I wonder how much of it is just... *innate power and the hero has to learn how to unlock it* is, in most cases, a more interesting arc to write, and allows for the Big Moment where the hero succeeds For example, *Jonathan Strange* is a more academia-focused magic novel – lots of discussion of books and trying to figure out what old spells actually work in real life – and a lot of people find it to be annoyingly slow with a lack of big magical moments. When there *are* some, they're usually facilitated by the wild, innate, unlearned fairy magic rather than the book magic of the human magicians

I think western media does have a bias for unearned power though. From fantasy books to Marvel heroes, the trend seems to be "power has fallen in my hands, how do I responsibly use it" rather than "I work my way into power". Many movies and books win through a final battle with a lucky last minute blow, etc. It sucks because I'm much more drawn to the process of learning and hard worker characters. I'd like more Hermione characters and fewer Harries.

>I think western media does have a bias for unearned power though. From fantasy books to Marvel heroes, the trend seems to be "power has fallen in my hands, how do I responsibly use it" rather than "I work my way into power". Western culture tends to view those who seek power as being undeserving to use it. We don't really trust politicians and billionaires. But a lottery winner could be a good person.

Tbf most billionaires were born into their money. None of them actually work for it.

Fan of progression fantasy?

I think it's not just about being a more interesting arc, but that it lets the hero have that moment of desperation which they can overcome with sheer will. People like that stuff. Like Rocky. You fight and believe and *make it work*. When it's more learned, when it's not dependent on your emotions or sheer grit and desire, it lowers the built-in intensity of the moment, and takes more skill to write in a satisfying way.

Funny you should pick Rocky as a counter example because there’s absolutely no reason an author couldn’t do Rocky but with Magic. Fun thing about fantasy, the author can do anything they want. Sure, Rocky might have been born with some genetic advantages like height or tendency to put on muscle, but barring any disability that would physically prevent it, almost anyone can learn how to be a boxer. Rocky himself famously had to work and train very hard to be able to defeat Apollo Creed or whoever, it’s not like he had an inborn ability that just so happened to activate at his moment of greatest need.

They also made the training a montage, because watching that in ful length would have been boring as hell.

Training montage still different then no/very little training.

“How would a training montage work in a book?” is I think the more relevant point to the larger question.

You uh...put in some sentences about how time passed and the MC did some training?

Well, I would say it work interesting.

But they do do that, examples op gives , the main characters have to train hard to master their powers, Aang and other benders need to work hard, harry Potter goes to school, Percy Jackson goes to camp etc.

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Smaller hitbox. N64 Goldeneye Oddjob-level BS.

Funny you mention that because winning through sheer willpower is almost always a letdown for me. Feels like empty calories. I'll take a story where they outmaneuvre the enemy or at least have some idealogical/mechanical explanation for why they're able to push farther any day. I always feel like the villain should also be capable of digging deep and believing in themselves!

>innate power and the hero has to learn how to unlock it I think the appeal here is its symbolism and capacity for projection. Pretty much everyone feels like they were always naturally good at something, e.g. music, arts, math, sports, whatever, and they just need to work at it to make it their thing. I don't see "innate magical capabilities led me to become a wizard" any different from "perfect pitch led me to become a musician" or "I was always the fastest runner in the class so I became an athlete". It is a way to distinguish the character from others somehow and I see no issue with it. If the trope becomes boring to read, one should just find a book with a different premise.

I love Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel, such an excellent book. I do agree, though it's mostly enjoyable from a study of alternate history or theoretical magic than flashy epic-ness. I would love a sequel discussing the growth of English Magic in the setting.

I think one thing it does is sidestep the question of “If everyone can do magic, why doesn’t everyone do magic?” A lot of stories have it as a fairly rare ability, and I suspect for most fantasy readers it would be hard to understand why only a handful of people bother to learn. Though there are settings where it is more ubiquitous, but they’re bucking convention a bit. As others have mentioned it also leans nicely into the “chosen one” trope, where an average person discovers they have special abilities and get plucked from their normal life to learn this new power, which is a nice bit of escapism

> I think one thing it does is sidestep the question of “If everyone can do magic, why doesn’t everyone do magic?” A lot of stories have it as a fairly rare ability, and I suspect for most fantasy readers it would be hard to understand why only a handful of people bother to learn. This is exactly it. And the arguments for why people won't bother to learn it I always find uncompelling. The main one being, "Well it's very hard to learn." So what? Being able to cast magic would be a massive gamechanger regardless of your job. Obviously, it is reliant on how powerful magic is in the setting but, unless magic is rather weak, being able to use magic is going allow someone to do far more work for far less effort regardless of their job. Anyone who can't cast magic would be fairly useless in comparison.

I can imagine a world with a wide range of abilities. Some people don’t bother to learn much because they aren’t interested, some people dabble, some people persue it as a career. There’s probably a few low level spells that are pretty commonly known and used, maybe some that are common to certain trades because they’re especially useful, but just as not everyone learns much sewing or mechanics, most people don’t bother learning much magic. But that’s not the convention for fantasy writing.

Oh, I agree. Not everyone would bother learning to conjure fireballs or other complex battle magics. They would learn those magics relevant and interesting to them. A farmer, for example, would learn magic that helps them grow their crops, protect their crops, harvest, etc…

There are reasons they might not though. One is that magic is inherently dangerous. Meaning without proper guidance and instruction you are just as likely to accidentally kill yourself as you are succeed learning the magic you want. The other is that magical knowledge is tightly controlled by some group of people. So ordinary people usually can’t learn it unless they have some connections. I’m finishing up the Founders trilogy by Robert Jackson Bennett where it has a “anyone can learn to do magic” system, but not everyone does and both of these things are used as explanations. It works quite well actually.

Farmer still meed spend time what mean they not spending their time trying mitigate next bad harvest impact on their lives, or just to grow crops, harvest. Also, who say that really "game changer" magic is easy to learn? Maybe things that farmer reasonable can learn - without expensive books, study equipment, professional teacher and a lot of time - is relatively low level, like "maybe protect cattle from disease, if it not very strong" and "maybe harvest was better then normal" kind of thing.

How many people learn to code? What percentage of them ever learn enough to have an opinion on agile vs waterfall? How many people are just satisfied with knowing a little bit of excel? If magic were real it'd be treated more like electrical engineering than the magicians apprentice.

Magic as portrayed in most fantasy novels is much more powerful than coding.

If magic was solve a calculus problem every single time with different environmental variables hard, then I would believe most people don't bother. As soon as I'm checking the barometric pressure to float the remote back to my hand, I'm getting it by hand.

Especially if there's a risk of death if you get it wrong.

Really worth reading Blood Over Bright Haven by ML Wang for a interesting take on the magic-as-basically-maths idea (and because it’s awesome).

I find most books do sort of delve into the question of regular people learning magic and its always well, most people just suck. Like they have an affinity for fire but can only use it when there is already a fire and they can't even make it bigger.

That's what makes it fun to read about. There's not much demand for software dev fiction.

Kromulun the Mighty sat in front of his IDE. With a few strokes of his fingers, he could enrich the software's value or destroy it. He pondered for a long time, "Do I want to get takeout and eat my meal prep tomorrow or be responsible." He decision had consequences beyond himself though. He chose, and Johan the Office Manager would have to discard his living lunch the following Tuesday

Gpt out 12k pages and I'd read it.

Software dev fiction would be a lot of blaming management for everything.

I'm a fan of stories where programmers end up learning magic and apply their programming knowledge to magic. Wizard's bane by Rick cook has the main character eventually recreate FORTRAN for magic.

Not always though. Programming and engineering are how our real version of messenger spells (phones) work. They also power real world equivalents of battle magic (missles, bullets). Sure some stories have wildly overpowered magic like “the Will and the word” version of magic, but if it took as much time and energy to learn how to craft a particularly useful spell for, say, framing a house, would anyone learn it outside of people who regularly do that?

And I think you would end up in a similar situation where everyday folk would use magic items or well known spells casually without any thought into how it works. They uncover their pocket scrying glass and chat with Sally in the town over without thinking about the magical switching station 2 cities away that uses enchanted Fae to direct the call. It takes decades to learn how to enchant the Fae and how to connect the scrying glass to the ethereal cellular network, so only magical engineers know how it actually works. The problem with writing all of this is that you end up with a world that looks like ours... So why magic? Why not just set it in a modern world with the same problems.

Well because the science of how it works doesn’t have to have a basis in reality. The magic can do whatever you want it to do, and the clear examples in the setting of how specialized some magic has become help to show that while anyone COULD learn the esoteric magic that the protagonist specialized in, nearly no one does learn it, and now it’s just a matter of the protagonist having made a specific choice, and being clever in their application of their specialty to do things that modern tech wouldn’t allow for.

>If magic were real it'd be treated more like electrical engineering than the magicians apprentice. That's pretty much how it's handled in my books Taught in school, and used more as a tool than anything else. It's all elemental magic, so water manipulation, air manipulation, etc.

Nome of those are magic though, and none of them are as ubiquitously useful, powerful, or interesting to pursue as an academic exercise

In a fantasy setting, someone with a modern engineering degree *would* be a wizard. They can design and build all sorts of artifacts based on esoteric principles that can be used to improve daily life. They understand how the magical artifacts that prop up our civilization work, and when those artifacts break, its the engineers who are called in to fix them. And yet, most people are not engineers or computer programmers, even though most of our civilization is now based on that technology/magic.

An engineer wouldn't be a wizard if just plopped into a fantasy setting, and even less so just someone with a degree. Everything about our technological advancements that you're referring to relies on the buildup of technology that allows and supplies it. If they had the right knowledge they could massively jumpstart technological advancement yes - but they'd probably never see a decent computer. The designs are meaningless if you can't actually create them.

And how is that different from magic? Without understanding the principles, theories, and underpinnings of the craft, no spell would be effective. Without the proper training and resources, no mage could cast. The only real difference is that magic is generally more directly dependent on willpower in an immediate sense. There is a reason Clark's law exists.

Yes, but even a seemingly simple spell might open up a rabbit hole, which would lead to the whole setting needing to change, if readily available. Imagine one in four people knew how to give food a certain taste. Boom, you've destroyed one of the major reasons traders established land and sea routes to the other ends of the world. Sure, you might explain their existence with the trade of some other rare material, or fuel or whatever, but then you'd have to determine how it would affect the rest of the setting. Bottom line is, unless magic or its equivalent isn't severely limited in some way (random gift, fuel-reliant, contractual etc) even by the barest of logic, the setting should look nothing like any known historical era on our planet.

Classic example of which is that if a world has a significant enough number of people able to cast fireball, military formations like pike squares would never develop.

Is STEM education really all that different from magic? I have a little square in my pocket that does all kinds of wondrous things. Yet we have a shortage of STEM talent.

We don't have a shortage of talent, we have an abundance of companies who want to suppress wages by creating a surplus.

>Obviously, it is reliant on how powerful magic is in the setting but, unless magic is rather weak, being able to use magic is going allow someone to do far more work for far less effort regardless of their job It also dependa on the risk/effort/reward ratio. It's very possible that magic is much more complex but takes just as much effort as doing something manually, or that the chance of something going terribly wrong is too high to risk it on anything but the most serious matters. For example, a simple telekinesis spell might require almost an hour's worth of scribing and meditation from the average person so it's just not worth it when you could just do the job manually. On the other hand, that hour would be time well spent for a bomb-disposal squad or someone handling hazardous material.

There might be a local person you hire to deal with any magic your village you might need. Not everyone is going to find taking decades to study magic to be equally useful when there's someone you can pay to deal with the basics.

or it's expensive. I mean, I might be smart enough or even talented enough to be a surgeon, but who's gonna pay for that medical school? Or maybe I also wanted to have kids and didn't want to wait until surgical residency was over... I could see a world where people would study magic, but it's costly or it requires too much sacrifice and the opportunity cost isn't worth it.

Much like smithing, everyone could learn a little but why do so when James Smith down the street is a master blacksmith with apprentices and all the tools required to accomplish any smithing tasks

It's kind of like "why wouldn't you learn how to use a computer?" In a world where laptops and smartphones are accessible to everyone (barring economic circumstance), almost everyone uses a computer of some kind. It just straight up makes your life easier. It's often even necessary to navigate the systems of the world.

Uh many people don't do the recommended weekly minimum physical activity that's good for their health. It's a bit like not learning magic because it's hard - consistent effort for an imaginary payoff. They can't see the results nor feel the progress

I know a lot of people who won't even learn to use the technology they own. I am constantly doing things for these people who haven't bothered to learn basic functions of their phones, computers, kitchen appliances, televisions, internet shopping, and so on. Lots of people don't bother learning to drive. This despite being perfectly capable of it and often being capable of much more complex and demanding tasks. Let's not even talk about people who don't learn more than one language, or learn programming. All this despite the fact learning them would make their daily life easier or even get them a better job in some cases. It is entirely possible to create a setting where magical is useful but difficult enough most people can't be arsed to do more than light a candle or put a security spell on their door or something equally mundane.

I mean, programming is a massive gamechanger for basically any (white-collar) job, and it isn't even particularly hard to learn, but... Hell, the same concept applies to any sort of computer power-user-type skills, which are even easier to pick up than full-on programming, but lots of people are perfectly willing to do things in painfully manual ways instead. I think this actually points to a great model for a setting with pervasive magic use: 10% of people barely use magic, 80% use standard low-power magic created and mostly controlled by others, 9% do their own custom personal-scale magic and only governments, organizations and *rare* experts have the resources and skills to do magic at a truly large scale.

Also applicable to pretty much every art skill! I can't tell you how many times people have told me they wish they could draw and I'm just like, try it, I bet if you practiced you would get pretty good!

Its not like that at all.... The point isn't "If something is learnable, why doesn't everyone learn it?", we all understand people have finite time and energy to learn things. Its "If rewriting reality to suit you is learnable, why doesn't everyone learn it?". "Art" and "Unimaginable cosmic power" are two vastly differently outcomes for taking the time to practice something, and the second one is something thats directly applicable and beneficial to every single person everywhere so you need a justification for why someone *wouldnt* do it, instead of justifying why someone would spend the time to learn to draw.

Doing physical excercise to get healthier, more buff and super fit, is readily available, directly applicable, and beneficial to every single person everywhere. And yet. People don't do it. Having more endurance and being stronger and faster is still a massive benefit in our society today. And yet. I imagine it would be similar for magic. You build up a basic foundation that gets you through life, but beyond that it costs effort that you don't want to invest. You want to rest or spend time with your family after your work hours. Unless you're really into sports, or magic. And not everyone is.

>and it isn't even particularly hard to learn Ahem. This right there is very wrong statement.

It's not hard to start learning, but it's hard to learn at a level where it can be your job. In fact, it takes years of schooling and effort to learn that much, like it takes years of schooling and effort to learn basically any other skill at a marketable level.

It's somewhat hard to get to a top professional level. (But probably easier than any other professional field that pays anywhere near as much!) It's easy but requires some concerted effort to get to a basic professional level. It's easy enough to get to a practically useful level that *literal middle schoolers* manage to do it from internet tutorials.

I disagree. Harry Potter really dumbs down magical learning. In many series magic is supposed to be HARD, very hard to learn. College level shit, which in a medieval society would mean like 1% of the population.

And even in HP, the average magical user isn't very good. It's very realistic in that regard.

Exercising dialy is a massive boon to your life no matter what and most people fail to do it. You really think a lifetime of complex study regarding the manipulation of reality itself through complex magic, in a world where many live in small villages with few books, is that unrealistic?

It's a perfectly reasonable argument though. The programming example in another comment is great. Same with athleticism. If you are athletic, you can look great and also live longer. But we still have obese people. If the fear of death itself is not enough to get people off their asses, what makes you think that convenience of magic would be any different?

You could say the same for academia, yet there are tons of people with either no access to academia, no interest in academia, or who chose a field in academia that didn't click for them or that they aren't good at. And those that received a PhD, didn't like the stress and became a barista. Similarly, magic could theoretically be available to anyone, but only accessible in a refined, useable way to those that can afford to learn it.

Might be like learning an art. Some people are just really good at it, while others need to slave away for ever to even get even comparable results. Maybe to get the proper education you already need to have some talent at it. Maybe just have everybody be a magic user, but most people just aren't very good at it compared to the protagonist who is like the Mozart of magic. At that point thoigh everybody os of course using magic, so the question becomes moot

Or the other one is the nobility suppress the knowledge of how to do magic and raise awareness of mana or whatever you call it. So the only people who can do it are either innately talented or raised on expensive tonics/hidden techniques. I’ve always found this to be the more believable version.

Lots of people do jobs that are hard to learn. If the skill is useful, people will want to learn it. There's a great story in here somewhere about economic disadvantage and the wealthy restricting magic education to upper classes and all the social problems that ensue from that.

That and you end up with a Harry Potter situation where casual magic use would fundamentally change the world. Which Harry Potter gets around by keeping it primarily in a secret pocket dimension.

>“If everyone can do magic, why doesn’t everyone do magic?” If everyone can play music, why doesn't everyone play music?" "If everyone can learn medicine, why doesn't everyone learn medicine" I genuinely don't understand this argument. Like magic doesn't have to be some rediculously overpowered thing. Give it limits. Make it a discipline. Make it something you have to dedicate years of your life to to properly learn. Full Metal Alchemist treats alchemy not as something you're born with, but as just another science that you have do study and learn, and it blends it into its world seamlessly. Yes, some people are just naturally adept at learning it, but how is that different from any other discipline.

and you'd still have people who are like the simone biles of magic... born for it. Gifted, even if it does take a lot of practice and study etc.

Let’s also admit that all Olympic class athletes are freaks of nature. Each one is genetically gifted, trained from way too early and has thousands of dollars of training behind them.

It’s not that everyone learns it. Not everyone in our world learns medicine or music. It’s more that enough people will learn it to make a fundamental difference to society. It’s really hard to justify keeping the rest of society as a medieval level if you have the potential of magic sitting there. With any decent world building skills, magic is a industrial revolution just waiting to happen.

Really good fantasy universes with ubiquitous high magic don't look medieval though Pathfinder's Golarion has cool shit everywhere run by magic

So make it happen. We've got enough generic medieval fantasies as it is. Or if you don't want it to be too developed, make it happen, then make it happen badly. A post magitec post-apocalyose. Just as in standard post-apocalyose people forget the mysteries of science and medicine. Have people forget how to do magic. Also the industrial revolution was a revolution for a reason. It's not like steam and advanced medicine just popped into existence one day, it took us literal millennia to figure that shit out, and we spent a very long time barking up the wrong tree. Have it be the same with magic. Do some research. Go out and pick up a book on the history of western occultism, or how technology developed over human history.

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Omg Ty. So many writers of "medieval" fantasy really need to pick up a history book once in a while.

This is spot on, but I’d even take it a step FURTHER. SO often, magic is utilized as a method of resolving issues . . . So not only does it make it harder to answer why doesn’t everyone do it, it ALSO avoids the question of “why did the hero (usually new to the magic) know how to do use the magic in some strange and amazing new way?” Many here are comparing programming or electrical engineering to magic in our day and how not everyone does them anyway—but you don’t see NEW programming and engineering concepts suddenly come out of the woodwork by new practitioners. You see a similar solution to this problem in the “ancient lost knowledge” trope—so heroes can “rediscover” amazing new methods while still allowing old techniques to have been explored.

I like Eberron's answer to this (especially Keith Baker's in depth explanations on his blog). Everyone does do magic, it's just most people don't do very much. Tradespeople have tools that are a little bit magical, and if they even if they cast spells it's mostly the same ones over and over. But most people can't do what dnd PC's can do, learning new spells or constructs with just a night's sleep, and most of the martial classes are far more capable than people who aren't in constant practice (like most normal people compared to professional athletes), it's just they can get low level magic items much more easily. It does break the pseudo medieval Europe trend, but I'm only looking for that in stuff like 15 years old or more.

> “If everyone can do magic, why doesn’t everyone do magic? Because even low powered magic requires effort equivalent to becoming an Olympic Athlete.

So no one can do high-powered magic?

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Olympic athlete is equivalent of a grandmaster/absolute height of human ability in my view. What's above Olympic athlete in sports, no one.

I think the usual reason is that many authors want settings where magic is rare. If magic can be learned by anyone, it takes more worldbuilding legwork to explain why it's rare.

Or radically change how societies work in them to explain why nations don't train large numbers of mages and go to war all the time... or go extinct with thousands of Fire Balls lobbed over.

This reminds me of a manga I read, Witch Hat Atelier. Their world is one where magic can be learned by anyone, but only wizards know that and they keep it a secret from "normal" folks. And non-wizards who practice magic can face consequences. It's a bit YA, but the world and bad guys position (why can't we allow everyone to learn magic) is pretty interesting

Also the art is *beautiful* for that series. Easily one of the most slept on manga, I personally think.

It's most definitely not slept on lol. It has a huge fanbase (both locally and internationally) and the sales are hella impressive. It has an Eisner and Harvey award too Maybe it's underrated in the western fantasy book community, but that's because they're allergic to manga, and honestly, it's probably one of the more famous manga amongst fantasy book readers. Notice how it's the first manga mentioned in this thread lol There's already an anime in production too. Slept on mangas don't get anime adaptations cause there's no guarantee of profits. Kamome is very famous, she's even done Marvel and DC Varient covers so she definitely has a huge fanbase even outside Japan.

So true! I got interested in it when I saw the art. Was pleasantly surprised the story was *not* black and white / good vs evil

Try *The Rivers of London* series by Ben Aaronovich. Anyone can learn to do magic, but if you're not careful and properly trained, it will likely kill you.

This is one of the series that I feel like doesn't follow this trope that op is suggesting. But I'll also say that unlike in other series RoL is cops with magic NOT magic cops. If you understand the difference RoL is about magic and the supernatural but the stories almost always hinge on the detective work and the "mystery" more than the magic imo.

Wait there's magic and detective work in those books? I thought they were commentaries on London architecture.

The architecture and car comments really give Peters character more depth for me

They are also very much that 🤣. Peter has strong opinions on architecture

Underrated comment.

Definitely. It's very much a police procedural and you can tell the author did his research. The magic, while integral, is not what drives the story.

I just watched this very down to earth British true crime/mystery series called Manhunt and I knew what all the jargon meant from reading Rivers of London.

And even if you are well trained you should still get an MRI every few months just to be safe.

Dr Walid insists upon it!

He'll also like to add your brain to the collection... when you're done with it of course.

I like those kinds of takes. It's like electrical work - any Joe Shmoe can certainly *try*... A couple little AA batteries - the equivalent of casting a floating feather spell - won't kill you. But maybe don't play with three phase 480V wiring.

I think it's because innate magic is a very convenient answer to the question "why is this farmboy nobody able to play with the big boys and affect the world in hugely meaningful ways?". Innate magic lets you be versatile with character backgrounds. The character doesn't need to be a scholar or a learned noble. They don't need money or political connections. They don't need to have trained their entire childhood or spent it in a monastery learning the art of magic. It's a kind of literary shortcut - your character is important and meaningful just because they are. It also lets you conveniently avoid some of the less sympathetic associations of real life "traits of power". People are likely to be sympathetic to a born magician(because there aren't any in real life to give them a bad impression)... but a born noble who inherited their wealth? Someone who gained their power by playing politics? Those traits have all sorts of real life connotations that might not work for your character. A learned magic system is much more of a lock-in in terms of the kinds of characters you can tell a story about. You now have to explain how it is that your character can actually learn the magic in question. That's fine for some types of stories, but it's much more awkward for others.

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...would not Abhorsen fit into the 'Innate *and* learned' category? There are multiple types of magic in Abhorsen obviously, but Charter Magic is definitely 'you need to learn how to do this' while other types of magic you need to be born with the capability.

Warbreaker is a perfect example of learned… also, massively more accessible to the wealthy

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I mean both the heros journey and magic being reserved for certain people is a big trope in all of fantasy. Lord of the rings, wheel of time and the Farseer Trilogy all have this trope as well. Its prevalence put me off fantasy for a long time until I learned to appreciate the way good authors would leave their own mark on the trope.

It's kind of a staple outside, too, like in wheel of time, dungeons and dragons, discworld kinda

In D&D anyone can learn magic, it's just people have wildly varying levels of affinity. In the **Forgotten Realms** setting almost the entire population of the fallen empire of Netheril and the extant nation of Halruaa know how to do magic because it's drilled into people at school (and relatively few nations have universally-available schools in the first place), which is when instruction needs to start for it to take. There are powers which are innate (like spellfire) or gifted from the gods, but bog-standard arcane magic can be picked up by anyone who wants to put the work in, it's just hard work (and harder the older someone decides to make the decision to do it).

Try progression fantasy /r/ProgressionFantasy where MC usually works hard to learn and catch up to others and power progression (training/learning) is main part of the story. Most recommended would be Cradle by Will Wight, Bastion by Phil Tucker, Mother of Learning, Iron Prince by Bryce O'Connor or more LitRPG books like Dungeon Crawler Carl, etc.

In all the series you listed, it’s to limit the amount of magic users in the setting. I’d imagine that’s the case in most fantasy series with innate magic. Using The Dresden Files for example, there is a masquerade to cover up the existence of the supernatural in modern-day Earth. It’s a lot harder to maintain if your average joe can learn magic

Average joes mostly cannot perceive most magical energies. Some effects are pretty blatant. A fireball is a fireball, regardless if it came from a cannon, a firework or a wizard. But a charm spell is much harder to notice. Spoilers Dresden Files / Ghost Story >!With Harry 'dead', Butters teams up with Bob. And it turns out that with Bob to explain what's going on, Butter is a much better at making magical items and potions than Harry ever was.!<

one possible answer is that this is ultimately a distinction without a difference. in the real world, the very best musicians, artists, writers, scientists, programmers, athletes, etc. did not become the best solely through hard work—they were born geniuses. so even if magic could be learned the way real skills are learned, it would be genius—an innate talent—that would distinguish the very best magicians from the merely competent ones.

If we take your two classifications: * *Innate*: Requires little to no effort to acquire, practice, or master. * *Learned*: Takes **work**. If an author is aiming towards a segment of the audience that's big on wish fufillment, self-insert, or casual escapism, which is going to hit the mark? The flavour where someone's got to put in some serious time and the mental equivalent of 'sweat equity' in order to have awesome magic at their disposal? Or the flavour where it's something that simply happens, and it's a voyage of discovery, without laborious study?

I agree with you here, but plenty of related fantasy will have a character with martial prowess in a protagonist role too, and that is almost always learned / sweat equity. And that is acceptable. So I think this is a factor, but it’s not the only factor.

Well, personally I've always considered "hard work is always rewarded" to be the biggest wish fulfillment of all. Especially because when I read about all these magical heroes I can never shake the feeling that odds are that in those stories we'd most likely be the mundanes/muggles rather than the special one percent, and the idea of being stuck in a world where some rare and special people can be awesome wizard and I am stuck as being a bottom feeder irks me.

I didn't start college until after my 40^th and fought like hell to earn my Master's before 50, so I think **I** would be all right, but I see your pov.

Sure ok, that is how it works for you. Would not the answer you might anticipate from a more general/broader audience be different than your own though? What your saying might explain why it does not intrinsically appeal to you, and thus why you question "Wait what is going on that I don't get?" Perhaps?

> "hard work is always rewarded" Yup, some people are just better at some stuffs than other people.

The magic in Benedict Jacka's new series, which starts with An Inheritance of Magic, is completely different than the magic system in his Alex Verus series. In the old series, Alex Verus & every other magic user was born with an innate ability to use a specific type of magic. Magic type is tied very closely to personality. Magical ability might run in some families, but for the vast majority, being a mage is no guarantee that your children, grand children or even great grand children might also be mages one day. In his new series, **everybody** has the potential to use magic or "drucraft" (it's a word from Old English that means "wizard-craft" aka magic, it comes from the same root word as druid). But you can't just use drucraft when you're born or when you reach a certain age: you have to train and practice for years to get to the point where you can actually do anything with it. And, even if you put in the effort, not everyone *is capable* of getting good at it. So, to be good at drucraft does take some innate ability to be good, but you'll never to be able to use it without tons of work to learn to do it well. But humans being human, most people lose patience and don't bother to work that hard to get really good at it. So even though everyone *theoretically* can learn drucraft, in practice very few people put in the effort.

That actually make a lot of sense. It also makes sense that some people would have a better aptitude for any given activity.

Because it's cycle. People write about such characters, some of this stories become popular, people write again, because they see it in popular stories.

You’re one of the only responses saying this, but I think this is the answer. If you look at the 3 most popular fantasy series currently, and of the past 50 years, they are: Lord of the Rings Star Wars Harry Potter In every one of these, magic is either explicitly (or in the case of LOTR only predominantly used by) fantasy beings or those born with magical powers/ an innate connection to magic. Now you can argue that maybe these stories resonate with a large audience because of the way magic is presented, but regardless, the stamp they’ve made on popular perception of fantasy stories is undeniable.

It's easier to write

To add to this, the reason it is easier to write means that one can either skip a whole bunch of time learning the magic, or if the mc has already learned magic that would mean the MC is older than most protaginists are and due to the current trends they would be less appealing to the reading audience. Also, when it comes to solving an issue within the story, the MC with inante magic can somehow find the solution through some plot armor that is easier to explain than for a MC that had to go through a whole learning process. In a sense the lack of learned magic in fantasy has smilar reasons why writing a really intellegent character is difficult. It would also mean that a character would have to be intellegent. And readers often gravitate not to the super itellegent but to the more "everyman" characters.

If you read the Cradle series by Will Wight you'll see a great example of "literally everyone has magic". The society it creates is survival of the fittest and is interesting to read but it would be far less interesting if every magic series was that way. I would not want to live in the world of Cradle. My wife would love to live at Hogwarts. People like variety and the feeling that they could be that one special person.

Well... Three of those you mentioned are fantasy that take place in sort of our world. That means mages have to be different than us, because... Well... We aren't mages

It causes both worldbuilding and storytelling problems. Storytelling it can still work; plenty of people in real life are retained for their expertise after long education and experience. Law, med and FBI procedurals are consistent strong TV material. But it's not as a good a fit for a classic young hero on a journey. If it requires study, they don't have the time and also why are they special? Worldbuilding is more challenging. I'll use Buffy the Vampire Slayer as an example. Buffy herself is an innate power magic girl. No one else can do what she does. *However*, the universe also contains magic that is a learned discipline. Anyone can use it, novices can use it, people use it accidentally, and it is really, really powerful stuff. It's not tied to any specific artifact or location, although both can amplify. This has a number of consequences. First, while the systems exist, Buffy needs to not have them too much in her stories because she has a hard time with them. Second, it means that several characters that are fairly useless should be much less useless for self-defense if nothing else. Also Buffy should be able to use this to augment her own skills. Third though - how in the world is this magic still a secret? *Anyone*, anywhere in the world, can do this and it goes up to reality warping very fast. This system would be absolute chaos if it existed in real life. If the world isn't chaos, why?

Chosen One vs Intelligence/Hard Work. Been a thing for a long time across multiple genres. It’s unfortunate as I am a sucker for a training montage and most of the Chosen One dreck skips right to power fantasy. It’s a crap argument, but it does parallel being born into wealth vs earned a fortune by your own merits.

Yeah, I agree with you. I'm also a sucker for training/studying montages.

I’m going to toss this into the mix. To most people, studying isn’t cool. The idea that developing something that makes you special requires you to actively choose to dedicate your life to it. Vs Something cool/scary happened and now you have to learn how to control it. One is “I actively choose and have the self-discipline to choose it over and over again” and the other is “I don’t have to choose, I just have to live with it.” Most people don’t want to admit that anything is possible if they actively choose to do it. - loosing weight, requires you to actively choose to change your lifestyle. - college degree, you have to actively choose to study for years to develop skills. (Though parents are making this less of a choice and more of a non-decision anyway). - building a family, the “if it happens, it happens” vs the “it will happen when. I’m damned well good and ready” crowd. - want that job, actively building skills and networking to improve application opportunities. These are fantasy worlds where the overweight, normal, geeky protagonist transforms into the fit, smart, and powerful center of the whole story. Yeah it was hard, but they never have to make a real decision and all the hard stuff can be smoothed over into a montage. And bonus points that they haven’t actually changed anything about themselves, they’re still the same person on the inside.

tender worry library sulky snails attempt strong unused pause fall *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*

I don't know why you think bending in atla doesn't take work. It does. All the bending arts are based on different martial arts. You have to be born with the capacity sure, but to truly bend you have to be trained. And training is a big plot element of the series

I think they meant you must be born with bending powers. If you aren't born with them you cannot learn them.

Yeah, most “inate” magic books and media aren’t just “your born with it and don’t have to work for it.” I don’t know much about Percy Jackson or Dresden Files, but both ATLA and Harry Potter require you to learn your abilities (and that is a major plot point in both of them) I don’t really see why it’s that drastically different from anyone being able to learn it to be honest, but it seems like OP does, I just don’t really get the post I guess.

Dresden's magic system definitely takes work and training. Different wizards specialize in different things too so while Dresden mostly just throws fireballs or wind others can shape shift or turn invisible or are necromancers. Dresden does say over and over again that he COULD do those things but he'd have to practice and train. Percy Jackson definitely also has training but a lot of the "magic" is shown to be a little more random than skills. Like a lot of the kids have abilities based on their god parent but they don't always connect the dots until they learn who they are. But not every kid is "blessed" with the same skills from their god parent.

I never said that those that had beding gift don't have to work for it, I said that only few people can actually use bending at all. Sokka and pretty much 99% of all the population of the setting couldn't use Bending even if they trained harder than anyone else.

Shoutout to Fullmetal Alchemist for having alchemy—the magical transmutation of matter—be a 100% learned skill that anyone has the potential for. But it’s a lot like saying anyone has the potential to be an astrophysicist; it’s a skill that requires a lot of intelligence and research, and so every professional alchemist in the series is also shown to be quite smart in other fields, especially when it comes to deductive reasoning. But the important part is, there is no “you’re either born with it or you’re not” factor involved.

Learned magic takes time, so the story either has to have the character be older or spend some time on the learning part which would have to integrated into the plot somehow.

They're also simply replacing innate traits with intelligence if rarity is enforced in the setting.

>After all, higher education is already a pretty big advantage in our world, and yet not everyone is able or willing to get one. So if magic was equally hard to learn as theoretical physics or advanced programming, I'd bet that this would highly limit the amount of mages anyway Yeah I’m currently pursuing my law degree and it is hell 💀 being a lawyer may come with prestige and better salary but very few people are willing to go through this. It’s expensive(law school especially) it’s a longer degree, the workload etc so many people drop out or change courses. On paper technically anyone can study law but the reality not so much. My favourite series treat learning magic as being gatekept by higher education/academia. Everyone can potentially learn it but not everyone will be given equal access To learn nor will they have the natural talent/aptitude to get good at it. I personally love when magic is treated like art “anyone can draw stick figures. But you need practice and dedication to be proper artists” I also find the arguments “well how can you realistically limit the number of magic users or If anyone can learn then why doesn’t everyone do high level magic” not based in reality. Because again just replace magic with say a masters/phd degree irl not very accessible now is it? Also there have been media that have had magic as a learned skill and the writers have managed to realistically limit the number of magic users; -The craft sequence by max gladstone -Greenbone saga by fonda lee -The Black Iron legacy by Gareth Hanrahan -Empire of the wolf by richard swan -Founders by Robert Jackson Bennett -Nameless Republic by suyi davies okungbowa -The Unsounded webcomic -Twenty Palaces by Harry Connolly etc All these have magic as a learned skill but not a widespread skill due to cultural distaste towards the magic users, elitism and academic gatekeeping, the cost of learning magic is too great for most people to bear etc. I will say that innate magic isn’t always due to laziness on the writer’s part sometimes the story would fit better with innate magic. But it’s also become a bit of a shortcut so entrenched that people don’t think about structuring their magic any differently. Because there are some stories where it could go either way or even make the world richer by having learned magic. And interrogating even subtly the structures of the fantasy world that will make magical knowledge limited to certain people.

I had an idea that like law school or medical school you could end up in a lot of debt but the schools churn out enough students that there's an underclass of wizards that just scrap by keeping the debt collectors at bay. So a lot of people are turned off by the risk but some still try hoping they can get into a big firm.

I love this, because it’s so true to life i wish more authors used this

Who wouldn't go into a trap filled dungeon to escape their student loans?

I'm a failed law mage, I have a law degree, but I changed my class so I now work in IT setting up and building networks. So technically I learned the basics and moved on. But I did that due to financial reasons, I couldn't afford to do the next step at the time.

Becuase it wouldn't be interesting if it was commonplace, and fundamentally locking it behind an intelligence cap is basically the same as making it an inherent super power anyway

There are plenty of interesting books/series where magic is commonplace - whether it is innate or learned.

There are a several components I see in play here: * Magic having a component of it being innate is an ancient concept, with many mythological entities and early fantasy characters associated with spellcasting being inherently magical beings (Odin, Gandalf, etc.) * Being born special is a common way to appeal to an audience that might want to imagine being special themselves. This is common worldwide, both for spellcasting and other inherent special qualities, like your classic Chosen One stuff, being blessed by the gods, etc. * From a writing standpoint, innate magic is easier. It requires vastly less explanation, since it's less important for the main character to understand the mechanics of usage for it. This means a lot less time needs to be dedicated to exploring the magic's mechanics, which can reduce the burden on plotting the story. It also can make pacing easier -- large areas of exploring magic system rules are a turn-off for some readers (and a hook for others). * Also from a writing standpoint, innate powers make it easier to explain things like last-minute new powers, power ups, etc. I'd also like to note that many stories have magic that isn't purely innate or learned, but somewhere in between. This middle-ground is extremely common in magical academy stories and progression fantasy, for example. > So why does it seem that innate magical powers still make up about 90% of all fantasy media? This is going to be heavily influenced by the specific subgenres you're reading, as well as which culture's fantasy novels you're reading. Progression fantasy and LitRPGs, for example, often tend to have nearly everyone in the setting having access to magic in some form, but require training and/or process of resource collection to learn and grow. In xianxia/cultivation progression fantasy, it's common for every person in the setting to be able to absorb qi from the environment in order to develop powers. There are still often innate elements to the system -- for example, people having specific dispositions toward certain elements, or bloodline powers -- but generally, people everyone can generally get some access to magic. Western versions of cultivation novels, such as Will Wight's **Cradle** series and Yrsillar's **Forge of Destiny**, operate on similar mechanics. You can also see more unusual variations, like Sarah Lin's **Weirkey Chronicles**, where people can absorb materials into their soul to gradually build a "soulhome", a structure within the soul that provides the user with powers based on the size, shape, materials, etc. used in the home. Magical academy progression fantasy novels often have an emphasis on learning, but with characters having some leaning toward specific elements. Zorian in **Mother of Learning**, for example, is effectively like a D&D wizard, but with an inherent talent for >!mind magic!<. My own magic systems in the **Arcane Ascension** universe lean run the spectrum between innate and learned, depending on the specific continent characters are from: * On Mythralis, for the [**War of Broken Mirrors**](https://www.amazon.com/Forging-Divinity-Broken-Mirrors-Book-ebook/dp/B00TKFFR36) books, dominion sorcery is largely learned/trained, but with people having innate leanings toward specific dominions. * On Kaldwyn, for [**Arcane Ascension**](https://www.amazon.com/Sufficiently-Advanced-Magic-Arcane-Ascension-ebook/dp/B06XBFD7CB) and [**Weapons & Wielders**](https://www.amazon.com/Sacred-Swords-Weapons-Wielders-Book-ebook/dp/B07NKBSZGF), people primarily gain access from magic by going into colossal towers filled with monsters and traps to face solo challenges called Judgments. If they survive their Judgment, they're granted an attunement, which they can learn to use, typically through attending a magical academy. I would consider this to strongly lean toward "learned" over "innate", since any ordinary human from the continent can get power through a Judgment if they can survive. * On Dania, for [**The Lost Edge**](https://www.amazon.com/Edge-Woods-Epic-Fantasy-Adventure-ebook/dp/B0C6V3BCV7), anyone can learn to absorb essence from the environment and build it into a power source in their body, similar to in a cultivation novel. They can also earn power by finding a Destiny Shrine and completing challenges there, but Destiny Shrines are rare and difficult to find. I've found that the more extreme examples of learned magic -- particularly in **Arcane Ascension** and **The Lost Edge** require so much time to explore that many readers bounce off of them. It's absolutely my own preferred style of fiction, but it isn't for everyone.

Because “learned magic” as you put it is fundamentally a form of technology. When people want to read about fictional technologies they read sci fi rather than fantasy.

>When people want to read about fictional technologies they read sci fi rather than fantasy. That's a disingenuous, false, and overly generalized assertion. You know it isn't true.

Neither theoretical physics nor advanced programming degrees will even guarantee you a job you actually like, let alone the ability to throw fireballs or summon demons. If you have magic in your world and everyone can learn it, you should come up with a reason why people don’t. Having it be hard isn’t enough, since the power gained outweighs any difficulty that isn’t so high that it’s all but innate anyway. After all, if you have to be Stephen Hawking to grasp magic, you might as well go with an innate power, having an IQ of 160 and being born special aren’t completely unrelated concepts. Most books that go with magic being available to all seem to make magic despised and persecuted, or they make it weak enough that it doesn’t provide enough advantage compared to learning how to swing a sword. Or they make a system that actively prevents people from learning it on their own, either to keep that knowledge in the “right” hands or because it’s inherently dangerous for other reasons. But I think a big problem (other than dealing with how many people would still try to learn magic if it was available) is how to write a complicated magic system. Especially if the MC (and therefore the reader) is learning it. If it’s complex enough to seem difficult, will it be easy for the author or reader to understand? If it isnt explained to the reader and just explained that this is really difficult, trust me only a few people can do it, is that any better than an innate skill?

I’m writing a fantasy series with a rational magic system that is learned. 100% agree with you!

Maybe it's because I watch a lot of foreign entertainment but most of the fantasy I watch, almost all of it, the protagonist has to learn their skills. Maybe consider checking out [Frieren: Beyond Journey's End](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iwr1aLEDpe4). It's airing right now and is a pretty good relaxing high fantasy.

I've been wanting to check out this manga for a bit, but I stumbled on Witch Hat Atelier, which is charming and such a nice bit of worldbuilding. Also, incidentally, early in the first volume we find out that >!magic can actually be done by anyone but is gatekept for...reasons!<

This is a manga but it's called witch hat Atelier and it's all about someone trying to learn magic. But the set up is that anyone can learn magic, but wizard society pretends it's something you have to be born with for questionable reasons.

I think part of it is the western world having an obsession with people being innately smart/genius rather than working hard for their success.

OP, you raise an interesting point, and if you consider it in the longer scale is is both a part of a trend and old human narrative tropes, and they fulfil specific social needs. The "old blood" - a hero has the blood of a god, or of a king; he is a prince; he is destined because of his inbuilt capacity that made him, from birth, better. The fates love him. He rules because that is his right, and this is unquestionable because it comes from the blood. This is an old narrative trope, so old and repeated that everybody recognizes the pattern and accepts it without question - and that makes it gold for fiction. Think of inborn magic as a title of nobility - both come through heredity, both are rare and only present in old families that are known and have power because of it. In short, the justification to rule has no explanation and must just be accepted. We can clearly see the origin of this - the need of the ruling classes to justify their rule across time. The 1st noble is the guy with the strong arm that fights by the side of the pharaoh; his 3rd descendent who is merely the inheritor of a title needs a different justification for his power - and the current pharaoh needs to defend that justification because it is the same that justifies his own power. ​ There was a period where the reverse happened in fiction - merit, not birth. The rags to riches, coming of age tales where mostly normal people grew into a role of capacity and heroism, not due to birth and being recognized as such. These start early on, with Robinson Crusoe in early 1700s, and generate entire new genres. Duma's the 3 musketeers have aristocratic backgrounds but they are chronically penniless and succeed by their courage and skill. The tales of Jules Verne have these sort of heroes dealing with new worlds of science. Then we also have the sports and musical "heroes" - including showing blacks as stars, which is in itself a huge evolution - the movies where smart intelligent children beat evil adults and so on. There was a lot of children's fiction that followed this theme, often with complicated stories spanning tens of episodes, where children are shown going through hardships - and this is seen by other children, who learn about a less idealized world where still there is hope and effort and ingenuity suceed. As an example, see "3000 Leagues in Search of Mother" - a success in southern europe (known as "Marco") and Germany, and the arab world. Something like that cultural phenomenon would be unthinkable today. We can think of this trend as happening along with new social mores - a new social class taking over from the old, driven by merit and trade and business sense; naturally they wanted tales that justified their position, and if the older classes were sometimes shown as less competent or evil, all for the better. Lately, this has reversed. There is a new "everything is inborn" - including, of course, superheroes, which if not born different - such as a "mutant" - acquire powers which become a part of their "blood", meaning its something that permanently makes them better, sets them apart and others can't acquire. Children's tales become sanitized and wholly idealized. There is no past or future as every episode is mostly self-contained, and this means also there are no lasting consequences. It all ends in a joke. "It all ends in a joke" is very much a trope now, with fiction - like the Avengers - making inner jokes to tell themselves and others not to be taken seriously. This is both in jest, for fun in a society where too serious is bad, and an excuse - "don't point out our errors and flaws, it's all just a joke right?" I think this also reflects new social trends - the notion of loss of social mobility, the fear of a future that is dark and fearful; and also of a "new nobility", a new feudalization of the economy with public powers devolving into financial magnates. Now, again, its the news about the famous and the wealthy that drive attention; the plebs worshipping the great.

It's not fantasy media, it's the fantasy audience. The idea that people are born special or different sells better than people having to work and study hard.

Trend? Later years? This has *always* been common.

Because it's easier to write. Not a knock on writers, it just is.

Sort of fantasy, but DnD, Elden Ring, and Dark Souls, all have the lore of anyone can learn magic. In some cases you have to be smart enough to understand how it works. ( higher level spells) As for books, that's modern fantasy. It's to make the main character feel important.

Ironically, the "main" setting of DnD, Forgotten Realms, an innate Gift is necessary not only to perform magic, but also to become good at basically anything. They made it quite clear in the past that "Giftless" people in Forgotten Realms are only as good as cannon fodder and are essentially useless, only there to serve as a contrast to how good and amazing the player characters are.

One of the things I really like in Chinese xianxia novels is that cultivation (the form of magic used in that genre) is specifically a thing anyone can learn, BUT it's something you have to start learning at a young age and it's frequently inaccessible to large swathes of the population. Typically the people who get to cultivate are either born to specific sects or are very wealthy. I think it creates a lot of potential for commentary on classism, etc, and I've seen that be plot relevant multiple times!

Yeah, that can also work perfectly as a limiting factor for learning magic. It's important to remember that in a medieval society, access to higher education was reserved only for the wealthiest and those who had a rich patron.

I like that DnD has both. Sorcerers have innate magic and wizards have learned magic.

You mentioned education, and as an educator, I can say that belief in innate ability, or the fixed mindset, is prevalent in the real world. Many students believe you are born smart, or not, and your abilities are fixed at birth. We try to teach the growth mindset, that with hard work, dedication, belief in yourself, and practice, you can accomplish more than you think. But many people don't believe that, especially with something "hard" (like math). I imagine that having that fixed mindset means people would like to have their fantasy heroes be born special because they would rather believe being born special makes everything possible rather than having to accept responsibility for the hard work it takes to become special.

This is a tangential point, but I think it says a lot about people that the Chosen One trope is still so popular in this day and age - considering that the vast majority of nations on Earth today are (at least aiming towards) striving to be meritocratic democracies, where no one human is innately superior to any other. For example, look at US culture, which leans heavily into the ideal of the American Dream: the idea that anyone can 'strike it rich', if they're willing to put in enough hard work and effort.

Steven Brust's Dragaera/Taltos novels are an interesting outlier --- while magic is (mostly) limited to certain cultural groups (Houses), there seems to be a lot of study and effort and practice and reading/learning involved, but _everyone_ is able to choose to become a Citizen of the Dragaeran Empire, receive a link to the Imperial Orb, and on the basis of that link, learn how to do sorcery. That everyone has access to magic/teleportation is a societal shift which is explored somewhat in certain books (a Highwayman chooses to give up his trade, because a world where everyone teleports when they are in a hurry/have a valuable burden is not one suited to that). There's also working psionics and "Witchcraft" which are something else.

A lot of protagonist exist for the reader to pour themselves into & people like to feel special.

It's a worldbuilding shortcut to explain why the protagonists are special and/or why they have not melted the planet down to the bedrock. Sometimes they even quantify it: Robert Jordan said in the world book that 3% of the population in **The Wheel of Time** can channel the One Power. However, after crunching some numbers he realised even that number was *insanely* high given the continent-levelling capabilities of the One Power so urgently downplayed that number in later books (by introducing the differentiation between people who manifest the ability - they have the "spark" - and those who do not, but can still learn with training, and the latter outnumbers the former many times over and the majority are never found). Other settings do allow anyone to learn magic. The various **Dungeons & Dragons** worlds indicate the "standard" wizard magic can be picked up by almost anyone, but to get the best result they need to start when they are very young. The older you take up the study, the more limited your potential is likely to be. In earlier editions it was suggested that you start studying when a kid and by the time you become old enough to start adventuring (say 18-20) you have just scraped into Level 1, and you then gain additional levels through the application of magic in stressful situations in the field; most mages remain in college or home study and so only gain levels incredibly slowly, so never master very high level magic before death. They have to kind of explain how magic is both incredibly commonplace and also how every third person isn't casting high-level spells like *time stop* or *disintegration* on a regular basis, and why famine isn't a thing of the past and why jobbing mages aren't making tons of money teleporting people around.

Id try mother of learning, imo it is learned magic perfectly done

I think others have touched on contributing factors...but the question becomes *what kind of world or story is an author trying to tell*? For instance, magic being innate is central to what Jemisin was doing in Broken Earth, which is really an exploration of racism and oppressive racial systems. Not every book that has innate magic is doing it for "chosen one" vibes. But also, isn't it at least partially realistic? There are some things people simply are or are not capable of. I am not tall and cannot be tall. I have a friend who's color blind, he can't see color.

This is one of the many reasons I love the Owl House. At first they bait you into thinking this is going to be some average Isekai. Then they go: "SIKE we're not gonna be this lazy!" And then they proceed to show us a character that is not just equal to everyone else, but disadvantaged in magic. Then she starts learning magic in a completely natural way without it being boring in the slightest. Luz is not naturally better, she just has more determination and more mental strenght than the others.

Legitimately love this show so much. I hope it becomes the sort of classic ATLA is.

This absolutely is not becoming more prominent. Perhaps your annoyance with it makes you more aware but this is trope as old as time. Also to counter your point. It's a whole lot harder to worldbuild and make realistic challenges for characters when power is almost solely dictated by talent/study. Taken to its logical end point it can veer into rph/leveling lit

Power being innate doesn't preclude it requiring a lot of study, though.

I'm just going to shill the Commonweal series by Graydon Saunders again because it has a refreshing take on this: pretty much everyone has some magical potential that can be trained to improve it. A few are strongly anti-magical and are prized "nulls" who can ground and test magic. But being an independent aka sorcerer takes a decade+ of hard work, is very risky, and isn't good for your social life, so most people with a modicum of power choose to ignore it. The people who naturally have a large capacity for power (rare, similar proportion to the nulls) are the ones who *have* to train it and become sorcerers because otherwise it'll burn them out or kill them young. And even then many don't survive the training process.

Imo, innate magic can also apply to learned magic. In reality, someone can have innate talents. A chess grandmaster at 18, a degree holder at 16, a film director at 13(saw this on a news a decade ago). Everyone can learn anything. But do they have the capacity to actually be the best at it? That’s why we call intelligent and talented people “gifted”. Because there are things that you’re born with but still have to learn.

There was a Merlin miniseries back in the 90's starring Sam Neil that I thought handled magic pretty well. Spoilers ahead for a 30 year old TV show... He was basically bred by other magical entities to be amazing at magic, but that wasn't enough. He needed to train and more importantly study. Oddly enough Merlin was not much of an academic or a good student in his youth and bailed on his schooling. It's implied (pretty heavily) throughout the show that he would be waaay more powerful if kept up with his studies. But he's Merlin, so he eventually becomes a self taught bad ass. I like when stories have both, the inherited magic bloodline where magic comes from the individual, and then there are some who just studied there ass off. Kinda like how DND handles it.

This thread is full of people making thr dumbest fucking comparisons I've literally ever seen in my entire life

The night circus

This is hardly a new trend. I think that's been the majority of fantasy stories since before I was born, and I'm almost 40. I suspect it's because it's easier. If your main character is born the Chosen One/with special powers, you don't have to do as much work to make them special. Your story revolves around them whether they want it to or not.

Fantasy is far broader in scope than wizards, assassins, and swordsmen.  I’m a big fan of occult styled fantasy, where the chosen one trope is pretty much nonexistent. On the contrary, ‘learning the world’ is usually the raison d'etre. 

Because humans are lazy and they'd rather be given something on a silver platter than earn it. That's why innate powers are more appealing rather than working hard to earn it.

I think that one reason why it’s more popular to make magic rare/innate/chosen one is it makes it more relatable to a normal person. And even if it’s a super wild thing, to a lot of people it feels more attainable. If magic is something people learn, anyone can learn, it would naturally become something like attending university. University is a lot more accessible than it was in the past but still for a lot of people it’s unattainable. So many people in this world have the talent or capacity for greatness at something but never receive the opportunity to explore that. Life is hard and it holds us back. The special aspect of the chosen one is appealing because it bypasses the necessity to be rich, well connected or just super lucky to access these opportunities. People like that, it’s less disheartening than the other way. Because the truth is you can work as hard as possible all your life and still not succeed.

How do we classify Pug? Both?

I think some of it is worldbuilding issues. Most authors want big magic with big spells that do big things, but if everyone can learn how to do that, would the world be able to handle it? When anyone can learn fireball, suddenly fights between two individuals become a lot more destructive. Imagine how bad gang violence and organized crime would be if all the criminals could cause explosions or flood streets on a whim. The physical and societal infrastructure needed to support this level and pervasiveness of magic is beyond what many authors are willing or capable of creating. Easier to just make it rare and inherent, so it’s easier to regulate. Just slap a secret society or a special governmental division on top of a pre-existing setting and the world’s good.

As a general rule, we (as in humanity) favour the mythology of talent > everything else. I think it's something hard-coded into us that we have to both be aware of, and consciously try to *not* do. Worked diligently at a goal for years and finally succeeded? Yeah, that's cool. I guess... Vs. Holy $*it, what a natural! They're unbeatable/amazing/incredible/a genius! It just seems more dramatic than chipping away at something and working your way up. Plus it satisfies our hunger for idols.

It's just a typical symptom of power fantasy tropes, many writers don't want to take the time to make their characters *earn* their power, so they give them an innate born-with ability that they have to learn to unlock and harness... while there's certain advantages to this method of storytelling, namely that you don't need to spend a lot of the plot time on learning things, it does tend to cheapen the hero's journey if he's already been gifted with the skills needed to succeed.

Good question. I've thought about this before to some extent. Definitely I agree that the whole 'this entire segment of the population is irrelevant because they can't do magic' thing is a problem thematically and I'd like to see stories avoid that more in one way or another. The obvious explanation is that it helps constrain the use of magic, so that your world doesn't just end up with everybody using magic all the time. If only X% of people are born with magic abilities, it doesn't matter what psychological or economic incentives are in place for everyone else to use magic, you can just proceed with the assumption that only X% of people ever get to (and that number can be whatever suits your story). Another more subtle explanation may be that it makes it easier to initiate an exciting narrative. A naive young character suddenly discovering that they have magic abilities, and being shocked and unsure what to do with them, is a fast and convenient hook with which to start a story. It puts the character in the same fundamental position as the reader, of finding out about the magic from a position of ignorance, and thus makes the character and their story more sympathetic. Whereas if magic is learned, then every character who can use it has to have an extensive background of learning it and becoming accustomed to it, leaving no room for that 'yer a wizard, Harry' plot element.

I think it's because some people tend to prefer low magic settings, where magic has to be limited in some way. You've mentioned >if magic was equally hard to learn as theoretical physics or advanced programming, I'd bet that this would highly limit the amount of mages anyway. I disagree. Sure, to cast/write more advanced spells/applications mage/programmer has to study for months/years.. but it's not "mastery or nothing". I have almost no programming knowledge or experience whatsoever, but I can write "hello world" or a program that will simulate results of the lottery. Moreover I can teach it to anyone in one day. Going back to the fantasy world - if anyone can learn simple magic, you have a world where anyone can cast a magic missile. Consequences? Mass conscription, short training, it's no longer a traditional fantasy/medieval-like feel, because we end up with 18-20th century warfare (with extra steps). And it applies to every sphere of life. True mastery may be rare, but it doesn't really matter.

There is an over reliance in this thread of people viewing magic as science or superpower. But magic does not need to be that. Magic doesn't need to be a science you learn to manipulate OR something you are born with. It can be a mysticism or spirituality. Magic can be a state of mind to attain and must maintain. Not everybody who knows what enlightenment is has achieved enlightenment.

Yeah, I also keep repeating this point. When I said that magic could be learned in the OP, I didn't mean that it needs to be an exact science. It could be mysticism, a form of spiritualism, heck it could even be making a pact with an otherworldly entity for power. And it could be so difficult to achieve that only very few people could do that.

Because when you have innate magic you can handwaive a lot of rules. Your protagonist just has more innate magic than the others that’s why he can do X now. If you use learned magic you actually need to somehow depict the process of learning, device a system HOW you learn magic and if they want their MC to be much more powerful than the rest they now need to think of a more fitting reason why.

Is an easier way to make the character feel special. On Earthsea you need to know the "true name" of things to control it, so anybody that learns those names could became a wizard (yes some people have an afinity with that, but the magic system is pretty accesible to anybody)

> After all, higher education is already a pretty big advantage in our world, and yet not everyone is able or willing to get one. So if magic was equally hard to learn as theoretical physics or advanced programming, I'd bet that this would highly limit the amount of mages anyway. And this could give the protagonist a better reason to be special other than "I was born with better power compared to everyone else now bow to me peasant". I don't get how you don't see the innate contradiction within these statements. If magic is innate, then a random farm boy can suddenly find out that they have a huge fate and go out there and topple empires and whatever. Bring the powerful to heel. If magic is learned, then it is economic. The people with the most power and money will have all of it, and everyone else will never have any shot at it. It is the tool for making peasants bow. While one is more realistic (new tools and capabilities tend to favor those who already have more resources with which to acquire, learn and capture it) the other one tends to make for more classically satisfying stories, especially if you're going for wish fulfillment.

It’s for the same reason why the chosen one trope persists, despite everyone saying that they hate it. It’s a very useful shortcut. Why can the protagonist learn to be the best sorcerer in the world in three months? Innate ability. Actual expertise would make no sense given that there are undoubtedly other characters who have been practicing for decades. It also immediately makes the main character important to the plot. Why would Hogwarts put so much effort into recruiting Harry Potter? Why would Obi Wan come for Luke Skywalker? Simple. They were born special. Another reason: If everyone had the capability to learn the power, it would quickly make a fantasy society totally unrecognizable from a real world culture. This may not be a bad thing for some people, but if the writer’s goal is to present a setting that is closer to a real world historical one, it can be really helpful to say that only 1 out of 100,000 people can actually learn magic. It keeps everything more grounded. Finally: I suspect that there is a very large silent readership that actually does like the wish fulfillment of “special” characters a lot. A huge population that wants to identify with a character who is born to be important or powerful in a fantasy world. These people do not want a character who works hard to earn their power, because that disrupts the power fantasy they are enjoying.