[j2kun]

It makes me wonder if there are any realms of wizardry where the highest ranking wizards spend all their time on management skills and never get to practice their magic.

"Oh, these days I just review a lot of spell-design scrolls and mentor junior acolytes. Magic is more of a people business, you know."

[AndrewDucker]

The senior staff at Unseen University in Pratchett's Discworld series are a lot like this.

[crooked-v]

Well, it depends on if you're talking early series or late series. Early series, the wizards were college academia taken to absurdist violent extremes, to the point of assassinating each other to try and get tenure slots. Most of that got quietly dropped over time to make them more likeable.

[mcguire]

...that's an option?

(Ex-academic here.)

[jon_richards]

Trust me, you don't want to go down that path. Spend all that time memorizing some complicated spell, use it once, and poof, you've completely forgotten it.

[rtuulik]

Maybe, but its more likely that majority of higher ranking wizards would focus on growing their sheep herding business. :)

http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2017/02/22/the-wizards-and...

[xaedes]

And this is why we can't have nice things. Like magic

[nostrademons]

Aes Sedai in Wheel of Time? "Well, I could destroy the world, but I'm too busy playing politics with all these other women."

[stuxnet79]

Good one. Brought back a lot of Wheel of Time memories ... I just wish I had time to re-read the entire series ... never even finished it.

[irrational]

The last three books were written by Brandon Sanderson. They were so good. I wish we could keep the first 2-3 books from Robert Jordan and have Brandon Sanderson rewrite all of the middle books up to his last 3 books. It would really improve the series. I'm loving Brandon Sanderson's Stormlight Archive series right now. The third one is coming out in a few days.

[jon_richards]

Given what I remember of the middle books, it would be less about rewriting them all and more writing one book to replace them all. Could probably just be done by selectively removing chapters, similar to the fan edits of the Hobbit movies.

[nostrademons]

I hate to say this, but it actually got better when Robert Jordan died. He lost control of the series around book 6 and just started meandering, and books 7-10 aren't really worth reading. He picked up the pace again slightly with book 11. Then the Sanderson books (12-14) are excellent; he managed to tie up most of the loose ends, the characters basically read like old Robert Jordan, and the pacing moves well (even a little quickly at times).

[stuxnet79]

Good to know. I stopped at book 7 I believe ... and I see what you are saying, somehow the story was plodding along in the later books - I was still enjoying myself, but I definitely wouldn't have complained if all the cruft was cut out.

[pavel_lishin]

Charles Stross's novels parallel this, unsurprisingly. Bob doesn't do much fieldwork anymore, and rarely even gets to light up a Hand of Glory.

[walshemj]

Not in the latest ones spoiler alert hes now a bit dangerous to use in case he loses it and kills a few K people by accident.

[pavel_lishin]

Sure, but plot-wise, that's sort of a recent development. (Well, as of the end of Rhesus Chart, anyway.)

[SAI_Peregrinus]

Most of the Discworld magic, really. Moreso the witches than the wizards, the wizards are more concerned with the next meal.

[arkh]

Do you really want a ritual to summon sex crazed beings? You may want to be a little more specific there.

Djinns are the BOFH of the magic world.

[careersuicide]

This http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/11/09/ars-longa-vita-brevis/ might be relevant to your interests.

[hawleyal]

MLIA