So I'm confused by the two different descriptions floating around as to how DC motors generate torque and by extension BLDC: On one hand there is the conductors in magnetic field explanation usually including the term 'Motor Effect' and referencing the Lorentz force then on the other hand you have coils acting as electromagnets and providing poles that push and pull against the corresponding field poles.
Is it one or the other or both or neither? Does it depend on the specific motor geometry?
They are different ways to explain the same effect. The explanation using the repulsion/attraction of magnetic poles is a simplification of the more detailed description in terms of all charges in the coil mutually interacting via EM fields.
On the fundamental level of EM theory, there are no magnetic poles, only electric charges, but in some cases (solenoid) the resulting magnetic and electric field acting on other coils or permanent magnets looks like that of a rotating permanent magnet. Then it is possible to mentally replace, for the purpose of calculating mechanical force, the actual system by a fictive system made of permanent magnets and instead of interaction of a magnet and wires, which is complicated to explain in full, consider interaction of permanent magnets, for which there is a simple model - the Coulomb interaction of magnetic poles.
