title: Believable Worlds: The Rules, Role and Function of Magic in Fantasy Novels

authors: Guethert, Karl Stephen Willy

subjects: Magic

abstract: Contemporary fantasy fiction is a genre that has captured the minds of readers and authors for many decades. It places stories about fantastical events and peoples in the realms of an imaginary world that follows its own set of structural rules. Authors delve into different facets of writing to deliver an engaging and immersive story for the readers, with fantasy tropes and narrative working together to build a compelling story. The worlds that authors write about include new twists on fantasy elements and invariably include some rendition of magic within a hyper exaggerated reflection of the real world, or a completely imagined world altogether 
This thesis interrogates the role of magic in fantasy fiction. It argues that magic is fundamental to both the world-building of fantasy settings and the arc of fantasy narratives. At its best magic is fully integrated and explained, providing readers with a convincing immersive experience, although at times authors use magic more cavalierly as a convenient trope. By focusing on the fiction of the founding father of contemporary fantasy – J. R.R. Tolkien – and analysing the way in which more recent writers (in particular Brandon Sanderson, Terry Pratchett, and the creators of the Warhammer World) build on and at times challenge Tolkien’s legacy I aim to highlight the series of challenges confronting authors of fantasy fiction. They need to firstly have a full understanding of how magic works in their own created worlds. Magic intersects with every aspect of fantasy fiction — narrative, setting, character — and authors need to be able to communicate sufficient understanding of how these magical systems work without submerging their readers with dense descriptions and information overload. At its best, fantasy provides readers with a sense that the fictional worlds they enter are fully realised and, through suspension of disbelief, could possibly exist. Given that fantasy fiction is full of ever-recycling tropes (such as magical rings, magical beings, and seemingly impossible feats of courage and power), writers also have to navigate the tricky path of tapping into the tropes which readers expect and enjoy while attempting to create something new. Magic is such a fundamental building block of fantasy worlds that at times authors also draw parallels between this source of power and the hierarchies, constructs, and ideologies that dominate our own world. My argument throughout is that the best fantasy fiction achieves a deft balance between both action and explanation and entertainment and social critique.
I am a creative writer as well as a literary scholar and throughout my investigation is informed by my desire to critically examine magic in contemporary fantasy in order to hone my skills as a writer. This thesis has a creative practice element and my analysis is interspersed with extracts from my own fantasy fiction which form a dialogue with the critical elements.

text: Believable Worlds: The Rules, Role and Function of Magic in Fantasy Novels Contemporary fantasy fiction is a genre that has captured the minds of readers and authors for many decades. It places stories about fantastical events and peoples in the realms of an imaginary world that follows its own set of structural rules. Authors delve into different facets of writing to deliver an engaging and immersive story for the readers, with fantasy tropes and narrative working together to build a compelling story. The worlds that authors write about include new twists on fantasy elements and invariably include some rendition of magic within a hyper exaggerated reflection of the real world, or a completely imagined world altogether 
This thesis interrogates the role of magic in fantasy fiction. It argues that magic is fundamental to both the world-building of fantasy settings and the arc of fantasy narratives. At its best magic is fully integrated and explained, providing readers with a convincing immersive experience, although at times authors use magic more cavalierly as a convenient trope. By focusing on the fiction of the founding father of contemporary fantasy – J. R.R. Tolkien – and analysing the way in which more recent writers (in particular Brandon Sanderson, Terry Pratchett, and the creators of the Warhammer World) build on and at times challenge Tolkien’s legacy I aim to highlight the series of challenges confronting authors of fantasy fiction. They need to firstly have a full understanding of how magic works in their own created worlds. Magic intersects with every aspect of fantasy fiction — narrative, setting, character — and authors need to be able to communicate sufficient understanding of how these magical systems work without submerging their readers with dense descriptions and information overload. At its best, fantasy provides readers with a sense that the fictional worlds they enter are fully realised and, through suspension of disbelief, could possibly exist. Given that fantasy fiction is full of ever-recycling tropes (such as magical rings, magical beings, and seemingly impossible feats of courage and power), writers also have to navigate the tricky path of tapping into the tropes which readers expect and enjoy while attempting to create something new. Magic is such a fundamental building block of fantasy worlds that at times authors also draw parallels between this source of power and the hierarchies, constructs, and ideologies that dominate our own world. My argument throughout is that the best fantasy fiction achieves a deft balance between both action and explanation and entertainment and social critique.
I am a creative writer as well as a literary scholar and throughout my investigation is informed by my desire to critically examine magic in contemporary fantasy in order to hone my skills as a writer. This thesis has a creative practice element and my analysis is interspersed with extracts from my own fantasy fiction which form a dialogue with the critical elements.

year: 2016

title: Considering counsellor education in Aotearoa New Zealand. Part 2: How might we practise?

authors: Crocket, Kathie

subjects: counsellor education

abstract: The registration environment offers particular challenges for the identity of counselling in 21st-century Aotearoa New Zealand. Counsellor education cannot hold itself apart from such challenges as it enters what the authors suggest is a third phase in its development (see Part 1, the companion to this article, earlier in this volume). Counselling in New Zealand has spent many years investigating and debating statutory regulation, and professional associations have implemented various internal regulatory practices that have had implications for counsellor education. Counselling and counsellor education in other parts of the world, and related professions in New Zealand, have engaged more actively with registration in a variety of forms. This article describes these various regulatory activities with the intention of making visible some possible directions for counsellor education in New Zealand. While we cannot predict with any accuracy what these possible directions would each offer to counselling, our review of various forms of registration leads us to make a case for pluralism and partnership. Advocating for pluralism in counselling, Cooper and McLeod (2010) suggest that it involves both sensibility and practice. The authors of the current article explore a pluralistic sensibility, emphasising its potential to produce a professional landscape in which practices of pluralism and partnership may emerge.

text: Considering counsellor education in Aotearoa New Zealand. Part 2: How might we practise? The registration environment offers particular challenges for the identity of counselling in 21st-century Aotearoa New Zealand. Counsellor education cannot hold itself apart from such challenges as it enters what the authors suggest is a third phase in its development (see Part 1, the companion to this article, earlier in this volume). Counselling in New Zealand has spent many years investigating and debating statutory regulation, and professional associations have implemented various internal regulatory practices that have had implications for counsellor education. Counselling and counsellor education in other parts of the world, and related professions in New Zealand, have engaged more actively with registration in a variety of forms. This article describes these various regulatory activities with the intention of making visible some possible directions for counsellor education in New Zealand. While we cannot predict with any accuracy what these possible directions would each offer to counselling, our review of various forms of registration leads us to make a case for pluralism and partnership. Advocating for pluralism in counselling, Cooper and McLeod (2010) suggest that it involves both sensibility and practice. The authors of the current article explore a pluralistic sensibility, emphasising its potential to produce a professional landscape in which practices of pluralism and partnership may emerge.

year: 2011

title: Tūrangawaewae mō te Kīngitanga

authors: Takerei, Mamae Rangiaroha Tuānewa

subjects: Tūrangawaewae

abstract: Tūrangawaewae is an iconic marae located at the heart of the Kīngitanga. Established by Te Pūea Hērangi and other whānau, this marae has come to represent the struggles, successes and history of the Kīngitanga movement. Tūrangawaewae is therefore the embodiment of the Kīngitanga and the people of Waikato.
From very humble beginnings, and forged on the tireless efforts of Te Pūea and her followers, this marae has hosted world leaders, monarchs and aristocracy from across the world. All have come to Tūrangawaewae to forge relationships with the Kīngitanga, with Māori and with the New Zealand government. It has become a hallowed place when histories are shared and futures are created.
This thesis looks at how Tūrangawaewae encapsulates the Kīngitanga and all that it means. It explores this history of its establishment and highlight the central figures and the motivations behind the building of this marae and complex. In addition, this thesis will show how the different building and features of the marae showcase the ideology of the Kīngitanga movement and its leaders. Based on a traditional approach to Waikato knowledge, and founded on firsthand experience, this thesis reveals an insides perspective of the kīngitanga, the people, various events and the marae of Tūrangawaewae.

text: Tūrangawaewae mō te Kīngitanga Tūrangawaewae is an iconic marae located at the heart of the Kīngitanga. Established by Te Pūea Hērangi and other whānau, this marae has come to represent the struggles, successes and history of the Kīngitanga movement. Tūrangawaewae is therefore the embodiment of the Kīngitanga and the people of Waikato.
From very humble beginnings, and forged on the tireless efforts of Te Pūea and her followers, this marae has hosted world leaders, monarchs and aristocracy from across the world. All have come to Tūrangawaewae to forge relationships with the Kīngitanga, with Māori and with the New Zealand government. It has become a hallowed place when histories are shared and futures are created.
This thesis looks at how Tūrangawaewae encapsulates the Kīngitanga and all that it means. It explores this history of its establishment and highlight the central figures and the motivations behind the building of this marae and complex. In addition, this thesis will show how the different building and features of the marae showcase the ideology of the Kīngitanga movement and its leaders. Based on a traditional approach to Waikato knowledge, and founded on firsthand experience, this thesis reveals an insides perspective of the kīngitanga, the people, various events and the marae of Tūrangawaewae.

year: 2019