Basic Trope: A magic user also happens to be good in a fist-fight.
- Straight: Walter is not only an accomplished spellcaster, but he has a mastery of martial arts as well.
- Exaggerated: Every single magic user in the story is a skilled hand-to-hand combatant, regardless of age or any other limitations.
- Downplayed: Walter is a skilled martial artist and a wizard, but most of his magic is focused on making him faster and stronger.
- Justified:
- Walter took up martial arts because he felt that he couldn't just rely on magic alone in combat. Besides there's always a chance of magic being nullified somehow.
- Or alternatively, magic has limitations which require the user to be physically fit, so he picked an activity that would also have a use in combat.
- Or in this universe, magic and physical fighting are intertwined so that casting spells occurs simultaneously with punches, kicks, grabs, etc.
- Walter's magic relies on Ki Manipulation or something similar, so he actually started out as a Bare-Fisted Monk and ended up graduating to a Kung-Fu Wizard.
- Inverted:
- Subverted: Despite his physical prowess, Walter isn't all that good in a fight...
- Walter punches Faye...and ends up breaking his fingers. Faye, for her part, feels nothing at all.
- Double Subverted:
- ...Or so he wants his opponent to believe. Once the enemy lets their guard down, he shows his true power.
- ...at frontal assaults, at least. Switching strategies to using choke-holds and throws works a lot better for him.
- Parodied: An enemy boasts that he cannot be harmed by magic, so Walter punches his face REALLY HARD!!!.
- Zig Zagged: Walter loses his magic powers and decides to take up martial arts. He becomes a master of them. He later regains his powers and relies on them so much that he forgets his martial arts training.
- Averted: No magic users are martial artists and no martial artists are magic users.
- Enforced: To be able to enter the inner circle of the Wizards Guild, Walter must defeat a demon using only martial arts and no magic.
- Lampshaded: ???
- Invoked:
- Walter is advised to take up martial arts to increase his combat skills.
- A Vain Sorceress, knowing that she's a Squishy Wizard and would likely get creamed in a close-combat fight against the muscle-bound hero, learns to cast a Status Buff spell, gaining 70 pounds of sculpted muscles without losing access to her powerful spells so that she can transition from being a Long-Range Fighter to a Full-Contact Magic practitioner.
- Exploited: ???
- Defied:
- All magic users must take a vow never to fight with anything but their magic.
- Martial artists view magic as a perversion of the art of combat and consider it taboo.
- Discussed: "I always wondered they called Walter "The Lightning Wizard" even though he specializes in fire spells. I guess they were talking about his reflexes and hand-to-hand combat skills."
- Conversed: ???
- Implied: The local Bare-Fisted Monk is doing things that can only be described as "supernatural", but never admits to knowing any magic.
- Deconstructed: Walter ends up neglecting his magic for his martial arts training and is less powerful than other wizards magic-wise as a result.
- Reconstructed: Having balanced abilities still comes in handy though.
- Played For Drama: The heroes approach a villain who appears to be a Squishy Wizard... only for him to turn out to be one of these. Much weeping and gnashing of teeth ensues.
- Played For Laughs: Walter invokes his magic by making Funny Bruce Lee Noises.
Use your fists or use your mind to get back to Kung-Fu Wizard. Really, either works for me.
