Witch Species: Difference between revisions

This is the [[Wizards and Witches]] subtrope of [[Our Monsters Are Different]].

 

 

 

A Witch Species is also mentioned in very early Christian writings describing a belief that witches were tiny creatures that cause sickness in plants, animals and people. In other words, germs. But these writings also dismissed this idea as a superstitious delusion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

{{examples}}

* ''[[Mahou Sensei Negima]]'' indicates that Mages live in pocket dimensions apart from most of humanity, though they interact enough to require a [[Masquerade]].

* Witchcraft is an inherited talent in ''[[Kiki's Delivery Service]]''.

* The primary antagonists of ''[[Soul Eater]]'' are witches who appear to be a race of their own. This is indicated by the fact that at least one is a small child with no parents to teach her magic and that certain witch characters appear to have no desire to be part of the witch culture, but in both cases, these still count as 'witches'.

* In ''[[El Cazador]]'', witches are a nearly extinct subspecies of humans who mostly lost their powers in modern times. Ellis is an artificial witch, created in an attempt to restore the magical bloodline. Jodie, on the other hand, is a pure-blood witch but has about as much magical potential as any baseline human. {{spoiler|It is also suggested that there were further artificial witches besides Ellis (possibly including L.A.) but they all died/were killed off.}}

* If you want to be a mage in ''[[Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha]]'', you will first need to be born with a Linker Core organ, the source of a mage's magical power. Having mage parents greatly increases your chances, but there have been known cases of powerful mages being born from non-mages.

* In ''[[Sugar Sugar Rune]]'', witches (both male and female) come from the 'magical world', and they feed off of the emotions of humans. Love between witches and humans is taboo, IIRC.

* ''[[There Beyond the Beyond]]'' has the flowers from the Beyond, who wield supreme magical powers, although other human and [[Talking Animal]] magicians exist.

 

* In [[The DCU]], Zatanna's mother was [[Retcon|revealed]] to have been a member of the "Homo Magi" race. However, her father used learned magical skills (Depends on the writer; sometimes he's described as having H. Magi blood or innate magic). Zatanna herself uses learned magical skills (ie, speaking backwards) to tighten her control over her inherent abilities.

* Also in the DCU, Klarion the Witch Boy belongs [[Multiple Choice Past|either to]] a race of extradimensional aliens who have magical powers, or a subset of humanity that lives [[Beneath the Earth|in the caves beneath New York City]] and is [[Half-Human Hybrid|descended from Puritans who had "relations" with time-traveling]] [[The Fair Folk|fairies]].

* In an interesting variant, in the ''Starkweather'' comic, it turned out that {{spoiler|Witches were the living descendants of Christ, making the Church's attempts to wipe them out somewhat ironic.}}

 

== Fairy Tales ==

 

** [[Rule 34]] suggests that the most obvious way the gene could promote its own propagation will be or have been ''exhaustively'' explored by [[Fanfic]] writers.

 

* [[Star Wars|Power with the Force]] is hereditary in a great many cases. Given the prohibition against Jedi marrying, the only examples we see of hereditary Force power in the movies are Luke and Leia, but the [[Expanded Universe]] increases this (especially with non-Jedi traditions that don't preclude marriage, and the fact that many thousands of years of Jedi history didn't include that prohibition). This is not a guarantee, however, as Jedi Master Ki Adi Mundi's [[All There in the Manual|background indicates he had 8 children]] (male Cerean Jedi are exempt from the restrictions against marriage given the 20 to 1 female to male ratio), but Wookiepedia doesn't indicate any of them were Force Sensitive.

* ''[[The Covenant]]'' has five families [[It Got Worse|in the beginning, anyways]], where the boys inherit the magic powers. A daughter from one of these families is never seen, so it's unknown if girls A) inherit the power, B) don't inherit it, but can pass it on to their sons, C) are completely normal, or D) can't be born to these families.

** [[All There in the Manual]]: Only the firstborn son gains the Power, and only his firstborn son, and so on. Daughters, if they exist, have no magic.

 

* Kelley Armstrong's ''[[The Otherworld]]'' books feature both an all-female witch phenotype and an all-male sorcerer one. The genes for the two are in some way incompatible, as well as sex-linked and so both witches and sorcerers only reproduce with mundanes, who know nothing of this according to the [[Masquerade]]. However, witch and sorcerer magics have some overlap. A witch can perform sorcerer magic, but she is less capable with it than she is with witch magic, and vice versa for sorcerers. There are hints in ''Dime Store Magic'' and ''Industrial Magic'' that witches and sorcerers may be more alike than they think, particularly the revelation that {{spoiler|neophyte witch Savannah Levine is the daughter of a witch and a sorcerer, supposedly impossible}}.

* Amelia Atwater-Rhodes' books have a genetic, female-only species of witches. These witches can breed with normal humans, but their powers are genetic, so there are a few very specific witch lines. These can work magic, and each line has a different specialty, but witch society as a whole tends to spend most of its time hunting the vampires that run rampant in these books. One witch line carries a vampiric taint. While a witch can be turned into a vampire, turning one into a blood bond (which effectively makes a human immortal but not a vampire) is usually disastrous.

** Then there are the Tristes, immortal witches who are quite like the vampires they so often hunt. They have their own "sires" after a fashion, in which specific trainers and their initiates have varying levels of powers. Also like vampires, Tristes "feed" on energy rather than blood. Their blood is poisonous to vampires, unless the triste consents under specific conditions.

* [[Jim Butcher]]'s series, ''[[Codex Alera]]'', has humans as its version of this. All humans can use elemental magic, and while other races have some degree of magic among them, humans have the greatest and most common access to it. Interestingly, this works as a disadvantage as much as an advantage, since they tend to have trouble thinking about non-magical methods of accomplishing things (meaning, for example, that there exists literally no technology, beyond maybe ships which, even then, can be made from wood magic.)

** Similarly, though to a lesser degree, [[Wolf Man|the Canim]] have a whole caste who are ''just'' magic users, though seeing as the ritualists are a rather secretive and elitist bunch its unclear whether their powers are hereditary, or just an art they keep to themselves. (We do know it involves [[Blood Magic|blood]]. Fresh blood. And a lot of it...

* [[Katherine Kurtz]]'s [[Deryni]] are frequently referred to as a separate race of humans, [[Fantastic Racism|especially by their enemies]]. They are both male and female, and can and do interbreed with ordinary humans. The word is both singular and plural, both noun and adjective.

** The author even gives an appendix about the genetics: Deryni-ness is a dominant X-chromosome variant, and Haldane "can have powers given to me" is a Y-chromosome variant. This may or may not match depictions throughout the series.

** And there are ways to gain wizardry in which your genes aren't relevant. Wizards exist to help the Powers that Be keep the universe running; where there is a wizard, it generally means there's some specific problem that person, ''as'' a wizard, can choose to become an optimal solution to. Which takes as much work to arrange for as you'd think. Some species are universally wizards; some only need one at a time. For humans, the genetic potential thing basically serves to simplify administrative work.

** Many of the most powerful wizards (including Lord Voldemort himself) are half-Muggle. And Hermione Granger, arguably the most talented witch of her generation, has no known wizarding ancestors.

*** Lily Potter, also a Muggle-born, was the most talented witch of her generation according to Slughorn. In fact, a conversation between him and Harry implies that a number of Muggle-borns discusses how Muggle-borns are just as skilled or more so than their full-blood counterparts, contrary to expectations of them.

**** Not brought up in the books, but suggested by various things: it's possible, and accepted in some parts of the fandom, that the efficacy of magic depends a lot on personal will/emotions/putting in the effort to do the work, etc.. Everyone who has the ability to use it can, but there are different rates of success to consider — Hermione is ridiculously intelligent and talented, but as we learn from her boggart (Professor McGonagall telling her she failed everything), she's ''deathly afraid of failing'' and, thus, has a considerable motivation to be the best (and to know so much that it puts the Ravenclaws in awe of her).

***** And then there's Neville: he clearly has the desire to do well at things ... but just rarely gets it. Reason why, under this reading: he has the self-esteem of a hole in the ground. And based on the revelations we get about him, this makes sense: his parents were famous Aurors, he's their only son, and when he was a magical late bloomer, his entire family took to physically and emotionally ''tormenting him'' to try and force him to display accidental magic. (And his grandmother, who primarily raised him, is a pretty terrifying lady with rigid expectations of things, which more than explains his nervous demeanor.) And then he gets to school ... where a defining trait of his classmates is how often they pick on him for being "stupid." He displays a great deal of ''desire'' to learn magic, but due to various outside circumstances, he doesn't believe that he'll ever amount to much, so his progress is rather slow. {{spoiler|1=He eventually develops a passionate love of herbology and a knack for charms that's notable enough for McGonagall to praise it — and then he [[Takes a Level In Badass]] when Dumbledore's Army and fighting against the oppressive reign of Snape and the Carrows makes him go, "What Would Harry Do" and end up as the leader of the Hogwarts underground resistance in Harry's stead.}}

***** Thus, the implications that Muggleborns have a magical leg up on Purebloods could be read less as a statement that being Pureblooded isn't all it's cracked up to be, and more as one that, because they're so convinced of their own superiority, they overwhelmingly don't see a reason to work that hard at magic, and thus they don't make as much of it as the Muggleborns do. (Exception to the rule: Draco has the motivation of Lucius looming over his shoulder and publicly berating him for letting Hermione beat him. ''Then'' Draco has the motivation of, "{{spoiler|my father is in prison, I've been drafted into the Death Eaters, and if I don't kill Dumbledore, the Dark Lord will kill my family}}." Which, regardless of Draco's other traits, is motivation enough for most everybody to buckle down and make the magic freaking work. {{spoiler|1=And, notably? He didn't have the desire to kill Dumbledore. Inferring from Bellatrix's reprimand of Harry's attempted use of the Cruciatus in OoTP — "You have to feel it, Potter!" — Dumbledore's, "You're not a killer, Draco," and Draco's hesitance and overly defensive "you're wrong"-ing of old Dumbles, we can guess that, even if Draco had tried to cast the Killing Curse, it probably wouldn't have worked.}})

** What's interesting about the obsession with pure blood is that at one point it's explicitly stated that all pureblooded families are, to a greater or lesser degree, related. The character who says so probably just meant "in Britain" since it's a big world and for all pureblooded families everywhere to be related would be a hell of a trick, but nonetheless, it's not going to be long before even the pureblood enthusiasts have to start marrying Muggles lest their children turn out like innumerable rulers throughout history, some of whom couldn't chew their own food. It's explicitly stated in ''The Half-Blood Prince'' that one notable blood-purity-obsessed family ''had'' gone down the route of insanity due to inbreeding.

*** It is also notable that most pureblood families seem to have very low fertility in spite of the generally longer lifespans and better physical health of the wizarding population. The Weasley family is seen as a noteworthy exception, with the majority of other pureblood families only having one or two children. Without the addition of half-bloods and muggle-borns this trend would have resulted in the virtual extinction of wizards and witches.

*** Pedant note: "Warlock" was originally an Anglo-Saxon word for a witch of any gender, meaning something like "faith-breaker" for the association with pacts with the Devil.

*** That's not the only one: Another rare gift among witches and wizard is Parseltongue. Presumably there are other rare traits as well.

** Funnily enough, J.K has said that despite magic apparantly being dominant and resilant, it still won't survive contact with Dursley genes.

** A witch species that also has male witches is briefly mentioned, but they are from another universe and never actually show up.

* ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' series has female users of the One Power known as Aes Sedai, and their male counterparts who, during the series, take on the name Asha'man; the ability to channel the One Power is passed on by a recessive allele. Because of an event centuries ago, male channelers are doomed to go insane and die horribly unless they are cut off from the True Source, and so Aes Sedai have a programme of 'gentling' and/or killing them. As a result of this, coupled with the fact that Aes Sedai rarely marry, the ability to channel in general has weakened drastically by the time the series is set.

** Plus a possible different variant of the effect - {{spoiler|Stasheff's witches and warlocks have their powers due to massive inbreeding from a limited source. Rod, though not from Gramarye, was also the product of a massive inbreeding on his own homeworld, and we know at least one of the original settlers there, (who happened to be in Rod's family tree) was descended from someone (Whitey) who may have had similar internal abilities. At the very least, he had strong personal talents and an affinity for the lifestyle chosen by the settlers of Gramarye.}}

* In the ''[[Sword of Truth]]'' series, there are people born with "the gift" who can become wizards (and usually have to be taught to at least ''control'' it so they don't die from the strain), while others wanting to become wizards can have magic sort of installed into them. There's only a tiny fraction of people (called "pristinely ungifted" among other things) who cannot have or use magic, and also can't be ''affected'' by magic either. It's unclear exactly how everything works, but it's implied gifted parents have a higher likelihood of having gifted children, and the pristinely ungifted are the result of a balancing act of a spell that would ensure a certain family would ''always'' have at least one gifted male heir. Additionally, any children of even one parent who's pristinely ungifted will have children who are as well.

* The Comyn in [[Marion Zimmer Bradley]]'s ''[[Darkover]]'' series have hereditary psychic power, largely (though not entirely) due to being descended from the result of a mating between a ''chieri'' and a human woman that took place soon after humans arrived on the planet (see ''Darkover Landfall''). The powers require training to be used safely and effectively.

* The witches of [[Andre Norton]]'s ''[[Witch World]]'' books. Originally all female, and with their magic powers linked to their virginity, that changes when Simon Tregarth is sent to the witch world from our world. He not only has his own powers, but when he marries, his wife doesn't lose her powers and their children are more powerful than either parent.

** This is clarified later in ''Three Against the Witch World''. Originally - before the Old Race migrated from westward - people of either gender might have magical ability. In fact this is still the case, at least for men who are not members of the Old Race (e.g. Riwal in ''The Crystal Gryphon''), but it is rare for a man to be correctly identified as a potential magic user and given appropriate training.

** Then there are Sourcerers - the eighth son of an eighth son of an eighth son, or 'wizard cubed', who is inevitably a [[Person of Mass Destruction]]. This is the reason wizards are supposed to be celibate. Sourcerers, on the other hand, tend not to survive long enough to breed.

** A distinction, however, must be made. The powers of the Elves, at least, are not explicitly described as "magic" per se; if anything it comes from understanding and love for the world, whereas the powers of the Enemy are a deliberate attempt to go against the world in making it what you want. Very few Men seem able to use magic mostly because it takes so long to nurture those powers all sapient spirits have that most of them tend to die before they master it.

** Also, in his later view, Melkor, the ultimate evil power, had spent much of his initially vast cosmic strength to incorporate some of his own essence into almost everything. This could be manipulated to produce certain effects, but it was generally a bad idea (after all, it's the power of ''Melkor'' you're using).

* Witches in ''[[The Hollows]]'' novels are entire race capable of using enzymes in their blood activate magical potions and charms. Slightly subverted in that other forms of magic can be used by other races as well.

** {{spoiler|Later in the series it is revealed that witches descended from the cursed and stunted offspring of demons and this is the source of their abilities.}}

* ''[[The Dresden Files]]'' has magical rituals that can be used by anyone, but there's a form of innate magic that's passed down via salic law (inherited from the mother). The divide usually comes down between wizards (capable of throwing about truly powerful magic) and practitioners (have an inner reserve of power, but usually capable of only minor workings). Such a law is at the heart of ''White Night'', as {{spoiler|it turns out members of the White Court are trying to wipe out female practitioners so that inherited magic goes extinct within a few generations}}.

** In Blood Rites, the villain turns out to be using a third kind that Harry describes as a sort of cosmic vending machine, that even the most pathetic of practitioners can perform (and possibly even people with no magical talent whatsoever)-you put in your quarters (perform the correct rite) and a spell comes out. The White Council usually solves this problem by making the book from which the spell comes widely available-since it works by contacting a specific magical creature with a predetermined message to accomplish it's goal, if a lot of people try to use the spell the amount of power behind each use will be incrementally less because of the strain being put on the creature.

* Back in 1948, Jack Williamson published ''Darker than You Think," featuring a witch species that evolved due to prehistoric environmental reasons. However, their abilities mainly deal with shape-changing, making them were-wolves, were-pythons, were-saber-toothed-tigers, and more. In very rare cases, a witch becomes powerful enough to transform into a vampire. (That's a lot of tropes blended together.)

* Two from [[The Death Gate Cycle]], the Sartan and the Patryns. Because they were created by the cosmic balance as a means of maintaining itself, their powers tend to be complimentary opposites- Patryn magic is quick, physical, and good for combat, while Sartan magic is more involved and spiritual. Both races are continually at each others throats. Humans and elves from the same setting ''can'' learn magic, and it's implied the ability is hereditary, but even an incredibly talented "mensch" wizard will reach only the equivalent of the lowest tiers or Sartan or Patryn power.

* The [[Enchanted Forest Chronicles]] features Fire Witches, people born with an inherent control over fire. These people are invariably redheaded, short-fused, and touchy to boot. Shiara from Talking to Dragons kind of breaks this mold, though-when she expresses a wish that she had better control over her fire magic and Daystar wishes she had better control over her temper, Daystar's magic sword compromises by granting both wishes; Shiara has perfect control of her fire magic, but can only use it when she's being polite. The books also feature regular witches, who are just regular human women who learned to do magic.

* James Reese's ''Herculine'' trilogy has a hereditary witch species whose powers appear to be related to both gender and a unique blood type. They interbreed with humans, but daughters are always witches and sons are human men who may have some slight psychic sensitivity. It is stated that "every witch is born of a witch, and every witch dies a witch's death." They have psychic abilities, and are able to cast spells. Some practice paganism or some other religion related to magic such as vodoun, while others prefer nonreligious magic. Many witches are untrained and are not aware that they are anything other than human, and so are not able to teach their daughters how to use their powers either. However, untrained witches can still display psychic abilities such as telekinesis in moments of anger. It is stated that their powers are related to their blood, and that at some point, they will all succumb to death by massive hemorrhage, which usually happens in old age but can strike some unlucky witches in their twenties. However, their unusual blood type gives them immunity to infectious diseases and a slight healing factor. All witches have the ability to display "the mark of the toad" to identify themselves to other witches, by causing their pupils to change shape and become irregular, and this can also be reversed at will. Unusually, old witches lose their powers with age, while witches new to magic tend to be much stronger. The protagonist {{spoiler|is a hermaphrodite child of a witch, and has the abilities of a witch but also has the physical equipment needed to father children on a human woman, producing normal witch daughters and human sons.}}

* In Vadim Panov's ''Secret City'' series of novels the eponymous Secret City is divided into 4 major factions: The Great Houses of Nav', Chud', Lyud' and the humans (sometimes referred as the House of Chel). Each faction has a unique magic Source. Great Houses contain multiple races with different rules, which merits a detailed listing:

** Great House of Nav', the Dark Court and the most diverse group:

*** Shas', originally artificers, now also merchants and bankers of the Secret City: all members can use magic, but most will resort to artifacts. Shas naturally use the Nav's Source, but can craft artifacts for all Sources and races. Normal mammal reproduction, Shas half-bloods aren't known.

*** Ärli, dedicated medics of the Secret City, second only to Healers, but with less rigid moral compulsions. Exclusively male and living in a monastic order. No reproduction details given.

*** Os', the underground dwellers. Osy (Осы) hunt with domestic rat packs, and their partially telepathic control over the rats is their inherent magic. {{spoiler|Os' were a [[Bee People]], whose monogamist [[Hive Queen|HiveQueens]] and Kings ruled the common Osy the same way those rule the rats. Navs are running a project to remove this link and render Os' a normal species, rendering their [[Hive Queen|HiveQueens]] moot.}} Regular mammal reproduction, no cross-breeds known.

** Great House of Chud', the Red Citadel:

*** Moryanas, an artificial [[One-Gender Race|all-female]] species created as Lyud' countermeasure to Masans and Khvans, also capable of telepathic links among themselves. Shape-shifters with a fully human appearance (slender middle-Asian or oriental young women) and a nightmarish battle form. Moryanas are impervious to most combat spells, but also limited to artifacts. Moryanas produce fertile offspring with Chuds, Lyuds and humans, but also possibly with Shas and Kontz males. All Moryana children are also Moryana girls.

*** Red Caps, originally Lyud ranged support troops, now petty criminals, cheap muscle and comic relief of the Secret City. Incapable of any own magic and restricted to artifacts, Red Caps possess supernatural accuracy with any thrown projectiles and an equally supernaturally horrible smell. Regular mammal reproduction, no known cross-breeds.

 

* ''[[Sabrina the Teenage Witch]]''. The titular witch is a half breed, which on several occasions has proven to make her less powerful than a full witch. However, it does mean that if she ever sees her mortal mother, her mother will turn into a ball of wax. Also, they're immortal, living thousands of years, though the point where they stop aging seems to be completely arbitrary. We've seen witches and warlocks with apparent ages anywhere from pre-teens, to teenagers, twenty/thirty somethings, and even up into their fifties or sixties.

** There are a few episodes where the issue of witches dying comes up. It implies that they may not be truly immortal, but that they may simply age ''very'' slowly. This would explain the discrepancies in the apparent ages.

* ''[[The Secret Circle]].''

 

 

*** Like the sorcerer, many types of [[Half-Human Hybrid|Half Human Hybrids]] gain some forms of magic from their magical ancestors. Half-Celestial, Half-Fiendish, Aasimars, Tieflings & Half-Dragons are just some of the most common types.

** The Kalashtar of the [[Eberron]] setting can also be considered an example of this trope, although their powers are psionic rather than magical. Their links to extraplanar entities are what makes them other than human, and such connections, while not genetic, are passed down from father to son or from mother to daughter.

** In ''[[Pathfinder]]'', all Sorcerers have a "bloodline," which usually implies some kind of supernatural ancestry.

*** Although there's the bloodline Arcane, for those of us who don't want to picture what happens when a mommy human and a daddy demon (or elemental, or dragon...) love each other very very much. It's sort of the "my family are all sorcerers, so I am too!" bloodline.

** The increased potential for mutations among human psykers (caused by drawing their power from the twisting and corrupting Warp) means that a fair number could be considered a separate species. A few psyker sub-groups, such as Navigators, actually do constitute a separate branch of humanity.

** Psychic ability itself seems to be genetic. People who use psychic powers are born that way, altho it is possible for a non-psyker to draw power from the warp with the right (obviously heretical) rituals and incantations.

** Ork psykers are a sub-sub-caste in the Ork society, called Weirdboys or Wyrdboys, but they have a really short life expectancy (even by Ork standards) because the concentration of Ork psychic energy (the same energy that [[Clap Your Hands If You Believe|makes the red ones go fasta]]) makes their heads explode if it builds up in great amounts.

* The ability for magic is a genetic trait in [[Shadowrun]]. How that magic expresses (Shamanic, hermetic or whatever) however doesn't seem to be.

** The genetic inheritance of magic seems to be something that varies from Author to Author. The tradition is chosen by the individual, so that it matches his beliefs and personality. Things get more complex when you throw the different kind of practitioners in the mix (Physical Adepts, Mystic Adepts & Magicians). Magicians are your classic spell-slinger & summoner. Adepts are people who use magic to gain physical abilities mundane people don't have, like superhuman strength, wall running, the ability to alter their facial features, the ability to understand foreign language or reflexes that border on precognition. A magician could have an adept as a child, yet that adept might have stronger magic than his magician progenitor.

 

* Confusingly enough, ''[[Touhou]]'' features both a type of [[Youkai]] called "magicians" in the form of Patchouli Knowledge and Alice Margatroid, and a ''human'' [[Cute Witch]] Marisa Kirisame who merely has it as her job description.

*** Also worth noting is that humans may transform from a human witch to a youkai witch through research, dedication, and special rites (example: Byakuren Hijiri). Patchouli was born a youkai witch (presumably of youkai witch parents), while Alice is formerly human (though fans speculate she has a connection to demons).

* The Black Mages from ''[[Final Fantasy IX]]'' were manufactured in Alexandria as weapons, and are said many times to look just like humans, though we never actually get to see one's face.

* In the ''[[Luminous Arc]]'' games, Witches are considered separate from humans or monsters. Of course, in the second one, the "engagement system" (read: kissing/putting the girl in a ''wedding dress'') implies that humans and witches can interbreed.

** Understandable, as it's stated in ''[[Luminous Arc 2]]'' that both humans and Witches/Wizards descended from the Navillians.

** It's revealed early on that this is actually [[Sufficiently Advanced]] technology. The loom is sort of a voodoo doll for the universe, and the Weavers manipulate it to change reality to their whims. This is explained as the Weavers having turned Weaving into a [[Charles Atlas Superpower]] over several thousand uninterrupted years. {{spoiler|[[Earth All Along|You know, after the end of the Earth]].}}

* The [[Star Ocean]] series contains species that have a natural ability to use symbolism because the have the required symbols written into their DNA, circumventing the usual need to tattoo the symbols on their bodies.

* In the [[Nasuverse]], the ability to do magic is determined by the possession of genetically inherited Magic Circuits - [[Mutually Exclusive Magic|for most forms of magic, at least]].

* [[Proud Scholar Race|Blood Elves]] would probably qualify in ''[[World of Warcraft]].'' They lived so long in close proximity to the Sunwell that it infused all of them with a certain level of magical ability (they can all do Arcane Torrent, even the rogues) and skill over manipulating magic (the enchanting ability.) Lore-wise, they are very heavily into arcane magic and are supposed to mostly be caster types, although you wouldn't know it by [[Heroic Build|looking at the men]].

* In the ''[[Dragon Age]]'' series, mages are born with the ability to use magic, which carries an inherent risk of [[The Dark Side]] and can be passed on to their children (even when the other parent is a muggle). When one such individual is detected, they must be brought to the Circle of Mages to live under the watchful eyes of the Templars, an order of knights who consume [[Applied Phlebotinum|lyrium]] in order to increase their [[Anti-Magic|resistance against magic]]. Those who refuse are branded "Apostates", rogue mages who are ordered to be hunted down by the Templars in order to prevent them from using their talents for evil. The Circles also adopt a rather strict policy of celibacy for the mages, out of fear that they spawn more magical babies.

* Though learning magic is the norm in [[Might and Magic]], the eight game in the RPG series suggests that Dark Elves<ref>As they are in that game - the [[Continuity Reboot]] dark elves are an entirely different breed</ref> can naturally learn elemental magic to a level almost, but not quite, as good as necromancers and sorcerors, ''and'' have some additional magical tricks up their sleeves. This may be partly a cultural trait, but it does at least indicate that a talent for magic is present in every single dark elf that goes adventuring, and there are still those magical tricks.

 

* While it isn't entirely clear what the cause of the Spark is in [[Girl Genius]] it is well-established that the Spark does run in families. It is also hinted that the style and preferences of the different Sparks tends to run in families, whether this is genetic or due to upbringing is <s>unknown</s> [[For Science!|a matter for horrible and unethical research!]]

* In one story arc of [[Scary Go Round]], Ryan and Amy set out into the woods, because an explorer has offered Ryan ten grand for a new and undiscovered species. What they find is ''[[Canis Latinicus|Witchus witchus]]'', the common witch.

* The Raccoonan people in [[Tales of the Questor]] have innate access to magic. Their interaction with humans has varied from trying to explain how it's just harnessing a natural force like magnetism, to deliberately playing up a reputation as "witch dogs" with frightening powers.

 

* The ''[[Global Guardians PBEM Universe]]'' includes a subspecies of humanity called ''Homo magi''. Every human user of magic, regardless of its form, is a member of this subspecies, including every mystic hero and villain.

* In the [[Whateley Universe]], witches can be male or female, mutant or baseline human (though the mutants may have a lot of internal power to use), and almost all of them require a lot of training first.

** It's a bit different in Whateley, since there are also actual Wicca, and following that is seperate from being able to use magic. (And just about anybody can use a BIT of magic.)

 

* In the ''[[Scooby Doo]]'' movie ''Scooby Doo and the Witch's Ghost'' the curious distinction between "Wiccans" and "Witches" are made, with one being good and the other evil (and both existing in Puritan New England, for some reason). One character the gang meets tells them she is [[Did Not Do the Research|one-sixteenth Wiccan.]] [[Rule of Cool|She dresses up as a vampire and plays in a local rock band]].

** [[Chekhov's Gun|And of course this becomes important in the climax.]]

** Incidentally, Wicca is so new that in order for her to be one-sixteenth Wiccan, her great-great-grandmother would have to be around 60 years older than her. And her mother around 12. [[Squick]].

* ''[[Winx Club]]'' has both fairies (nice) and witches (nasty), who are, with a few very rare exceptions, all female.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characters As Device]]

[[Category:Speculative Fiction Tropes]]

[[Category:Wizards and Witches]]