
This guy. (x)
Way back in the 60s and 70s, British author Arthur C. Clarke wrote some laws about predicting future developments. The third and by far the most well-known of these laws states: “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” In short, if you took a lighter back to the Stone Ages, you’d probably be thought of as a magician. While the law doesn’t take into account many more fantastical stories, like Harry Potter, where magic is the result of a bloodline, it does bring up the interesting question of what we consider magic—and how we react when confronted with something we don’t understand. Spoilers for most of The Dragonriders of Pern below.