The Ten Knots of Power and the Structure of Magic
What a system of knots reveals about how power is meant to work
This week, I keep coming back to one question:
What do the ten knots reveal about how magic is meant to work?
Some forms of power are measured.
Others are understood.
In The All Souls novels, the Ten Knots of Power are often described as a way of defining a witch’s abilities - a scale that reflects strength, control, and potential. At first glance, they appear to offer something straightforward: a way to rank what a witch can do.
But the knots are not simply a measure.
They are a structure.
Each knot represents a different aspect of magic, something to be learned, practiced, and understood over time. Together, they form a system that shapes how witches access and use their power. Most witches move through this system gradually, developing their abilities within its boundaries and relying on it as a guide.
The knots do not just define power.
They organize it.
A System Witches Inherit
For most witches, the Ten Knots of Power provide a framework for understanding magic.
Each knot builds on the one before it, requiring discipline, control, and repetition. Magic, in this sense, is not something chaotic or undefined. It follows patterns. It can be taught, practiced, and refined through experience.
This structure creates stability within the witch world. It ensures that magic develops in predictable ways and that witches can rely on established methods to access what they need. Power is not only something you possess.
It’s something you learn to manage.
Within this system, mastery comes from moving carefully through each level, understanding not only what magic can do, but how it behaves. The knots are not simply techniques.
They are a way of thinking about magic itself.
A Weaver’s Difference
Diana Bishop does not experience the knots in the same way.
As a weaver, her relationship to magic is fundamentally different. Where other witches work within the structure of the knots, Diana begins to see how those structures connect. The individual aspects of magic are not separate for her. They are part of a larger pattern.
She doesn’t simply access the knots. She moves between them.
This shift changes the nature of power in a subtle but important way. Instead of progressing through a fixed system, Diana begins to understand how the system itself can be reshaped. The knots are no longer boundaries.
They are points of connection.
Through her training with Goody Alsop, Diana learns not just how to tie each knot, but how the relationships between them create something new. Magic becomes less about mastering individual skills and more about understanding how those skills interact.
Power, in this sense, becomes creative.
Building Something New
As Diana’s abilities develop, the purpose of the knots begins to shift.
They are no longer simply a measure of strength or control. They become tools for construction. Each knot holds a different kind of energy, and when those energies are combined, they create possibilities that do not exist within the traditional system.
This is what makes weaving distinct.
It’s not about how much power a witch has.
It’s about what she can build with it.
Diana’s magic does not replace the structure of the knots. Instead, it reveals something that had always been there but rarely used: the ability to move beyond the system while still understanding it. The knots remain essential, but their meaning changes.
They become part of a larger design.
Knots Beyond Magic
The idea that power might be shaped through knots is not entirely confined to fiction.
In mathematics, knot theory studies how loops and strands can be arranged into stable structures, where the way something is connected matters as much as the material itself. In physics, similar ideas appear in the study of fields, where energy can form patterns that remain stable not because of their strength, but because of how they are configured.
Even in biology, strands of DNA twist and coil into complex forms that affect how life itself functions.
Across these fields, the pattern is the same.
Structure matters.
What holds something together is not only what it is made of, but how it is arranged.
Seen this way, the Ten Knots of Power feel less like a scale of strength and more like a language, one that describes how different forms of energy can be combined, shaped, and sustained.
The Tenth Knot
Within the system of the knots, the tenth holds a different significance.
It is often described as the Knot of Creation and Destruction - the point at which magic moves beyond structure and into something far more powerful. While Diana learns the foundations of weaving in Shadow of Night, the full expression of the tenth knot comes later, when she uses it in ways that reshape the balance of power itself.
It is not simply another level. It is a threshold.
The existence of the tenth knot suggests that the system was never meant to remain static. It contains within it the possibility of change, of creation, and of transformation on a scale that earlier knots only begin to hint at.
A Different Kind of Power
The Ten Knots of Power were designed to create order within magic.
They provided structure, discipline, and a way to understand what witches were capable of. For generations, that system held.
But Diana’s experience reveals something else.
Power is not only something that can be measured or contained within a structure. It can also be shaped, combined, and reimagined. The knots remain important, but they are no longer the final definition of what magic can be.
They are part of something larger.
And that larger system is still evolving.
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