We were chatting with a Hollywood screenwriter the other day about the great dramatic pitfall of the wizard genre — problems can be solved with the wave of a hand.  We're reminded of thrillers in which logician savants battle wits (it's fun when the two masterminds form a Yin/Yang connection, each respecting his rival's intellect).  It's a stalemate ... until one of them fails to predict a tiny repercussion that tips the balance.  Every wave of the magic wand initiates an action, but the ripple effects are for the machinations of Chaos to sort out.  Consider the murderer who, with a wave of the hand, throws the incriminating evidence in the river, unable to predict where the material might wash up.  (Or consider the classic Bewitched series, in which a vexing and hexing mother-in-law's action invariably triggers a chain of unforeseen consequences.)  Perhaps a magician's foremost powers need to be of logic and of foresight.