Might it technically make sense in-world? Sure.

Will it make sense in the grand scheme of things even if it does? Nope.

A certain series comes to mind (if you’ve been following along here you know which one): here the characters have magical healing abilities and can literally face-tank cuts to their spinal cord so long as they have magic, only running into problems when that magic starts to drain/reaches a level where it needs to be recharged.

That’s bullshit, dear reader.

Rather than making things more exciting it simply removes all tension from fight scenes when I know that Character A is invulnerable until they get low on the juice- and even then another character can just show up and toss them the magical equivalent of AA batteries to get them back on their feet.

Should medicinal magic be faster than natural healing? Yes, but it should still take time. There should still be consequences to its use, rather than having it be a get out jail free card available at all times.  

Or At Least It Should

I’m not suggesting you force your readers to follow a character as they lie bed ridden for several months before going through physical therapy, but you should show someone who’s been injured having to work to get back to where they were before being hurt.

As odd as it sounds, your magical healing should be realistic.

Giving someone an instant cure all just signals to your readers that we’re dealing with some video game logic where you can get shot in the face multiple times, take a deep breath, and then just continue on like nothing happened.

Have fun with your magic system but for the love of all that is holy keep the stakes high while doing so.

Make its implementation extremely rare, costly, or dangerous (could someone overdose from too much magic injected into their system?). That way when it becomes necessary all of a sudden it isn’t just a bland occurrence but a story event.

And after all, what is a story but a series of unfortunate events strung together?