Black Mage - Television Tropes & Idioms

"I am the Black Mage! I casts the spells that makes the peoples fall down!"

Black Mage, 8-Bit Theater

Masters of offensive magic, these mages are all about attacking with spells and doing lots of damage with them. Typically these mages will be users of most if not all types of Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors (one element is not unheard of though) and may fall under Linear Warriors, Quadratic Wizards. They do not heal (or only have minor healing spells) and typically pack Area of Effect spells in their arsenal.

Almost always Dark Is Not Evil.

Black Magician Girl and Lady of Black Magic are subtropes and are often paired up with The Medic, White Mage, or White Magician Girl as a Foil. Specifically paired with a White Mage it's Black and White Magic.

Often overlaps with Squishy Wizard and Glass Cannon. Contrast The Medic and White Mage.

Not to be confused with Black Magic (which is outright evil rather than merely destructive) or the character Black Mage Evilwizardington (though he is an example of both tropes).

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Anime and Manga

Mahou Sensei Negima!: there are two classes of normal mages. A "Wizard" focuses on attack magic while others protect, whereas a "Magic Knight" fights up front and uses spells. Negi chose the latter, but Yue has chosen the "Wizard" style complete with the Final Fantasy style Black Mage outfit.
Although Kagura from Inuyasha has shown herself to be very fit physically (being a demon, it comes naturally for her), she always fights using wind-using spells and magic. She also has no issues cutting up your best friend and then turning them into a zombie to lure you into an ambush.
In the .hack//Legend of the Twilight anime and manga. Hotaru would be the battle mage of the group, except she's afraid to hurt the monsters.
Fatina, from The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk. She uses a large staff that resembles a cannon for nuking things with her fire magic.
Kuesu from Omamori Himari.
While her personality is perhaps more in line with a White Magician Girl, Mahoujin Guru Guru's Kukuri uses demon summoning magic.

Literature

Daja Kisubo from Tamora Pierce's Circle of Magic series is arguably this. And she does some wicked stuff with that staff of hers.
- Not to mention Trisana Chandler.
The Saga Of Recluce inverts this and White Mage; those who use order magic (which can improve health, speed healing, and strengthen and protect) are called black mages, while those who use chaos magic (which is, as the name implies, very destructive) are the white mages. On the grand scale, however, the black mages have easily the greatest destructive potential because they can manipulate weather patterns, which makes the nation of Recluce with its numerous black mages a (highly resented) world power.

Video Games

Final Fantasy is the Trope Namer and possibly Trope Maker. Black mages are a staple class in the series, appearing in almost all of the games.
- In Final Fantasy X, Wakka even refers to Lulu as a Black Mage in one of the tutorial fights.
In World of Warcraft, Mages fulfill this role. No self healing while nuking from a distance.
The Dragon Quest series is fond of this trope.
- In Dragon Quest III, the Wizard class specializes in casting destructive spells.
- In Dragon Quest IV, Both Maya and Borya fit this.
- In Dragon Quest VIII, Jessica fulfills this role till late in the game when she gains pretty decent healing spells.
- In Dragon Quest IX, the Mage class has all attack magic with a few debuffing spells overshadowed by the Sage class which has both better attack spells and gets healing spells.
Disgaea has both male and female magic users (they're coloured differently according to element). They learn spells of increasing power and area of effect that deal damage within their element (so fire mages learn fire, mega fire, etc; ice mages learn ice, mega ice, etc and so on). The highest level mages can learn most of all the elemental spells, but cannot master the strongest spells of each type.
Ragnarok Online has the Mage first class which branches as follows:
Sage - Professor - Sorcerer
Wizard - High Wizard - Warlock
- They both use damaging spells and for the most part perform no healing or support spells. The Wizard branch uses area spells with special effects like a chance of stun or freezing and the Sage branch can cast two streams of bolt spells at once with Double Cast as well as endow weapons with an element to increase weapon damage.
In Recettear there's Calliou, the Squishy Wizard who has a grand total of one utility spell, with the rest being solely for offense and no melee combat ability whatsoever. To a lesser extent there's also Arma, who's later weapons are pretty much Magitech WMDs.
Aion: Tower of Eternity has the Mage Class, which at level 10 branches off into either the Sorcerer (Direct Heavy Damage, AOE Damage, Crowd Control) or the Spiritmaster (summons pets, not as much direct damage)
Shadow Era's Mage Heroes (both Human and Shadow) are this.
La Tale has the Sorceror class, one of the two advanced classes after Wizard, which abandons all healing magic for pure offensive magic.
Imoen from the Baldur's Gate series, a friendly and upbeat sort who starts out as a thief in the first game but then becomes a black mage.
Rune from Phantasy Star IV is a full-on 'blast everything until it dies' type, whereas Kyra is a warm and friendly sort who appoints herself Cool Big Sis to the hero but can still blast things (and heal a bit).
Star Ocean 4 gives us Lymle and Myuria.
- Star Ocean 1 has Ronyx, who is the only caster not to learn any healing magic and also the only one who can cast Dark element spells.
Angela of Seiken Densetsu 3, right down to the weapon and personality.
Genis Sage from Tales Of Symphonia.
Grune from Tales Of Legendia
Jade Curtiss from Tales Of The Abyss.
Paula from Earthbound. She uses offensive spells such as PK Fire and PK Freeze. Kumatora from Mother 3 also fits.
Gwen, an NPC in Guild Wars, is first encountered as a happy-go-lucky little girl who befriends the player in an idyllic countryside. Fast-forward eight years of game time, and she's a powerful Mesmer described as being driven primarily by hatred and anger.
Cierra in Riviera: The Promised Land.
Chelsea from Bunny Must Die.
Magus from Chrono Trigger.
Dragon Age II has Merrill, who despite being much nicer than Morrigan, practices Blood Magic which is considered one of the most dangerous forms of magic, and has no healing magic other than using said blood magic to steal others' life force for herself.
- In Dragon Age: Origins, although you have freedom to spec her as you wish, Morrigan starts off as a Black Mage as well. It's also possible to turn the player character, The Warden and Hawke, into Black Mages as well in both games.
Delphine Jend in The Elder Scrolls Four: Oblivion. A sweet little woman who likes to kill cute woodland creatures with Expert-Level destruction spells.
- And the Master destruction magic trainer Bralsa Andaren, who is actually out doing said killing of woodland creatures. Bonus in that she's also a Dark Elf.
The Sorceress in Diablo II, who focuses entirely in Fire, Ice, Lightning offensive spells.
Breath of Fire and Breath Of Fire 2 give us Deis/Bleu, the nagaesque Person of Mass Destruction. Nina as well, with the exception of the first game.
Sira of Albion. Her spells are destructive (coming dangerously close to becoming an instant 'I Win' button), but she's rather gentle and friendly. The spells themselves are also nature related as she conjures thorns, fungi, and ice splinters that grow like flowers.
- Khunag also qualifies, if not more so. His spells are all about dealing damage, with only a couple of exceptions that seem like an afterthought.
Donald Duck is somewhere between this and The Red Mage in the Kingdom Hearts series, his starting staff even resembles the classic Final Fantasy Black Mage. The Magic Knight hero Sora's spells tend to pack more of a punch, though.
- Jack Skellington fits the description a little better than Donald, Donald gets a Cure spell, while Jack doesn't.
Mallow from Super Mario RPG is another "somewhere between this and The Red Mage" example. He gets an early healing spell, but that gets eclipsed once Princess Toadstool joins you, and his specialty is in combat magic and rounding out the party's Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors with Mario (between the two of them you can take advantage of every elemental weakness in the game).

Tabletop RPG

Dungeons & Dragons
- The Forgotten Realms setting has the Cormyrean War Wizards, masters of combat magic.
- The 2nd Edition Complete Wizards Handbook had the militant wizard kit, which concentrated on offensive spells.
- The 3.5 Complete Arcane and Miniatures Handbook Sourcebooks both featured the Warmage class, which is this trope to the exclusion of everything else.
- Evocation specialists in general tend to take this role.
Vampire The Masquerade generally avoided this (overt magic use being a breach of The Masquerade), but there were still a couple paths of Blood Sorcery based around massive eruptions of magical energies, such as Path of the Levinbolt, Lure of the Flames, The Fires of the Inferno, and the incredibly fun Koldunic Way of Fire.

Webcomics

Ariel from Drowtales, though she prefers shapeshifting to her offensive spells.
Iris from Aetheria Epics.
Angelika from Our Little Adventure.
Black Mage from 8-Bit Theater, naturally.
Richard from Looking for Group is as black as they come, and deadlier than he is dead.
On the subject of liches, Xykon in The Order of the Stick — other than the occasional hold spell, he tends to leave all non-hurty spellcasting to menials.