Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Spelldrive (A Neat Idea)

Ever heard of a show called "Invader Zim?" It was a children's show which originally ran on Nickelodeon from 2001 to 2002. It was extremely weird and... actually fairy violent for a TV show with its age group. Not really much of a fairy tale which is why I never brought it up. It's basically a lot of comedy mixed with an unusually well-developed story.

Anyways, the whole reason I am bringing it up at all is because of a fairly neat idea proposed in the episode called "Gaz, Taster of Pork." The show introduced something kin to its universe called a "spelldrive."

A spelldrive is a portable computer with a number of magic spells stored on its hard drive. Each spell uses a number of "power points" to cast any one of its spells. The computer's maximum power points seemed to be three. So basically, the user simply picks from a list of spells, and if he has the required number of power points left on the device, he can cast the spell without any mystical knowledge at all. The latter was apparently taken care of by the devices programmer which likely happened in ancient times--prehistory probably.

Where I am sure the spelldrive was capable of being recharged, by the time it was found in the show, there was no known way to do so. So if you used any of the remaining power points to cast a spell, you would never get those points back and the spelldrive would become useless forever.

The spelldrive is what I refer to as a very neat idea. It's almost sad that "Invader Zim" was the only one to really utilize this idea at all. It heavily suggests the possibility of a technologically advanced prehistory or at the very least a misunderstood ancient history. It is also not all that implausible.

In fairy tales, there is the concept of enchantments. Any object can be enchanted to behave in a certain way. A door can be enchanted to make the next person that touches it paralyzed. Mystical traps can be set upon the floor by way of enchantments. Have you ever considered what enchanting a computer would do? Someone who was both aware of technology and the mystic arts might be able to make the two work in tandem. The computer becomes a critical part of the spell.

Not everybody understands the mystical arts. That was often left to the adepts at the craft. This is why you usually see one wizard within the court of a king. But there seems no reason why the wizard should be the only one to be able to use those arts. The wizard would take a computer and program in a number of spells. He would put a portion of himself inside of it and allow the user to choose where that force is directed. In reality, the wizard would be casting the spell, not the user of the spelldrive.

I am sure the spelldrive's main purpose would be to assist people in high places along so that the wizard would not have to be in multiple places at once. But imagine if you were a child that happened upon one of these devices. You open it up and are presented with a long list of powerful spells. You have three power points loaded in and can choose any one you want. What would you do? Would you be mischievous and experiment, or would you return it to the wizard and play it safe?

The concept is quite fun but it also seems very dangerous. For one, you would be aligning yourself to the powers of someone greater than you. It might lead to unexpected consequences. Also the wizard might not bee too happy with you fiddling around with his spelldrive. If he can place a piece of himself within a computer, what do you think he can do to you? The idea is very neat but also very scary.

I just got to give "Invader Zim's" creator Jhonen Vasquez a lot of credit for being creative in this case. When I first saw that episode, I confess that I wanted my own spelldrive. I did not really think of the consequences of all. They just sounded like a lot of fun. It is probably best I never got one though. All my friends might have ended up talking animals or something. They would have never forgiven me for that.

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