The age at which a wizard is offered the Oath

[nitafan211]

Exacly. I was going to say that.

[nitafan211]

I keeled this topic to.

[Peter Murray]

Originally posted by Fox:
I still think it has to do with the belief system! ...
Dar was very grown up for her age and had a lot of knowlege BUT she she thought that Darth mall and vada where real, she believed in the force, in other words she still believed!

Hmmm, and Nita almost didn't believe. From rereading that part of SYWTBAW, she first thought the book was a joke, but she seems to have practically forced herself to believe because she wanted to be able to do something about Joanne.

[alla]

Think about it though, wouldn't most people think that it was a joke to start off with - unless they were looking for it, such as in Darine's case?

Thinking back to when you were that age (reguardless of what books you were reading at the time, or how long ago it was), how many of you out there would have a) believed it, and b) had the courage/curiosity to actually take the oath.

The first time I read SYWTBAW I was all excited. I was reading the description of what makes a wizard:

SYWTBAW:
Wizards love words, most of them read a great deal, and indeed one strong sign of a potential wizard is the inability to get to sleep without reading something first.

And that is something that I have always had trouble with. Ever since I started reading by myself, I have always had to read something before I could get to sleep.

Looking back on that now, though, I dunno, if it was real, if I would have had the courage to take the Oath. But anyways... opinions people?

Alla

[Birdhead]

Wasn't there a topic a while back, asking how many of had actually read the Oath on our first read through the books? Ad didn't it show that everyone had, just on the faint off-chance?

I mean, I expect we all thought we were being pretty stupid at the time, but I don't doibt that anyone who's reading SYWTBAW is probably going to be able to "suspend disbelief," or your own sense of the preposterous, long enough to read it. Nothing to do with courage, really; just to do with the sort of people who are likely to be reading the books. (this is suspended for our oldfarts, who were probably a bit too old when they read it for the first time. sorry, darlings. )

Fox makes a good point about belief and disbelief, but seriously, I don't think Dairine did believe in Darth vader; even Nita, reading the oath for the first time, didn't really believe it'd pull through, did she? For a second she did, but then she jsut through she was being stupid. I agree that an inability to believe in wizardry is probably the cut-off point, but I would distinguish that from belief itself.

[semiramis]

Perhaps it's not so much belief, as ignorance. When you're young, you don't know what should or shouldn't be done...

... I think I've mentioned it before, but this is actually true IRL, too. There's this one story that a lot of my teachers have related about a college student who wasn't paying attention in class, so he copied down a problem thinking that it was homework, laboured on it for hours, and returned to class truimphantly... only to find out that it was not, in fact, the homework, but an example the teacher had given of a famous "unsolvable problem".

And didn't Alexander cut the Golgothian (sp?) knot when he was fifteen or something? Seventeen? Somewhere thereabouts? That rather makes me think of that one time in TBONWM when Arhu just takes a spell specifically hinging on a particular aspect of rats and applies it to dinosaurs, becuase he doesn't know it'd be "against the rules".

And then there's another thing... who was it that said that one quote about asking "why not" instead of "why"? ...young people, throughout history, are often more likely to do this.... if you look at Asian history, especially (or perhaps not, but I've noticed it the most on this continent), there are a lot of rebellions driven by idealistic students, the most recent being tienanmin square...

[Peter Murray]

I can't remember the details now, but at least once at work someone told me after I'd done something that it couldn't be done. It probably involved making the mainframe we used do something.

That was the Gordian knot - and the idea was that it was impossible to untie. Alexander's solution counts as lateral thinking, but didn't actually solve the problem, as he cut through it instead of untying it.

_______, of course, starts off knowing nothing about the Speech or any limitations of wizardry, so ... oops, this is the SYWTBAW topic, no spoilers for later books. But the same thing applies as with Arhu, I suppose.

[semiramis]

Oh... oops O.o I always get the gordian knot and the golgothian demon mixed up, they sound similar to me... >.<


...but. Yeah. You knew what I meant, so that's okay ^.^

Anyway, about that... what I meant was that when you're younger, you're more likely to not automatically dismiss a move like that as being "against the rules"... that your mind isn't as fixed in a single way of thinking as it might become when you're an adult. There's this one buddhist monk somewhere who declaired he would never read another book because he wanted to keep his way of thinking "pure"... and then there's the saying "the master fears the novice for his unpredictability", yes?

...um. Something like that... my brain is fried from the sudden transition from break to school right now, sorry...

[Nature_Wind]

We've been discussing things like that in French class recently; the rules of the world aren't as firmly grounded in a child's mind, or even in that of a preteen or young teenager. They still believe, in some dark recess of their hearts, that magic does exist, and so they're more open to the idea of the Oath.

Which I took, by the way. It didn't work. :P

[Fox]

We've been discussing things like that in French class recently; the rules of the world aren't as firmly grounded in a child's mind, or even in that of a preteen or young teenager.

I love that quote!!! But I would take it a differant way, to me that would mean [and I'm sure this is in the book ] that because children dont know those rules of the world then they have no trouble in breaking them! Is'ant that why the younger the wizard is the more powerful they are?
Foxy

[Gryphon]

alla:
And that is something that I have always had trouble with. Ever since I started reading by myself, I have always had to read something before I could get to sleep.

Always. I crawl into bed and read for an hour every night. Sometimes I have a few kitties who visit me; they like the height, and also there are the warm blankets. Mooster (Cinnamon) burrows under everything, and he comes every night.

I thought about reading the oath, but I didn't. I wonder how old I was when I got that book. I got it for Christmas, read a little, then put it down; I didn't sink into it right away.

[sharklord]

Fox

Nature_Wind:
We've been discussing things like that in French class recently; the rules of the world aren't as firmly grounded in a child's mind, or even in that of a preteen or young teenager.

I love that quote!!! But I would take it a differant way, to me that would mean [and I'm sure this is in the book ] that because children dont know those rules of the world then they have no trouble in breaking them! Is'ant that why the younger the wizard is the more powerful they are?
Foxy

Quotes in quotes! I always wanted to do that! For your comment, Fox, I would say that the quote is significant because even if a kid knows the rules, that kid doesn't subscribe to them. It's like if you tell a young kid not to do something because it's against the rules, then it's still likely that he/she will still break them.

Soooo, a child wizard is so powerful (in my take) because his/her mind has not been hoodwinked into believing that the rules need to be followed.

Is this making sense?

[wizardsrreal]

OK, getting back on the topic, I think kids that are 11,12,or13 first start at that age because; do any of you remember when you where really little, and a grouwn-up would ask you what you wanted to be when you grew up? Well most of you probly said somthing that was a huge responsibility, like an astronot, or somthing like that. Yes I do have a point, that when you are little you don't think about the risks as much as you would if you were older and you are more willing to belive in it! At least thats what I thought.

[Gryphon]

*snort* Yeah, I see where Wizardsrreal is going. I won't say what I wanted to be then, or I'd only get picked on more... And all of this week, and possibly next, is 'Pick on Gryphon Week.' This glare is for PM.

I wanted to be a teacher at another point, too, and a journalist. Now I have no idea what I want to be.

[Ankaa]

I think younger children were more willing to believe in wizardry, even if they still thought of it as "magic", and also they understood teh Speech by second nature when they were young. Also they accept things a lot weirder than we do, because they don't worry about why things happen. Like how ancient civilizations didn't know what was happening during eclipses, or meteor showers or anything, they simply accepted them.

I started reading fantasy when I was probably 8, with Harry Potter. Actually I read SYWTBAW when I was 7 or so, made no sense whatsoever of it, ::blush::, and read it for real when I was 9. I took the Oath when I was...eleven, I think. It's kind of embarassing, really, because I wanted wizardry so badly, that the rational side of my mind that protested that these books are works of fiction written by a human sorta died. I usually read or draw and/or listen to music before I go to bed. One of those at least. I stopped reading all the time right before bed when I was reading It by Stephen King. It kept me awake for hours (I was 11 at the time).