Stephen Strange: Doctor Strange Appreciation 2021

[DigiCom]

And that's even affected the MCU up until very recently when they said science and magic are the same thing. Perhaps they were just talking about Asgardian magic?

As I've said elsewhere, I truly think that people read FAR too much into that comment. The same movie that included it also had a weapon with no moving parts whatsoever not only change its weight and fly without any visible means of propulsion, but also somehow have the ability to determine when a former wielder half a town away had stopped being an arrogant prick.



Oh yeah, that's really scientific.

[Albert1981]

As I've said elsewhere, I truly think that people read FAR too much into that comment. The same movie that included it also had a weapon with no moving parts whatsoever not only change its weight and fly without any visible means of propulsion, but also somehow have the ability to determine when a former wielder half a town away had stopped being an arrogant prick.



Oh yeah, that's really scientific.

Oh ****, I forgot about that scene. In my defense, I haven't seen that movie in like a decade!

[DigiCom]

This is not actually true. Magic has not been associated with science, in the past or now.

Untrue. One of the fathers of modern physics, Isaac Newton, also did a lot of research in alchemy. And I'm fairly certain that the only reason tehre are 7 colors in the rainbow is that he believed in the mystical power of the number.

And wasn't there a joke made in that first Strange movie implying that Buddhists and Hindus who use mantras are "savages"? I think that comment was made in a conversation between Baron Mordo and Stephen over a wifi password. Obviously the MCU has a rather light-hearted view about the religious influences on magic in its universe.

That's a bit of a misinterpretation. The "savages" line had nothing to do with the idea of a mantra, but more to do with the idea that they didn't have Wi-Fi. =)

The joke, of course, is that said password ("Shamballa") was a reference to a classic Doctor Strange Story: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marve...Novel_Vol_1_23

[DigiCom]

Oh ****, I forgot about that scene. In my defense, I haven't seen that movie in like a decade!

I forget very little. It's a gift…

…and a curse.

[DigiCom]

Because this was a topic of discussion earlier:

The random effects, mostly. Not any real-world occult practice.

I was looking for, essentially, a "unified field theory" of Wanda's powers, something that would explain all the stuff she'd done in the past without contradicting them, as earlier explanations often did. She'd gone from "point and something bad happens" to "alter probability" to "reorder reality," and it seemed to me that everything she did was essentially chaotic and disruptive. So that, with the Chthon connection, suggested she was channeling and shaping some sort of chaotic force -- it would serve as an underlying explanation for all of that stuff.

And that would also let me essentially unify her powers -- rather than having a mutant power and magical skill, the mutant power could be to channel a particular flavor of magic, and the magical skill could help her in how she channels it. That way, instead of having two unrelated powers/skills that largely involve casting weird energy from her hands, she'd be using the power and the skill in tandem, wielding magic with her mutant power, shaping her mutant-channeled magic with her learned magic skills.

I thought it made her more coherent, less muddy in what she could do.

So when people talk about real-world occult beliefs, as if the idea is to reject all the stuff she did before and give her a new set of abilities, that's not what I meant at all. I wanted to embrace all the stuff she did before, and provide a context that united it.

Chthonic power, chaos magic, is (in my intent, at least) inherently disruptive and chaotic, and supports everything she'd been shown to do, whether it was the hex-spheres (chaos grenades), making bricks fly out of a fireplace to strike at someone (not probability-shifting because that's not probable at all, but still chaotic), to make a meteor veer out of its orbit (disruptive) to remaking reality (waaaay disruptive).

That was the intent. I thought it fit her very well, but it's been the subject of contradiction and reassertion since. Which is kind of chaotic itself, so maybe that fits.

I discussed it in a few posts recently, including:

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post5406479

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post5408594

https://community.cbr.com/showthread...=1#post5408607

kdb

[Clea]

Untrue. One of the fathers of modern physics, Isaac Newton, also did a lot of research in alchemy. And I'm fairly certain that the only reason tehre are 7 colors in the rainbow is that he believed in the mystical power of the number.



That's a bit of a misinterpretation. The "savages" line had nothing to do with the idea of a mantra, but more to do with the idea that they didn't have Wi-Fi. =)

The joke, of course, is that said password ("Shamballa") was a reference to a classic Doctor Strange Story: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marve...Novel_Vol_1_23

It's true that Isaac Newton was an alchemist. He did study the natural world, but he also pursued what we now deem to the occultist/spiritualist side of alchemy. Newton embraced the magical side of alchemy at a point in time when his contemporaries were abandoning any sort of occultist, magical thinking. I regard him as an outlier when I think about the alchemists overall. This is a nice quick article about what alchemy was all about: https://www.learnreligions.com/alchemy-95824

After Newton's death, his family held back all of his spiritualist/magical oriented manuscripts and only release the more acceptable 'science' oriented writings because they wanted to hide his 'heresy' from public scrutiny and criticism. Because Newton became so famous for his scientific achievements, that helped to fuel the idea that alchemy was always really just about science, too. Alchemy may have turned into science, but it started as a mystic pursuit.

I'm more in line with what this person wrote in a review of a book about Paracelsus, another well known alchemist who lived hundreds of years before Newton. "Sci-fi pioneer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke famously declared that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This statement might also suggest that magic, sufficiently studied, could conveniently reveal itself to be science. For people who are, like myself, fascinated by alchemy, this thinking can be a tempting trap. We recognize—with the clarity of both hindsight and our knowledge of the atom—that lead cannot become gold (at least not without a particle accelerator), and so we might look back with something like embarrassed discomfort at those who attempted this transmutation. The easiest way to avoid this sensation is to reframe alchemists as otherwise modern chemists trapped in an era before Pyrex and the periodic table—not delusional or fraudulent, merely temporally unlucky. That way, alchemists’ messier and more mystical impulses become relatively palatable—just the inescapable background noise of their era masking otherwise straightforward advances in materials science. https://www.sciencehistory.org/disti...icine-to-magic

Our modern worldview is so oriented towards the rational and scientific perspectives that it makes people uncomfortable to realize that admirable 'scientists' like Newton avidly believed in irrational, arcane magical thinking. We need everything tied to science and rational order. Apparently even our stories about comic book magicians must be grounded on orderly 'scientific' rankings and rules in order to make them acceptable to readers. Those same readers enjoy stories about super beings who fly around and shoot laser beams from their hands because of some nonsensical 'scientific' justification that ties their magical powers to the periodic table. Take that same super hero and say that their superpower is fueled by a link to the powers and principalities and energy in high, heavenly alternate dimensions though, and modern readers just can't handle it.

[Clea]

Flashing back on how utterly overwrought Strange became when Clea left him because she thought he'd be better off with Morganna Blessing reminded me of this hilarious (to me anyway) passage from New Avengers Illuminati #4, in which the other Illuminati members discover Strange sitting alone in the dark brooding over her departure. I confess that I didn't often like how Bendis wrote Strange in New Avengers, but I think this sequence perfectly captured how these classic-era Marvel men ignored and objectified the women in their lives. When Bendis disassembled Strange and turned him into an Avenger, he at least knew what made Strange tick as a character. (I still haven't forgiven him for what he did to Wanda though.) There's even more hilariously accurate skewering of the other Illuminati members in this issue over the way they treat the women in their lives.

Strange whines that his "protege" (who he only secondarily refers to as his wife), left him because she actually preferred to go out and use her powers to fight evil over sitting around the Sanctum just content to be his wife. Reed Richards is completely clueless about who Strange is even talking about, despite having met Clea 32 times before. Of course Tony pops out with an utterly inappropriate comment about how hot Clea is, and you know he's about to say something worse until Strange gives him the death stare of doom. Strange actually says, "Is there any amount -- I want to know -- is there any amount of yourself you can give that is sufficient for a woman?! Is there?!" when his entire track record for decades in his own books is him repeatedly telling Clea that he can't share himself emotionally with her. He's obviously clueless about why Clea left.

[Daedra]

It's true that Isaac Newton was an alchemist. He did study the natural world, but he also pursued what we now deem to the occultist/spiritualist side of alchemy. Newton embraced the magical side of alchemy at a point in time when his contemporaries were abandoning any sort of occultist, magical thinking. I regard him as an outlier when I think about the alchemists overall. This is a nice quick article about what alchemy was all about: https://www.learnreligions.com/alchemy-95824

After Newton's death, his family held back all of his spiritualist/magical oriented manuscripts and only release the more acceptable 'science' oriented writings because they wanted to hide his 'heresy' from public scrutiny and criticism. Because Newton became so famous for his scientific achievements, that helped to fuel the idea that alchemy was always really just about science, too. Alchemy may have turned into science, but it started as a mystic pursuit.

I'm more in line with what this person wrote in a review of a book about Paracelsus, another well known alchemist who lived hundreds of years before Newton. "Sci-fi pioneer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke famously declared that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This statement might also suggest that magic, sufficiently studied, could conveniently reveal itself to be science. For people who are, like myself, fascinated by alchemy, this thinking can be a tempting trap. We recognize—with the clarity of both hindsight and our knowledge of the atom—that lead cannot become gold (at least not without a particle accelerator), and so we might look back with something like embarrassed discomfort at those who attempted this transmutation. The easiest way to avoid this sensation is to reframe alchemists as otherwise modern chemists trapped in an era before Pyrex and the periodic table—not delusional or fraudulent, merely temporally unlucky. That way, alchemists’ messier and more mystical impulses become relatively palatable—just the inescapable background noise of their era masking otherwise straightforward advances in materials science. https://www.sciencehistory.org/disti...icine-to-magic

Our modern worldview is so oriented towards the rational and scientific perspectives that it makes people uncomfortable to realize that admirable 'scientists' like Newton avidly believed in irrational, arcane magical thinking. We need everything tied to science and rational order. Apparently even our stories about comic book magicians must be grounded on orderly 'scientific' rankings and rules in order to make them acceptable to readers. Those same readers enjoy stories about super beings who fly around and shoot laser beams from their hands because of some nonsensical 'scientific' justification that ties their magical powers to the periodic table. Take that same super hero and say that their superpower is fueled by a link to the powers and principalities and energy in high, heavenly alternate dimensions though, and modern readers just can't handle it.

Very well said Clea, I always enjoy your insight but let me just add the fact that this issue with magic seems limited to a section of american comics and science fiction fans, it doesn’t seem to affect countless mangas & anime or the different netflix tv shows about the supernatural that keep popping up from time to time, the marvel universe being so multifaceted it’s s very fertile ground for the clash of sci-fi and fantasy concepts, it just so happens that the fandom of the first one feels the constant need to try and assimilate the second one into their favorite side of the setting.

[Clea]

Very well said Clea, I always enjoy your insight but let me just add the fact that this issue with magic seems limited to a section of american comics and science fiction fans, it doesn’t seem to affect countless mangas & anime or the different netflix tv shows about the supernatural that keep popping up from time to time, the marvel universe being so multifaceted it’s s very fertile ground for the clash of sci-fi and fantasy concepts, it just so happens that the fandom of the first one feels the constant need to try and assimilate the second one into their favorite side of the setting.

Marvel has a great deal of potential to show the clash of sci-fi and fantasy concepts, but I suspect that they'll always struggle to integrate their magical and non-magical character sets. The MU is set firmly in the 'real world'. The magical characters abide by meta-physical rules, not the periodic table, so there will always be a contingent of fans who will never understand or even accept the magic-based characters unless Marvel completely nerfs the magic characters or else imposes rigid rules and rankings on them. Ultimately, Marvel's storytelling choices for these characters will be dictated by the path that will make them the most money and lets them keep writing these same characters for years to come. Maybe they'll nerf the magic users long enough that everyone eventually forgets that magic isn't based on Infinity Stones and cool deities who are really just long lived aliens. Fans will sing "It was Science All Along!" Maybe Marvel will figure out a way to keep the magic users based on magical rules and metaphysics, and fans will sing "It Was Agatha All Along!" We'll see. As you say, there are many other successful storytelling media out there that portray magic and the supernatural well. I would like to see the Marvel magical characters continue to be magical, not secretly science based, so I hope Marvel figures it out.

[Albert1981]

Untrue. One of the fathers of modern physics, Isaac Newton, also did a lot of research in alchemy. And I'm fairly certain that the only reason tehre are 7 colors in the rainbow is that he believed in the mystical power of the number.



That's a bit of a misinterpretation. The "savages" line had nothing to do with the idea of a mantra, but more to do with the idea that they didn't have Wi-Fi. =)

The joke, of course, is that said password ("Shamballa") was a reference to a classic Doctor Strange Story: https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marve...Novel_Vol_1_23

Oh, now that makes sense to me. Derrickson really knew his ****. Pity he stopped working on Strange 2.

[Albert1981]

Because this was a topic of discussion earlier:

Well, that explains things! I thought he was just caught up in the renewed interested in the occult during the 90s and added elements from that interest into his stories. Thanks for sharing.

[Albert1981]

It's true that Isaac Newton was an alchemist. He did study the natural world, but he also pursued what we now deem to the occultist/spiritualist side of alchemy. Newton embraced the magical side of alchemy at a point in time when his contemporaries were abandoning any sort of occultist, magical thinking. I regard him as an outlier when I think about the alchemists overall. This is a nice quick article about what alchemy was all about: https://www.learnreligions.com/alchemy-95824

After Newton's death, his family held back all of his spiritualist/magical oriented manuscripts and only release the more acceptable 'science' oriented writings because they wanted to hide his 'heresy' from public scrutiny and criticism. Because Newton became so famous for his scientific achievements, that helped to fuel the idea that alchemy was always really just about science, too. Alchemy may have turned into science, but it started as a mystic pursuit.

I'm more in line with what this person wrote in a review of a book about Paracelsus, another well known alchemist who lived hundreds of years before Newton. "Sci-fi pioneer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke famously declared that “any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” This statement might also suggest that magic, sufficiently studied, could conveniently reveal itself to be science. For people who are, like myself, fascinated by alchemy, this thinking can be a tempting trap. We recognize—with the clarity of both hindsight and our knowledge of the atom—that lead cannot become gold (at least not without a particle accelerator), and so we might look back with something like embarrassed discomfort at those who attempted this transmutation. The easiest way to avoid this sensation is to reframe alchemists as otherwise modern chemists trapped in an era before Pyrex and the periodic table—not delusional or fraudulent, merely temporally unlucky. That way, alchemists’ messier and more mystical impulses become relatively palatable—just the inescapable background noise of their era masking otherwise straightforward advances in materials science. https://www.sciencehistory.org/disti...icine-to-magic

Our modern worldview is so oriented towards the rational and scientific perspectives that it makes people uncomfortable to realize that admirable 'scientists' like Newton avidly believed in irrational, arcane magical thinking. We need everything tied to science and rational order. Apparently even our stories about comic book magicians must be grounded on orderly 'scientific' rankings and rules in order to make them acceptable to readers. Those same readers enjoy stories about super beings who fly around and shoot laser beams from their hands because of some nonsensical 'scientific' justification that ties their magical powers to the periodic table. Take that same super hero and say that their superpower is fueled by a link to the powers and principalities and energy in high, heavenly alternate dimensions though, and modern readers just can't handle it.

Yeah, I didn't mean to get into an argument with you over this subject. Your knowledge about magic and how it relates to science FAR exceeds mine. It's just sometimes I notice some similarities between magic and science. Like how hypnotism is used in psychology and also in magic tricks, you know? I don't think magical stories need to be grounded in science. My issue is that they need to be grounded in logic and internal consistency (this goes for ALL fictional genres by the way) but since magic doesn't actually exist creators sometimes get a little too creative in using it to solve problems in their books/movies/shows or whatever. So if that involves the use of magical systems, I'm cool with it. I didn't watch Game of Thrones, but I have heard that the last season of that show was a disaster. From what I understand, the earlier episodes focused more on characters and politics. But later on it leaned heavily into fighting, dragons and magic. And that's when the series went off the rails. I think good writing could avoid these problems. So far the MCU has avoided using deus ex machinas in both its science and magic based movies. Hopefully that continues with the Multiverse of Madness.

[Albert1981]

Flashing back on how utterly overwrought Strange became when Clea left him because she thought he'd be better off with Morganna Blessing reminded me of this hilarious (to me anyway) passage from New Avengers Illuminati #4, in which the other Illuminati members discover Strange sitting alone in the dark brooding over her departure. I confess that I didn't often like how Bendis wrote Strange in New Avengers, but I think this sequence perfectly captured how these classic-era Marvel men ignored and objectified the women in their lives. When Bendis disassembled Strange and turned him into an Avenger, he at least knew what made Strange tick as a character. (I still haven't forgiven him for what he did to Wanda though.) There's even more hilariously accurate skewering of the other Illuminati members in this issue over the way they treat the women in their lives.

Strange whines that his "protege" (who he only secondarily refers to as his wife), left him because she actually preferred to go out and use her powers to fight evil over sitting around the Sanctum just content to be his wife. Reed Richards is completely clueless about who Strange is even talking about, despite having met Clea 32 times before. Of course Tony pops out with an utterly inappropriate comment about how hot Clea is, and you know he's about to say something worse until Strange gives him the death stare of doom. Strange actually says, "Is there any amount -- I want to know -- is there any amount of yourself you can give that is sufficient for a woman?! Is there?!" when his entire track record for decades in his own books is him repeatedly telling Clea that he can't share himself emotionally with her. He's obviously clueless about why Clea left.

I thought he was acting like a big baby. Carrying on like that. So unlike him. I never knew Strange to be a "woe is me" kinda guy when things got rough. I thought Reed is a genius. How could he have forgotten meeting Clea 32 times before?! Tony saying how hot Clea was is typical of him. Today, Strange would probably agree with him!

[Clea]

Musing on the Multiverse:

[DigiCom]

And that's not even getting into cardinality & transfinite numbers...