Could someone point me to non-fluffy books on hexes

[Catherine]

The way I see it, if we take rebounding as a given, binding would rebound on the caster just as surely as a curse would--the "trick" is that when I've cast bindings, I've specifically bound the other person against doing some specific thing. So if I don't plan on doing that thing myself, it's not going to affect me even though I'm theoretically subject to the same restriction. For example, if somebody's a sleazebag and makes sexually harassing comments all the time, I might bind them against making sexually harassing comments, and in theory that should either stop me from making them too or put me in a world of hurt if I do harass anybody. But if I don't harass people, I don't get whammied. (The same goes for the harasser! If he decides, independent of me, not to be a jackass anymore, my binding won't affect him.) If I just put a general curse on them, that could come back on me in all sorts of ways no matter how well I behave.

 
This is one way to look at it. And it makes a lot of sense, depending on how one thinks magic works.

Personally, I don't take rebounding as a given. When I talk about unforeseen consequences and being willing to take responsibility for outcomes, I'm not really thinking in terms of, you get back what you send out. It's more about not being able to know, absolutely, what will have to happen to achieve your goal.

Okay, in this scenario, let's go with the verbal harassment thing. Let's say I cast a binding to stop this behavior. Maybe the target just stops because he suddenly realizes that it's a shitty thing to do and he doesn't want to be an asshole anymore. Great! I'm okay with that level of manipulation and coercion if it protects me and others from his abuse. But maybe, he falls down a flight of stairs and bites through his tongue because that's the only way he'll ever stop. Would I be okay with that? Admittedly that's a stretch as far as possible outcomes go, but do you see what I'm getting at?

So, I try to think about how my spells could manifest and, like you said, be very specific. But, I still have to decide if I can live with the results if it all comes down in a way I didn't expect. Not because I think the same thing, or worse, will happen to me, but because I'm the one who has to live with my choices and actions.

For me, it's not about any law of return, or three fold law or whatever. I don't really believe in that. It's about having to live with what I've done. I have to decide if the risks are worth the benefits.

Hmm, I don't know if I'm explaining this very well so I'm going to leave off for now. Maybe I can find better words later...

[Siren]

This is one way to look at it. And it makes a lot of sense, depending on how one thinks magic works.

Personally, I don't take rebounding as a given. When I talk about unforeseen consequences and being willing to take responsibility for outcomes, I'm not really thinking in terms of, you get back what you send out. It's more about not being able to know, absolutely, what will have to happen to achieve your goal.

Okay, in this scenario, let's go with the verbal harassment thing. Let's say I cast a binding to stop this behavior. Maybe the target just stops because he suddenly realizes that it's a shitty thing to do and he doesn't want to be an asshole anymore. Great! I'm okay with that level of manipulation and coercion if it protects me and others from his abuse. But maybe, he falls down a flight of stairs and bites through his tongue because that's the only way he'll ever stop. Would I be okay with that? Admittedly that's a stretch as far as possible outcomes go, but do you see what I'm getting at?

So, I try to think about how my spells could manifest and, like you said, be very specific. But, I still have to decide if I can live with the results if it all comes down in a way I didn't expect. Not because I think the same thing, or worse, will happen to me, but because I'm the one who has to live with my choices and actions.

For me, it's not about any law of return, or three fold law or whatever. I don't really believe in that. It's about having to live with what I've done. I have to decide if the risks are worth the benefits.

Hmm, I don't know if I'm explaining this very well so I'm going to leave off for now. Maybe I can find better words later...

FWIW, I don't take it as a given either--it's more that I wanted to get it out of the way instead of arguing that point, when my beliefs on the topic aren't completely firm.

I also agree that sometimes things will manifest in an unintended way if you're not really, really specific. And heck, in the tongue biting case, it won't even achieve the desired effect, necessarily, since the guy might still find other ways to be a creep!

At any rate, I rarely do this sort of magic anymore anyway; my younger days were way too full of Me Making a Mess with Magic and then having to clean it up and sometimes making yet another mess trying to clean it up. It's hard to say how much of it was the magic and how much was just that I fed off drama in some way at the time, a trait I think got pretty much seared out of me later.

[RandallS]

The way I see it, if we take rebounding as a given, binding would rebound on the caster just as surely as a curse would....

I've never found rebounding to be a given. In my experience, spells don't rebound unless the target is somehow shielding in a way that will bounce them back.

[dragonfaerie]

I've never found rebounding to be a given. In my experience, spells don't rebound unless the target is somehow shielding in a way that will bounce them back.

I'd agree with that. I think all this talk of rebounding may be due to the Rede and such, but even if you follow the Rede (and I do), it says nothing about not doing harmful things. As far as I'm concerned, if you're willing to own it, do it. Just be sure you're willing to own it if the magical work manifests in ways you didn't anticipate.

Karen