Witch Species: Difference between revisions

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

 

 

In the modern day, though, either the positive or negative connotations of magic-as-divinely-attained would result in controversy (perhaps due to the ease with which either one may be confused with the other). So, in much fiction, witchcraft has become more of a matter of [[Superpowerful Genetics]]. Either "witch" is merely a particular race of humanity, or a different species altogether. (The distinction is usually a matter of the author's semantics than using an actual biological definition of "species", such as the absence of interbreeding). This is a bit closer to a belief among the [[wikipedia:Azande|Azande]] of Africa, that an inherited organ (often located near the liver) allows potential unconscious use of magic.

* ''[[Mahou Shoujo Tai Alice]]'' (aka ''Tweeny Witches'', bleah) witches (female) and warlocks (male) are a human-like magic-using species in a magical dimension; witches who can't use magic get exiled to the human world.

* 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 ''[[Puella Magi Madoka Magica]]'', witches are the monsters that the Magical Girls have to fight. They can look anything from monsters to cute little critters. {{spoiler|The Magical Girls who fight witches will eventually ''become'' witches. The witches they fight either ''used'' to be Magical Girls just like them, or are the matured [[Mook|familiars]] of another witch.}}

* [[Sasami Magical Girls Club]] has a species of witches that live in an alternate dimension. The [[Magical Girls]] are stated to be the product of interbreeding between the witches and the humans, and are almost regarded as a separate race with powers different from normal witches. The show also plays around with the [[Always Female]] aspect of the trope by stating that there are Magical Boys but that they are very rare.

 

 

== Mythology ==

* The [[Our Vampires Are Different|Strigoi]] from Romanian mythology is said to work on the same basic principle. Instead of biting humans to infect them with [[The Virus]], a Strigoi can become human again, marry, and bear children -- who will all go on to also become vampires after death. Basically, a [[Monster Progenitor]] who proliferates the species by getting to know someone in the biblical sense.

 

== Literature ==

* The ''[[Young Wizards]]'' series combines this trope with an inversion of [[Deal with the Devil]]: one third of humans have the genetics necessary for being a wizard, but [[God]] grants magic to only 1% of those with the genetic potential.

** 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.}})

** There's also a [[Witch Species]] ''within'' the [[Witch Species]]: Metamorphmagi, who can change their appearance at will, are born with the skill, and those who aren't, can't learn it.

*** 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.

* The witches in [[Philip Pullman]]'s trilogy, ''[[His Dark Materials]],'' are [http://www.hisdarkmaterials.org/srafopedia/index.php/Witches a species in themselves.] [[One-Gender Race|All female]]. They breed with human men; their daughters are witches, their sons mere humans.

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

** 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.

* Many of the fairy races in [[Artemis Fowl]] are this.

* In [[Robert E. Howard]]'s [[Conan the Barbarian]] story "[[A Witch Shall Be Born]]", as a result of a [[Deal with the Devil]], a [[Curse]] on the royal house ensures that a witch will be born every century.

* In Cliff [[Mc Nish]]'s Doomspell Trilogy, there is a LITERAL [[Witch Species]]. They serve as the main villains in the books, including a secondary, more brutal race of witches bred for battle, called the Griddas.

* In ''[[Mithgar]]'', Mages are their own race, described as physically resembling a cross between elves and humans; the ability to cast spells in innate (and unique- all spellcasters in-series have at least some Mage blood) to them. Though they age (and use of magic [[Cast From Lifespan|accelerates the process]]), they can regain their youth by entering special trances, meaning that they're immortal as long as they're careful. [[Evil Sorcerer|Black Mages]] sidestep the issue by [[Powered by a Forsaken Child|forcibly stealing other peoples' energy]] for their magic. Most Black Mages are also bald, though it's never explained why (and they're the same race as regular Mages, albeit the outcasts and criminals of their society, making it especially strange).

* 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.

 

 

** The reason for this is based in Japanese mythology and is explained in some of the [[All There in the Manual|supplemental materials]] and [[Word of God]]. The major difference between human and [[Youkai]] witches lies in youkai being [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old|extremely long-lived]], capable of generating their magic from themselves naturally, and in potentially being [[I'm a Humanitarian|maneaters]]. (However, unlike most youkai, only the darkest and edgiest of [[Fan Fiction]] ever portray Patchouli or Alice as actually hunting humans for food, even when Alice is being portrayed as an [[Ax Crazy]] [[Stalker with a Crush]].) Marisa, as the only [[Badass Normal|human with no inherent superpowers in the series]], however, has to rely upon finding magically-charged mushrooms to power her magic, ages as a human, and is fine sticking to rice and tea, thanks.

*** 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.

* The witches of ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' have a feel similar to [[The Fair Folk]], namely the way they use their powers to play [[Chess with Death|chess-like games]] killing whatever humans happen to be around. ...All right, maybe that's not quite the way to describe it, but it's not very far off, either.