Sacrifice vs ingredient in magical practices

Many are exposed to magic at a young age. Each with their own definition and experience, children see magic in a card trick or the way a rainbow appears when it rains. Adults see magic in the families they’ve created and the comfort of a quiet home. Now lets look at some different types of magic.

Egil

Egils saga has the clearest forms of magic out of the Sagas we have read so far. There is the curse that Egil places on the land, causing the lands to be unrestful until they have driven out King Eriki and Queen Gunnhild. The curse on the farmers daughter, causing her to fall ill rather than in love. 

Genie from Aladdin 

In Aladdin, we see very different magic from Egils. Genie is capable of making anything happen. With a simple snap of his fingers Queen Gunnhild could have removed Egil from her sight. Genie is well known for his comedic quips and his three wish limit. 

Madoka Magica

Madoka Magica is an anime based on the idea of Magical girls. Magical girls are females that acquire magical abilities, usually from an outside source or an amulet. Madoka Magica is well known for its cute characters and psychological plot. The young girls give themselves (i.e. their souls) to a small Pokemon like creature that can grant them any wish as long as they work for him. The outcome, however, is less than magical. The characters are brutally eaten, ripped apart, tortured and then they get to relive the entire experience. If their lucky they might even get to live long enough for their powers to consume them and become the things they hunt. 

Hocus Pocus 

The kids movie Hocus Pocus is about three children and a cat that use to be a young man. These kids are being chased by three witches that want their spell book back. If they succeed they will kill all the children in the village and create a potion out of their souls to help keep them young and alive. 

Sacrifice vs ingredient 

Now that we’ve looked at different examples of magic, lets look at the ingredients. 

• For Egil’s curses theres whalebones, drops of blood and, the occasional horse head. 
• Genie needs no ingredients. 
• Madoka Magica needs the souls of young girls and their desires.
• Hocus Pocus needs young children, weird ingredients like eye of newt, and magical chanting.

Now lets look at sacrifice. Most of these require some sort of sacrifice. 

• Genie sacrificed his time and freedom to be an all powerful genie, though some may say he didn’t do it by choice.
• Egil sacrificed his blood, a horse, and technically a whale. 
• Madoka Magica sacrificed their freedom and souls, unwittingly because they didn’t actually know the consequences of their wishes.
• Hocus Pocus planned to sacrificed animals and young children for their goals of living forever. 

Each “ingredient” leads to the sacrifice of something vital, except Egil. Egils magical sacrifice’s have no real consequence outside of a hurt hand and some wasted time. Does this mean that magic has changed and evolved over time, or are we missing crucial pieces to the spells? If not, then why was magic so much easier to perform? Was it the spell itself or the connection people had to magic that allowed the old spells to be simplistic? 

If we look at each thing given as simply an ingredient for a spell, does that distance us emotionally from the truth? I would now like to look at one more example of this. From the anime Fullmetal Alchemist.

 Now while Alchemy is not normally thought of as magic, this show gives it a sort of magical quality. Edward Elric is a young man that is trying desperately to find a philosopher stone to help him return his brother back into a human form. Edward has gained special abilities after he tried to bring his mother back to life and lost his arm and leg to “god.” We will be looking at two examples of ingredient vs sacrifice in this show. The first is the philosopher stone and its actual ingredient make up, along with Edward and Alphonse (Edwards younger brother) own sacrifice for their mother. We will then look at Nina Tucker and her status as an ingredient for her fathers chimera experiments.

A philosopher stone (as defined in the series) is a small, blood red stone that has unlimited power. It can use alchemy to change anything from one state to another without the need for equivalent exchange, which is the guiding rule for alchemy in the show. The brothers, Edward and Alphonse, are searching for this stone to hopefully regain their bodies, which they lost trying to bring their mother back from the dead. Alphonse lost his entire body while Edward only lost a leg. Edward then gave his arm to bring his brothers soul back and trap it in a suit of armor. We later find out that a philosopher stone is created out of hundreds, if not thousands, of souls.

Later in the series the boys go to study under a scientist thats trying to create talking chimera. A chimera is a creature made from alchemy out of two or more creatures. The doctor had seemingly successfully transformed one chimera before it starved itself to death. As the brothers and the audience falls in love with little Nina tucker and her dog, we are thrown into a horrifying plot line where little Nina and her dog are mixed together to be come the chimera her crazy father was trying to create to keep his license. In the end they are both killed.

Looking at the process to create the philosophers stone, the chimera and the resurrection of a human being, it begins to blur the lines of ingredient vs sacrifice. If we look at the Nina Tucker situation, we could look at her and her dog as simple ingredients to create a talking chimera, but when we see little Nina talk to Edward and call him big brother in her grotesque chimera form, it’s hard to look at her as an ingredient. 

Looking at the philosopher stone, at the lives it took, is just as ambiguous. There is one part where an entire kingdom, over a million people, are used to create a philosopher stone. This blurry line between ingredient and sacrifice is a common steeping stone for magic, it comes down to the user and the necessity for the spell. The whole is it good for the one or the many debate and all that. In the end, it comes down to the practitioners discretion.

American Gods Walk the Green Mile

Shadow Moon at first sight seems to be drifting in the wind following whatever crazy path people lead him down. Shadow easily gives in to what people want him to do. It seems to be that he will believe anything Laura says and often keeps his thoughts to himself. If he feels any anger Shadow’s nature is to hold it in. Mr. Wednesday on the other hand seems to push the limits of Shadows calm and quiet demeanor. When Mr. Wednesday has Shadow running all sorts of errands we see Shadows expression towards others is provoked and comes out a little more each time. 

This character Shadow portrays is not unlike John Coffey in The Green Mile. John Coffey is a man falsely accused of a crime and plays someone of a “Jesus” figure throughout the movie and is put on death row for his crimes. Shadow is accused of a crime which is justified in protecting his wife. In the same way, John Coffey also seems to drift in the wind doing what he is told without any complaints or remarks. John keeps to himself and is calm and quiet. 

Not only are these two characters similar in personality but they both connect in the fact that they each have a unique sense of special abilities. We begin to see the start of Shadow’s abilities when he shows his power by making it snow. John Coffey has his own unique set of abilities where he has the power to take away people’s illnesses or any physical problems. These abilities are both supernatural and obviously seen as coming from a higher power. Both John Coffey and Shadow Moon have good intentions with their powers but often times people around them are trying to manipulate them and threaten their lives for malevolent purposes. Each character has pasts that haunt them. 

Shadow is haunted by his dead wife Laura and John is haunted by the people he is not able to save. Because of this their enemies are able to use their tortured pasts against them to manipulate Shadow and John for their own good. Percy Wetmore, one of the prison guards in The Green Mile, is one of the cruelest officers on duty at the prison and consistently torments John Coffey along with the rest of the prisoners. Percy uses their crimes to cause further emotional damage and usually loses his temper and often hurts the prisoners. Percy has a malicious and evil side to him that cannot be fully contained.

 However, as with Shadow, the prison guard in charge is also nasty towards the prisoners always taunting racist slurs and profanities. On top of this, Shadow now has Mr. Wednesday as a leading figure in his life and often gets him into trouble. Mr. Wednesday pressures Shadow into thinking that this life is now the only one he has. In both cases, it seems to be that John Coffey and Shadow Moon are sealed to an inescapable fate. Eventually they will have to come to terms with what they have been accused of and things that have haunted them in their past because their punishment is coming whether or not it is justified.

Condescending Christian Criticism

The Saga of Grettir The Strong takes place around the time of the Christianization of Iceland. The pagan and Christian tension is noted and we see some of the results of that tension in the saga. The negative portrayal of paganism and of those who do not follow Christian doctrine in the death of Glam and the exploits of Thorbjorn and his foster-mother Thurid is a critique on the old Icelandic ways from a Christian perspective.

            It takes Thorbjorn multiple attempts to get Grettir to get off the island. As Gretter’s sentence gets closer and closer to ending he is pressured to expedite his efforts. He turns to his foster-mother, Thurid, who is a known to practice magic. The book introduces her as a woman “who was very old and not considered capable of doing much” … and” had been well versed in magic and knew many secret arts when she was young and people were heathens”. The writing classifies those who are pagan as heathens. On top of that, even though it is recognized that she holds power, she is considered unable to do much. This is almost like the author is saying “all this magic business is great, but its nothing compared to the power of God and my religion.” The book continues on and touches on how paganism is forbidden, and if you are going to practice it you must not do it publicly. The legal punishments are also mentioned in the same paragraph. (173)

“Magic Circle” by John William Waterhouse (1886

            Thorbjorn employs his foster-mother in his mission to kill Grettir. Thurid curses Grettir and sends him an object with curses embedded in it. Her magic would eventually kill Grettir. (185) When it is made public that Thorbjorn used pagan magic to kill Grettir, he is ostracized from many gatherings and can’t even collect the bounty on his head. This is significant considering how many people wanted Grettir dead. The way he is killed is so horrendous to the people that it seems to redeem and distinguish Grettir from his outlawry. The killing also made the practicing of black magic illegal. (190-191) The negative attitude toward paganism throughout this part of the story is obvious and nowhere near subtle. There are other events in the story that are less explicit but still hard to miss.

            Glam is a character who doesn’t follow or care about Christian doctrine. Throughout his employment under Thorhall, nothing bad happened until Christmas Eve. Glam gets angry with the farmer’s wife because she refuses to cook for him. “It is not Christian custom to eat on this day.” Glam replies, “you have all sorts of superstition that I dismiss as worthless.” Glam then forces her to make him food and she warns “I know that you’ll suffer for it today if you go ahead with this evil act.” Sure enough, the next day Glam is found brutally killed. (77-78) This foreshadowing implies that it is Glam’s lack of Christian morals and practice that gets him killed. In addition to the previous point, this fast-acting display of the power of Christianity holds a contrast to the pagan magic that took time and effort to achieve its goal of killing Grettir.

Lord Grettir and Glamhttps://thepostgradchronicles.org/2017/10/29/monsters-and-the-monstrous-in-the-sagas-the-saga-of-grettir-the-strong/ 

            Anti-pagan attitudes can be seen throughout the saga. The killing of Grettir is one of the most obvious and straightforward. This section of the story goes as far to talk about how Iceland is no longer pagan and the consequences of practicing magic. Even though Thorbjorn and Thurid kill Grettir an infamous and widely hated outlaw they are shunned for using magic. The faster acting and more efficient display of Christian power, on the other hand, implies Christian superiority over paganism. This is not only a criticism of traditional Icelandic life from a Christian perspective it’s a condescending Christian criticism.