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We have 1 questions tagged . It is ALSO tagged .

It seems that there's very little point to have a specific tag for "sorcery" - it's merely a synonym in real English, and no SFF universe makes a clear distinction between the two. In that question it was merely added since there was a definition of the term being asked for.

I proposed to change to be a synonym of .

If you agree, and have >=5 upvotes in , please feel free to up-vote the synonym suggestion here: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/tags/magic/synonyms

If approved, I will take care of minor re-tagging if it will be necessary.

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Nitpick: there are plenty of SF universes that make a clear distinction between the two. But the distinction varies from universe to universe. So as general concepts, they are synonyms. I'll set up the synonym unless someone objects. – Gilles Feb 1 '12 at 20:57
@Gilles - I already set them up (I have enough upvotes). Or do synonyms require Moderator fairy dust on top of regular 4/5 votes? – DVK Feb 1 '12 at 20:58
You've suggested it, it still requires votes. As usual, moderators have a binding vote. – Gilles Feb 1 '12 at 21:03
@Gilles - Oh. Sorry. Didn't parse your wording correctly. – DVK Feb 1 '12 at 21:11
@Gilles - Your first comment made me mad curious, so I asked for an example in the main site. If you already had a specific example when writing a comment, please feel free to answer - cheap and easy rep :) – DVK Feb 1 '12 at 21:47
I gave a couple at the end of my answer to hard science fantasy stories on Literature. – Gilles Feb 1 '12 at 21:52

2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote

While there are some distinctions between them in different universes, specifically that Sorcery tends to deal with spirits of some kind, while magic usually doesn't, there are enough similarities where I think it's fine.

As far as tag synonyms go, a person can "tag" a question with Sorcery still, but it will be converted to magic.

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I don't think there are any such general rules. The first example that came to my mind was Lyndon Hardy's Five Magics where it's wizardry that involves spirits, and sorcery is mind-to-mind. The second is Ethshar where sorcery may indirectly involve spirits (but this hasn't been established yet) and theurgy and demonology involve gods and demons. – Gilles Feb 3 '12 at 1:15
@Gilles: Hmmm, guess I haven't read those kinds. Still, I don't doubt that there are differences in different series... – PearsonArtPhoto♦ Feb 3 '12 at 3:55
up vote -3 down vote

I agree withh Gilles that there is a distinction between the two, and even in real life, people who study sorcery and people who study magic are studying two different things (with some overlap).

I say keep the two tags the way they are. If someone is reading a story that specifically uses "sorcery" as it's mechanism, then someone is going to be confused when they can't use that tag when asking a question.

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