Explain SMBC — the wiki for Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

wizardry

2021-12-25 View on smbc-comics.com → 1 revision
You are viewing an older revision of this explanation (2026-03-14 16:30:12). View current version →
wizardry
Votey panel for wizardry
This explanation is incomplete or may contain errors. It was generated by AI and has not yet been reviewed by a human editor.

Explanation

This comic is a conversation between a man and God about why wizardry (magic) is not real, which turns into an inadvertent argument that modern technology is essentially magic.

The man prays: "Dear God, how come no wizardry?" God asks: "What?" The man laments that they can't do wizard magic like in Harry Potter -- a self-consistent physics that allows for flying brooms and talking books and unicorns.

God pushes back on each request. When the man asks for talking books, God points out that he already has a phone in his pocket that can answer all questions, access all media, and play video. When the man mentions flying brooms, God notes that aircraft exist. The conversation continues with God pointing out that real-world analogues to "magic" already exist -- things that would have been indistinguishable from wizardry to people a few centuries ago.

The man then describes something magical: "A living thing, it can't get lazy, it's a fuzzy bug that looks cute, it drinks flower nectar, it floats in the air, creates useful goods, and its wings are beautiful." God identifies this as a butterfly (or perhaps a bee). The man concludes: "I guess what I want is magic but with no effort and with better aesthetics."

The punchline comes when God asks: "Did you know this universe has super-gnarly [things]?" -- implying reality already contains wonders that rival or exceed fantasy, but the man is too focused on the specific aesthetics of fictional magic to appreciate them.

The comic satirizes the human tendency to romanticize fictional magic while taking for granted the genuinely astonishing capabilities of modern technology and the natural world. It is a variation on Arthur C. Clarke's famous observation that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

View History (1) Original Comic