Black Magic - Television Tropes & Idioms

"In magic, there is neither good nor evil. It is merely a science. The science of causing change to occur by means of one's will. The sinister reputation attached to it is entirely groundless and is based on superstition, rather than objective observation. The power of the will is something that people do not understand, attributing to it mysterious qualities that it does not posses. Being simply the power of 'mind over matter'. Or, in the greater number of cases, the power of mind over mind. As your mind now is succumbing to mine..."

-Mocata, The Devil Rides Out

"Bad" powers, the stuff that the villain and the Anti Hero uses, and if heroes do they're headed for a fall, or at least An Aesop. Black Magic has the tendency to corrupt more than just the actions it enables.

There are three factors that determine whether a power is Black Magic or not.

Source - If it's gained from a Deal With The Devil, Religion Of Evil, or Sealed Evil In A Can, it's almost always Black Magic. Other sources can include channeling hatred, "dark energy," or hellfire. This sometimes but not always includes Elemental Darkness.
Cost - What is required to make the magic work. Even if it saves kittens, if fueling mana requires stealing others' Life Energy, it's probably Black Magic. (Note, using your own Life Energy doesn't fall under this.)
Effect - The magic is directly constructed for the suffering, control, and/or needless death of others.

Also beware of the side-effects. Gaining and using Black Magic will often have a "corrupting" effect on its practictioner's character, causing grey actions to go to black very quickly. This generally coincides with a similar degradation of the practictioner's mental stability.

For a more detailed description of side-effects, see This Is Your Brain On Evil. If a partial Demonic Possession is the source of your Black Magic, you are in very real danger of a total Grand Theft Me - heck, you may be even if it wasn't.

Remember that Evil Is Not A Toy. See also Artifact Of Doom. Compare and contrast White Magic.

A practictioner of Black Magic could be "dark but not evil" if he's a sympathetic figure - perhaps a Reluctant Monster Blessed With Suck. See Heroic Willpower and Faustian Rebellion.

Examples

Anime

Averted in the works of Nasu Kinoko. Magecraft in general causes pain on both ends, regardless of what you're actually doing, since just using Magic Circuits will damage your body to some extent. Also, the Mage's Association is more interested in the Masquerade and doesn't care much as long the bad stuff isn't publicized.
- It's also played straight, since it has been explicitly stated that within the Canon, magecraft that affects the target's mind will also affect the user's mind... so one curse will literally kill both parties.
In Mahou Sensei Negima, love spells are forbidden because they reach into someone and change their private self. Hypocritically, this does not extend to Laser Guided Amnesia in order to protect the Masquerade. In addition, Negi knows a forbidden spell that would result in killing a demon instead of binding or banishing it. What the details or consequences of such a spell would be are not shown, as he chooses not to use it, but... it is a demon.
- Later on, Negi learns a technique called Magia Erebea developed by Evangeline, which depends on negative emotions such as hate, rage, fear, or sorrow, and takes a major toll on the user's body and soul. According to a demon Negi fights later, it works by the magician taking an offensive spell into himself for empowerment - basically, swallowing your own lightning spell to become a human thundergod. Considering that 'Erebea' looks a lot like 'Erebus', alternately the son of Chaos or part of the underworld... yeah.
  - The author explains the word's roots in a lexicon entry and directly references Erebos, so it is quite literally "Magic of Darkness". However, both Negi and Eva elaborates on what exactly Magia Erebea is: "the power to take in good and evil, strength and weakness, and accept everything, exactly as it is."
Curiously, in Slayers, Black Magic is in fact fueled by the dark energy radiated by the various demonic Mazoku Lords. However, humans can tap into this without ill effects, since this is a divine function to maintain the Balance Between Good And Evil. The only rule is that a spell from a specific Mazoku Lord cannot be used against them...because each Mazoku is immune to its own spells!
- All Black Magic is also useless on Shabranigdo, the most powerful Mazoku Lord; the mazoku can just choose not be affected by a spell from them or a mazoku subservient to them. This is most dramatically demonstrated in the last novel, when a shard of Shabranigdo chooses not to be unaffected by the dragon slave, and is killed that way.
- Further, there's a distinction made within Black Magic between Curses and Destructive spells. Curses are almost uniformly seen as evil (though the really twisted stuff is exclusively used by demons). Destructive spells, on the other hand, are value-neutral, given that a large number of Shamanic (elemental) spells can accomplish the same result (Fireball, for instance, is a Shamanic spell).
The alchemy of Fullmetal Alchemist's anime adaptation eventually turns out to be fuelled by the death and suffering of those in Real Life earth, and is implied to be behind the world wars. In both the anime and the original manga, the Philosopher's Stone definitely counts, seeing as it's basically Soylent PINK.
Arguably, Hiei's Dragon of the Darkness Flame technique in Yu Yu Hakusho. It falls under the category of hellfire, as it comes from the demon underworld. However, it only requires a sacrifice when the user is not strong enough to control it ("I suppose just my right arm will do,") and is used by Hiei to fight various enemies who have less-than-honorable intentions.

Film

The dark side of the Force in Star Wars.
- Unless you ask a follower of the Grey Jedi philosophy, which says that neither side of the force is actually 'good' or 'evil', what matters is what you do with it. This is widely considered heresy by Jedi and Sith alike.
  - Word of God from Lucasfilm has also stated that the Grey Jedi are just deluding themselves.

Literature

The Three Unforgivable Curses in Harry Potter:
- Avada Kedavra, or the Killing Curse, is forbidden in the same way gun control is practiced in Great Britain. High-ranking Law Enforcement "good" mages cast it as well in the Harry Potter-verse. This could be merely a sign of the overall "governmental corruption" motif, however.
- Crucio, the Cruciatus Curse, not only causes pain as torture, but also gets stronger the more the caster hates.
- Imperio, the Imperius Curse, is a forbidden mind control spell.
- Not to mention pretty much any dark magic. Fiendfyre anyone?
In The Second Chronicles Of Thomas Covenant, the form of magic in the common use is powered by blood. Your own blood is fine, but if you want to do something moderately powerful, someone has to die. In addition, every spell cast in this way has the side effect of making life slightly worse for everyone by feeding power to bad stuff. The books also have other forms of magic used predominantly by Evil Minions.
In The Dresden Files, use of Black Magic is constrained by the White Council's Seven Laws of Magic. The most notable instances of this in the story so far (at least, in magic used by the protagonists) are using magic to kill, necromantic animation of human bodies, and Mind Control. "Reaching beyond the borders of life" and trying to "swim against the Currents of Time," among other things, also violate the rules, but may not technically be Black Magic. The difference is that Black Magic has been shown to be powerfully addictive, to the point that it's implied the mandatory death penalty for violating the Laws (except in certain, rare circumstances, namely a council member is willing to put their own necks on the line on he violator's behalf) is probably a good thing. One member of the Senior Council, the Blackstaff, is given leeway to use Black Magic when the Council really needs it. The current holder of this office is later revealed to be Harry's mentor, originally assigned to him by the Council because he's the only one who would be allowed to "put him down" if he ever tries using Black Magic again - Harry's previous use of magic to kill was ruled to be self-defense.
In Trudi Canavan's Black Magician Trilogy, Black Magic comes from taking a person's Life Energy. While many users of Black Magic are portrayed as evil, as some Life Energy can be taken without harming the person, the morality of using it is based on whether the Life Energy was given willingly or not.
In Garth Nix's Old Kingdom trilogy, there is Charter Magic and Free Magic. Free Magic is used by necromancers and various not-demonic creatures. It's frequently described as having an acrid, metallic smell and being physically corrosive. Humans who dabble in it for too long usually develop some kind of horrible appearance which they can only do so much to mask. Charter Magic is generally much benevolent, but a number of instances in the books point out that that it's not a toy, either. (One character loses her voice for a few weeks after speaking a particularly strong spell, and is told that she's extremely lucky that she wasn't completely destroyed by it.) Not so much Good vs Evil as Order vs Chaos.
- The Abhorsens, whose job it is to reverse any raise-ing of dead things or people that necromancers get up to, use both without bad effects.
  - At least we never see it happen, although the upper example was the current Abhorsen-in-waiting. So they're probably not immune, just more careful.
Death magic in Lois Mc Master Bujold's Chalion books hits two out of three - it summons a demon from the deity that at least some of the world's residents consider evil and has the sole purpose of (surprise!) killing the target. However, it also requires the sacrifice of the caster.
The British author Dennis Wheatley might be best remembered today for his novels dealing with Satanic black-magic cults. The page quote comes the Hammer Films adaptation of his novel The Devil Rides Out.
Pretty much everything that either Hekate or The Necromancer does in the Whateley Universe. Seriously, with a name like The Necromancer, what were you expecting?
Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time have the True Power, a form of magic you can only use if you've forged a link to the Dark One and he decides to to let you use it. And the eventual fate of those who use it regularly is so terrible that only one of the baddies dares to use it at all. And that's because he's already batshit insane.
In Piers Anthony's Incarnations Of Immortality series, even using a purely benign magical item for the best of purposes with no conception that you're doing anything wrong will damn your soul to Hell if the item's original creator used Black Magic to create it. Moral #1: don't buy magic items off eBay. Moral #2: the afterlife is unfair and arbitrary.
- Averting Moral #2, above, is basically what the whole series is working towards.

Live Action TV

Dark Willow from Season 6 of Buffy The Vampire Slayer.

Tabletop Games

Dungeons And Dragons has some spells designated as "Evil", pure and simple. Typically, they're the spells that are designed to subvert or counter "Good" spells, torment or exploit others, or that require truly nasty things to operate — primary Evil spell components include mortal souls and the body parts of angels (except for feathers, which when given willingly are powerfully Good items). The Book of Vile Darkness, a sourcebook dedicated to Evil character options, includes a whole chapter of these.
- The above no longer applies to the current Dungeons And Dragons game. In the new 4th-edition any mechanical effect of alignment (such as good or evil) has been removed. However, the dungeonmaster's guide does cite that evil aligned divine-magic users should have their powers reflavored to be more dark and sinister.
- 4E Warlocks, while not at all inherently bad, mind you, got their powers by bargaining with entities that tend to be amoral, if not downright malicious.
In the Ravenloft setting, Black Magic generally involved a Powers check, and may be stronger than in other D&D game-settings. Hags and shadow fey are notorious practitioners of such magic.
According to TSR's Marvel Super Heroes RPG, Mind Control was considered a villain's power, and if a hero ever controlled another character's mind, he would lose Karma (the game's equivalent of hero points and/or Experience Points), not only for the act itself, but for any negative actions committed by the controlled character. Sadly, most player characters had randomly generated stats and powers.
- Amusingly, the Marvel Super Hero named "Karma" has the power of Mind Control (or, more accurately, Possession — but close enough).
In Shadowrun, the government of Aztlan (formerly Mexico) is involved in the use of a nasty version of blood-powered magic which is a deliberate corruption of old Aztec rituals. The game has also featured toxic shamans, who seek patronage from toxic spirits and are considered walking fallout.
- Shadowrun's absolutely full this trope. In addition to the above, there's also corrupted mages, who grow more powerful when they cause human misery and pain, Insect Shamans, who serve horrifyingly alien insect spirits and have to summon said spirits into living hosts in order to grow in power, and adepts of the Twisted Way, which is basically being a Sith. Shadowrun also lists Black Magic as a magical tradition, but that's not evil at all and is not different from all the other traditions.
The power of Chaos in Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 is definite Black Magic.
Magic: the Gathering's black cards dip into this, although considering that the game is all about wizardly duelling and we consequently see mainly the martial aspects of any of its colors this is mostly a matter of flavor. (Black does, however, have something of a monopoly on discard effects — implied to be actually harmful to the target's sanity — as well as ones that reduce the opponent's life total directly without technically inflicting 'damage', sometimes allowing the caster to gain those life points for him- or herself vampire-style.)
- On the subject of sanity-damaging magics: Memory Erosion, Sanity Grinding and Traumatize are all blue, while spells that directly hurt both you and your opponent, possibly along with any creatures in play, are red.
Mage: the Awakening has a morality system that heavily penalizes certain acts, such as using mind control and ripping away a person's soul. Then there's using the Abyss to fuel your magic, which basically means paying favor to something that is to reality what anti-matter is to matter.

Video Games

Final Fantasy black magic subverts this a bit, in that black magic does not corrupt its user nor is it fuelled by negative energies. However, it is purely offensive and generally elemental in nature. Even the non-damaging spells (such as Frog and Mini) have a primary offensive purpose.
- Though Final Fantasy black magic tends to have a strong elemental link, the most powerful black magic spell is usually non-elemental; either Flare (a non-elemental single-target attack that usually ignores magic resistance) or Meteor (a non-elemental multi-target attack).
- However, in the 8-Bit Theater webcomic, which is based on the original Final Fantasy game, the character 'Black Mage' uses this relatively straight - his most powerful spell, the Hadoken, is fuelled by love... in the sense that the worldwide divorce-rate goes up every time he uses it.
  - Perhaps a Double Subversion? Subverted in that, despite it being an explicitly evil spell, it doesn't corrupt its user and it isn't fueled by negative energies. Double Subversion in that you have to be WAY over the Moral Event Horizon to use it in the first place and the positive energy that powers it is twisted to highly destructive ends.
Riku of Kingdom Hearts struggles with true Black Magic throughout the games. He argues that the ends justifies the means and using Dark magic for good reasons is okay, and this has different results in the different games.
- It can be convincingly argued, however, that overall it was far more trouble than it was worth and he was much better off avoiding it, especially as he would have gotten "Light Side" powers of comparable potency for much less grief.
  - Eventually he decides to use both, which changes his rather evil sword into a keyblade. The keyblade has both "evil" and "good" symbols, like a devilish wing and an angelic one. The balance between light and dark is called Twilight.
This trope was recently added into the Metroid series through the Metroid Prime subseries. In the Prime trilogy, there is a substance called Phazon that will increase the powers of any creature that uses it, with prolonged usage ultimately corrupting the user. The Big Bad of the Prime trilogy is a Phazon-based clone of the player character, Samus, which makes boss fights against her interesting, to say the least. In the third game in the series, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, Samus is given a "Phazon Enhancement Device" or PED. This device allows her to use Phazon directly to become temporarily invulnerable; overuse will "corrupt" her, ending the game immediately.
- Not to mention that in order to utilize the Phazon powers, Samus has to enter "Hyper Mode" by injecting an Energy Tank into the PED system. This means that any Phazon attack you use will drain your energy. Once the tank is empty, Samus reverts to normal. She can also exit Hyper Mode in order to restore whatever energy is left in the tank. If Hyper Mode is used for too long, however, Samus will enter the "Corrupted Hyper Mode" mentioned above. She is then forced to keep the Phazon at bay by expending it through attacks until 30 seconds have passed and the "emergency vent" is activated.
Subversion: in Fire Emblem, dark magic isn't necessarily reserved for evil characters, and you can have good-hearted Shamans, Druids and / or Summoners in your party. Their dark spells are usually more powerful than the usual, but are extremely slow as well; also one of them, the Nosferatu magic, can steal hit points from the enemy and heal the caster's previous wounds. However, the effects of dark spell generally differ quite a bit from the basic "deal damage" spells that the Light and Anima branches have. For example, Eclipse halves enemy hp, Luna pierces resistance... and so on. Notable dark magic users are:
- Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade: Ray and Sophia (Shamans, promoted into Druids), Niime (Druid).
- Fire Emblem (Blazing Sword in Japan): Canas (Shaman, promoted into Druid) who also is the son of Niime from the sixth game). Nergal (Dark Druid and the Big Bad boss apparently).
  - Funny thing is that Canas argues that it's Elder Magic, not Dark Magic!
- Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones: Knoll (Shaman, promoted into Druid or Summoner), Lyon (Necromancer), Ewan (Pupil, can use dark magic if promoted into Shaman).
- Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn: Spirit Charmers such as Pelleas
Fel energy in Warcraft. It fuels the Burning Legion's destructive crusade, gives warlocks their power, and when mortals overuse it, they tend to mutate, becoming over-muscled and violent caricatures of their former selves who only crave more power. It also has a nasty effect on the environment, turning the landscape into a Garden Of Evil or simply killing flora & fauna.
- However, in World Of Warcraft, the playable warlocks can be as good as they like, while every other raid boss's insanity is explained with a "he used fel magic and went insane".
  - Similarly, death knights spread diseases, summon undead, and similar necromancy-based techniques, but they aren't necessarily bad or evil. However, there are quite a few undead enemies, some of them even being death knights themselves. Tthe player death knights regained their own free will after being betrayed by the Lich King.
- Mages are also susceptible of corruption, but to a lesser extent than warlocks. The poster boy for this is Malygos, the patron dragon of magic. He is working on eradicating magic-users, because reckless use of the powers can result in megalomania, weakening of the space-time continuum and eventually an Earth Shattering Kaboom. To stop this, he tends to use his powers recklessly.
In Soul Nomad And The World Eaters spellcraft that uses Crimson Tears (basically the condensed souls of particularly strong-souled individuals, created through their deaths) is considered Black Magic. Yet, because only Crimson Tears grant the power necessary to do things like fusing humans and gods together, resurrecting the dead and creating barriers capable of imprisoning the World Eaters, they are heavily used by most powerful magicians, including some of your allies. They have no side-effect apart from the ghastly material component.
Street Fighter has the Satsui No Hadou, or "Surge of Murderous Intent", a dark power which can be used for deadly moves like the Shun Goku Satsu. Akuma and Evil Ryu represent characters who have succumbed to the power of The Dark Side.
- Though it must be noted that Akuma uses his dark side as a tool for power while Evil Ryu is a tool of his dark side.
In Florensia, the Saint class can change to a Priest who focuses on "light" magic such as healing, resurrection, and defensive spells, or a Shaman who uses "dark" magic mostly consisting of offensive and weakening spells.

Webcomics

Eight Bit Theater has Black Mage, who knows a spell called Hadoken that is literally powered by love. Every time he uses it, the divorce rate rises.
- As mentioned above.
In Sluggy Freelance Gwynn has a number of magical abilities. However, since she got those abilities after being possessed by a world devouring demon, she doesn't use them that often since there's a lingering fear they'll bring the demon back again.
- Plus everything she knows about magic comes from a tome called "The Book of E-Ville." So Yeah ...
Black Magic in Two Kinds is far more powerful, able to bring the dead back and rip souls apart, however it's very hard to control and tends to drain the life of the user drives them crazy (and casting a spell can kill the user) but nothing Laser Guided Amnesia can't fixed

Web Original

Played with in Tales Of MU. On the one hand, necromancy is considered a legitimate speciality for aspiring wizards as long as they follow the rules. On the other hand, the only necromancy student we ever meet is Steff, who hates most of the world and plans on going off to live with an ogre prince, where she won't have to follow any regulations and will also act as his official torturer. At one point, she mentions the possibility of having sex with Mackenzie's reanimated corpse should Mackenzie die prematurely. On the ~~third~~ gripping hand, in many other ways Steff is given a very sympathetic portrayal.
We see Hekate doing this in the Whateley Universe. She's got the whole thing down. She does a spell that summons a demon, requires the soul of one of the people in the circle, gains three boons from the demon, and ALSO forces the survivor in the circle to do three things Hekate will ask for in future. Whew.
- What's worse? She gets it from Cthulhu and friends! If there's ONE thing worse then 'demons from hell'...

Western Animation

Partially subverted in Avatar Season 3. Katara learns to control another human being through "blood bending". The witch that taught her this used it almost exclusively for evil, but Katara was forced to use it for good (or neutral) in order to save Aang and Sokka. However, it could easily be argued that it did corrupt her, as later in the same season, she used blood bending to extort information out of a Fire Nation officer in a quest for revenge.
- She got better.

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