Inept Mage: Difference between revisions

 

{{examples}}

== [[Advertising]] ==

* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Str8GOl-iYA&ab_channel=VintageTVCommercials This old commercial] for Dominos Pizza. The Noid is "a wicked wizard", who of course, ends up zapping himself with his magic.

* Koyomi of ''[[Yoku Wakaru Gendai Mahou]]'' knows ''one'' spell. She can turn a spell into a falling washpan. ''Any'' spell, belonging to anybody. A cantrip, a fireball, a nuke, a [[MacGuffin]].... Yeah, once the implications are realized, the other mages see her usefulness, although she doesn't quite realize what a [[Game Breaker]] she has.

* In ''[[The Slayers]]'', the abundantly competent white-magic user Shilfiel tries her hand at black magic to balance out her repetoire and be more useful in combat. She's so woefully incompetent at this (her spell creates a {{spoiler|magic carrot}}) that Zelgadis later asks her to cast the spell for him, relying on her inability to make it harmful, since he wants to use it to snap a teammate out of their trance.

* Urd from ''[[Ah! My Goddess]]'' is explicitly stated as being more powerful than Belldandy, yet ranked lower because she has little control over it.

** And Lind is a very powerful, very skilled goddess ... except in one area. Don't ask her to use her magic to '''repair''' anything: the results struck [[Even Evil Has Standards|even Hell's CEO Hild with horror]].

* England from ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]''.

* In the original ''[[Yu-Gi-Oh!]]'', Mana, a young sorceress whose ''ka'' eventually became Dark Magician Girl. She even admits to Yugi that "she's only half a magician, because only half my spells actually work!" Granted, she is at the time only an apprentice, her mentor Mahad being far more powerful.

* Megumin of ''[[Kono Subarashii Sekai ni Shukufuku o!]]'' can cast one spell, a powerful explosion, and can only do that '''once''' per day (early on even that [[Cast From Hit Points|knocks her out]]).

 

* Questor Thews, from the ''[[Magic Kingdom of Landover]]'' novels.

* Neville Longbottom from the ''[[Harry Potter (novel)|Harry Potter]]'' novels. Until [[Took a Level in Badass|the fifth book]]. It doesn't help that he's been using {{spoiler|his father's wand}} for most of the series instead of a wand better suited to him.

** A similar thing happens to Harry in ''The Deathly Hallows''.

** Gilderoy Lockhart may count: [[Crippling Overspecialization|The only thing he seems to be good at]] is memory charms, though it's never revealed whether he's naturally inept at everything else or if he just decided at some point that he could get by on that and his natural charisma alone. (And he very nearly did, [[Scooby Doo|if it hadn't been for]] [[You Meddling Kids|those meddling kids]].)

* [[Merlin]]'s apprentice Fuddie from ''[[Filmation's Ghostbusters]]''. He can grant Jake one wish every full moon, but he ''never'' gets it right, possibly being hard of hearing. For example, the first time Jake told Fuddie to make him "invincible" and Fuddie instead made him invisible. Fortunately, Jake usually manages to improvise.

* Zigzagged with Twilight Sparkle from ''[[My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic]]''. While she does eventually master Alicorn magic (which has been stated to be ''very'' hard to learn and ''very'' dangerous if used wrong) when she makes mistakes, she ''really'' makes mistakes. She accidentally turned her own parents into plants during her entrance exam (maybe it was funny to the viewer, [[Fridge Horror| but when you see this from ''her'' point of view]]), in "Bats" she turns Fluttershy into a vampire (the ending even suggesting Fluttershy may ''not'' be fully cured) and in the episode "Lesson Zero", her Want It, Need It spell [[Idle Hands| (cast with the intent to ''create'' a Friendship problem because there were no other problems for her to handle)]] turns a stuffed animal into a [[Clingy MacGuffin]] that ''everyone'' who sees it wants to have, unleashes a [[Hate Plague]] of jealousy due to fighting over it that infects half of Ponyville. Seriously, Twilight, [[Evil Is Not a Toy|Magic Is Not a Toy]].

 

{{reflist}}