folklore and magic - never around when you need them

[rivendellrose]

The logic of magic, folklore and fairy tales always seems perfectly reasonable and intuitive to me... right up until I need to make something very specific happen in a story, and get flabbergasted realizing that I have no idea how to come up with the details of what I'm imagining. It's not exactly as though there's a good way to Google "a spell to put your enemy into a bottle."

Although trying does get some interesting Vodoun websites. :P

Oh well, on with it - I know I'll just get myself utterly distracted by research if I keep going like this, so I'll just have to settle for whatever pops into my head.

Comments

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

Are you looking for something specific, or just a general idea of how that sort of thing would work in a traditional magical context?

If it's the latter, I may be able to help... I tend to be really good at working within those sorts of constraints. Probably due to a decade of programming experience. :D

In this case, depending on what specific folklore you're working with, one way would be a "voodoo" type of approach, where you create a miniature of your target, put it in the bottle, and then swap the real one for the miniature. Another way is to manipulate a portal - say, the door to a room he enters frequently - so that it points into the bottle instead of into the room. (Again, in particularly sympathetic systems, this tends to work better if you construct a miniature of the room in question inside the bottle.)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I think I've got it figured out, now. I just get a little panicked when I realize suddenly that I'm sure something happens in fairy tales / folklore, but I can't remember how or where or in what stories. It's that old "I know I know this... I just can't remember!" thing.

Thanks for the suggestions, though! :)