The Best Wizards in Novels

[Philip Overby]

My own stories probably lack magic users more than I'd like (I like them!), so I was wondering, what are cool or interesting magic using characters that you've found in fantasy. I know everyone will say Gandalf and Harry Potter, so let's just go ahead and get them out of the way.

Any other suggestions for awesome wizard/warlock/witch/sorcerer characters in novels? Why did you like them?

 

[Steerpike]

Elric of Melnibone - an albino weakling with a demon-possessed sword and the ability to tap into powerful magics.
Quick Ben
The Lady (Black Company)

These are all dark figures in their own way. I suppose that appeals when it comes to magic.

 

[Saigonnus]

Raistlin Majere (Dragonlance)
Elminster (Forgotten Realms)
Lord Khelben "Blackstaff" Arunsen (Forgotten Realms)
Zedd (Sword of Truth Series- Terry Goodkind)


Those are the only ones I can think of off the top of my head.

 

[CupofJoe]

Sparhawk [The Elenium and The Tamuli] - I know he is seen as a warrior most of all but he uses and controls the most incredible magics by negotiation. He's the darkest and most complex character that I think D&LE created.

 

[wordwalker]

Ingold Inglorion, Barbara Hambly's Darwath trilogy. "After my reckless dabbling with magic destroyed everyone I loved, I ran away to the desert and lived as a hermit for twenty years. And that, boy, was where I learned to be a wizard."

 

[ThinkerX]

Ged from Le Guin's 'EarthSea'
Pug from Feists 'Magician'
Liath from Elliot's 'Crown of Stars' - and to an extent 'Wulfgar' as well from the same series.

Drat...name and book title escapes me at the moment, but Carter had an unusually driven mage in one of his books - long quest to find a powerful spell.

Slant from Watt-Evans 'Cyborg and the Sorcerers'
Granny WeatherWax and Rincewind from Pratchets 'Diskworld' series (as well as the mages of the Unseen University)
Nevyn from Kerr's 'Devery' series

plus quite a few others.

 

[Being Darbo]

I'm a big fan of magic in China Mieville's books. I like the way magic in Bas Lag - in particular - is mundane yet with the potential to be world-breaking. His magic-users are some of his most memorable characters too: the stiff, rheumy-eyed bio-thaumaturge Vermishank; the prodigious golem-user Judah Lowe; the vodyanoi shamans with their water magic; all very cool and well done.

Don't know if you're interested in comics at all, but I'm a big fan of John Constantine as a character. The theme of magic being phenomenally dangerous to mess with, and of Constantine's burden of his friends suffering for his hubris in his place is what grabbed me. The best-written stuff is also some of the most socially and politically anachronistic, but definitely worth a look. If you can, find a Neil Gaiman Constantine story called Hold Me. Lovely, elegantly wrought stuff.

 

[kayd_mon]

I'll also go with Ged from Earthsea.

 

[Telcontar]

Big fan of Zedd from Sword of Truth. One of the best parts of the series. Gandalf as well, certainly.

There is a book called The Black Gryphon (by Mercedes Lackey, I think) where one of the main characters is a powerful wizard called Urtho. He's another great one.

 

[Darkblade]

Harry Dresden of the Dresden Files - Probably the quintessential modern day wizard (Harry Potter is too isolated from the muggles to really be considered modern and s much as I love Constantine he owes too mush to Thatcher's London to really belong anywhere after the 80s).

Kvothe of the Kingkiller Chronicles - By no means among the most powerful powerful wizard as the Sympathy magic of his world is among the more subtle and less flashy magics. He none the less manages several impressive feats with it through out side of the box thinking and general cunning.

 

[Sheilawisz]

Do you know Xayide, from The Neverending Story??

She is a tall, beautiful Mage or Witch with eyes of two different colours, one red and the other green. She lives in a great castle shaped like a hand (and windows shaped like eyes) in the middle of a frightening and really strange forest...

Xayide has the power to be master of anything that is empty, so she controls an army of metallic, armored soldiers that are in fact completely empty. She is cunning, cold and manipulative, plotting to use Bastian to take over Fantastica and rule forever!!

She gave Bastian a magical belt that would make him invisible, and seemed to have other magical powers by performing mysterious and unexplained things =)

 

[Devor]

Varsuvius.

 

[Telcontar]

Ahhh! Yes, a thousand times yes. I can't believe I forgot Varsuvius!

 

[PlotHolio]

Eli Monpress from Rachel Aaron's novels. The only man who can escape from prison by talking to the door.

 

[Cheezyb10]

..............Ron lol he's funny

 

[Ireth]

Dunno if he's been mentioned yet, but Neville Longbottom. Neville. Freaking. Longbottom. He goes from an insecure, incompetent first-year who can hardly stand a cauldron the right way up, to a completely badass seventh-year who effectively gives Voldemort himself the finger (verbally, but the intent is still there), and gets away with it! If that isn't awesome, then nothing is.