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Cats Are Magic: Difference between revisions
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Unsurprisingly, when people write about cats in works with magic, cats tend to have magic too.
Because [[All Witches Have Cats]], cats are almost certain to make an appearance in a work with [[Witch Species|witches]], and more often than not, these felines will possess unusual abilities. Even in media without witchcraft, cats alone will sometimes be able to perform supernatural feats while other animals will be [[Muggle|extremely mundane]]. If any one animal has [[Intellectual Animal|the ability to be understood by humans]] or to [[Talking Animal|use human speech fluently]], chances are that it's a cat. A person will often choose the form of a cat when using [[Voluntary Shapeshifting|magic to disguise him]] or herself [[Animorphism|as an animal]]. Similarly, [[Karmic Transformation|using transformation as a form of punishment]] often results in a [[Baleful Polymorph|feline transformation]]. Sometimes their magic might appear in a [[Follow the White Rabbit]] form.
Usually a magical cat [[Amplified Animal Aptitude|will be intelligent]], but even non-sapient cats can have magical powers. Wittingly or not, cats may even be using their abilities to keep [[The Masquerade]]. Despite all this, cats are not often [[Bond Creatures]], except maybe to witches in [[Lighter and Softer|fluffiest]] of works. This is perhaps due to their reputations of being aloof and independent. This trope may mean a cat is an [[Evil Sorceror]] if used in a story where [[Cats Are Mean]].
See also [[Cats Are Superior]], [[Cats Have Nine Lives]], [[Maneki Neko]] and [[Familiar]].
{{examples}}
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* Happy, Charle, Pantherlily, and all the Exceed from ''[[Fairy Tail]]'' apply.
* Gatomon from ''[[Digimon Adventure]]'' possessed the attack "cats eye hypnotism" and she was rather mystic in nature
* Team Rocket's Meowth is one of the only ''[[Pokémon (anime)|Pokémon]]'' who can use human speech.
* In the manga ''[[Leviathan]]'', cats are mentioned in passing to be able to see spirits.
* The cats in ''[[Aria]]'', especially the Mars variety. And then there's [[Mega Neko|Cait Sith]].
* The cats in ''[[Windy Tales]]'' seem to have a natural talent for manipulating wind.
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* The cats from ''[[Catwoman (film)|Catwoman]]'', the movie. They resurrected the dead Catwoman and gave her cat-like abilities.
* The three stories in ''Cat's Eye'' are tied together by a wandering street cat who is on a journey to save a little girl from a troll-like creature, after he received a psychic signal of some sort.
* The film Coraline has a cat that can move between the real world and the Other Mother's world. At the end of the movie, he is shown vanishing into thin air.
* ''[[The Last Unicorn (animation)|The Last Unicorn]]'' has a talking cat that gives Molly the hint they need to save Amalthea and the unicorns. It was also the only creature that could see through the spell Schmendrick put on the unicorn. Bonus points for being the only cat on this list with an [[Eyepatch of Power]].
== Literature ==
* Tamora Pierce's The Song of the Lioness series features a mysterious black cat (Faithful) who makes an appearance in the Beka Cooper Trilogy as Pounce, the cat constellation who has come to Beka for undivulged reasons.
* ''[[Un Lun Dun]]'', by [[China Mieville]], subverts this by making cats the most stupid and ''least'' magical of all animals. Dogs, foxes, various birds, and even [[No Cartoon Fish|fish]] are shown to be sapient and able to cross the boundaries between worlds, but cats are too concerned with looking cool to learn anything of value.
* A black cat in [[Neil Gaiman]]'s ''[[Coraline (novel)|Coraline]]'' can talk in the Other Mother's universe, and acts as a sort of [[Mentor]] towards the heroine.
* [[Neil Gaiman|Neil Gaiman's]] short story ''The Price'' is about an otherwise ordinary black cat who, on a daily basis, protects the narrator's home from a demonic entity. The black cat gets more and more beat up with every fight, and when he fails to fight the demon, the narrator's household is afflicted by numerous misfortunes. Yeah. Gaiman has a thing for black cats.
* In [[Lloyd Alexander|Lloyd Alexander's]], ''[[Time Cat]]'', all cats have the ability to travel to any place they choose, in any point of time they choose. This is said to be the reason why they can vanish mysteriously in small rooms.
* ''[[Discworld]]'s'' Death is very fond of cats and gives them all nine lives. That said, the only cat who is really magical is Maurice, from ''[[Discworld/The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents|The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents]]''. He gained sapience and speech by eating a rat who had, in turn, also eaten some magical garbage.
* Cats in ''[[The Bartimaeus Trilogy]]'' are the only animal naturally able to see more than one plane.
* Nakata from ''[[Kafka on the Shore]]'' has the ability to talk to cats. Siamese cats are said to be very easy to communicate with.
** Jonnie Walker, another character from the same book, kills cats and uses their souls to make a magic flute.
* Cats in the ''[[Young Wizards]]'' universe are the only Earth species which can naturally see the [[wikipedia:String theory|string structures]] out of which wizardly [[Cool Gate|Cool Gates]] are made, so the maintenance teams for [[Cool Gate]] clusters are all made of cat wizards. Also, even non-wizard cats can sometimes spontaneously walk through walls.
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* In [[October Daye|the Toby Daye series]] all cats are loyal to the local King of Cats, aware of magic, and much smarter than they let on. And this is the ordinary non-magical cats. There are also the Cait Sith, who are cat fae and outside the normal fae laws for being cats.
* In [[Saki (author)|Saki]]'s short story "Tobermory", Tobermory magically becomes able to talk, and horrifies a group of party guests by tattling on all the sins that he's been spying on over the years.
* [[Robert Westall]]'s fiction was often built on this trope. ''[[The Cats of Seroster]]'' is all about magical cats and short stories, ''The Creatures In The House'' and ''Fred, Alice and Aunty Lou'' involve cats having powers to perceive things beyond what humans can.
* In Andrzej Sapkowski's ''[[The Witcher]]'' novels cats are mentioned to be the only species of animal apart from dragons to actively seek out magical Intersections which radiate Power, and rest in them, although no-one knows what they do with the Power they gather by doing so.
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* Ancient Egyptians worshiped the goddess Bast, who was cat-headed and held cats to be sacred. At some points in ancient Egypt, harming cats carried the death penalty.
* In Japan cats are said to give good fortune, which is why you see [[Maneki Neko|welcome/lucky/beckoning cats]] (white ceramic cats with a gold coin and one raised paw) in some establishments. The lower paw (which is often holding a coin) is to protect money, and the raised paw draws money in.
* A black cat crossing your path is said to be bad luck in most of continental Western Europe
* On the British Isles Black Cats have better press for some reason and are usually associated with good luck
** A woman with a cat, especially a black one, will have more suitors.
** In Scotland, the arrival of a strange black cat to a house is supposed to signal good fortune for everyone in the household.
* The urban legend that shelters won't allow black cats to be adopted around Halloween in case they're killed and torture ritualistically (the former is true, the later is unsubstantiated).
* Ship's cats (especially black ones) were said to be lucky by sailors, although pirates often believed that a ship which had a black cat walk on then off was doomed to sink. The ascribed ''good'' luck, at least, is probably more attributable to the fact that ships traditionally have rat problems than any magic, however.
* Many modern Pagans, including Wiccans, hold cats in high esteem. In Wiccan rituals, it is believed a cat can walk through a magic circle without breaking it, since cats can walk through spiritual/magical borders. Another animal, like say a dog, would break the circle and thus dispel any magic.
* Cats are believed in some cultures and traditions to be able to see spirits and ghosts.
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== Theater ==
* Aside from from the entire world being implied to exist in some in-between realm, Mistoffelees from [[Cats]], who uses his magical powers to save Old Deuteronomy from Macavity. There are also a few other cats who are hinted to have magical powers, such as Macavity himself, and Coricopat and Tantomile.
** Mistoffelees can also change the lights, levitate objects, teleport things, and [[Your Tomcat Is Pregnant|can make kittens appear out of nowhere.]]
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[[Category:Wizards and Witches]]
[[Category:Cats Are Magic]]
[[Category:This Index Meows]]
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