In the kindle edition of book 1 Burberry tells everyone that some aberrants can still cast magic yet isn’t this evidence which Lacer uses against the Raven Queen being an aberrant. I am not sure if she is just lying to make a point about casting though your body or not.
It is in her first class. Sorry if this isn’t where I should ask about this.
I think she’s just misleadng about the nature of Aberrants, or rather, is loose with her language to frighten the students.
“Some Aberrants still have enough of their higher brain function to cast magic.” Burberry looked to Sebastien. “They channel it through their own bodies. Which, incidentally, is another way to corrupt your Will, even with the most innocent of spells.”
(emphasis added)
What Lacer says in a later book is this:
“You have made that suggestion before,” Thaddeus snapped, “and we covered the evidence against it, just as we have the evidence against your other unfounded and frankly laughable theories. No matter the feat she just managed, that evidence still remains. Aberrants cannot cast spells. Like a magical beast, they propagate only their own inherent effect, simple or complex as it might be. Is your imagination truly so stunted, that you cannot comprehend how this could have been done?” he asked, gesturing vaguely to the sky. “Or are you simply so ignorant that any innovative action must be ascribed to the mystical, inhuman abilities of an Aberrant?”
(emphasis added)
I think what she is saying is that aberrants still can “cast” a single magical effect at will; but, that’s not different spells, as Lacer notes.
I mean, personally I think Burberry is a civilian researcher who has heard some things, including rumors popular among the general public while Lacer is toeing the Red Guard party line of insisting that such rumors are all nonsense while knowing that there are exceptions.
The rumors themselves are probably also mostly exaggerations, involving aberrants propagating effects that manifest in surprising ways, much like gesturans can use elemental spells in surprising ways… But if Siobhan’s passenger is really an aberrant then we do know that in some cases some aberrants can at least take over the casting of spells
One of the constant things in this series is how people believe the wrong thing. I really feel like it’s a running joke at this point.
It is really hard to trust what anybody says about anything. Though I have the feeling Lacer is being honest with what he knows, and if anybody is right about aberrants, it’s probably him
But the only way to be sure something is an actual inconsistency is us witnessing something that doesn’t line up with what we witnessed before.
I’m not saying that’s not possible, or has never happened, but I’m pretty sure the wonderful creator of the world is doing everything in their power to make sure they dont
I’ll chime in here since this isn’t spoilers, for once, so I can participate.
It’s true, Aberrants don’t cast spells. But to the average person who isn’t an Aberrant expert, it looks about the same as someone using a hidden artifact, free-casting, a gesturan, etc. Some rare Aberrants even seem to set up rituals to do their thing.
So the key here is just whether people are accurately distinguishing between “propagating an effect” and “casting a spell.” In this case, Burberry is not, though perhaps one could argue that “casting magic” is a generalization that includes both “propagating a magical effect” and “casting a spell.”
This issue also comes up in the fact that by PGTS-world technical definition, a “curse” is a long-lasting, severely negative magical effect that often uses binding magic. But people use it colloquially to mean any spell with a powerful negative effect, cast on an enemy.
I think you’ve also seen real-world examples of people using words in ways that aren’t what they actually mean. Literally. 