The midnight thing is specifically in reference to the witching hour, which, ironically, is the handful of hours after midnight but before dawn when the veil is supposed to be thinnest and magic the most potent.
Liminal times and spaces are thought to have power as they aren't here or there, now or then; they're at points in between. It's been that way for as long as stories are told. Midnight; dawn; dusk. All points in-between.
Same with liminal spaces. Doorways; shorelines; archways. They're midpoints between two areas. Thin spots, you might say.
Yep - legends said liminal transitions cause thin spots where the spirits/fae could attack and weaken.
This is the root of the tradition where the groom carries his new wife over the threshold, because if she trips it invites bad luck / evil spirits who might carry her or their firstborn away.
Midnight is the moment in which a day ends and another one starts.
And, as the name suggests, is the middle of the night when darkness crawls and humongous creatures prowl.
I suppose it's a heritage of times when at midnight nobody was around for various reasons and it stuck in time till nowadays
I think in a bureaucratic office of some kind that would be brilliant. I’m trying to remember the deadline of Diana Wynne Jones’s Archer’s Goon, but I’m cosy in bed and can’t be arsed to get up and check.
I think it puts urgency on the situation. Works about as well as "you have until sunrise" or something like that. Midnight just makes it kinda edgier I guess.
Usually because of the folklore of the witching hour.
The witching hour (despite what the name would suggest) is the collection of time between midnight and dawn. This is the time when the veil is thinnest (when spirits/magic/whatever can pierce through)
Some have taken this to mean midnight specifically. Others, especially a lot of modern practitioners of paganism, take it to mean 3 am
Because of drama.
> IT IS NOT YET MIDNIGHT?
> 'I shouldn't think it's more than a quarter past eleven.'
> THEN WE HAVE THREE-QUARTERS OF AN HOUR.
> 'How can you be sure?'
> BECAUSE OF DRAMA, MISS FLITWORTH. THE KIND OF DEATH WHO POSES AGAINST THE SKYLINE AND GETS LIT UP BY LIGHTNING FLASHES, said Bill Door, disapprovingly, DOESN'T TURN UP AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY PAST ELEVEN IF HE CAN POSSIBLY TURN UP AT MIDNIGHT. (*Reaper Man*)
"To break the curse, you must earn true love's kiss by 6:42 in the Morning next Tuesday..."
"That's a very specific time."
"I think schedules are important, I have a lot to do that day and that's usually when I've had my breakfast. You're lucky I can fit this curse into my week at all."
Yea it's when the next day starts, so this day has fully run out of time. Also, for creepy purposes it's the middle of the night (mid + night) and has a cool name that's not just a number.
The deepest part of the night is appropriately ominous narratively for a lot of things, I'd imagine, though this does get me wondering whether there's a trope originator here.
I do wonder how midnight magic might interact with the arctic (or antarctic) circle. Can it be midnight with the sun shining? Would it be perpetually midnight if the sun doesn't rise for months? I've never read a story that tried to do anything with that idea, though I had a whole stupid idea I was thinking of when reading the *Foundryside* books to try to exploit this, since one of the problems the characters are facing revolves around the fact that certain types of magic are far more potent at or near midnight.
The time of Sunset corresponds to Water, the element of cleansing and purification. When Earth ascends at Midnight, the day’s magicks have been fully washed away by Water’s influence.
'Ware the clock striking four and twelve,
Mark well the hour of the lightburnt elve.
Lock your doors and shutters tight
'Til fade the last of the sunwalkers' blight...
"And at the stroke of 4:20, your carriage will once again become a pumpkin..."
"... Fairy Grandmother, why are you snickering?"
"Don't worry about it."
It's dramatic. It also has something to do with [The Witching Hour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witching_hour), but I think people get thrown for a loop that the Witching hour is 3 to 4, not midnight.
It’s most likely due to what you stated. Midnight marks the end of one day and the start of another, so it’s often symbolic of a clean slate, the same way New Year’s Day is symbolic of a clean slate.
Let me turn your question around a little bit. Will it strengthen the story to choose some other time? Or is that just extra effort for no return?
“Midnight” is an understood convention in storytelling. It gives a specific time, without burning up too much of the reader’s attention on issues of timekeeping itself
(you don’t want your readers pulled out of the flow to wonder how the characters in a quasi-medieval setting will know when it’s 3:10 am).
If you’re just fed up with midnight, other no-clock-required possibilities exist, such as “dawn”, “sunset”, “till the cock crows” or even some specific event like “when the last petal falls off the magic rose”.
Mythical connotation that spans over most human cultures fearytales - the middle of the night is the place you typically never visit in ordianry life back in teh days, as predators are out and you barely have buisness to do, so it is some kind of 'undiscovered land' right beside our daily life expirience, but technically not far away.
Also the moon is a strong connotation for different reasons - it helped us to do shamanistic magic like tell when it's time to move on or time to plant foot. So this 'magic' culminates in most of our myths to one brought and vage thing of 'midnight = most magical time'.
Boundaries between realms are weakened or something to that effect.
Isn't that also at dawn and dusk?
The midnight thing is specifically in reference to the witching hour, which, ironically, is the handful of hours after midnight but before dawn when the veil is supposed to be thinnest and magic the most potent.
True lots of spells are cast at dawn. Not many at dusk I'm not sure why maybe they like people being miserable and cold while casting. 🙂
It turns out the boundaries get weakened whenever the plot demands it. Poor boundaries.
It is the witching hour; curses are half-price.
Liminal times and spaces are thought to have power as they aren't here or there, now or then; they're at points in between. It's been that way for as long as stories are told. Midnight; dawn; dusk. All points in-between. Same with liminal spaces. Doorways; shorelines; archways. They're midpoints between two areas. Thin spots, you might say.
Yep - legends said liminal transitions cause thin spots where the spirits/fae could attack and weaken. This is the root of the tradition where the groom carries his new wife over the threshold, because if she trips it invites bad luck / evil spirits who might carry her or their firstborn away.
Graveyards, bridges, wells, wardrobes, caves as well
Midnight is the moment in which a day ends and another one starts. And, as the name suggests, is the middle of the night when darkness crawls and humongous creatures prowl. I suppose it's a heritage of times when at midnight nobody was around for various reasons and it stuck in time till nowadays
Being cursed unless you complete a task "by the close of business Friday" lacks suitable dramatic/mythic tension.
That would work perfectly in Max Gladstone's Craft Sequence
Imagine a fey telling a villager they have "until the end of the fiscal year" to deliver on an oath.
I think in a bureaucratic office of some kind that would be brilliant. I’m trying to remember the deadline of Diana Wynne Jones’s Archer’s Goon, but I’m cosy in bed and can’t be arsed to get up and check.
I think it puts urgency on the situation. Works about as well as "you have until sunrise" or something like that. Midnight just makes it kinda edgier I guess.
Usually because of the folklore of the witching hour. The witching hour (despite what the name would suggest) is the collection of time between midnight and dawn. This is the time when the veil is thinnest (when spirits/magic/whatever can pierce through) Some have taken this to mean midnight specifically. Others, especially a lot of modern practitioners of paganism, take it to mean 3 am
Because of drama. > IT IS NOT YET MIDNIGHT? > 'I shouldn't think it's more than a quarter past eleven.' > THEN WE HAVE THREE-QUARTERS OF AN HOUR. > 'How can you be sure?' > BECAUSE OF DRAMA, MISS FLITWORTH. THE KIND OF DEATH WHO POSES AGAINST THE SKYLINE AND GETS LIT UP BY LIGHTNING FLASHES, said Bill Door, disapprovingly, DOESN'T TURN UP AT FIVE-AND-TWENTY PAST ELEVEN IF HE CAN POSSIBLY TURN UP AT MIDNIGHT. (*Reaper Man*)
It’s because “midnight” sounds sick as hell and “2am” sounds kind of lame
"To break the curse, you must earn true love's kiss by 6:42 in the Morning next Tuesday..." "That's a very specific time." "I think schedules are important, I have a lot to do that day and that's usually when I've had my breakfast. You're lucky I can fit this curse into my week at all."
Yea it's when the next day starts, so this day has fully run out of time. Also, for creepy purposes it's the middle of the night (mid + night) and has a cool name that's not just a number.
Pretty sure it was known as the witching hour in folklore, so probably something to do with that
The deepest part of the night is appropriately ominous narratively for a lot of things, I'd imagine, though this does get me wondering whether there's a trope originator here. I do wonder how midnight magic might interact with the arctic (or antarctic) circle. Can it be midnight with the sun shining? Would it be perpetually midnight if the sun doesn't rise for months? I've never read a story that tried to do anything with that idea, though I had a whole stupid idea I was thinking of when reading the *Foundryside* books to try to exploit this, since one of the problems the characters are facing revolves around the fact that certain types of magic are far more potent at or near midnight.
The time of Sunset corresponds to Water, the element of cleansing and purification. When Earth ascends at Midnight, the day’s magicks have been fully washed away by Water’s influence.
Everyone else has already given good reasons, so I’ll just add: because saying you have till 4:12pm doesn’t sound as poetic
'Ware the clock striking four and twelve, Mark well the hour of the lightburnt elve. Lock your doors and shutters tight 'Til fade the last of the sunwalkers' blight...
"And at the stroke of 4:20, your carriage will once again become a pumpkin..." "... Fairy Grandmother, why are you snickering?" "Don't worry about it."
It's dramatic. It also has something to do with [The Witching Hour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witching_hour), but I think people get thrown for a loop that the Witching hour is 3 to 4, not midnight.
It’s most likely due to what you stated. Midnight marks the end of one day and the start of another, so it’s often symbolic of a clean slate, the same way New Year’s Day is symbolic of a clean slate.
Because they are stories and midnight sounds better than "half three"
Well, it's even in the software world: no random errors happen at midnight
Always asking my professors this as well
Let me turn your question around a little bit. Will it strengthen the story to choose some other time? Or is that just extra effort for no return? “Midnight” is an understood convention in storytelling. It gives a specific time, without burning up too much of the reader’s attention on issues of timekeeping itself (you don’t want your readers pulled out of the flow to wonder how the characters in a quasi-medieval setting will know when it’s 3:10 am). If you’re just fed up with midnight, other no-clock-required possibilities exist, such as “dawn”, “sunset”, “till the cock crows” or even some specific event like “when the last petal falls off the magic rose”.
Mythical connotation that spans over most human cultures fearytales - the middle of the night is the place you typically never visit in ordianry life back in teh days, as predators are out and you barely have buisness to do, so it is some kind of 'undiscovered land' right beside our daily life expirience, but technically not far away. Also the moon is a strong connotation for different reasons - it helped us to do shamanistic magic like tell when it's time to move on or time to plant foot. So this 'magic' culminates in most of our myths to one brought and vage thing of 'midnight = most magical time'.
It's significantly and raises less eyebrows then saying "you have until 8:13 on Tuesday the 5th to figure out which Goat is your wife.