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Comment by Lynn_Grav on If You Demand Magic, Magic Won't Help · 2008-03-27T06:41:00.000Z · LW · GW

While a zebra is a zebra, and a wonderful creature it is, a dragon is what the writer wants it to be. A dragon is metaphoric and might symbolize anything from luck to Lucifer.

Were there no magic in our literary world, there'd be less imagery and fewer ways to convey the dynamic and profound, eh?

Double, double toil and trouble
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
Fillet of a fenny snake,
In the caldron boil and bake;
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—
For a charm of powerful trouble,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble;
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.
Double, double toil and trouble

I dare anyone to match it with a purely analytical recounting of events. This speaks to our imagination and our lust for the poetic as well as the scientific. One cannot replace the other, for me, anyway. I require both.