In Legion we meet that one goblin mage who is working as a magician…but in a world where mages are real and common, who would find a magician entertaining?
That’s like the equivalent of a irl scientist using magnets to move blocks of metal around, and expecting people to be freaked out by it or entertained, even though magnetism is commonly understood?
Because most mages are off being mages instead of being performance artists and public entertainers.
There’s an entire family of memes demonstrating this is not true actually.
Unfortunately.
If you run the mage class hall quest line, you learn that he really is a mage, and you end up getting him to help you out in your class hall, since he’s apparently amazing with portals.
As for why are people entertained by magic? Well, I imagine that while there are some places where mages are very common (bigger cities, magic based societies like the elves and Dalaran), I would think that most of the common folk from places like Westfall, the Barrens, the various migrating Tauren camps, etc, wouldn’t have seen as many, and when they would, they probably weren’t performance artists, and so probably didn’t see much magic being performed.
Truth be told, a magician in one of those places would probably be quite popular.
By contrast, I think that a magician in Dalaran would be laughable.
The reason we have card tricks in a world that has poker sharks.
They entertain instead of blow things up.
Even in Dalaran the majority of the population is non-mages. They do all the work of running a city that mages feel are beneath them.
And part of the job of a good magician is making people laugh.
This is like asking why are people impressed by feats of strength when we live in a world with professional athletes. Just because some people are using a set of skills as part of their job that doesn’t mean that those same sets of skills could not also be used for entertainment.
People generally enjoy magic shows not because they think magic is really magic (unless maybe they’re small children); the crowd applauds because both they and the magician know there’s really slight of hand and mechanical chicanery going on, and the impressive accomplishment is pulling the deed off smoothly in front of a crowd without making it apparent how it’s being done.
In Akazamzarak’s case, he’s supposed to be something of a con man because he’s convinced the crowd in Dalaran that he’s a magician weaving feats of skilled prestidigitation like a magician would, when in reality he’s “just” a mage using actual magic to pull off his tricks instead of practical illusion and slight of hand.
It’s an inversion of sorts; in Azeroth using real magic for such things would be mundane (or at least in Dalaran it would) and everyone would just assume the magician is a mage simply doing the things he’s doing by casting spells, but he’s hoodwinked his audience of sorcery-savvy people with his act into thinking that he’s managing these things without it, when in reality he’s actually using real enchantments and spellcraft.
Well that, and he’s not exactly a very good magician either. His card tricks always fail.
To the OP’s example, it’s more kind of like a professional Scientist who has used Particle Accelerators to split adoms, wanting to do a Children’s show to explain how Magnets work. Because the seeing child-like wonder on the audience’s faces is sometimes more rewarding then applicable science.
Mages are magicians.
Yea. Mages who are Magicians.
The guy is a legitimate Magician AKA a Magi/Mage to the point that he can summon a Bunny into his Hat from another dimension unlike the Court Frauds from Medieval Times.
The other Dimension was his own creation that he himself installed in his hat.
Mages have more power than you might expect and can create Worlds! These Worlds are not that different from the various Realms of Death or the Various Alternate Timelines aside from a lower Energy requirement!
One can create a grander and bigger Bastion/Ardenweald/Revendreth/Maldraxxus with lower Energy Requirements easily!
Of course putting a World inside an object is just asking for it to be abruptly destroyed! The best place to put a World is in a place between Dimensions!
That’s my point. A performing magician wows the crowd not because they think he picked their card or drew a rabbit out of a hat using mystical powers, but because they know he did it with slight of hand right in front of them without giving away how he did it.
Akazamzarak is trying to con his audience by pretending to be skilled at slight of hand “magic” when in truth he’s a really mage using actual sorcery - mages are a dime a dozen in Dalaran, so one of them openly claiming to use actual magic to pull off those sorts of tricks wouldn’t really draw a crowd.