Banned
Join Date: Oct 2009
Location: Somewhere over the rainbow, in a house dropped on an ugly, old woman.
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Didn't want a new thread for this, but not sure where the best place to put these thoughts. So I suppose my question would be if someone had already thought along these lines, as I'm getting some research and thoughts together for a fanfic, and wanted to see if there were any holes in my interpretation of this subject:
Belka vs. Mid styles
I'm going to approach this from a different angle, and hopefully resolve any contradictions or issues people see.
First, let's go back to Ancient Belka; what do we have? A King. Knights. What imagery does this conjure up? Like medieval Europe with their nobility, royalty, honor system, pheasants and knights. Or medieval Japan with their emperor, nobility, Samurai(knights), and an honor system.
If Midchilda's history is anything like earths, there were fiefdoms that fought or allied for power and resources. Each kingdom or fiefdom had standing armies. Like most Earth armies, they probably evolved into specialized units. Earth had foot soldiers, cavalry, archers and the support staff (medics, healers, spies, sabotage, craftsmen to make weapons, etc.). What does this sound like? Let me put it into specifics:
Signum - mounted cavalry, using speed to outflank opponents (not odd for Samurai to master both bow and sword)
Vita - Foot Soldier, knight, charge straight ahead and punch through
Shamal - support; the healer, craftsman, etc. that I mentioned above
Zalfiras - a bit tougher to put into perspective, but consider that medieval societies did use dogs for guard duty. I can assume ancient belka used magics to create creatures for combat, which would serve and protect alongside the main units.
And Hayate? Archer. Or catapult or trebuchet if you prefer. :P
In Ancient Belka, I would assume people would specialize into these types, just as they did on Earth. So Yuuno, a learned man of histories, saw Signum and Vita fighting, he came to the same conclusion you or I would, if we saw someone in armor fighting with a sword, or a guy in a kimono swinging a samurai sword in today's time.
So, to me, "Ancient Belka Style" merely means a specialization in a type of combat. It's a focus on one. How do I see Midchilda style, then? Let's start turning the clock ahead.
Ancient Belka falls, for one reason or another. Some knowledge and specialities is probably lost, such as the cartridge system. In fact, if I were a kingdom back in those days and wanted to take over a neighbor, I'd aim to destroy their ability to make cartridges; without them, my army could cut through theirs like Sig and Vita do to Fate and Nanoha in A's eps 1 and 2. So people with the know-how to make cartridges, were probably a high target for conversion or elimination.
Anyway, Belka falls, armies scatter, go back to their hometowns, or get killed. The ones who survive, are those that use magic in new and unique ways, that aren't tied down to a specialty that has a glaring weakness. Also, getting cartridges gets harder, so that particular battle tactic falls out of general use.
Magic evolves from this, as scattered people do magical research and testing. Beasts that were probably created by several mages and not tied to their creater's magicforce, eventually become familiars that are. As we evolve into modern midchilda, the need for specialized army units becomes less and less needed as time goes. Some, like Zest, survive into the present, but he's the exception.
Today's times demand a well-rounded skillset for agents and enforcers, which are the current end result of magic's evolution. And thus, the modern Mid-childia style came into being. It might go a bit against the "manga canon", but that could be explained by the person explaining how the current identification works in the TSAB: While they have primarily been using Midchildian style for longer ranged attacks(it's generally better to get rid of your enemy before they can get close, guns. vs swords reasoning), they recently began incorporating an upfront melee style which draws upon the ancient Belka for inspiration, ie, a modern Belka style.
So all that's left is the magic symbols, the Belka triangle and Midchildian circles. But we also have IS cyborg multi-circles and summoning squares. What I think this refers to is the "base" a spell's power is drawn from. If you've played the later Final Fantasy games, this can be interpreted to the animation around your character, that's different when casting a white, black, or summoning spell. So a character could summon up both a belka triangle and midchildian circle depending on which school of magic they are drawing from. Most stick with one school, though.
If you play FFXI Online, there is a single-target sleep spell in both white and black magics. One is called "Sleep" and one is called "Repose." So while someone in Nanoha-verse may be casting similar spells, they still could be from differing schools of magic.
At least, this is how my brain currently organizes things. Make sense? Any glaring holes?
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