Question Is cultivation based novel's magic system Soft magic system or Hard magic system?

Edit: I watched both videos on soft and hard magic system by "HelloFutureMe" and always wondered which categories does cultivation novels falls into, sometimes it starts out as something and ends up as something completely different,

 

Well what is soft and what is hard magic?

 

Excluding the MC (who's magic system usually is plot armor), I'd say it's a mix:
You have a Hard magic systems brackets called cultivation level in which the Soft magic system applies freely.

After all, there are about as many ways to use cultivation techniques as there are people the author deems important enough to be special.

 

Sometimes they just mess the whole thing up, without giving a proper explanation

 

Same question.

If cultivation novel like I shall seal the heavens or the like is a soft magic system, what is your standard of hard magic system?

 

I'm not so good at excplaining so here's some videos...

Spoiler: Soft magic system

Spoiler: Hard magic system

EDIT: Just to mention it, most magic systems is neither completly soft or hard, most will be somwhere in the middle...

 

It's hard magic. but the main characters sometimes get ridiculous abilities and power up's out of thin air (depends on the author really)

 

A soft magic system is where everything is vague and nothing is explained, think about Gandalf, who can do quite amazing things but sometimes cant, where as in the hard magic system, everything follows a set rules and definitions and everything can be explained, (in a way)

 

And thats where its gets foggy, cause that would fall under soft magic system, which clearly contradicts itself

 

it is masochistic, narcissistic,egotistic.

but idk if its hard or soft.


if its about power level, then cultivation as a growth system, that usually ends up at the level of creation gods, so its pretty powerful in later stages.


techniques are same elements based, there are special ones for weapons, then any deviant ones like divinity, curse, blood, poisin etc

there damage seems to be higher than some isekai anime ive seen

 

Wikipedia article

Soft magic:
LoR, Star Wars, etc.
Magic is there and does stuff, but the reader does not know how or what rules it follows.

Hard magic:
DnD, ATLA, etc.
The reader knows at least roughly what a fireball is, what it does (damage and burns stuff) and who can cast it.

 

This is fun.
Why don't we have a debate about whether this is a soft magic or hard magic with only 1 definite answer leaning on what you believe. Something to waste your brain cells and time on.

 

No it is hard magic system is just that the MC is the special one for example :
in one novel which I will not name (because spoilers) the whole novel is just a straight hard system until the end when the MC realizes that he can travel back in time and he is the one that paved his road to success which ''explains'' his plot armor and insane power ups despite this being a huge paradox

 

TLDR : in a cultivation novel everyone is follows a hard system except sometimes the MC gets the hybrid treatment

 

Aside from the reincarnation I think even the MCs goes in the boundary of hard magic because the story describes in a way that we can understand on how it came to be. Their OPness comes from a life and death situations like fights or finding a cultivation method somewhere dangerous. Their cultivation stages may not be within the predictable range of general people in that world, but as a reader we know exactly why MC is like that and why he triumph over others. If we read the story in a side characters' POV and not know where their unpredictableness come from, then that is the soft magic system.

 

is it Cultivation Chat Group?

 

no and not telling

 

all I know so far is new terms BUT, I think soft magic applies to the stud MC or any stereotypical one (that isn't planned well) and then their environment isolated by hard magic as to make some sense of their nonsense - bc their brianless opponents obviously are being limited by the world's law while MC gets a "get out of jail" ticket
despite it being a cultivation novel, more often than not the protagonist is grounded to either a transmigration/rebirth. it's foreign, weird and difficult in a drastically different world, albeit it likes trying to translate a different culture and is forcing integration of different eras. new information is constantly introduce with rhyme and fictional reason. I think soft mainly applies to system novels and "modern" protagonists that aren't locals of that world
I think my favorites is more inclined to hard novels though, so I guess I have a bias/prejudice
@DragonMage18 thanks for the videos

 

Is it really that hard to tell the difference between a soft and a hard magic system? If your magic system is highly detailed and codified then it's a hard system. Just because there are a couple of exceptions to how the rules work doesn't change this. Hard magic systems don't have to be fully understood or even fully logical; they just have to be less vague than soft magic systems.

 

it is due to those "exception" that is hard to determine, where everyone else is following hard magic system but the mc is the op for some unknown reasons, and falls into that soft magic system, mainly used as a plot armour