Goobergal: A wizardlympic gold medalist in a student competition?
Loogy: This breaks every rule of written law and common sense!
Gandledorf: Minister Finister doesn't own Hogglerynth! It's not even his to lose in a wager!
Gandledorf: Oh yeah! The magic-contract.
Snapekin: Well...what can one do?
Goobergal: I guess that's that.
Gandledorf: I mean, it is the Goblet we're talking about. Can't argue with the Goblet. Pack it in, kids!
Hah! You see? The contract's legal, binding, and completely unbreakable, even for you.
In fiction, particularly fantasy fiction, normal contracts don't just cut it. Part of the reason for this is because it's usually pretty vague what kind of government most fantasy cultures use, so nobody really knows how contracts would work anyway. Not to mention the fact that we have contracts in
Real Life, and they're usually pretty boring. So one sure way to get some excitement is to have a character sign one that is magically binding.
Where a normal contract is bound by the rule of law, a magic contract is bound by the rule of magic. Such contracts are impossible to break in any way. Rather than being enforced by punishment from a lawful governing body, these contracts are enforced by magic. Sometimes it is implied that the magic punishment for breaking a clause is somehow contingent on the permission being given by the one who signed the contract.
Really, the
easier explanation most of the time is that
A Wizard Did It. The basic idea here is that magic is the law, and will punish anyone who tries to go back on a contract.
Any character who makes such a contract has no choice but to fulfill on it somehow. Loopholes are, as always, still permitted. Physically destroying a contract can also absolve the penalties. In some cases, magic apparently only works with the magicee's permission.
Most of the time this is how the
Deal With The Devil works. In all likelihood, this started out as a subtrope of
Deal With The Devil but branched out as writers found they could apply the same basic concept to any magically-empowered contract-maker, not just Satan.
Note that another sub-trope of
Deal With The Devil, the
Faustian Rebellion, is rarely if ever presented as viable countermand to a
Magically Binding Contract. However, should the person accomplish whatever
Impossible Task was provided in the contract, then the
The Devil has to follow his part too. In this trope, you gotta beat 'em at their own game.
Examples:
Live Action TV
- The Twilight Zone TOS episode "Escape Clause". A hypochondriac signs a Deal With The Devil to live forever.
- In the Charmed episode Soul Survivor (episode 7 of Season 6) A demon makes Faustian deals using magical contracts, they have a special clause that says the souls are to burn forever if he himself is killed, this is to discourage people from trying to break the contract by killing him. The main characters manage to deal with him by locating the vault and burning all the contracts, then killing the demon!
- In Angel, contracts with Wolfram and Hart are often magically enforced. All employees sign away their lives and afterlives to work for the firm. Wesley attempts to free somebody from their contract by retrieving and burning it. It simply reappears back where he found it.
- Supernatural is positively drowning in these.
Tabletop RPG
- Dungeons And Dragons. The 2nd Edition Tome of Magic sourcebook had the Contracts of Nepthas. Anyone who breaks such a contract is struck deaf, dumb and blind. Ambiguities in the contract's language can be exploited.
- Sareshan Oaths in the Living Arcanis third party setting for 3/3.5 are another D&D example.
- And geas / quest and mark of justice can be construed to be a type of contract without paper, as well. Also, people don't have to agree to it, so you can just use it to force people to do your bidding. Though it has a ten minute cast time, so unless they're restrained you'll be long dead before you finish casting it.
- In Exalted, Eclipse Caste Solars can sanctify any sort of agreement to be magically enforced by Heaven.
- Moonshadow Caste Abyssals and Fiend Caste Infernals can do similar things - for the Moonshadows, it's enforced by the Neverborn, while for the Fiends it's enforced by the Yozis. This isn't entirely surprising, as both Moonshadows and Fiends are corrupted Eclipse Exaltations.
- The Perfect of Paragon can make these contracts as well. In fact, he requires them of anyone who wants to live in his city.
- The raksha, thanks to a quirk in their nature, must abide by their sworn word, or be cursed. They know this full well, and are very, /very/ good at exploiting loopholes. The raksha can also make adjurations, oaths that empower a raksha who swears to them, so long as the raksha fulfills their conditions.
- In Nomine has the Lilim, demons with the ability to read people's Needs (which really means wants most often) by looking in their eyes; if the Lilim can fullfil a target's Need she (Lilim are almost always female) gets a "hook" which she can later use to place a Geas on that person, forcing them to do a return favour or else suffer dissonance (for celestials) or physical harm (for humans). It is possible for a strong willed person to resist the Geas at the time when the Lilim tries to call in the return favour. They can also place a Geas on a willing target (including on themselves). Their Mother, Lilith, has the same abilities but her Geases cannot be resisted.
- In Nomine Satanis and Magna Veritas had Marc, archangel of trade, whose angels could sign a binding contract. Breaching the contract caused direct damage to the breacher. This is also present in the American version.
- Changeling The Lost has a borderline case with Pledges, supernaturally-enforced deals Changelings (and the True Fae) can strike with others. While the Pledge doesn't supernaturally force others to obey, most Pledges offer significant penalties, called Sanctions, which afflict an oathbreaker. These Sanctions can range from a -1 to all rolls, to owing the other party a favor, to death.
- This is also how Arcadia, land of the True Fae, functions. If you're lost there, and you're cold, and you start a fire, the fire won't warm you. You don't have a contract for that. Water won't quench your thirst, because it doesn't know what it'll get in return. True Fae can use these contracts- and more importantly, the loopholes therein- to make things normal-ish for themselves.
- Mages can use Fate magic to bind a person to their word. Such Oaths are permanant unless their terms are fulfilled or fairly powerful magic is used to break them. The Oath does have the advantage that it confers the benefit of giving the person so bound a potential boost of will to overcome anything that might prevent them from fulfilling it. However, if they break the Oath, they are permanantly blighted with a curse whose power is proportional to that of the mage who cast it. At higher levels, mages can bind people to Oaths that they didn't actually make.
Western Animation
- This is the type of contract Ursula makes Ariel sign in The Little Mermaid. Even the power of Triton's trident has no effect upon it, implying that there must be some source of power in the ocean greater even than his.
- Of course, once Ursula dies, her contracts are no longer legally valid.
- Fairly Odd Parents: Timmy made Norm the Genie sign one so he'd grant his last wish without any loopholes.
- The second All Dogs Go To Heaven had a contractual handshake form a magical choke collar.
Video Games
- The infamous Blood Pact in Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn is a contract between a ruler and another party. If the ruler breaks the contract in any way, than all of his or her people will be killed by a magical plague.
- In Thage's path in Eternal Poison, she forces a magical contract upon adventurer-hunter Retica, preventing him from disobeying her wishes as she searches for the game's namesake Mac Guffin.
- It's nothing more than a plot point, but in Disgaea 2, demon summoning rituals are magically binding contracts that require an equivalent price to pay. This is how after the attempt to summoning Overlord Zenon supposedly goes bad, Adell is stuck with Rozalin as a party member.
- Devils do this by the letter in Grim Grimoire, Lillet Blan actually manages to get out of two; the first by using Mental Time Travel to before signing the contract and the second by binding the Demon Lord to do something he would never, ever do; embrace God.
- Used in the third route of Fate Stay Night, although agreeing to it leads to a bad end a while down the road.
Anime
- Mahou Sensei Negima had a magical item that makes contracts magically bound so that they have to be followed through. Only Fate has attempted to use it; he nearly got Negi to promise not to interfere with his plans.
- Chihiro signs one with the witch Yubaba in Spirited Away.
- In Kuroshitsuji Ciel has a contract with his demon butler, Sebastian, which basically means that when he has accomplished all of his endeavors his soul will be devoured by said demon. In the meantime, Ciel gets a multi-talented butler and bodyguard who will follow his every command.
Folklore
- Faust's contract with Mephistopheles has to be signed with blood, and can't be broken.
Literature
- Used in Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire. When the Goblet says Harry has to compete, well, Harry has to compete. Even though he didn't enter himself for consideration as a contestant, he has to compete, rather than the forger who put his name in the Goblet. Because apparently magic itself is just that easy to fool. Yet at the same time seemingly clever enough that "competing" by deliberately failing was not an option.
- Introduced in Harry Potter And The Half Blood Prince is the "Unbreakable Vow", which kills you if you attempt to break it.
- Suggested by Ron to be able to be cast on five-year-olds by six-year-olds. Nobody questions why a die-if-you-break-it oath spell can be cast by preschoolers. There's a reason why kindergarteners can't, say, sign a lease. [Five year olds are not preschoolers in the UK, Muggle or not.]
- Well, Ron did say that his normally laid-back father was totally furious when he found out what they were doing and stopped them at the last minute, so it's not like they were supposed to be casting it.
- Attempted to be cast by six-year-olds on a five-year-old. There's no guarantee that it would have worked, and indeed, every reason to believe otherwise - the Unforgivable Curses aren't particularly effective even when cast by fifteen/sixteen-year-olds. Mr Weasley was probably just making a point.
- Wheel Of Time uses this. The Aes Sedai had to make an oath never to lie while holding a powerful tar'angreal (magically infused object) called "The Oath Rod". This did not mean that clever Aes Sedai could not omit the truth or cleverly dance around it. They also swear not to use magic to harm people except in defense of their lives, which they get around by doing stuff like running onto a battlefield to put themselves in danger so they can start blowing things up. Yes, they are Completely Missing The Point of taking magical oaths not to do this stuff.
- The Young Wizards series has the "Binding Oath", which if broken permanently strips you of all supernatural energy. This version of the Magically Binding Contract is interestingly different in that:
- The person extracting the Oath can only do it once in their lifetime.
- The person extracting the Oath will eventually suffer a backlash from the Oath, with the backlash being worse the more powerful the Oath is.
- Lee and Taro sign one when they sign on with the troupe in Heroes Adrift, though they don't seem to really "get" that things would rebound on them badly if they ran away.
Webcomics
- Spoofed in the Torg Potter parody. Anything the Goblet says is magically binding. Even when the commands are completely irrational and have nothing to do with the Tournament. Once Torg figures out how to manipulate the Goblet with Muggle methods, he's able to get it to make a contract saying that Gandledorf has to sit on a cactus for the tournament's entire duration.
FanFiction
Music
Other
- The background of the Magic: the Gathering plane of Ravnica includes probably the largest example on the list: the Guildpact, a magical contract between the ten Guilds that essentially governs the entirety of the plane. The main plot of the novels turns out to be a convoluted attempt to break the Guildpact. Also they have advokists and lawmages. Yes, ''lawyer mages".
