Magic

The countries of Darran and Reth have been ravaged by magic, long ago, to the point where magic has been forbidden, and they have driven out nearly all the magical beings. The few who are left, like the sylvans, go into hiding. Magic is so taboo that some have forgotten its existence, and Rialla tells Tris that, "The people of the East apparently do not believe in magic; it's been so long since they've had wizards that they've long since dismissed the existence of magic as a child's fable" (p. 138). This could be considered to be a self-referential joke: the reader of the novel is pretending to believe in magic, but lives in a world that has stopped believing that magic has ever existed. Although magic is only practiced in secret, many of the characters turn out to have magical abilities, of various different types. Sylvans like Tris...