Gary Kleppe wrote:

People, this is one of the silliest threads I've seen on FFML -- and
that's saying something.

Magic in a fanfic is whatever the writer of the story decides it is.
It's whatever works for the story that an author's trying to tell.

Gary Kleppe
http://www.execpc.com/~kleppe/comics

You are, of course, welcome to your own opinions, as I am to mine.  Yes,
magic is whatever the author defines it, I'm pretty sure I never denied
that.  What I was aiming for was a structure, something to base that
magic on.  No, that's not right, I was aiming for a magic theory that
was believable.  

I'm trying to see what makes it work in other series.  The Belgariad,
Reluce, and DragonLance, present completely different theories.  I'm
sure you'll understand it's rather hard to write an original story in a
world with different rules, if you're not sure which are the best rules.

Alandra.