Do Scholars use 'White Magic'

[Anonymoose]

Your question has been answered, I'd say. However, it feels like we're dancing around something larger.

In terms of Final Fantasy magicks, many of us are used to categorizing the spells themselves. If it cures, it's a "white" magic. Raw damage, it's a "black" magic. Buffs and debuffs might be "Green" or "Time" magicks, and so on. That doesn't seem to be the case in Final Fantasy XIV. Spells do have a few objective qualities; one being the elemental alignment. However, the names and categories given to spells seem to reflect an organic and changing set of traditions in the game. Geography and chronology tends to end up mattering more than anything else.

Think of it this way: if Cure is considered a conjury spell, and conjury was invented ~500 years ago to commune with the elementals, and an Allagan clone casts Cure... did the Allagans know conjury? Or did they know a magic very similar if not identical to conjury that was called something else?

Rather than say a scholar uses "white magic", it might be better to say that both scholar and white mage use some healing magicks. You wouldn't call Pepsi "a Coke", but you could call them both "colas". And no matter what the grandmothers of the world have to say about it, not every gaming platform is a "Nintendo".

The way in which a spell is cast, the energies that it uses, the effect that is has, and its power efficiency might overlap in one or all four ways with another spell. I bet we could play the role of the Sharlayan and break down all of the various schools of magic into more "appropriate" categories based on those conditions.

[Yiazy]

Think of it this way: if Cure is considered a conjury spell, and conjury was invented ~500 years ago to commune with the elementals, and an Allagan clone casts Cure... did the Allagans know conjury? Or did they know a magic very similar if not identical to conjury that was called something else?.

But youre also forgetting that cure doesnt exclusively belong to conjury. Amdapoor existed long before the rise of Conjury, and we know how they developed white magics in reaction to Mhach with the creation of black magic. So in truth its very very possible that White magic was taken from something much much older than Amdapoor, most likely even predating the Allagans.

[Anonymoose]

But youre also forgetting that cure doesnt exclusively belong to conjury. Amdapoor existed long before the rise of Conjury, and we know how they developed white magics in reaction to Mhach with the creation of black magic. So in truth its very very possible that White magic was taken from something much much older than Amdapoor, most likely even predating the Allagans.

The world may never know!

I wish I'd thought of this metaphor in the original post, but to illustrate what I meant, think of language.

A single word (it's unique, exact combination of spelling, pronunciation, definition, connotation, etc.) might not exist for very long at all. But those who knew that word carry its soul across time and space, where it gives birth to new combinations. The spelling changes, sections are added or removed, people change how it is spoken; perhaps it takes on an entirely new meaning or connotation. Perhaps only some of those facets are still valuable, perhaps invaluable parts are carried on forever. The root of the English word Gymnasium means "a place to be naked", but we understand it as a "place to exercise" because the people who gave birth to the soul of the word undressed for physical training.

I assume that spells are much the same. The soul of the spell lives on, but how it the incantation is spoken, what energies are utilized, how the mage wields those energies, and the power that spell is capable off all might change along the way, branching into spells with similar effects, spells with spells with similar names, spells with similar effects and similar names, spells that bear only the slightest hint that they were ever related to that original seed.

Whether or not any are "the same" spell ... the pedants will probably never stop arguing over that one.

[rainichan]

A single word (it's unique, exact combination of spelling, pronunciation, definition, connotation, etc.) might not exist for very long at all. But those who knew that word carry its soul across time and space, where it gives birth to new combinations. The spelling changes, sections are added or removed, people change how it is spoken; perhaps it takes on an entirely new meaning or connotation. <snip>

Bolded part is my emphasis, but take that + the book in Gubal HM about the Council of the Magi's decision to rename their Cure spells from Cure, Cura, Curaja, etc. to Cure, Cure II, Cure III, etc. for that exact scenario. Assuming some of the surviving Amdapori went back to the Shroud after the flood to take refuge in what became Gelmorra, or any part of the Shroud (after all, it was Hyurs that became Padjal) they would have had to change the way the magic worked, but kept the same effect of what they wanted.