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In Off to be the Wizard the shell program that does all the magic for the wizards is programmed so that it only listens to the spells if the wizard is holding his staff (or wand). But why would they restrict themselves so much - wouldn't it make sense to have at least some "emergency" spells ready even if not holding the staff, not wearing the robe etc.?

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    Rule one: don't make the obvious joke.
    – Harry Johnston
    Commented May 21, 2019 at 19:46

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They reach the same conclusion, eventually. But at that point in the story they had no concrete reasons to feel particularly concerned for their own safety, so they were more worried about even a faint possibility of their powers being misused by an outsider.

In particular, neither Jimmy nor Phillip seemed to feel themselves at any risk from the chronological natives, and had not yet considered the possibility of being attacked by other (experienced) wizards. Between them, they'd already made the decisions about how to protect access to the shell before any of the other wizards came along.

As for why the other wizards didn't make more fuss about it, given that they realized that there really was a risk of being attacked by the natives, that can probably be attributed to psychological inertia and/or status quo bias. Also, they were mostly invulnerable, after all, even without shell access, and that sort of thing does tend to lead to overconfidence. And they didn't seem to have considered the possibility of being attacked by other wizards either.

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  • Thanks, your answer makes sense. I am not fully convinced, however. IMHO when I would be in their position one of the first things I would do is to make sure to have at least one or two spells ready to flee, save my life, don't loose shell access. That sort of things. But if you say they will come to that conclusion later on, then its fine for me now :-)
    – Matthias
    Commented May 21, 2019 at 20:10
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    It's actually an interesting case study on bias and privilege. It's worth noting that the one wizard in their group who took real safety precautions was a woman.
    – aherocalledFrog
    Commented May 21, 2019 at 21:00

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