Child Mage: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

You've seen it before. For lack of a better introduction, the main magic user in the game or story happens to be the youngest person in the group. Possibly because the story writer wants to have a character that young for comic effect and can't imagine said character being proficient in a sword or other conventional weapons, so they let them summon meteors with their mind. The lesson apparently being that magic is ''just that easy''. Or [[Child Prodigy|They're just that good]]. And [[Muscles Are Meaningless]].

 

{{examples}}

== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==

* Pretty much any [[Magical Girl]] series, especially ones where the characters are children below high school ages.

* In ''[[The Death Gate Cycle]]'', Bane is a ten-year-old magical prodigy. Unfortunately, he's also [[Enfant Terrible|evil]].

* Zilpha Keatley Snyder's ''The Changeling'' keeps it charmingly ambiguous whether the three-year-old Josie is this or whether her sister and friend just convince themselves she is.

* ''[[The Malazan Book of the Fallen]]'' has a few examples, most of them being appropriately horrifying. Sin is one example.

* In ''[[Septimus Heap]]'', the titular character is an adolescent who has the makings of becoming a powerful wizard one day.

* Mordred in ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]''. Merlin counts also, since out of the six main characters, he is the youngest.

* Eden and (arguably) {{spoiler|baby Jewel}} in ''[[Maddigan's Quest]]'', young even by the other [[Kid Hero|Kid Heroes']] standards.

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

*** And one B-list schemer described is one of these, a necromancer with a level beyond his age. It is noted that treating him as a child is a ''very bad idea''.

* ''[[Wiz Kids]]''.

* Early supplements for ''[[Mage: The Ascension]]'' gave the possibility of [[Child Mages]] some attention, but the idea rapidly fell out of favor with gamers who saw it as "cutesy"...or incredibly dangerous. [[Reality Warper|They may have had a point.]]