Writing the Ideal...Magic-User

[Philip Overby]

So I'm continuing this "series" of questions to get insight in to how members feel about their ideal versions of certain types of characters. First I asked about barbarians, so now I'm turning the focus to the opposite end of the spectrum: magic-users. This includes wizards, withes, witchers, mages, hybrid spell-casters, necromancers, pyromancers, etc. etc.

In the most basic terms a magic-user would be a character that uses magic. But how they use magic or how the writer incorporates magic into their world is important. Magic is often tied into fantasy worlds, sometimes in vast quantities (Lord of the Rings, epic fantasy) and other times in low quantities (sword and sorcery, low fantasy, some urban fantasy.)

My ideal magic-user:

1. I would say Geralt of Rivia (from the Witcher series of books/games) is my ideal magic-using character because he's a hybrid that uses his magic sparingly. I've always been a fan of characters who only use magic as a last resort instead of just hurling fireballs all over the place. His magic has a lot to do with charming and manipulating, which I find to be an interesting take. He also feels like a Jedi in some ways. He uses his magic at time when hunting monsters and with humans alike. A close second would be Quick Ben from the Malazan series, just because of how incredibly powerful he is. People are afraid of him, and I find that a quality in a magic-user that adds an aura to them.

2. If I were creating a magic-user character, I'd want them to be unique in some way. Using magic that may not be embraced so readily by readers. I've always been interested in the idea of magicians that only have one spell. For some reason I find that fascinating. If they only have one spell, then they have to be very creative how they use it. It's almost like X-Men mutant powers (they only have the one power usually). How they use it is what makes them unique.

3. I would absolutely want to include a magic-user character as one of my main characters. In fact, I have several magic-using characters as main characters in various things I've written. I want to approach magic in a different way though. Not entirely unique, but just not a standard lightning bolt slinging wizard on the top of a mountain. If I have a character that's a lightning bolt slinging wizard, then he needs something else to give him more depth. Maybe he really, really likes bunnies.

So what are your thoughts?

1. How would you write your ideal magic-user character?

2. What writer/writers do you think have done the magic-user character well?

3. Would you make a magic-user character a main character in your story/novel? Why or why not?

 

[ThinkerX]

1. How would you write your ideal magic-user character?

I prefer mages with at least quasi phausible powers. Hence 'magic' in my world is actually 'enchanced PSI' abilities. At least mostly. This makes my wizards wimps compared to most others.

The other thing is, magicians tend to get treated as souless artillery pieces: kill a few thousand people with barely a pang of concience. Most of my wizards (and other characters) lack that sense of brutality. Some may not be altogether honest and upstanding, or may come across as remote, but they don't just casually shrug off large scale killing...or even small scale killing.

2. What writer/writers do you think have done the magic-user character well?

Quite a few. Ged in LeGuins 'Wizard of EarthSea' remains a source of inspiration to me. Pug, Kulgan, and Nakor in Fiests 'Rift War' series are pretty dang good, in differing ways. I also liked Kerr's Neyvin in her 'Deverry' series. The ones that come closest to my own - which I didn't find out about until recently, though the books have been out for decades - are Kurtz's Deryni mages. Our reasoning followed very similiar paths.

3. Would you make a magic-user character a main character in your story/novel? Why or why not?

Already done that, here on this site. Toki is a mage/thief, with a mile wide streak of foolishness. Lysander is a 'wizard with personal issues' on the other side of the world from Toki.

I've also got a powerful mage character in 'Labyrinth'. A mage is a central character in 'Shadow Sea'. And so on.

 

[Feo Takahari]

I see several different types you can work with:

The scholar, whose power comes from knowledge. This is often a "rationalist" whose brand of rationality just happens to include one more natural force than we're used to. The key to this type is curiosity--the scholar genuinely enjoys learning about magic, rather than just using it as a route to power.

The gifted, whose magic comes from within. These are easily the most variable type, ranging from power-hungry maniacs to self-hating outcasts, depending on how they regard their powers and on how their powers are treated by society. The key is to this type is alienation--in one way or another, this person knows he or she isn't like everyone else, and reacts to that fact. (This model doesn't apply if everyone has magic, but that's such a variable situation that there's no one model for it.)

The ritualist, whose magic is a gift or a bargain. These divide roughly in half between devoted disciples, who further the cause of their patron, and would-be Judases, whose ultimate goal is to become the one pulling the strings. The key to this type is indebtedness--the ritualist is presented with a subservient role, and chooses to accept or reject it.

Most of my writing that has positively portrayed magical characters deals with the gifted type, specifically someone who's just weird enough to feel like an outsider, but not weird enough to really benefit from his or her abilities. However, I wouldn't argue that this is better or worse than any other approach.

I've never thought about the concept of a "well-written magic user" before--to me, they've just been well-written characters. Still, I'm pretty fond of Terra in Final Fantasy VI. She's the first discovered human in her setting with inherent magical powers, and she's been used as a walking weapon since infancy. She starts out emotionally deadened, vaguely longing for something she doesn't really understand. Not until very late in the game does she find what she's looking for, and even then, she doesn't initially recognize what she's found. It's a surprisingly well-paced transition, and it ends in a rather fitting way.

 

[Ophiucha]

1. I like magic that is intrinsic to the setting, so my magic user characters - if they exist at all - are often all of the characters in the novel. Sometimes magic is powerful, sometimes it is weak, but I very rarely have a standard fantasy party with a swordsman, an archer, and a mage - rather, three mages who may or may not also use a sword or a bow. I couldn't say there is anything else that links how I write my magic users, though. They're just characters.

2. Judah Low, from Iron Council, is a favourite of mine - I mean, golems are awesome, so a guy who just makes a bunch of golems out of anything and everything is doubly awesome. Onyesonwu, from Nnedi Okorafor's Who Fears Death definitely deserves a mention, as well, less for how badass she is and more for how she interacts with magic and uses it. Her story has a deep tie to her magic, and I appreciate that - often magic is little more than a gun or a sword to the character, a weapon and a convenience, but Okorafor has a way of making magic a lot more powerful and important than that.

3. Yes, and I have. The main character of a novella I have for my 'soundworld' project basically sews magic into her skin and it just sort of... resonates out of her. (Since in this world, magic = sounds, she basically just tattoos a song onto her back and she is just always surrounded by a hint of music that subtly influences the world around her.) The short stories in the same setting all have magic users as protagonists, too, except one about a little deaf girl that was written explicitly to address the oddity of a non-magic user in the setting.

 

[Devor]

I find myself moving away from the typical do-anything wizard when it comes to magic. I tried to think about how a wizard would follow through, and when I considered the enchantments and magic items they would leave all over the place, the "random magic item" vanished pretty quickly. I think wizards would show a lot more care and ambition in what they did with their magic, like try and give every blacksmith a magic forge. I'd like to see more follow through from authors in what their wizards have done over time to the setting, and not just lace the world with magic that feels random.

In the setting I'm working with, there are two subtle magic systems, and a third which is broken and will never get fixed. They require a lifetime of skill and training to build up your magic over time, so ten "serving traditions" have been established to use these subtle magic systems to benefit the world, as well as a huge number of combat strategies built around the magic systems. There are also a dozen or so powerful artifacts put into the world by the gods, and a substance which I use as a trigger word to imply magic whenever I want an effect that otherwise wouldn't work. And the gods are real, and even though they aren't presently active, there are a lot of ways in which their activity can be felt in the story.

That gives me a lot of room in how I want to use magic users. I can have characters from the serving traditions show off their abilities to, say, determine when someone is lying or what kind of person they are. Or I can have a character come through with a powerful item of the gods, ransacking the countryside. I can have characters use awesome weapons based on the substance they're made from, and I can have a character be all powerful because he's a god in disguise. All of those give me a lot of flexibility without quite the deus ex of solving a problem with a spell that's brand new to the readers.

 

[Chessie]

I like the idea of magic users as scholars who devote their lives to furthering their craft. But when working with magic, there's always a cost (and I'm not talking about mana points here). I have one mage in my story but she's more of an intellect. She lives in isolation with her family, does research, and tries out the things she learns about her craft on the peasants in the area. Throughout the course of the story, she does a couple magical acts, one of which is tied to a tonic she's created. So I suppose she's also an inventor or sorts. I love magic in fantasies but its nice when its left mysterious somehow. Less is more here. My magic user is the villain in the story because she has money, power and time to focus on magical studies. The mc is an alchemist, still magical but more down to earth.

I read a novel once about a young magi who had a hard time controlling/learning about her powers. She feared them. It was interesting to see her development. She matured into her powers but still made some shady decisions with it. I liked that story because it showed a huge amount of human error...magic as a honing craft like anything else.

 

[Ireth]

Agreed about trial-and-error being interesting with magic. One of my favorite RPing characters is a mage with the ability to work magic through song, which is quite powerful but so rare he can't find anyone to teach him, or even any books on the subject. So he pretty much has to learn by doing, often with interesting consequences. If he's not very careful with both his words and intent, strange and sometimes bad things can happen. Like accidentally turning an injured Fae into a human while trying to bring him back from the brink of death (and healing him in the process, but that was more of a side-effect even though it was what he was actually aiming for). Needless to say, he learned quickly from THAT mistake. ^^;

 

[Saigonnus]

1. I always found the notion of a physically weak mage ridiculous (even gandalf was known to use a sword) so I tend to give them not only abilities to use magic, but SOME physical capabilities as well, so they can't get killed instantly by a farmwife with a breadknife. I use two forms of magic-users: Druids and Transmuters, both with similar capabilties and "spells" based around the cultures they come from more than a difference in how they do what they do.

2. I liked Zedd from the Sword of Truth Series (even though he was physically weak)

3. My main character IS a magic-user of sorts. Initially he is a moderately skilled warrior, but "inherits" the ability to use magic from the Goddess of my world; who must give it up or it will be subverted.

 

[Creed]

1. My ideal magic user would have to be limited and weak, but that's not the way to make a Mage character unless you're doing it for the sake of them being weak. They're a mage. They have to be capable in SOME way. So I'd want to have a suitably complex character who has weaknesses and such, but they also MUST have awesome moments.
2. I definitely agree that Geralt is a good choice (I've played the games but I've only read the first two books- I'd love to read more!). Quick Ben was pretty cool, too, but I'd have to tie him with Bottle as far as Malazan goes, just for Bottle's personality and the way he uses the warrens.
My all time favourite sorcerer character would be Achamian from the Prince of Nothing series. Due to the stigma against sorcery he rarely EVER uses his magic- it made me feel like he was lacking, but then in book two (The Warrior Prophet)… well, he most certainly gave me shivers up my spine. Not only was he an absolutely amazing character, full of depth and wisdom, but he could also be completely awesome. For a Steven Erikson fan (or anybody else, for that matter) I would recommend The Prince of Nothing.
3. I most certainly have a few mages in my cast. Some of them are magic-centric, and rely on it. Some are the opposite, and have magic as an added bonus for them.
I am most proud of my mage Astrid, who lives in a world where all magic users are slaughtered in the name of the Almighty. She however, has been "saved" by the Church to work as one of the Penitent- political and military tools that the Church keeps very secret. Astrid learns to hate herself and the Blasphemy within her, however she grows in different ways through the story. She meets another mage from another world, and he tries convincing her that their gift is beautiful. His name is Fevys and he falls in love with her. It's a sad story, but one that I enjoy writing.

 

[Nameback]

1. I'm not sure who my favorite magic users would be--Quick Ben is definitely one of my favorites, for the reasons you mentioned, plus his personality. I like wily characters who use their wits as much as their magic/sword/whatever. Honestly, for me, I think a lot of my favorite 'magic-users' aren't traditionally labeled as such--they're superheroes.

I mean, really, is Cyclops or Superman really that different from a mage? Of course, there's a big difference in how they're portrayed, given that superheroes are usually physically tough and skilled in combat, but I tend to think that their powers are essentially indistinguishable from magic. Among superheroes, I like Swamp Thing, Green Lantern, Silver Surfer, pretty much all the Guardians of the Galaxy, and countless X-men. I've always enjoyed the 'cosmic' aspects of the Marvel and DC universes--dealing with threats like Galactus or the Anti-Monitor are exciting to me, because their stories are on such a massive scale.

Other magic users I like include Bigby, the Big Bad Wolf; Roy Mustang; Shinji Ikari, T1000, Aang the Avatar; Jake the Dog.

2. This of course brings us to your second point, which indeed mentions the X-men. In my WIP, mages don't cast spells, but rather endow themselves with, essentially, super-powers. Basically, a mage comes up with an ability they desire and then endows him or herself with said ability through a ritual process. Of course, this process requires fuel--in this case, potential. Everything in the universe contains some measure of potential--of possibilities, abilities, probabilities--and a mage must extract potential from these things, take into themselves, and then shape, or 'weave' it. Usually, extraction involves destruction of the object in question. Of course, few things have more potential than sapient beings--indeed, sapient beings are orders of magnitude greater repositories of potential than almost anything else. Thus, to become a great mage, one must inevitably pay for their powers with the blood of others.

Anyway, most mages don't have access to a ready supply of people they would be allowed to kill--great mages are generally either warriors who siphon the potential of their slain enemies, or high-ranking political and religious leaders who use the mechanisms of the state (such as executions of criminals) to supply themselves with new potential. So most mages have rather simple, practical powers that become a sort of profession. For example, a rural person with access to an apprenticeship under a mage might learn the basic tenants of weaving 'erani' (powers), and then engage in a large ritualistic animal sacrifice--perhaps from their own farm, or after purchasing animals from someone else. The mage would have given themselves a useful power, such as being able to kill pests that damage crops; or adding moisture to soil in dry times; or best of all, fertilizing crops to increase yield. The mage then sells their magical skills to the farmers in their village. Most mages are more on this scale--mundane powers that are useful and not glitzy.

A battle-mage, however, might be able to transform into a massive demon, or fly, or breathe fire. One of my POV characters is a high-ranking member of a fire-goddess cult, in which the leaders of the cult embody different aspects of fire. My POV character is known as Agatahna Burn, and is capable of super-heating his body almost instantly, and is himself impervious to heat. He prefers to fight hand-to-hand, because when he touches someone, he can burn them severely. Hold on long enough, and he can boil them from the inside out. He can melt steel with a touch, or heat bubbles of gas trapped in concrete and porous stone fast enough to cause an explosion. There are ten leaders of the fire-cult: Fend, Shine, Blast, Burn, Raze, Choke, Dance, Blind, Roar, and Sow. You can imagine their various powers.

However, since attaining such a power requires massive investment, most powerful mages specialize in one power or one area of power, and hone their skill with it. This limits them, despite the fact that they can be hugely powerful. For example, being able to make your skin as hard as steel won't protect your internal organs if you fall from a cliff. And being able to fly might not be very useful if there are dragons prowling the skies.

3. Almost all of my POV characters are magical. Their power varies hugely, from an apprentice historian who can speed-read and light up dark rooms, to a demigod who can blast the tops off of mountains.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

I've written a number of different types of magic users, some pubbed some not, and I don't really have a fave. One I made a simple caster with only a few powers, but then reworked one of them so he literally became a one man army. He could just keep raising elementals and send them out as an army. Useful when you've got a war to fight.

Another has only weak spells. In his world magic is a balance always between power and control, and the more power you have the less you can control it. The challenge then is to make him useful with very highly controlled but relatively minor magics in a world, actually our world, where there are other far more powerful casters.

And currently I'm writing a magic user in a steampunk fantasy who's a technologist with a spark of magic. But his magic is weak and he has only one domain, fire. The fun part is shaping his magic so it fits with his technology.

And yeah as for faves, yeah someone mentioned Ged in Earthsea, and I do love the character. I love the entire idea of magic being based on the knowlege of a true name. But I could never write that scenario because I see magic as more an innate thing. Not spells and wands but rather will and knowledge.

Gandalf of course I love, but I constantly found myself confused by his magic. How much he had, what he could do with it, and why as someone pointed out recently, if he can summon eagles, couldn't he just fly Frodo and the ring to the mountain and drop the ring in then and there. Of course the story would have been very short.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Ireth]

if he can summon eagles, couldn't he just fly Frodo and the ring to the mountain and drop the ring in then and there.

There's a very valid in-story reason why that would never have worked. The Nazgul's winged steeds would have ripped the birds to shreds, killed Frodo and reclaimed the Ring. The eagles wanted nothing to do with Mordor, and only really got involved after the Ring was destroyed, at the tail-end of the battle at the Black Gate and to bring Frodo and Sam out of danger. The eagles are the obvious choice, and thus the most likely thing Sauron would have anticipated. Nobody expected Frodo and Sam to succeed by simply walking into Mordor, which is exactly why it worked.

 

[Mythopoet]

Gandalf of course I love, but I constantly found myself confused by his magic. How much he had, what he could do with it, and why as someone pointed out recently, if he can summon eagles, couldn't he just fly Frodo and the ring to the mountain and drop the ring in then and there. Of course the story would have been very short.

Cheers, Greg.

No, he can't summon eagles. Because the Great Eagles are sentient demi-gods of much the same order as Gandalf himself. They serve Manwe (the greatest of the gods of Middle-earth) himself and generally serve as passive role in Middle-earth as his eyes and ears. They sometimes choose to help Gandalf but since the entire point of Frodo's journey into Mordor was to do it secretly so that Sauron didn't know where the Ring was or what they were doing with it, riding giant eagles into Sauron's own country would have been disastrous.

 

[wordwalker]

Remember, LOTR - (Nazgul air force) = 5-page book

As for Gandalf's power being confusing, it's certainly true. Mostly it's Tolkien not having a consistent plan for how strong or willing Gandalf might be to use his powers (including giving him a couple in The Hobbit that weren't good for a more epic tale-- there's a true fireball in there), and of course the classic paradox of the how to teach the world to fix itself without him zapping away its problems. Earthsea has plenty of that too, the way Ged talks about not interfering with the Pattern.

But I also think you could justify a lot of Gandalf's reluctance, or simulate it in other stories, with one idea: maybe a world's wizards have a very limited, slowly-rebuilding supply of magic. Most games let a wizard replace all his energy in about a day, or maybe a minute or two; stories might make it take a little longer. But what if throwing one fireball used up your power for a week or a month, how careful would you be to wait until you were actually luring a full-sized Balrog over a thin, shatterable bridge before you were desperate enough to uncork it...

It's one part of how magic works in the world. If a mage can blast at will, you'll get constant Xbox-ish battles. If magic is strong but limited in use --or the wizard is afraid of solving everyone's problems-- it gets whole new complications just for those reasons. (And it matters if they actually can take weeks on the road between the bigger challenges, so the wizard becomes a little more willing to do something dazzling. Maybe.)

 

[Addison]

1. My magic-user character would use their magic in a way that either ties into who they are or is opposite, like a release for the part of them that doesn't get out very much. Magic does not come easily in any world. If it does then there's got to be a catch somewhere.

2. J.K Rowling did it very well. Each character's skill with magic tied in to their character. Hermione was the smart one who knew the books by heart so it's impossible to "think of a spell our Hermione can't do." (Hagrid, CoS) Harry faced great evil as a toddler and lived and was prophecised to take down Voldemort. (Also living with a family like the Dursleys kind of helped.) so it makes sense that he's top in Defense Against the Dark Arts. Ron, the magic-born and raised goof is average with the abilities yet is happy to use it as an easy way out, or at least quick to go for the wand rather than talking or fists. (I'm referring to the slug-belching incident) Others who did this well are Terry Brooks in his Discworld stories and Mercedes Lackey in the Tales from the Hundred Kingdoms stories.

3. The main character in my story is a magic-user. It just fits. As an exercise I'm trying to write him as magic-less. But he's a magic user primarily to help with the story and himself. His father was a magic-user (I call them Casters) so he hopes his journey as a Caster will lead him to learn more about his father.

 

[Ireth]

Terry Brooks in his Discworld stories

Do you mean Terry Pratchett's Discworld, or Terry Brooks' something else? *isn't familiar with the latter's books*

 

[Weaver]

1. I always found the notion of a physically weak mage ridiculous (even gandalf was known to use a sword) so I tend to give them not only abilities to use magic, but SOME physical capabilities as well, so they can't get killed instantly by a farmwife with a breadknife.

Physically weak magic-users: a variation on the "geniuses are ugly and scrawny because life is fair" myth. Even when used in the name of "game balance," it's a silly notion, and it definitely doesn't make sense in novels. I'd like to see more fantasy stories where magic requires the user to be physically fit because working magic is strenuous and an out-of-shape mage is likely to die in the middle of a spell.

(Good example of a magic-using character who is also good with mundane combat, etc., and for good reason: Sun Wolf, from Barbara Hambly's novel The Dark Hand of Magic .)

 

[psychotick]

Hi Ireth,

Slight aside from the OP. Maybe I'm confusing the films and books but didn't the eagles get involved before the ring was destroyed at the final battle. Tearing the Nazgul's winged steeds apart while the army was there diverting attention from Frodo's final bit of his journey?

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Ireth]

Hi Ireth,

Slight aside from the OP. Maybe I'm confusing the films and books but didn't the eagles get involved before the ring was destroyed at the final battle. Tearing the Nazgul's winged steeds apart while the army was there diverting attention from Frodo's final bit of his journey?

Cheers, Greg.

Yes, I mentioned that in my post. They did get involved toward the end of the battle at the Black Gate.

 

[Jess A]

I'll have to return to this conversation as I know I have many favourites, many of which have been mentioned above. I just can't think right now.

But one that comes to mind is an entire race - Sara Douglass's Axis Trilogy books. Her winged people, the Icarii, use music and the rhythm of the stars - the Star Dance - to create magic. As a musician myself I have always found this fascinating and thrilling to read. They listen to and feel the Star Dance and sing to create magic. It has been a while since I read the series, so hopefully I described it correctly. If I remember rightly, the baddies' magic was discordant and the rhythms very jarring.

Icarii who can do this often have 'star' somewhere in their name. 'FireStar', 'WolfStar', 'DragonStar', etc. It all has a part to play in society and even in pregnancy. I seem to remember scenes where the parents would sing to the baby to encourage the wings to grow, or sing to the baby in the womb.