Anti-Magical Faction: Difference between revisions

 

May also be combined with [[Muggle Power]].

{{examples}}

* The anti-esper organization called "Normal People" from ''[[Zettai Karen Children]]'' is probably one of the most shamelessly blatant examples of this.

 

* This appears to be the aims of Twilight and his followers in the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]] Season Eight'' comic.

* If mutant powers qualify as "magic," these guys show up as [[X-Men]] villains every other week. Perhaps the most notorious of such groups is the anti-mutant hate group "Friends of Humanity."

* [[Doctor Strange]] runs afoul of these from time to time, though in the Marvel Universe they tend to be lone fanatics who've amassed a following. In ''[[World War Hulk]]'' his primary accuser was a wild-eyed woman who claimed he "dances with the Devil" (not true; they're just acquaintances) and nearly killed civilians (which was true).

 

* In ''[[With Strings Attached]]'', the law in Ketafa is that magic is forbidden; those accused are, at the very least, publicly flogged. Not that it stops a lively magical underground, the Hiddenwizards. (We never see them, but Lyndess mentions them a few times, as do Terdan and Remlar.) And the “Favorites of the Gods”—Baravadans—are exempt from this law.

 

* The kingdoms of the Aldabreshin archipelago in Juliet E. McKenna's ''Aldabreshin Compass'' tetralogy. The collected warlords ban magic on pain of [[Cruel and Unusual Death|having your skin ripped off while still alive and then nailed to a post]]. [[Fridge Logic|Since magical dragons and wizards exist on the mainland it's a little unclear why]]. And of course Astrology is seen as perfectly okay and non-magical.

* Karse in the ''[[Valdemar]]'' series has a habit of killing magic users when and where it finds them, although as it turns out, if the magic-user is caught young enough they're actually recruited into the priesthood, so more of a type B.

* The Baron in ''[[Discworld/The Wee Free Men|The Wee Free Men]]'' has ordered witches on the Chalk [[Burn the Witch|burnt]] since he (wrongly) believes a witch took his son.

* ''[[Witch and Wizard]]'''s New Order takes this a notch further and condemns ''art'' - although the two persecuted protagonists do have powers.

* In ''[[Dragonlance]]'' groups like the Minotaurs and the Gnomes disdain magic for various reasons, though they (generally) don't actively hunt magic-users down- they just don't do it themselves, and look down on anyone who does.

** Tear is an odd variation- [[Functional Magic|channeling]] is illegal in Tear, but channelers aren't actively hunted so long as they keep it to themselves, and the Tairens actually send ''more'' [[Gender-Restricted Ability|daughters]] to [[Wizarding School|the White Tower]] than anyone, if only because it's the handiest way to quietly get rid of a channeling relative.

 

* The [[Monster of the Week]] in the ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer]]'' episode "Gingerbread" brainwashes people into becoming this, (and has apparently been doing so for a long time). Buffy nearly gets burnt at the stake by her own mother before managing to kill it.

* Uther Pendragon tries to ban magic in ''[[Merlin (TV series)|Merlin]]''. At the time it's set, he has largely succeeded in destroying an entire culture. Most of the conflict in the story comes from people hating him for the various repressions and executions involved in this, usually with Arthur stuck squarely in the crossfire, and from Merlin trying to do his thing without getting outed and killed as a traitorous sorcerer.

** Ironically, though, with the exception of Merlin, the series is rather vague on how justified Uther's crusade was. Gaius, himself a magic-user, seems to be of the opinion that there was a significant fraction of evil wizards and witches back then. At the same time, however, we're treated to stories of the brutal slaughter of the relatively benign druids. The magic-users left now aren't really unethical in killing [[Complete Monster|their version of Hitler]].

 

* ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]]'': The Dwarfs are a fairly straight example, since Dwarfs can't use magic directly and don't seem to trust it, but they do have magical items and for game balance purposes [[Doomy Dooms of Doom|the Anvil of Doom]] can be used to cast spells.

** The Bretonnians set themselves up as this, but hypocritically, since they have "[[Un-Equal Rites|Prophetesses]]" who can cast "prayers" that [[Religion Is Magic|look suspiciously like the spells used by other factions]]. Similarly, the knights consider missile weapons and siege engines to be unchivalric, but are perfectly happy to let commoners field them.

* Can be found in ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'' on occasion, though it's more usually a faction enforcing a "nobody in this town/country is allowed to use magic but ''us''" rule. That said, you do get factions like the (now technically former) Cult of Entropy based in the city of Lutcheq in the [[Forgotten Realms]] who consider ''all'' use of arcane magic an abomination punishable by death, or the Principalities of Glantri on [[Mystara]], an actual [[Magocracy]] where the use of ''clerical'' magic is punished with similar harshness on principle.

 

* In ''[[Age of Wonders|Age of Wonders II: Shadow Magic]]'', the [[Meaningful Name|aptly named Phobian]] [[The Empire|Empire]] is on a crusade against magic... or so they say, since their commanders actively use magic, which makes it a Type B.

* In ''[[Overlord II]]'' the Glorious Empire hunts down magical creatures and magic in general. The creatures that are not killed outright are drained of their magical energies and then put into [[Gladiator Games|the Arena]]. All the energy is accumulated in a vat in the palace for Emperor Solarius' [[A God Am I|ascension to godhood]]. A textbook Type B.

* In ''[[Exile]]''/''[[Avernum]] III: Ruined World'', part of the game takes place on an island that's become the epicenter of a religion whose followers reject the use of magic. They aren't particularly sinister, but trying to complete the game as one of them definitely qualifies as a [[Self-Imposed Challenge]].

** The Anama only reject arcane magic and find the use of [[Religion Is Magic|priestly magic]] perfectly acceptable. Since divine magic can fill some of the functions of arcane magic and has exclusive access to healing, the trade-off is really whether cheap and early access to the best priest spells is worth giving up magery.

* [[Proud Warrior Race Guy|The Qunari]] in ''[[Dragon Age]]''. They use technology instead of magic and kill or silence any mages they come across (by removing their tongues). The Qun, their religion, has no place for mages, and the Qunari's ultimate goal is conversion of all races to the Qun and therefore removal of all mages. This places them in contrast to the human religious institution, the Chantry, which teaches that magic was made to serve man. The Chantry permit mages and even use them against the Qunari (in fact, it is the reason why the Qunari haven't overrun most of the world yet), although they don't really trust them and practically monopolize the training of mages; non-Chantry trained mages are called apostates and are hunted down by [[Mage Killer|the Templars]].

** Not that the Qunari are above using the mages as living weapons, either, with each ''saarebas'' (''dangerous thing'') being handled by another Qunari as their keeper. Any saarebas that goes unsupervised is automatically assumed to be possessed by a demon, so the Qunari come across as fearing mages even more than the humans though it's more like their philosophy doesn't allow them to act any other way.

* Team [[Animal Wrongs Group|Plasma]] serves this role in [[Pokémon Black and White]], with a dosage of [[Fantasy Gun Control]]. The goal of their [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|leader]] is to stop the use of Pokemon and have them all released. {{spoiler|The organization itself does not agree, and is being manipulated by [[The Man Behind the Man|Ghet]][[Manipulative Bastard|sis]] to leave him the only one left with Pokemon, rendering the rest of the population completely powerless}}.

 

* Thoria from ''[[The Dragon Doctors]]''.

 

* The Crimson Order from ''[[The Gungan Council]]'' vowed to kill all Force-users, Jedi and Sith included.

* The squirrel species in ''[[Tasakeru]]'' forbids the use of magic, seeing it as an affront to the Goddess of Life.

 

* In ''[[The Legend of Korra]]'' the Equalists are a rising anti-bending and [[Muggle Power]] movement within the metropolis of Republic City, where both benders and non-benders are supposed to live together in harmony. They believe the benders of Republic City use their [[Elemental Powers]] to oppress [[Muggle|non-benders]], a belief strengthened by the presence of the [[The Triads and the Tongs|Triple Threat Triads]], a bender organized crime gang. The Equalist soapboxers advertise a revolution against the bending class, and foster [[Fantastic Racism|hatred for benders]] in general. Led by their masked general Amon, the Equalists employ new technologies against benders, and their fighting style makes use of the same [[Pressure Point]] [[Power Nullifier|chi]]-[[The Paralyzer|blocking]] techniques notably used by [[Badass Normal]] Ty Lee from ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''.

** [[Hypocrite|Hypocritically]], their leader Amon's trump card against benders and the basis of his claim for being [[The Chosen One]] to replace the Avatar {{spoiler|seems to be Energybending, the oldest form of bending.}}

*** {{spoiler|Of course, as far as we know, there's no applications of energybending besides taking away peoples' bending abilities, and it's not even certain what Amon is doing is actually energybending.}}

* ''[[The Life and Times of Juniper Lee]]'' has Humans for the Abolishment of Magic ([[Fun with Acronyms|HAM]]), a [[Government Agency of Fiction|secret government agency]] that employs [[Powered Armor]] and [[Power Crystals]] that allow its agents to [[Invisible to Normals|see through]] [[The Masquerade]].

** A bit of [[Hypocrite|hypocrisy]] to that is that he keeps the Magic Mirror with him.

 

{{reflist}}