# On the Aesthetic of Wizard Power

***Epistemic status:** A response to* [*@johnswentworth*](https://www.lesswrong.com/users/johnswentworth?mention=user)*'s* [*"Orienting Towards Wizard Power."*](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Wg6ptgi2DupFuAnXG/orienting-toward-wizard-power) *This post is about the aesthetic of wizard power, NOT its (nearest) instantiation in the real world, so that fictional evidence is appropriately treated as direct evidence.*

Wentworth distinguishes the power of kings from the power of wizards. The power of kings includes authority, influence, control over others, and wealth. The power of wizards includes knowing how to make things like vaccines, a cure for aging, or the plumbing for a house. Indeed, these categories are described primarily by example (and of course by evocative naming). Wentworth argues that king power is not as real as wizard power; since it is partially about seeming powerful it can devolve into ["leading the parade"](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/LKC3XfWxPzZXK7Esd/leading-the-parade) exactly where it was going anyway. But king power certainly can be real. It is dangerous to anger an autocrat: bullets kill in near mode.[^hl91es2cw4l] If not consensus v.s. reality, what distinguishes these aesthetics? To answer this question (and particularly to pinpoint wizard power) we will need a richer model than the king-to-wizard axis.

I have written about intelligence as form of [privilege escalation](https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/vLrj4ZNcGCTMJqdXB/intelligence-as-privilege-escalation). Privilege is something you have, like (access to) a bank account, a good reputation, (the key to) a mansion, the birthright to succeed the king, or (the pass-code to) a nuclear arsenal - all things that sound like king power. On this model, intelligence is something that lets you increase your privileges *other than existing privileges* \- specifically, an inherent quality. However, it is questionable whether intelligence is the only such quality (are charisma, strength, good reflexes, or precise aim all forms of intelligence?). I expect most readers to instinctively draw a boundary around the brain, but this is actually not very principled and still leaves (for example) charisma as primarily an intelligence. But a dashing trickster is a prototypical rogue, not a wizard (in dungeons & dragons parlance). The more expansively we choose to define intelligence, the less closely it seems to characterize the aesthetic of wizard power. 

Trying to rescue this approach is instructive. Privilege-versus-escalation is essentially a gain-versus-become axis, in the sense that your privilege increases by gaining ownership of things while your escalation-strength increases by becoming a more powerful person. As I noted in the original post (by pointing out that privilege-begets-privilege) this distinction is already quite murky, before bringing in (king v.s. wizard) aesthetics. Is knowledge something about you, or something you have? What if it is incompressible knowledge, like a password... to your bank account? There are reasonable solutions, such as defining intelligence (or rather, the escalation-strength) as one's adaptable/flexible/general/redirectable competence.[^oxepxdcz10a] However, this approach (when taken to the extreme) rules out power that comes from specific knowledge about how the world works, which seems like a fairly central example of wizard power.

In fact, narrow-but-very-deep technical ability might reasonably be described as *arcane.* That is prototypical wizard power. I am going to refine this a bit more before calling it a definition, but it is a good enough working definition to identify wizards living in non-fantasy genres. In particular, heist movies.

This post was partially inspired by the excellently terrible ["Army of the Dead."](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Army_of_the_Dead) Some utter maniacs try to steal millions from a vault under zombie Las Vegas. Yes, I said "zombie Las Vegas." Also, it is going to be nuked in a couple of days.[^00p9nqdk2qwhk]

The team is mostly a bunch of hardcore bruisers and gunmen who have distinguished themselves in combat:

![Army of the Dead (2021) - IMDb](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BNTcyMWNhNjMtMzZlZC00NTU5LTk2ODktZmRkYWJmYWY0YmQ1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXNuZXNodQ@@._V1_.jpg)

...but notice the guy in the back. Ludwig Dieter.

![Army Of The Dead Character ...](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/c2ee3b780b9598f1c7a3c9e72021cdd8c5164bbd76b159b3.jpeg)

He has never fired a gun before in his life. He is there specifically to crack the safe.

![Dead prequel Army of Thieves ...](https://39669.cdn.cke-cs.com/rQvD3VnunXZu34m86e5f/images/c658abee20abe751c97723124b13182d7c588172a51acc39.jpeg)

To be clear, everyone has their own special competence. One guy likes to kill zombies with a saw. Another guy has a lot of practice popping them in the head. One guy is just really beefy.

But there is a difference: the safe guy is the only one who can possibly crack the safe. No one else has any idea how to get started. Every other team member can combine their efforts, and crack 0% of the safe. In other words, to them, cracking the safe may as well be magic.

I think this basically defines the wizard aesthetic. A wizard can do things which seem completely impossible to others. A wizard has a larger action (or option) space; he sees additional possibilities. 

The fact that Dieter is a poor generalist is not required to make him the party's wizard - this is not part of the definition. In fact, the helicopter pilot is also a decent fighter (despite arguably possessing a hint of wizard-nature) and Dieter himself improves at shooting over the course of the movie. Rather, it is a natural result of selection pressure (the party really needs the best possible safe cracker, which means they are willing to compromise on essentially every other competence).[^bv9y115rhk]

In the real world, I think that wizard-types tend to be slightly better generalists than the average person, because higher intelligence translates somewhat across skills - and the ability to master something very arcane is usually sufficient to master something more mundane given time to practice, which compensates for wizards concentrating their practice on a small number of special interests. (Yes, I think the wizard aesthetic is somewhat linked to autism). 

However, hardcore wizards are typically inferior generalists when compared to equally elite individuals who are not wizards. General competence is importantly different from wizard power. Rather than seeing options that are invisible to others, it is the ability to make reliably good choices among the options that *are* visible. Notice that this has little to do with gaining-versus-becoming. So, this is a new axis. I will call it the warrior-to-wizard axis.

A warrior is consistent, sensible, robust, quick-thinking, self-reliant, and tough.[^lovrpess6ng] In the heist team, almost every member is a warrior, except for Dieter (at the beginning). 

Obviously, it is possible for one person to exemplify the virtues of both a warrior and a wizard (for example, Gandalf). In fact, the wizard aesthetic seems to require some degree of usefulness. I will call wizard-like ability arcane, as opposed to the even-less-general "obscure." But it is also possible to hold both king power and wizard power; we are left with a somewhat complex menagerie of archetypes. 

|     | General | Arcane | Obscure |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Granted | Prince | Priest | King |
| Intrinsic | Warrior | Wizard | Sage |

There is a lot to unpack here.

Princes tend to be warrior type (for example, Aragorn). They have very high general competence, often explained by genetic/ancestral superiority. They also have access to (rightful) wealth and armies - king power. These are the heroes of the Iliad, the Arabian nights, and Grim's Fairy Tales.

The Priest category contains Warlocks and Necromancers (switching the power source from divine to demonic or undead).

In the real world, lawyers are warrior-priests, and judges are priests or even priest-kings. 

I would argue that paladins exist at the intersection of prince, priest, warrior, and wizard (though I associate them mostly with the last three). 

The Sage category contains mystics along with most ascetics and monks. In the real world, most academics (for example, pure mathematicians) act like sages. They have some specialized knowledge, but it is so obscure that they will never be invited to the heist team.

I am not sure that the King category really belongs in this column, but I can make a reasonable argument for it. King's have knowledge highly specific to court politics, which is useful only because they have granted power. For instance, they know which minions they can tap for various services, and they are familiar with the rights granted them by any legal codes.

Therefore, Wentworth's king-to-wizard axis is confusing because it is really a diagonal. It is made even more confusing because it seems to be easier for warriors to become kings. Making a fortune, ascending politically, and winning wars requires a long sequence of good choices across domains - though sometimes wizard-types can become rich by inventing things, or ascend by teaming up with a warrior.[^gcsrjjgtwk9]

[^hl91es2cw4l]: Yes, the autocrat may be compelled to kill some of his enemies in order to save face, but to pretend that he never kills at discretion seems obtuse. Did the Saudis really need to hack this guy up? Certainly it doesn't seem to have done them any strategic favors in hindsight. 

[^oxepxdcz10a]: For example, Legg-Hutter intelligence. 

[^00p9nqdk2qwhk]: Spoilers - make that one day.  

[^bv9y115rhk]: Also, characters on the good team seem to be empirically pretty well-balanced. In games, this makes sense for playability, but it does not seem required in stories, so it is interesting that it holds more strongly for protagonists than antagonists?  

[^lovrpess6ng]: And usually rugged rather than elegant.  

[^gcsrjjgtwk9]: In the real world, most wealth is probably accumulated through specialization, but gaining/managing massive riches also requires general competence.