How does magic work in your stories? Do you have a set of rules that differ from few instances of the show?

What are its limitations? Strongest magic users? Most dangerous spells, and are there any underlying side effects?

Do you draw from different source material to base your magic from, and why?

Magic is literally whatever you want it to be, so as long as you define it it doesn't really matter.

There's also the fact that the show didn't go to in depth with it's magic (I didn't watch so so idk) So I feel like the magic of the show is largely up to user interpretation

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How does magic work in your stories?

However I want it to. I tend to base it a lot on laws of physics in some instances, but it ultimately depends on what kind of magic I want it to be.

Do you have a set of rules that differ from few instances of the show?

To be fair, the show set so few rules (or, better said, "rules"), that it's possible to get away with almost anything without clashing with the show canon.

What are its limitations? Strongest magic users? Most dangerous spells, and are there any underlying side effects?

I don't really have a list of any of these. I develop the theory behind magic to a degree where it makes sense and can work consistently within a story and don't bother with anything else. It's also quite hard to decide what the "most dangerous spell" might be. Even a simple telekinetic spell can kill if utilised correctly.

Do you draw from different source material to base your magic from, and why?

It's quite hard to not draw inspiration from the various fantasy stories I've read over the years.

Well I kinda have a few things that I've personally come up with

First some bloodlines have more magic potential because it's more based in reality.
I also have a device that allows for limited levitation/allowing pegasus to grab a pencil with their hoof rather then their teeth, because it would really suck for a nation where 2/3rds of the population are unable to operate complex or even rudimentary objects.

I also have some spell which I have come up with, like a necromancer spell which requires a small bit of your own soul to bring somepony back.

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How does magic work in your stories?

OK, time to spew words. And I'll likely still have to skim over some stuff...

Basics of Magic

Magic is a quasi-fundamental force - equal to the four that define the universe, but not necessary to existence as we know it like they are. So it's presence can distort and disrupt them - bend the laws of reality, sometimes to near breaking. It's also associated with life and thought - indeed, it's influence might be the source of such odd phenomena to begin with.

In some places, like Earth, magic runs nigh-undetectably thin. But in others, like Equestria, it's denser - perhaps it's to do with a fluke of it's core, or the region of space, or just a coincidence. And a great number of the lifeforms and substances found on that world will be imbued with or modified by it's presence to some degree - kind of like radiation, but usually more benign (because it responds to the subconcious wishes of those who imbibe it). Some of these creatures may eventually develop ways of tapping into magic (their own or external) and manipulating it for various purposes, while others settle for learning magical "recipes" that can make use of it's power "blindly". And then there are spirits, which are (mostly) formed of magic itself - some say all creatures carry one of these, a "soul", inside their physical body.

Moving from broad theory to the world of the show... magic isn't quite everywhere, but it is anywhere. Many races possess it to a greater or lesser degree, with ponies on the "greater" end - but several other races have it too, as do some animals and monsters, and plants... strange places, as well, where miraculous or horrifying things can happen. Pony scholars have catalouged and studied a great deal of the more reliable magics, but there are always more things out there for explorers to find. (Although for every real one, there are half a dozen pure myths.)

Pony Magic
So what magic do ponies, in particular, have? Well, a lot - it's literally imbued into every cell in their body, their organs being able to both absorb it from environmental traces and process it from food. (So recovery of expended power depends on the magic level of the environment as well as the available diet.) This passive magic confers on ponies a number of benefits they very rarely think about, from passive buffering of their internal organs (slam them into a cliff and you might break their bones, but not their spleen) to an accelerated healing rate (said bones will probably be fine in a week or two, and the bruising will be gone within a day or so).

Pony magic especially gathers in their keratinous parts - their hooves (allowing a "magnetic" grip and, with training, manipulation to almost match human fingers), their manes and tails (allowing some ponies to control them like extra limbs, an art called cappilurgy) and their coats (given them their signature bright colours, as well as allowing the most powerful and mysterious universal pony magic, the cutie mark).

Of the individual tribes, earthpony magic is the most subtle, and possibly varies depending on the ground they're raised in (Still working that part out). The most common variant is what some call the "Cornucopia Effect", where their magic flows out of them into the ground increasing it's fertility and encouraging plant growth. (It can also be used more actively, to create botanical miracles - most earthpony towns will have at least one public structure built into a specially-grown tree, and in some places it's even the common method.) While unbelievably useful (a human could count the number of famines in all Equestrian history on their hands), this power does have a cost - land that becomes used to it will be utterly unworkable without magic afterwards for several times the length of exposure, no matter it's prior quality.

The above power does tend to overshadow other earthpony powers, but they do exist - for instance, there are those whose affinity is to rocks instead, being able to shape and cultivate them. And several sorts of magic not innately particular to any tribe are most represented among the earthponies, be it trained skills like capillurgy or individual talents like beastspeakers. (That the most talented beastspeaker in modern Equestria is a pegasus is considered something of an embarrassment, which is one reason it took her a long time to be officially acknowledged as such.)

Speaking of pegasi, their innate magics are probably the most straightforward and consistent of the three. Clouds are solid to them (modern Equestrian ones have enough of their magic to support the weight of most birds too),but mouldable, like clay - the same power let's them shape other weather, to a degree. And the magic they channel through their wings and body lifts them off the ground and propels them in an almost reactionless fashion, even extending to "float" objects attached to them.

And as for the most flashy and famous, unicorn magic... for most unicorns, it's almost as instinctive as pegasus flight. Both telekinesis and one's talent magic - you can push it, train it, but it'll only improve so far. (Powerful emotions can help, but are also risky.) Actually learning a spell... well, it's kind of like trying to learn a musical instrument, higher maths and a foreign language all at once. So it's pretty uncommon (though not unheard of) outside of "magic talents". So the range of unicorn abilities is quite eclectic.

One thing unicorn magic is actually quite bad at having a lasting effect on, though, is ponies. Oh, there are all sorts of spells which can temporarily transform or otherwise affect them - but their own innate magic will rub against the enchantment and eventually erode it. This is one reason magic for healing others is quite rare among unicorns (almost as much as magic for seeing the future) - wounds transfigured closed will reopen, limbs regrown will dissolve. This "disruptive resonance" is why it is also very difficult for unicorns to combine their powers in order to cast magic greater than they can alone.

Do you have a set of rules that differ from few instances of the show?

Here and there - my unicorns can't cast at an object totally blocked from them (like inside a box or on the other side of a closed door) for instance, which I think has been done once or twice in the show. And there's no ban on mane magic.

What are its limitations? Most dangerous spells, and are there any underlying side effects?

Well, I list a few above, such as targeting and impermanence (especially on ponies). In the end, a lot of limitations are personal - a pony can only raise their power so high, or stretch their talent so wide. And while strong emotion can sometimes break those limits, such an exertion is very rarely without consequence - even if you don't kill yourself or burn out your magic, you might attract forces you really don't want to.

Strongest magic users?

Well, strength isn't everything. The magic of each pony tribe (especially the more active uses of it) rest on three "pillars" - power, talent, and experience. The first is key to even passive effects, and determines the scale of one's output (as well as boosting lifespan). The second helps define what uses of your power come easily to you, or are even possible in the first place. And the third lets the more limited push their power to it's limits, or find clever uses for it - and lets those few with nigh endless capacity improve their magic almost indefinitely.

So using unicorns as an example... Twilight, Sunset, Starlight and Star Swirl all have massive amounts of all three (though the nature of their experience varies). Trixie has high talent, middling power and is mostly self-taught. Sunburst has unusually low power, but ranks high in both other areas. Shining Armour has almost as much power as his sister, but a relatively narrow talent (he's also one of the few ponies to learn some spells outside it, as the guard teaches several basic useful ones to anypony who can). And Season 1 Rarity, with no more than slightly above average power, high telekinetic dexterity and a small but beautiful repertoire of spells, represents about as good as you can get with a "normal" talent and no formal magical training.

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How does magic work in your stories?

In my stories, at the very base, magic works by disrupting natural order of the world to create effect.
Anyway, magical energy, most commonly known as mana, leaks out of the rifts leading to space between universes. Mages can draw it in, process it and release it in the form of spell disrupting natural order. Technically you can find mana anywhere where you can find life, because life is impossible without byproducts of magical energie.
Mana also has a lot of different types. Each type of mana makes it easier to manipulate certain types of forces. Though it isn't really restricted.

What are its limitations?

Very few limitations actually exist. When mage says that something is impossible in most cases their belief is the reason why they can't do it. Of course belief has no direct impact on magic, but mages usually sabotage themselves by unconsciously using theurgy, direct opposite of magic.
For actually impossible things... well, real time travel is impossible. You can project yourself in the past, or you can revert time, but you absolutely can't travel back in time to change anything that already happened.
There are things known as eidos. These are symbiotic spiritual entities and they can't be destroyed by magic.
Speaking of undestructible spiritual entities, core of the soul also can't be destroyed.
These are three things that mage can't do, everything else is possible.

Strongest magic users?

Titans are strongest magic users, closely followed by Gods. By its nature Titan is sentient Rift in the space between universes. So it constantly leaks magical energy, while being able to use magic of highest order on pure instinct. Titans are formed... in many ways, really. It could just randomly come into existence as Rift leaking magic. Or it could evolve from mortal mage who was really dedicated to the craft. Anyway, Titans are above any mortal mage having functionally unlimited supply of mana.
For Gods... well, Discord is good example of what they could do with their magic.

As for ponies... they are pretty powerful magical race. One of most powerful on Equus in fact. Only alicorns, horses from Saddle Arabia and some dragons have more magic than ponies. Among ponies unicorns have the most magic, while the earth ponies are weakest (they still have more magic than most). Technically all ponies could use magic and all tribes had their own magical styles though in modern Equestria only unicorn and thestral magical traditions still exist.

Most dangerous spells, and are there any underlying side effects?

Most dangerous spell is the spell which allows mage to create energy from nothing. Magic is all about disrupting order and this is the most damaging way to do it. Underlying side effect is simple. Any attempt to do it will cause magical cataclysm. It will probably kill most living things in universe, or even pop it like a soap bubble if mage is lucky enough. Second best way to die while using magic is to try and merge it with theurgy. Spiritual and magical energies just don't work together. When pure animus (spiritual energy) and mana (magical energy) contact annihilation happens. Absolutely uncontrollable annihilation at that.
Though magic is inherently dangerous. Any failed spell can degenerate into heat and light.

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How does magic work in your stories?

Basically the same way as it does in the show. Spells that I make up may or may not; it will depend on the situation, who's casting it, and what the spell does, but more on this later.

Do you have a set of rules that differ from few instances of the show?

For the most part, not really. A rule Ithat I usually have in place is that a unicorn or alicorn can only levitate (or even teleport) something/somepony if they know their exact location and it's close to them, like in the same room.

What are its limitations? Strongest magic users? Most dangerous spells, and are there any underlying side effects?

The chief limitation for magic would be who's casting it, but that's a given.

Strongest magic users?

From a power standpoint, in normal situations, I have Celestia as the strongest magic user, though Twilight and Starlight are more flexible in that there really isn't a spell they can't learn, given enough time. A similar thing applies to Starswirl the Bearded and, to a lesser degree, Sunset.

Most dangerous spells, and are there any underlying side effects?

Dark magic spells would be the most dangerous, due to their potential to corrupt the user. Un-dark spell, if strong enough, may have an unpleasant side effect, such as tiring out the user. The strength of the user might affect if a side effect even happens. A powerful cast by spell Twilight or Starlight might only make them slightly winded & could be cast over and over before they hit their limit, but it might make Trixie pass out after only casting it once. I've made up some spells, but none of them have a side effect or cost to them. If I create a very powerful spell, there would be some kind of cost to it to help prevent a character from being broken, unless the story's a comedy that's playing it for laughs.

In fact, none of what I said might apply in a comedy story that's playing it for laughs, but most of the time it does.

Do you draw from different source material to base your magic from, and why?

Nope, but I just never thought of doing it.

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Do you have a set of rules that differ from few instances of the show?

A bit. Magic is ruled by three principles. Intention, Understanding, and Translation.

• Intention is what the caster tries to create with their spell. In the case of a light spell, that is a mote of light that illuminates their surrounding.
• Understanding is what the caster understands of the methods and factors that their spell replicates their intended feat. In the case of light, it has to create a sphere of concentrated plasma in a magnetic field. Most ponies don't understand this, of course.

• Translation is what magic does to create your intended effect through your Understanding, limited or not.

  • [Partial/full correct Understanding] In the case of a light spell, if the caster knows what they want to achieve and understand it as a plasma sphere in a magnetic field container, then it works easily and with only a little magic.
  • [Partial/Full false Understanding]If the caster intents to create a light and understands it as a miniature star flying more close to them, then the Translation effect has to work overtime in order to try their false understanding, figure it doesn't work, look for the proper method, implement it, and succesfully create the intent. This makes the spell much harder to cast.
  • [No Understanding]If the user has intention but no understanding at all—say, it's a child so it doesn't even think about it or is a pony in panic—then Translation has to work much less since it doesn't get attempted to be overridden by misunderstanding or incomplete understanding, and may even be easier than the first example.

Spells are then basically codified sums of intent and understanding that have been refined to be as close to truth as possible, usually by trial and error, the form of which allows for least power to be lost to Translation. I find this method to allow for practiced wizardry to be as powerful as it is versus unpracticed (better internalization of the spell), why some spells are easier for some, the existence of spells, and allows for examples of children and babies managing feats of magic that would be equaled only by great magicians.

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Ah, "how does magic work"?

Well, there's a simple, snarky answer:

But really, you kinda do. Or should, at least. Which is something that the series never really did.

That, however, isn't a fatal flaw - if we threw out any series where magic worked inconsistently, we wouldn't have any left that have magic in them.

I have, however, teased out a mostly consistent magical system from what we see in Equestria. My take on it is still evolving as I work in material from the later seasons, and what we're (very slowly) learning about G5, but here's what I've got so far.

First point: Magic takes multiple forms in Equestria. Different forms work in different ways.

• Natural Magic
• Harmonic Magic
• Chaos Magic
• Dark Magic

Natural magic is precisely that; it's the magic innate to particular species and tribes of Equestria. It's what lets pegasi and griffons fly or walk on clouds, earth ponies accelerate natural processes, and gives unicorns and other creatures direct access to the thaumic energies they use for spells, shapechanging, fire breathing, gem manipulation, and more. Intense emotions can strengthen a subject's magical access - which is extremely dangerous with cases like Starlight (highly emotional and already a live wire plugged straight into magical energies) or immature unicorns who don't know how to control their magic. Natural magic is virtually universal throughout Equestria; every single being has some connection to it, and it's a "fundamental force" on their world. Zecora is likely the world's greatest wielder of natural magic, with a wealth of knowledge and lore that allows her to achieve effects with potions that are beyond what some unicorns can achieve with spells.

Harmonic magic is what most Equestrians think of as "magic" - it's what unicorns typically wield, what the Elements tapped into, and what gives ponies their cutie marks. Harmonic magic is basically the flow of destiny, which limits what most ponies can do when they're using it. Exceptions exist, of course - like Twilight Sparkle, whose mastery of harmonic energies is incredible. Basically, harmonic mages work with how the world should work, requiring less energy in order to make something happen. Sure, you might be breaking the laws of physics, but you're doing it in a way that the world accepts (in line with your cutie mark, for example, or to move an object from one place to another). It's a safe sort of magic, but one that is limited by the subject's ability to access thaumic power. Most creatures tap into harmonic magic for things like changelings shifting shape, dragons breathing fire, or enchanted artifacts like the Misfortune Malachite or Pearl of Transformation.

Chaos magic is, to be blunt, what happens when a harmonic magic wielder tells the universe to go screw itself. Rather than adjusting the flow of the world into what you want it to be, it involves grabbing the fabric of reality, ripping it apart, and reassembling it in the shape you want. Reality itself rejects this sort of meddling unless it's done very carefully, which is why mastery of it is so incredibly rare, reserved for creatures from other dimensions such as Discord... and the creatures that empower our next group of spells.

Dark magic is the way that ponies used to access chaos magic. Effectively, it involves invoking an extradimensional being into the caster in order to borrow their chaos magic to achieve an effect beyond what the caster's harmonic magic can achieve. As a result, there are some things dark magic can do that harmonic magic can't:
It can be wielded by anybody with magical ability of any sort. Hypothetically, this includes non-unicorns, though most dark magical lore is kept secret to the wielder alone. Sombra is one of the greatest masters of dark magic in Equestria, having effectively befriended enough eldritch beings that he can tap into them for a huge variety of magical abilities. However, doing so also largely broke his brain on several levels.
It can be used in order to transcend fourth-dimensional perception and location. In other words, it enables direct visions of the past and future, time travel, teleportation, and several other effects that would typically be chaos magic - because they are.
It allows for gross transformation of objects from one into another without concern for such minor details as "how does wood become a crystal?"
It usually results in the wielder being overwhelmed by the psyche of whatever entity they entered a bargain with, effectively either blacking out like Rarity did or being taken prisoner within their own soul like Stygian.
"Alicorn magic" is another term for dark magic - since alicorns bridge the divide between mortal ponies and an elemental magical force, they are basically low-grade eldritch entities themselves. When they use their magic outside the realm of their actual domain, it manifests the same sort of telltale dark aura that dark magic does, but without tapping into another being... most of the time.

But wait, you ask - Starlight travelled through time and we've seen many beings teleport without using dark magic! Twilight transformed that frog into an orange, and even Trixie managed to mass-produce teacups, and even turned sugar and plastic into a living teacup!

That brings us to Starswirl the Bearded, and his greatest contribution to magic - the creation of the Omnimorphic Spell. This isn't a single spell, but rather an approach to magic that has become the predominant paradigm throughout Equestria. Starswirl realized that dark magic wasn't a sustainable approach; ponies would increasingly become beholden to extradimensional forces with goals and plans beyond mortal reckoning as it was used, and he'd already seen where this can go horrifically badly more than once. Sombra, Stygian, and Nightmare Moon would eventually demonstrate precisely what happened when dark magic went too far, as numerous of the monsters that he and his friends had done battle with in the past already had. As Discord's release had proven, when an attempt to invoke him for the purposes of dark magic had gone terribly awry, allowing him entrance into Equestria unbound by any agreements or the limitations of a mortal vessel.

And so, Starswirl developed a method that would allow any unicorn of sufficient power and ability to effectively pull the threads of reality apart, insert a fragment of chaotic energy that achieves a limited effect, and then let reality fall back into place. Thus, teleportation spells, transmutation spells, time travel spells, and more all became possible - if you could control the phenomenal amount of power being wielded, which normally leaves those spells only within the reach of casters whose tie into harmonic magic makes the process easier - cutie marks in the magical field, like Twilight, Starlight, or Starswirl himself. The process could be streamlined through various mental preparations - the creation of sigils and circles, rhymes to work the mind into the pattern being sought, special components or focuses. However, if the caster loses control, the results can be devastating - like the permanent loss of magic.

Which brings us to one of the earliest, most devastating uses of omnimorphic magic ever, one that transformed Equestria as it was known. During the early days of pony civilization, while pony tribes were still warring against each other and their neighbors, unicorn rulers had a horrible, terrible, awful idea. Earth pony agriculture, pegasus pony weather control - the unicorns needed a trump card that they could play that would be more valuable than anything the other tribes had to offer.

And so they stole the sun.

The unicorns crafted a spell that stole control over the sun and moon, giving them the power to destroy the entire world if they saw fit. But a spell such as this had a terrible price - once reality had been reworked to require manual control of the sun and moon, the level of power necessary to actually manage that control meant that Starswirl and several other mages were necessary, and of those mages, only Starswirl had the control necessary to avoid burning out his magic regularly, leaving him forced to teach as many ponies as possible how to cast the spell, as well as trying to find a pony who could manage it without losing their own powers.

Fortunately, Harmony provided, in the form of Celestia and Luna, alicorns connected to the newly necessary control of the celestial bodies.

Fast forwarding centuries, we run into Cozy Glow's plan, and how it differs from Tirek's. From what we see, Tirek sucked the natural magic out of a subject - their connection to Harmony, their flight, everything - and tied it into his own. By contrast, Cozy's plan did two specific things that tell me her plan was different:

1: Pegasi could still fly and cloudwalk, as could griffons.
2: The sun and moon returned to a natural orbital pattern, outside of the control of Celestia and Luna.

This tells me that what Cozy did actually left the natural magic of creatures in place - what she did was to suck up all the other sorts of magic in Equestria into a nice little package and shove it off into another dimension, with the plan that once that magic had been sent off into the aether, there wouldn't be any artifacts that would enable the magic to be brought back, leaving only the natural magic behind - which would put unicorns and other creatures who used harmonic and other types of magic at the bottom of the new pecking order, rather less insane and stupid than it would seem otherwise. And also explaining why the magical creatures still had *some* magic left that Twilight could harness to open Tartarus up, their natural magic.

7451171 I try not to go in-depth with in in the stories themselves because usually, that's not the point. As a writer, though, it helps to get an understanding of how the system works in the show, even if you're not really going to harp on it that much.

In FiM, there's magic. Generally speaking, it's weird, and it has different types. These types are nebulous, abstractly explained, and difficult to nail down. Most crucially, you're going to find three main methods of performing magic in FiM: unicorn, pegasus, and Earth pony magic. All three types of pony have magic, but the way they work is different. Unicorns cast spells, pegasi tend to be able to manipulate the environment directly, and Earth ponies are fuckin' weird, my dude.

All three types of magic are tied together by Cutie Mark magic, which I view as its own separate thing. Cutie marks are also weird as fuck, but they get a bit simpler when you imagine them as being a sort of superpower. Some ponies get boring superpowers, like baking or whatever scissors means, but some of them get mad aerial acrobatics or whatever the fuck Pinkie has going for her.

Cutie marks are, by all appearances, tied to Harmony. Harmony is a major magical force in FiM, as it is pretty much the major constant throughout all seasons and appears in various forms. Even at its most basic (the elements of Harmony) it shows an awareness of cutie marks (taking the shape of a cutie mark to match its wearer) and later on directly works through cutie-marks to make shit happen. It's not necessarily associated with good or bad, but in general, peace, harmony, tolerance, and friendship tend to be pretty damn swish so it works out.

My pet theory is that Alicorns are heavily linked to Harmony itself. This may be wrong, but I think there's reason to believe this is the case. We know that Harmony works closely with ponies from pretty much every interaction it has with them, and Alicorns tend to represent Harmony's interests. A theory many folks are fond of is that they have elements of magic from all three pony types, which seems pretty credible, but I don't have many good examples of it. I guess Twilight can stand on clouds like a pegasus, though, which lends credence to this idea. Long story short, Alicorns are also weird and probably do whatever every other pony can do plus a little extra.

Then there are outliers. Discord, Sombra, etceterah. They tap into magic in different ways, and there are a lot of different ways to do that, and we don't really need to cover them all. All you need to know is that more often than not, there's going to be more than one way to use magic. The harmonious way, the Discord way, the dark-magic Sombra way, or even a more alchemical Zecora way.

To go back to ponies, though. Unicorns cast spells, which is the most clear and obvious magical thing in the show. Twilight learns them, Starlight has a repertoire of them, and in theory every unicorn could learn them. Except they don't. I suspect they have a natural affinity for spells related to their Cutie Mark. Rarity's telekenisis is insane, especially when manipulating needles and fabrics, and she can apparently detect precious gems, which for some reason she likes using on dresses. A unicorn whose talent is dedicated to magic (like Starlight or Twilight) are going to have an affinity for a much greater array of spells.

Pegasi get to affect the world around them. An easy example is that they can affect the weather, but a more fun example is Fluttershy, who can apparently communicate with animals. This is likely a cutie-mark thing. Pegasi can't cast spells, but they can be just as magical as a unicorn.

Earth ponies are nuts and their magic is insanely difficult to pin down. It's not just a 'Earth ponies are stronger than other ponies' thing. Applejack can do insane stunts with apples, stuff that doesn't seem natural, and Pinkie is crazy. Maud can smash through rocks like butter, many bakers and whatnot show an absurd affinity for their craft, and so on and so forth.

There's crossover between the two. At the end of the day an Earth pony can do pretty much the same thing as a pegasus if their cutie mark lets it happen, but how they do it will change. An Earth pony whose talent is flying will be good at flying, but probably in the form of machines or meditation or really whatever it is they're working on. It's unicorns who have the most direct contact with magic itself, and so it's generally them and Alicorns who talk about magic and what it does. The others interract with it intuitively.

This is based largely off my observations in the show. There are little inconsistencies here and there, but I feel like this generally speaking lines up with what the show presents and some old statements my shoddy brain remembers ye Olde Fauste mention in some tweet or other. Probably outdated. I believe, though, that this covers the basics of how magic is presented, globally speaking, in the show.

This is important for me to parse because it means I can manipulate the system, probe its edges, or even disregard it entirely if I wanted to. This is stuff I might want to do as a fanfic writer. It's also very easy to expand on the magic as it's presented in the show; most of it is, like I mentioned, vague and abstract. Limitations don't really seem to come up that much, even though it's generally accepted that they are there. Defeating an Ursa Major as young Twilight is presented as absurd, even though one wonders... why can't she do it? But, when dealing with a Minor, Twilight struggles. So I guess magic has limits. But where? And how do they work? These are things that can be explored in a story, sometimes very interestingly.