Is magic just a sad excuse to write whatever the fuck you want without fear of writing yourself into a corner...

Meanwhile in the most popular stories and mythology magic is just arbitrary bullshit to move the plot along it's intended path rather than some autistic rules system.
Really makes you think.

I've always liked to think of magic and the supernatural as having three main uses in fiction.

The first is to escalate a conflict by allowing a single person or object to have a much greater impact on the world than they normally could. In realistic stories, very high stakes mean you either only show part of the conflict (a unit of soldiers in a war for instance) or you observe the conflict from a distance (you follow the leaders of one or both sides). In a fantasy story, the greater disparity in power levels between characters means that, like Lord of the Rings, you can have a 'fate of the world' story which still only follows a small group of people without cutting out much of importance since that small group of people is disproportionately important to the conflict compared with the rest of the world.

The other use as I see it is to draw a more direct causal connection between the characters' external and internal conflicts. When you introduce magic into a setting it allows for the emotional and spiritual landscape of the character to have a direct impact on the world around them to a greater extent than simply how it affects their behavior. A story about a crisis of faith, for example, takes on a much more obvious, visceral impact in a setting where having a strong connection to your god gives you supernatural powers, it turns the story's internal struggle into one which has a massive impact on the external problems the character may face and their ability to deal with them.

The third use it to explore personal or social impacts of normally impossible hypotheticals. It essentially allows the writer to introduce a new law of the universe for their setting and then look at how that impacts the world and characters as a means of exploring ideas.

That is a good argument for stories to have magic.

But not all stories should have magic. Remaining grounded can create a deeper connection to the characters. People can become overwhelmed by fantastic elements.

if magic has no restrictions, then yes

I think you just reinvented Asimov's three kinds of science fiction that can probably be used for any plot device, thinking of it.

magic that influences the metaplot is not magic. People who have an 'epic destiny' are not necessarily magic, it is storytelling tool to prevent stories characters from being inconsequential in the face of probability.

we have what are called 'actuated possibilities'. Stories generally focus on the high end of improbable, which is why they seem significant. What is novel is most likely to get noticed.

as long as it doesnt contradict itself
i mean magic doesnt need to be godlike
and even if it is it doesnt mean it can do anything ala anime power of will

there's a couple differences, firstly I was trying to explain why you'd use the plot device, not the different ways of using it, secondly, the second use I list doesn't really match any of his three plots

>Implying you need an excuse to write whatever the fuck you want.
>Implying thinking you need external validation isn't the saddest thing there is.

This bitch right here managed to keep herself alive by making up bullshit until the Calif decided he didn't hate it that much when women lied to him. After that he became a righteous man, all through the power of ~magic~. It didn't even take her 1001 nights. Can you do what she did? If not, you don't deserve to be a GM.

It often feels like it.
I also think time traveling belongs here as well.

If the rules/feel of it are established before hand no. I think even writers with good intentions will end up abusing it unless they establish it before hand in the story or their own heads. When it continually leads to those smug "you just activated my trap card" moments where someone reveals they could do X all along, or because of the pressure they unlocked hidden ability Y, or their power could be used to do Z they just never figured it out before. All of those can be fine in a story if pulled off right but when stuff like that happens often it's usually bad writing.

It's just author railroading and not limited to stories involving magic. This is mainly a problem of stories involving long established characters who get into many conflicts. With all new characters and a single main conflict it's easy to make sure all the characters personalities and abilities lead them in the direction the author wants them to go in. Established characters mean there's no flexibility without retcons so railroading takes place to either force them into or out of situations.

pic related

It adds functional mystery to the world.
It makes it clear that there are machinations of the world that are palpable but unknown to us. It reaffirms that tangled sense of dreadful confusion, curiosity and potential that's often purged from our lives. This sort of magic both tantalises and humbles. It's never expressed to it's full potential, never totally grasped or seen or never gives a result quite as intended.
>Like any good fantasy it's not there to satisfy but to leave you hungry for more.
It's all about what could be.

But genre authors are fans. Fans write to satisfy themselves, so they 'complete' magic, which seems very clever at first (and sometimes it really can be a clever train of thought) but it almost always winds up as a dried out plastic trinket tossed about the story without meaningful presence.
It becomes a macguffin to explain things that really never needed explaining.

Who cares? It was good enough for everybody for millions of years, and it's good enough for most people these days. Deal with it.