Talk:Ruby Rose/@comment-38621229-20190224030056/@comment-38621229-20190224151902

Yes, that seems to be the case. Unless I am mistaken (and I'm trying to be more careful here) the what exactly "dust" is has never been explained. I wonder if it is something like the essence of the magic that humans used to have, only given material form? To be honest, I find the distinctions that the characters makes between "dust", "semblances" and "magic" to be a bit puzzling, but I attribute this to their conditioning in their world. Our use of electricity in our world is so commonplace and we understand the basics of it so well that we don't think of it is as "magical", though someone from almost any other time in human history would surely see it as such. So, even though "auras" as the manifestation of the "soul" is well understood in Remnant, it is not seen as "magical". Presumably, there are things about real magic that are inexplicable to the people of Remnant that they cannot explain -eg. shapechanging, controlling weather, etc. And, of course, they are exposed to these things so little that they think they don't exist.