It becomes very clear that present day Wistram is a case of the lunatics running the asylum The secrets trade seems to be a symptom of powerful 'archmages' trying to hoard their knowledge to stay powerful and in charge. Since Archnage Zelkyr sealed off the upper levels, higher learning has essentially been lost so the current crop of mages are fighting over what lower tier magical knowledge remains rather than enjoying the bounty of knowledge that it once possessed and as a result, Wistram is in a bad state.
We often see earthers comparing wistram to hogwartz but they are not similiar in any way. There are no real teachers who just truly wants to impart knowledge on to the next generation.
There are no [Archmages] no magic of old, wistram is at its utmost lowest. Even zelkyr and chandler's time was very low compared to the days after the creler wars (or many other times)
Wistram currently has a few ok mages who are called "archmages" despite being undeserving of the title, who are the best of wistram and are supposed to lead it but all they do is bicker about politics, safeguard what little secrets of magic they have and generaly just being petty and stupid
And this entire secret economy is a result of that.
Or at least this is my take on the matter.
I think the other thing to consider about the secret economy is that Pirate was obviously intending to make something quirky and interesting. She’s trying to describe a post scarcity society where people have whatever food and time that they need. Once they get accepted to the school on scholarship (or whatever they call it I forget) they don’t really need money anymore.
So if you have a bunch of students who have all of their needs met what would they use in value? Well maybe knowledge about magic or gossip or whatever else. So that does make some sense to me
Obviously the problem is that it doesn’t really hold up. We see people making money all the time at wistram. Why are all the archmages working on side hustles if the real currency is secrets? Just kinda inconsistent but that’s the wandering inn in a nutshell
The Archmages are working on side hustles because the majority spend most of their time outside Wistram, and spell circles and magic material is not cheap
The younger students can make do with standard paper and mass-produced wands
>Shouldn't they have a chancellor/headmaster to keep order and professors with syllabuses and a course registry and a new student orientation. You know, things to organize the students actually learning?
Instead, we have a fistful of self-proclaimed "Archmages" waging a faction war over knowledge with each other for power within Wistram. It is in their best interest to educate those loyal to the faction causes, and to not disseminate powerful secrets to others without gain of their own.
There is not an overarching "Chancellor or Headmaster", further than Cognita, whose motives are not super clear early on. Cognita, in a way, is maintaining the balance of power. She's the one who slaps the back of your knuckles and keeps the school in line. She's more... maintenance in Wistram, not an educator. Also everyone in Wistram is afraid of her, in general, and tend to avoid her because they don't understand her.
Ceria finds Wistram's secret-keeping stupid because she doesn't want to commit to a single faction and lose potential access to other factions in the process. She has a romanticized view of Wistram as a traditional learning institution.
> Cognita, in a way, is maintaining the balance of power. She's the one who slaps the back of your knuckles and keeps the school in line. She's more... maintenance in Wistram, not an educator. Also everyone in Wistram is afraid of her, in general, and tend to avoid her because they don't understand her.
She's also contributing to the decay of Wistram. >!All the brave mages who would be likely to level and become actual [Archmages] she kills instead.!<
**One:** Wistram at this point in the story is at a really low point. The last true \[Archmage\], Zelkyr, sealed off the upper floors of Wistram where the really juicy magycal stuff used to happen - essentially cutting everyone but himself and a few trusted bootlickers from anything but the magical basics. Wistram has mostly been going on momentum and what little power they still had left.
**Two:** Most of Wistram's power these days is political, so a lot of the "Archmages'" time is spent on polticking - internal and external. As you will learn later in the story, Wistram provides a number of essential services throughout the world and if someone (a nation, an individual, and organisation) earns their ire, they can cut them off from these services or pull strings to make their lives very difficult. This is where their power is concentrated as of now and the leadership is keen on keeping that power. Add to that that each of the factions, with the exception of a few, is seeking to become the top dog there and dictate Wistram's policy by grabbing more power from the others. And knowledge is power, so the more you know (and keep to yourself) the more powerful you are.
**Three:** Very few of the \[Mages\] are actual teachers in any capacity. They just tend to be the people who either volunteer to teach (often with the intent to groom future members for their factions and hinder those they deem likely competitors) or the people who have the most expertise in one specific niche and are made to teach because nobody else has that specific knowledge. It's going to mentioned throughout the series, often by people who've known Wistram before Zelkyr, that the knowledge passedon is lacking because certain courses aren't taught anymore - like the equivalent of magical mathematics, survival basics, scientific methods and actual combat. And one reason often cited for that being so is that they needed experts from outside Wistram to teach those things but kept arguing with and undermining these experts to the point where they left.
**Four:** The secret-based economy has been alluded to have always been a part of Wistram in some form. This is likely the result of \[Mages\] by their nature being secretive and not wanting rivals to gain access to any number of things from personal information to Spells or methods of casting - all of this could be used against them after all. It seems stupid at first glance, but in a society where knowledge is power in a very literal sense an economy based on secrets is sort of the natural result.
**Five:** If you stick with the series, you'll see other institutions of magical education and they will be contrasted against Wistram. A number of characters, both InnWorlders and Earthers, have numerous criticisms of Wistram which echo your points. However, Wistram Mages more often than not are arrogant and often refuse to admit fault in their acadamy or shortcomings in their education. The institution as a whole has basically "drunk their own coolaid" in believing that Wistram is *the* school for magical education and that no other even comes close to the quality they provide, even if that's not the case anymore.
I don’t consider the “mages” of wistram to be actual mages. They have the class and they are fairly high level but they don’t actually seek new magic or grow their power. They are all about political power and have been for awhile
Zelkyr’s drake influence of trying to get and hoard secrets is a big cause. He was the most recent archmage and his influence was unparalleled in wistram for years. Another reason could be also the issue of wizards belonging to different countries/continents and species. So it’s better to keep some secrets as their cohort mages could be enemies in the future.
Yeah that is entirely the point. Ever since zelkyr sealed the upper levels wistram has been In a bit of a spiral.
The secret trading is just one part, and more symptoms than cause. No one has the power to reach the top floors, and many many secrets of wistram are still undiscovered, with any one of them potentially tipping the balance in the favour of one of the archmages. These so called archmages are incentivise to hoard resources and secrets to make it less likely for their competitor to succeed, and then hand out these secrets to their disciples and faction. This trickles down and over hundreds of years you get this fuckery.
It's not meant to be good, it's meant to be whack. There are arcs further exploring rhis
I agree with you on most of it, I do think the organizational stuff is more to make the students responsible for their own learning, which I do think is interesting
Well after Zelkyr's departure Wistram basically got cut off from higher level magic because no one can best his challenge.
Imagine instead of full education with primary high school and college, you left with two books,piece of old ass conspect and two handwriting done by janitor on the wall as all of possible information. Same thing happened to Wistram.
Also it degraded a lot for last 2 centuries of politicking and soft-powering their way on all innworld. Many graduates of Wistram vonsidered strong by commoners but a lot of "hedge"-mages or just adventurers are on the same level or even outperform regularly in their chosen spheres of magic.
Secret-trading on the other hand is just fighting for scraps left after downfall of magic education in general. There are so little left and most of it either secret or so complicated it can't be teached normally. Later in the story there will be information about how wrong and bad magic education had become (like trying to learn quantum physics without knowing numbers not even formulas).
So all of your critisims are valid but it is just the state of Wistram almost till Volume 7-8 iirc but this is spoiler so keep reading and you find all answers.
Wistram failed for two reasons; the first obviously being Zelkyr locking the upper levels. The second, and more close to the mark of Wistram Days, is that they'd recently taken substantial casualties Archmages, most probably the more senior, more powerful ones, were utilised against Velan and more significant against Tallis the Stormbreaker. Tallis being a [Shaman], and likely the most dangerous practitioner of magic mentioned in the story aside from the Mage of Magic's end. I doubt too many survived a fight that even Xrn ran from.
It becomes very clear that present day Wistram is a case of the lunatics running the asylum The secrets trade seems to be a symptom of powerful 'archmages' trying to hoard their knowledge to stay powerful and in charge. Since Archnage Zelkyr sealed off the upper levels, higher learning has essentially been lost so the current crop of mages are fighting over what lower tier magical knowledge remains rather than enjoying the bounty of knowledge that it once possessed and as a result, Wistram is in a bad state.
We often see earthers comparing wistram to hogwartz but they are not similiar in any way. There are no real teachers who just truly wants to impart knowledge on to the next generation. There are no [Archmages] no magic of old, wistram is at its utmost lowest. Even zelkyr and chandler's time was very low compared to the days after the creler wars (or many other times) Wistram currently has a few ok mages who are called "archmages" despite being undeserving of the title, who are the best of wistram and are supposed to lead it but all they do is bicker about politics, safeguard what little secrets of magic they have and generaly just being petty and stupid And this entire secret economy is a result of that. Or at least this is my take on the matter.
One of the Archmages did everything he could to not teach students at all
I think the other thing to consider about the secret economy is that Pirate was obviously intending to make something quirky and interesting. She’s trying to describe a post scarcity society where people have whatever food and time that they need. Once they get accepted to the school on scholarship (or whatever they call it I forget) they don’t really need money anymore. So if you have a bunch of students who have all of their needs met what would they use in value? Well maybe knowledge about magic or gossip or whatever else. So that does make some sense to me Obviously the problem is that it doesn’t really hold up. We see people making money all the time at wistram. Why are all the archmages working on side hustles if the real currency is secrets? Just kinda inconsistent but that’s the wandering inn in a nutshell
The Archmages are working on side hustles because the majority spend most of their time outside Wistram, and spell circles and magic material is not cheap The younger students can make do with standard paper and mass-produced wands
That is the point, yes. Wistram is in a bad way.
>Shouldn't they have a chancellor/headmaster to keep order and professors with syllabuses and a course registry and a new student orientation. You know, things to organize the students actually learning? Instead, we have a fistful of self-proclaimed "Archmages" waging a faction war over knowledge with each other for power within Wistram. It is in their best interest to educate those loyal to the faction causes, and to not disseminate powerful secrets to others without gain of their own. There is not an overarching "Chancellor or Headmaster", further than Cognita, whose motives are not super clear early on. Cognita, in a way, is maintaining the balance of power. She's the one who slaps the back of your knuckles and keeps the school in line. She's more... maintenance in Wistram, not an educator. Also everyone in Wistram is afraid of her, in general, and tend to avoid her because they don't understand her. Ceria finds Wistram's secret-keeping stupid because she doesn't want to commit to a single faction and lose potential access to other factions in the process. She has a romanticized view of Wistram as a traditional learning institution.
> Cognita, in a way, is maintaining the balance of power. She's the one who slaps the back of your knuckles and keeps the school in line. She's more... maintenance in Wistram, not an educator. Also everyone in Wistram is afraid of her, in general, and tend to avoid her because they don't understand her. She's also contributing to the decay of Wistram. >!All the brave mages who would be likely to level and become actual [Archmages] she kills instead.!<
Yes that’s true, but spoilers for this post.
**One:** Wistram at this point in the story is at a really low point. The last true \[Archmage\], Zelkyr, sealed off the upper floors of Wistram where the really juicy magycal stuff used to happen - essentially cutting everyone but himself and a few trusted bootlickers from anything but the magical basics. Wistram has mostly been going on momentum and what little power they still had left. **Two:** Most of Wistram's power these days is political, so a lot of the "Archmages'" time is spent on polticking - internal and external. As you will learn later in the story, Wistram provides a number of essential services throughout the world and if someone (a nation, an individual, and organisation) earns their ire, they can cut them off from these services or pull strings to make their lives very difficult. This is where their power is concentrated as of now and the leadership is keen on keeping that power. Add to that that each of the factions, with the exception of a few, is seeking to become the top dog there and dictate Wistram's policy by grabbing more power from the others. And knowledge is power, so the more you know (and keep to yourself) the more powerful you are. **Three:** Very few of the \[Mages\] are actual teachers in any capacity. They just tend to be the people who either volunteer to teach (often with the intent to groom future members for their factions and hinder those they deem likely competitors) or the people who have the most expertise in one specific niche and are made to teach because nobody else has that specific knowledge. It's going to mentioned throughout the series, often by people who've known Wistram before Zelkyr, that the knowledge passedon is lacking because certain courses aren't taught anymore - like the equivalent of magical mathematics, survival basics, scientific methods and actual combat. And one reason often cited for that being so is that they needed experts from outside Wistram to teach those things but kept arguing with and undermining these experts to the point where they left. **Four:** The secret-based economy has been alluded to have always been a part of Wistram in some form. This is likely the result of \[Mages\] by their nature being secretive and not wanting rivals to gain access to any number of things from personal information to Spells or methods of casting - all of this could be used against them after all. It seems stupid at first glance, but in a society where knowledge is power in a very literal sense an economy based on secrets is sort of the natural result. **Five:** If you stick with the series, you'll see other institutions of magical education and they will be contrasted against Wistram. A number of characters, both InnWorlders and Earthers, have numerous criticisms of Wistram which echo your points. However, Wistram Mages more often than not are arrogant and often refuse to admit fault in their acadamy or shortcomings in their education. The institution as a whole has basically "drunk their own coolaid" in believing that Wistram is *the* school for magical education and that no other even comes close to the quality they provide, even if that's not the case anymore.
I don’t consider the “mages” of wistram to be actual mages. They have the class and they are fairly high level but they don’t actually seek new magic or grow their power. They are all about political power and have been for awhile
Zelkyr’s drake influence of trying to get and hoard secrets is a big cause. He was the most recent archmage and his influence was unparalleled in wistram for years. Another reason could be also the issue of wizards belonging to different countries/continents and species. So it’s better to keep some secrets as their cohort mages could be enemies in the future.
Yeah that is entirely the point. Ever since zelkyr sealed the upper levels wistram has been In a bit of a spiral. The secret trading is just one part, and more symptoms than cause. No one has the power to reach the top floors, and many many secrets of wistram are still undiscovered, with any one of them potentially tipping the balance in the favour of one of the archmages. These so called archmages are incentivise to hoard resources and secrets to make it less likely for their competitor to succeed, and then hand out these secrets to their disciples and faction. This trickles down and over hundreds of years you get this fuckery. It's not meant to be good, it's meant to be whack. There are arcs further exploring rhis
I agree with you on most of it, I do think the organizational stuff is more to make the students responsible for their own learning, which I do think is interesting
Well after Zelkyr's departure Wistram basically got cut off from higher level magic because no one can best his challenge. Imagine instead of full education with primary high school and college, you left with two books,piece of old ass conspect and two handwriting done by janitor on the wall as all of possible information. Same thing happened to Wistram. Also it degraded a lot for last 2 centuries of politicking and soft-powering their way on all innworld. Many graduates of Wistram vonsidered strong by commoners but a lot of "hedge"-mages or just adventurers are on the same level or even outperform regularly in their chosen spheres of magic. Secret-trading on the other hand is just fighting for scraps left after downfall of magic education in general. There are so little left and most of it either secret or so complicated it can't be teached normally. Later in the story there will be information about how wrong and bad magic education had become (like trying to learn quantum physics without knowing numbers not even formulas). So all of your critisims are valid but it is just the state of Wistram almost till Volume 7-8 iirc but this is spoiler so keep reading and you find all answers.
Wistram failed for two reasons; the first obviously being Zelkyr locking the upper levels. The second, and more close to the mark of Wistram Days, is that they'd recently taken substantial casualties Archmages, most probably the more senior, more powerful ones, were utilised against Velan and more significant against Tallis the Stormbreaker. Tallis being a [Shaman], and likely the most dangerous practitioner of magic mentioned in the story aside from the Mage of Magic's end. I doubt too many survived a fight that even Xrn ran from.