A White Mage is a character archetype and often a gameplay archetype which focuses on healing and/or buffing magic. They may also have access to magic that causes some status effects. Modern incarnations will often be given some offensive ability, often magic of the
holy variety.
Frequently, White Mages will be extremely effective against undead, either through the power of the
Holy Hand Grenade,
Turn Undead spells, or
Revive Kills Zombie characteristics.
Many games with a
Character Class System or
Job System, especially
Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games, will have a White Mage class that fulfils the
Healer role.
A White Mage is almost always
The Medic, although they have the addition of buffs. Female White Mages in
Eastern RPGs are frequently the
White Magician Girl, although they must also fit the personality requirements for that trope.
White Mages are frequently
paired with a Black Mage as a
Foil. They also frequently overlap with
Squishy Wizard, though they tend to be more resilient than their chromatic counterparts.
Subtrope of
Support Party Member. If a character has both healing and
offensive magic in relatively equal measure, they are a
Red Mage, instead. If a White Mage
can sling healing spells while fighting on the front lines, you've got yourself what's known as a
Paladin, or
Combat Medic. Contrast
Black Mage. Not to be confused with
White Magic, which is only sometimes the source of a White Mage's power.
Examples:
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Tabletop Games
- Clerics from Dungeons & Dragons. Although in practice, D&D Clerics tend to suck at their intended purpose in more than a few editions (damage out-grows healing ability quite quickly), but awesome through use of things that otherwise fall in Useless Useful Spell. It should be noted that unlike most White Mages, D&D Clerics could wear full-plate armor and use large shields with no penalty to their magic usage. Up until the third edition, they were also forbidden from using bladed weapons, unless their religion specifically allows this. They also had stat-buffing spells that helped their lack of a Warrior's battle prowess.
- In Heroica, LEGO's dungeon crawl game system, the Druid character has a special ability that allows him to restore full health to himself or, depending on house rules, any other player. This is one of the only non-combat-related abilities to be found among the game system's eight playable characters.
Eastern RPG
- The Trope Namer is Final Fantasy I, which provided White Mage as a starting class. It's appeared in almost every Final Fantasy game since.
- Final Fantasy II has Minwu, a rare male example in the series.
- Final Fantasy III had White Mage as a job class.
- Final Fantasy IV had Rosa and Porom and also several White Mage NPCs.
- Final Fantasy V had a White Mage job class.
- Final Fantasy IX had Garnet dress as a White Mage, and this was her primary use for the first part of the game. Once she gets her summons back, however, she's more of a Red Mage. Eiko Carol is introduced immediately after as the party's white magic specialist.
- Final Fantasy X has Yuna, although thanks to the Sphere Grid you could customize her to be anything with a little work (and any other character to be a White Mage, by extension).
- This is the primary function of the 'Medic' paradigm role in Final Fantasy XIII.
- Several games in the Dragon Quest series feature the Priest job class.
- Marco from Radiant Historia is almost a pure White Mage in his skillset, having almost no abilities that are not buffs or heals.
- Princess Toadstool (not named Peach yet) served this purpose in Super Mario RPG, only having one damaging special attack.
- Tales of Phantasia has Mint Adnade, who would more or less codify the "cute cleric" stereotype associated with most white mages.
- In Tales Of Symphonia, we have Raine.
- Tear Grants from Tales Of The Abyss is possibly one of the most Badass white mages out there.
- Ness in EarthBound serves this purpose, since he is the best healer in the party, most of his PSI is support, and his only damaging PSI attack is PK Rockin'. Before him in MOTHER 1 was Ninten, whose only PSI was support.
- And after him comes Lucas in MOTHER 3, who has all the buffs/healing PSI as opposed to Kumatora, who comes with most of the offensive PSI.
- One thing to note is that Ness and Lucas, at least, are a bit closer to Magic Knight or Paladin, as they're both Mighty Glaciers who have very powerful physical attacks in addition to their healing abilities.
Massive Multiplayer Online Games
- Grand Fantasia has the Acolyte -> Priest -> Cleric -> Prophet class progression, which is a pure White Mage archetype.
- The monks from Guild Wars fit this trope to a T and are almost allways expected to heal, reduce damage and cure conditions. Unfortunately for monk fans, the profession is no longer in the sequel because its design has no place for pure healing characters.
Strategy RPG
- Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Advance, and A2 all have a White Mage job class.
- Tactics Ogre has the Cleric, Priest, and High Priest as pure White Mage classes. The Witch class is also a purely supportive spell-caster.
- The Fire Emblem series has Clerics, which use healing magic through staves. They usually promote to classes that either add holy magic or fall more under Red Mage.
- Nippon Ichi's Strategy RPGs have the Healer class, most frequently seen in the Disgaea series. Without abusing skill learning systems such as reincarnation, fusing, or the apprentice system, he or she will only naturally learn healing and support magic.
Webcomics
- White Mage from 8-Bit Theater. Naturally, since she and every other character is based on the job classes from Final Fantasy I.
- The Noob features some white mages, not surprisingly parodying the character type.
