Letters from a Fascinated but Frustrated Scientist

by Andoriol


Dissertation on Name Magic

To: Celestia, Luna, Potential Psychopaths, Far Too Curious Scholars, and whomever else it may concern
Dissertation on Name Magic and its’ Nature

By Emeris Fillson

Since there’s been a ton of interest in a specific part of my dissertation on magic (and I’m still surprised you let that get out Celestia), I’ll elaborate on it.

Disclaimer: If you read any further about this, please understand that you are consenting to me using some pretty serious Black Magic on you to prevent any attempt at using Name Magic from existing. If you’re truly a deranged sort and don’t want to have the possibility of using name magic scoured from your soul and mana reserves, stop reading now.

Any further and you are allowing magic to be used on your psyche.

Alright, you were warned:

*{/<.(&$~#,.,)({}\|/

Okay, here we go.

In order to explain Name Magic, a certain amount of how magic resistance works needs to be explained.

Magic resistance works as the soul and mana impression of a being asserts how it should be and the ambient magic of Equestria supports it. When magic tries to alter a being’s existence, their soul asserts that that is not how things work and much like a conductor correcting a member of the orchestra who isn’t working right, Harmony magic corrects the error.

The more extreme the deviation, the more extreme the correction.

Spells on a person fade over time because Harmony magic recognizes it as not the normal state for a being by communicating with the person’s soul. In time, the spell fades as it’s slowly eroded.

Spells that are inherently dangerous to the subject such as transformations (especially like those that turn a pony into a fish outside of water) are corrected quickly, much like the conductor coming over to smack the offending musician.

This all works because the Harmony magic talks with the magic of an individual’s soul to figure out how things are ‘supposed’ to be.

Now, here’s where things get dicey.

Some forms of black magic work by using the casters soul as fuel to directly affect the soul of the victim. This inherently damages the users soul, leading to the corruptive effects of “true” black magics.

But then there’s Name Magic. Name magic, even in its most basic form, allows its user to use a freely given name to bypass the magic resistance of its victim. The Name acts as a key to the lock on the soul, simply bypassing its nigh immutable nature. Rather than smashing the chest to mess with the puzzle inside, one uses a key.

If this doesn’t seem too bad, allow me to point out that this allows magics placed on a pony to last forever, for a simple charm spell to become a permanent aspect of the pony. It allows a spellcaster to have complete and absolute control over the victim. A freely given name is basically giving the spellcaster your life and soul, allowing them to make you do anything, transform you into a fish on dry land, make you jump off a bridge, tear off your own limbs, to kill and rape those closest to you. Anything.

There are other uses for Name Magic, allowing a spellcaster to bypass the inherent resistances of materials like iron or adamantium or healing otherwise impossible to cure effects. But these are more advanced uses of the magic, and inherently allow one to use the previously mentioned more dangerous uses.

Not to mention that knowing how to use Name Magic on inanimate objects inherently involves the fundamentals of how to use a ponies name… even one not freely given.

Please stop to consider the horror of someone being able to look up your name and then make you do whatever they wanted.

Yeah, there’s a reason I’m paranoid about this stuff getting out and the Princesses have given me free reign to stamp it out wherever I find it.

Thankfully, while the initial levels involving freely given names can be discerned from first principles relatively easy, the more advanced versions are extremely difficult to figure out and effectively require instruction or decades of research.

Interestingly, the habit of assigning extensive titles to generals and nobility as well as heralds comes from an attempt to stifle the power of Name Magic in ancient Equestria. The amount of power one has over a pony is directly correlated to how much of their name one possesses on an exponential scale. Missing even one piece of their true name means the effect is dramatically lessened, and titles can be a part of one’s name provided they are earned and treated as such.

Heralds are obvious, so long as you don’t give them your name, it’s much harder for them to use it against you.

That said, once Name Magic had been stamped out in a significant sense, Nobles started giving more of their name and titles in a way to feel important, and in reaction to suddenly not having to hide it. Also, they’re pretentious ponces almost as a rule.

Now, hopefully, you can understand why it’s so terrifying and why I’m fully in support of the suppression of Name Magic. It’s existentially horrifying, its few uses that aren’t terrible inherently involve learning those terrifying magics, and generally just a tool of dictators and monsters.

There’s nothing funny about Name Magic or its implications.

Best Wishes,
Emeris Fillson

P.S. – There are no citations on this because they’ve all been burned or are locked up in special vaults to prevent access, only kept around as references to fight Name Magic for the Princesses should such a need arise.