Silence: A Theory

##Silence: A Theory

Magic is the greatest force in the Aurbis. It is the origin of all things, and permeates every fragment of creation. Throughout time, magic has enjoyed a mercurial reception, swinging pendulously between the categories of high science and feared superstition. Spell techniques and effects have risen and been lost, only to be rediscovered centuries later. Many spells are poorly understood by layman and caster alike. Even we, the players, often don’t stop to think about how our spells actually work. One spell which is certainly more than meets the eye is Silence. Bane of mages, this spell nullifies the ability to cast spells for a short time. However, it’s kind of obvious that we don’t run around screaming “FIREBALL!!” every time we sling a fireball, or “Shabbith-ka! From the void of Magnetriboel I summon thee!” when we call Storm Atronachs (unless you’re freakin’ awesome). This is an obvious conundrum, and though we could chalk it up to lore=/=gameplay mechanics, that’s BATW. I prefer to grow my lore beard and figure this out, and though I don’t like Ovaltine, I raise a glass to you now, gentle reader.

First, a mild history lesson. Silence first receives classification in TES:Daggerfall, where it is falls under the school of Mysticism. This gives us our first, and perhaps greatest clue to understanding the nature of Silence, and a (later rewritten) text from TES:Daggerfall says it perfectly: “Mysticism is the school of magic least understood by the magical community, most difficult to explain to novices mages. The spells effects commonly ascribed to the School of Mysticism are as wildly disparate as Soul Trap -- the creation of a cell for a victim's spirit after death -- to Silence -- the extinction of sound. But these effects are simply that: effects.” Mysticism itself is defined by the in-game manual of Morrowind as involving “the manipulation of magical forces and boundaries to bypass the structures and limitations of the physical world.” Thinking of Silence in this way, one can imagine the spell as a means of magical confinement -a trap, similar in theory to a soul trap- which binds and inhibits the projection of an individual’s magicka. Furthermore, though I hesitate to make this claim, we may actually see the (re?)discovery of this magical effect in history, specifically in the oft-underappreciated and definitely under-analyzed Elder Scrolls Online.

The Sorcerer class in ESO is the closest to pure magery you can get, coming complete with curses, teleportation, Daedric summoning, massive amounts of lightning, and Silence. Specifically, the only Silence available to players as of now. It comes in the form of Negate Magic, an Ultimate ability which “creates a globe of magical suppression, stunning enemies within and dispelling enemy placed effects. Players will be silence.” To me that sounds like one big Mysticism spell, one that has yet to be dissected into its individual effects. It’s notable that Negate Magic is the Ultimate spell for the Dark Magic tree, whose spells range from conjured mines and crystalline projectiles to runic prisons, all dealing with some form of magical structure.

But if Silence is so obviously a Mysticism spell, why did the Guild of Mages classify the effect as Illusion? I believe that another means of Silence exists, one potentially easier to cast than its Mysticism counterpart. To understand it, you must understand the nature of Illusion magic, which is well-described in Reality and Other Falsehoods: “It is easy to confuse Illusion and Alteration. Both schools of magic attempt to create what is not there. The difference is in the rules of nature. Illusion is not bound by them, while Alteration is. This may seem to indicate that Alteration is the weaker of the two, but this is not true. Alteration creates a reality that is recognized by everyone. Illusion's reality is only in the mind of the caster and the target.” Many of the effects of the Illusion school directly affect a target’s mind: fear, rally, and paralyze, for example. Some affect the minds of those who perceive the target, such as chameleon and some forms of invisibility. It’s similar to the theme of the 2010 film Inception, which dealt with the implantation of an idea into the subconscious mind of a target. However, in Tamriel the application is far less subtle: fear, courage and paralysis are all powerful concepts that can be directly implanted into someone’s mind. I posit that Silence could work in the same manner: the implantation of the idea that you can no longer cast spells. Though we can verify that many spells are nonverbal, many other spells are verbal, and many hedge-mages and apprentices likely rely on verbal cues to aid in their casting. If nothing else, the actual silencing effect serves to heavily reinforce the psychological notion of suddenly being powerless. Though not represented in gameplay, we can imagine less prepared mages in lore-world being completely stupefied by being silenced, panicked nearly to the point of paralysis. Illusion is the magic of the mind, and the psychological state of the target can heavily influence the spells aimed at them.

I don’t have much to say about the exclusion of Silence from Skyrim. It was always a complex spell, and given the poor state of magical scholasticism, we could assume that general knowledge of the spell has been lost. The College’s Illusion Master doesn’t seem like much of a Master. But a lot of me simply wants to call it an erroneous exclusion on the part of the developers. It could have been excluded for balancing purposes. I leave that debate to you.

In conclusion, or TL:DR: I believe there are two methods of casting the Silence spell, neither of which relies solely on silencing the target. The original method involves “trapping” a target’s magicka, preventing them from casting, and would be classified as a Mysticism spell. Voice, being another means of semi-magical projection, is also bound by this. The second, far more modern method involves temporarily convincing the target that their magic has been disabled, and would be classified as an Illusion spell. The voice is bound by this as a side-effect of the spell’s application.

Constructive criticism and added thoughts are welcomed.