On Magic

I’m currently in the UK working with some students on a project about Philip Pullman the popular fantasy writer and his, somewhat vociferous, attacks on Christianity. We struck out after lunch on what was seemingly a sunny day, seeking the “hole in the universe” through which the boy Will goes in the second book of his trilogy. It is described as being between the hornbeam trees near a traffic circle in the north of Oxford. We got to the place where the rip in the fabric of reality was supposed to be, and it suddenly turned cold and rainy, and then later started hailing on us. In the US, because I have a car, a house and all of that, I don’t tend to get soaked to the bone and wet because I am stuck out somewhere. Being in Oxford, a place that somehow helped to spawn the dream worlds of Tolkien, Lewis, Pullman and many others, and being laid bare to the elements made me reflect upon the “deeper magic” that swells around us all of the time and of which we are generally unaware. We don’t believe, often because we don’t look. Occasionally, when we are caught in a strange place in a storm, we can be overcome by the very real magic of living.

And by the way, I’ve been meaning to comment on something I noticed watching “Santa Claus is Coming to Town” multiple times on video over the Christmas holidays (yes I know it is nearly Easter): When I was a child and there were no videos, I got a chance to watch this show and the other holiday specials only once a year, so I never quite caught a small inconsistency – They never explain how the Winter Warlock lost his fearsome magical powers. It seems that they imply that he loses them because they are somehow connected to his “wicked and cold heart” which melts when given a present by Kringle. And it is important in the fact that in the escape from Sombertown, he has nothing but the “magic corn that makes the reindeer fly” (apparently genetically modified AND it rewrites the reindeer genome so that flying becomes an inherited trait – c.f. “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer.”)

What I never noticed before was that, after a prayer of sorts, the Warlock has enough power to light the trees above Chris and Jessica when they are married. Then, in the Epilogue, when Santa is leaving, the Warlock says something to the effect of, “You’ll have clear sailing tonight, because I’ve used my magic powers to help you.” What I’m wondering is whether or not there is some sort of imbedded message. Perhaps the writers were trying to say that there is evil magic which comes out of the hatred of an evil and closed heart and that there is the greater magic of love. If that is the case, though, why does he lose his powers in the interim? Can magical power be seen as a continuum whereon only the people at the extremes have any real power? If so, it is much like current American Politics.