I hadn't finished reading the manhwa then, so I hoped to get the answers to all my questions as I continued reading. Well, I've finished Ragnarok now and I'm sad to say that its magic system, though still cool and interesting, still remained unexplained, so much so that, as the graphic novel progressed, things just started getting crazy to the point of being ridiculous.
Seriously, it was like the characters can do anything and everything with no problem at all. And we keep getting introduced to new abilities and the like that it seemed as if these were pulled out of thin air whenever there was a need for new magical things.
We were neither told nor shown anything in the way of the constraints and limits of all of these magic stuff. The characters just go on doing the things that they do, seemingly without caring that these things already appear to be unbelievable. To better explain all this, let's take a look at some of the times when we see the magic system in the manhwa.
The question now is how does he have the power or the ability to be able to see these visions? Is he a seer now? How does this vision thing even work anyway? It seemed like he suddenly saw this vision, like it just came from out of nowhere.
You know what one of the more annoying things about that scene is? It's the fact that this is the only time we ever see the assassin having these visions.
Throughout the comic, we never see him have these visions ever again. It's like he only had the vision the one time because it was necessary.
In the same chapter and volume, we are also introduced to this magical item called the Crystal of Recall. Apparently, this thing can summon Loki from wherever he is. That's all well and good, but how does it work? How can that item just summon someone from so far away (since said assassin was obviously nowhere near his guild's headquarters)?
Of course, we don't get any explanations at all (unfortunately) as we move to Chapter 30 of Volume 4 wherein we see Taulin doing some sort of divination thing in order to find the place where Loki should go, so he can find the one responsible for the death of their comrades.
Again, our questions are left unanswered as this scene is quickly forgotten in favor of the 31st chapter of the same volume.
This is where we see Fenris Fenrir chanting some sort of spell (when she sensed that they were in danger), so that she can defend herself and her friends from Loki's attack.
Sigh. No, we don't get any explanations about this magic spell thing at all. Oh well. At least, Fenris is able to show how cool she is by doing this.
Chapter 32 reinforces the apparent fact that the magic system is and will always be crazy in this comic as we see Iris Irine and Fenrir chanting and casting some spell or other. Really, doesn't anyone wonder how those two know all of these magic things?
Did they make up the stuff that they're chanting or did they learn these from a book or is it something else entirely? It doesn't matter what the explanation is just as long as we actually get something believable instead of just having to accept all this as fact.
In Chapter 34 of Volume 4, we see that Loki can apparently heal his wounds. Seriously, how does he know how to do that? How can he just do that?
And what's the point of having him be able to do that? Is he immortal now or what? I also had to wonder if Chaos and the others can do the same or not.
Volume 5, Chapter 38 shows us that it's not just the assassin who can heal himself because Skurai can also apparently do the same thing. That's all we get though, so none of this seems believable in the least as we don't even know how and why they can easily heal themselves.
Let's just move on from this healing scene before it frustrates us further. Of course, the next incident in question doesn't really make things any better since the graphic novel brings us to Chapter 44. In this chapter, we see Sara Irine spying on the resident main characters of the comic by using some talisman thing. How this works, I suppose we'll never know. Sigh.
Why is this even necessary anyway? She was never shown to be able to do this before, so why start now?
After all, she fought with Fenris in the very first volume and we saw the latter thinking and yet the Valkyrie didn't show any indication that she can hear the other's thoughts. Sigh. How frustrating, wouldn't you say?
Honestly, some of the magic stuff is really cool though like in Chapter 58 of Volume 6 wherein we see Fenrir recreating Bijou's spell that was thrown at her. In this, we can really see how awesome the former is, but that's only if we ignore questions of how she can possibly do this and what all this entails. So, what do you think of the magic system of Ragnarok: Into The Abyss?
*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki based on the image by Rusembell (CC:BY) from deviantArt
- Said image is meant to represent the magic system of Ragnarok: Into The Abyss
- The rest of the pics are enlarged product images from Amazon.com; links shown above via Amazon's Native Shopping Ads widget
