History Main / IneptMage

* Fumblemore in the ''WebVideo/YogscastMinecraftSeries'', particularly ''Shadow of Israphel''. His main specialty is [[StuffBlowingUp blowing things up]]. And [[MagicMisfire not always on purpose]]. He is surprisingly dangerous to the enemy, but apparently he blows things up so often that LetsPlay/LewisBrindley and LetsPlay/SimonLane are able to blame him for a series of creeper explosions.

* Eureka from ''Series/EureekasCastle'' had her off-moments. One example: she tried to make an ice cream float with magic and ended up with the ice cream floating in the air. She does admit that she's still learning, however.

* An unnamed druid from ''Webcomic/{{Digger}}'' was frustrated with the way the local slugs kept flocking to the beer he was trying to brew and drowning themselves in it while trying to drink, so he whipped up a ritual. It was ''supposed'' to give the slugs "foresight" so that they could realize in advance that trying to drink the beer would result in their drowning, but what it actually did was give them prophetic Sight.

The Inept Mage is not a charlatan or fraud; he actually does have the ability to do [[FunctionalMagic Real Magic]]. However, he lacks finesse and actual skill. His spells [[MagicMisfire frequently backfire, producing an effect other than he intended]]. This can be a source of comedy.

Quite often though, an Inept Mage will have moments of CrouchingMoronHiddenBadass when things he tries ''finally'' go off without a hitch, in spectacular fashion, in a critical moment, reminding characters and audience both why they're there. As a consequence, it can be an excellent ObfuscatingStupidity mask: be wary of all characters whose spells always work when really needed. Alternatively, he may get results similiar to AchievementsInIgnorance, with the spell working better than intended, but not in the ''way'' intended.

This differs from HowDoIShotWeb in that the Inept Mage understands the theory, but can't make it work in practice. Also, HowDoIShotWeb is usually temporary while the Inept Mage usually remains inept.

* Urd from ''Manga/AhMyGoddess'' is explicitly stated as being more powerful than Belldandy, yet ranked lower because she has little control over it. This is contrasted against the [[TheThreeFacesOfEve youngest sister, Skuld,]] who can barely muster any magic. Skuld's best spell is to basically print words across people's faces, something that can be achieved with a common sharpie. Otherwise Skuld is pretty hopeless with magic, displaying neither of her sisters' raw power, at least initially. She compensates by being a GadgeteerGenius.

** Renji has poor Kido (which is magic arts used by Shinigami) skills. He attempts to create a ball of light to guide his group's way through dark tunnels, but only manages to produce a tiny marble-sized ball that gives off barely any light. Rukia chastises him for trying to cast Kido spells bypassing any incantation since only talented Shinigami Kido users can get away with that and Renji isn't good enough to do it. Later on, he uses this habit of Kido spells backfiring on him in battle against Szayelaporro, deliberately casting the same Hado spell (this time properly chanted) so that it explodes on both himself and Szayelaporro at point-blank range. They both survive, but Szayelaporro has to call a temporary time-out from fighting to pull himself back together.

** Negi's father is an interesting case in that he is considered one of the most powerful mages of all times (reputed as the "Thousand Mage", because he supposedly knew a thousand spells... and supposedly had a thousand women), but he just needed to bring spark notes into battle to remember how to do his spells. Out of his head, he really only knew six spells.

* ''ComicBook/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' protagonist Zayne Carrick was never a very good padawan, seeming destined to be passed over when it came time for he and his classmates to be promoted to Jedi Knight [[CosmicPlaything on account of some literally supernaturally bad luck]].

* Linmer, the Great González's apprentice, in ''Bellacrín y la Sombra''. He can't even stand up straight in his master's clothes. Zigzagged with the Great González himself, since he doesn't really do magic... but has a lot of cool gadgets... that ''also'' fail to work spectacularly.

** Rincewind is a borderline case. By all rights he is a proper wizard: he can see octarine, see Death (he seems to lack the proper magical ability to know his death when it nears, but that probably has more to do with all the stuff he's been involved in messing up his timeline so much that even ''Death'' does not know when Rincewind will die), detect magic, and act as a magical lightning rod just like all other wizards. Thing is, he can't actually cast any spells, because during his short time at Unseen University he read one of the eight spells that created the universe, which made itself at home in his head and ruined his chances of ever learning any other spells. He actually does say it (along with the other seven) at the end of the second book, [[VancianMagic freeing him of them]], but apparently his ineptitude for magic is permanent. He also casts a simple spell unaided in that book, but that might be chalked up to EarlyInstallmentWeirdness (and the effort nearly kills him in any case). In at least one of the books, it's noted that, when Rincewind finally dies, the average spell-casting ability of the human race will actually ''increase'', very slightly.

* ''Literature/DoomValleyPrepSchool'': Magic classes just don't work for Petra, at all. She repeatedly tries her best at following the lessons, but she just winds up with minor mistakes that cause her to lose control of her magic.
** Day 1: She is tasked with showing a spell she already knows. She manifests a flame lighting cantrip she learned in the local equivalent of the Boy Scouts. It works. She tries to dispel the flame only to have it turn into a fireball and fly towards her own head.

** Gilderoy Lockhart is lousy at most forms of magic; [[CripplingOverspecialization the only thing he seems to be good at is memory charms]]. He was initially a very promising (but self-entitled) student who was sorted into Ravenclaw due to his brilliance, but at some point he decided he could get by on that and his natural charisma alone. (And he very nearly did.) Years of neglect rendered his skills at magic besides memory charms faulty beyond repair, leaving him barely competent enough to be considered a wizard in adulthood.

* ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'' has the titular magician Andrew Ketterly. Note that this is "inept by comparison InUniverse": with his MadScientist approach to magic, Andrew is able to create magic rings that let people ''teleport to other worlds'' (although forging them takes him a few decades) - but he's completely outclassed and humiliated once he meets the likes of [[BigBad Jadis]] (who completely [[ApocalypseHow destroyed]] an entire ''planet'' with a word) and [[BigGood Aslan]] (who creates a new ''universe'' by [[MagicMusic a song]]). Given that Andrew Ketterly is a big bad wannabe, this is just as well; as Jadis alone wrecking havoc in the series is quite enough, Andrew has a bad [[AdmiringTheAbomination crush]] on her, and would desperately like to prove himself to her if he could (she's not interested in the least). \\
Andrew's nephew Diggory (who shares his talent for science but not for magic), with Aslan's tutelage finds out that both magic and the whole BigBad stuff aren't for him, but science is, and becomes a famous professor in other books of the series.

** The protagonist Emily starts as one of these, having spent lots of time fantasizing about being a great witch who stops evil mages and saves the world, but not having spent nearly as much time training to use her magic in abttle. As a result, during her first field mission she's completely thrashed by a set of evil witches, and she finally realizes just how much she has to learn. The rest of the plot involves her infiltrating and undermining the evil WizardingSchool that those witches came from, and she admits to herself early on that she's hoping the school's brutal curriculum will help stop her from being one of these by forcing her to get good.
** The evil WizardingSchool has a few of these of these too, including a girl that didn't want to join up and seems afraid of her own powers and a very lazy witch who keeps trying to bribe others to do her work for her and thus doesn't actually put in any practice herself. When the students are all sorted into tiers according to their ability, these witches are put into 'Tier 6,' the lowest tier which is used only for the most incompetent witches in the school.

* Jormund from ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'' plays with this trope. He's a [[SquareRaceRoundClass Dwarven Mage]], and he's not incompetent ''per se''; He's fully skilled with the Force and Fire spell trees, and he knows the Disintegrate spell [[note]]It's a mana-heavy spell that instantly destroys any NPC, door or chest it hits, along with any items it may be holding[[/note]], but he is also a dwarf, so his spells cost double the mana to cast. Not only that, [[ArtificialStupidity his AI cannot cast spells in an intelligent way]]. His AI seems to have a pathological obsession with the Fire Elemental spell, the single most mana-heavy spell in the game. Also, Disintegrate in the hands of a properly specced player character is a GameBreaker, but it is horribly unwieldy for [=NPCs=] and can lead to accidental UnintentionallyUnwinnable moments. This means Jormund is a terrible choice for a spellcaster; more often than not, he simply gets into a fight, chucks a few Disintegrates or becomes an Elemental, and [[PsychicNosebleed drops down]] [[HeroicRROD unconscious]] after about 30 seconds.

* The Wild Mage class also appears in ''[[VideoGame/BaldursGate Baldur's Gate 2]]'', this time with a set list of results, but an incredibly variable one. They can [[GenderBender change a random target's gender]], [[DropTheCow summon a cow right above their target's head]], [[MagicMisfire accidentally target themselves with the spell]]... At least in this case you get the benefit of SaveScumming.
* Jowan from ''VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins''. Between the generally inherent power of Mages and his dabbling in BloodMagic he ''should'' be very, ''very'' powerful. Alas, he's much weaker than almost every other Mage in the game, and only turned to BloodMagic out of desperation. It becomes a tragic plot point through the series: magical prowess varies widely from being barely able to light a candle with magic to the [[GameBreaker freakishly enormous raw power]] displayed by playable mages, but since powerful mages once lorded over the whole continent and enslaved the Muggles, society in general and templars tasked to watch over the mages in particular tend to assume that every mage is a powerhouse capable of slaughtering a village with a thought and as a result treat them all with extreme distrust and use increasingly oppressive methods to keep them in check. Many inept mages (or simply competent mages who aren't good at fighting) suffering from said oppression but lacking the firepower to actively fight back eventually turn to blood magic to even the field, get possessed as a result, which in turn increases the distrust and prejudice toward mages even more. To add insult to injury, it's made abundantly clear as the story progress (especially to players who select a Mage as their PC) that the circles and templars cannot really contain the really powerful mages: characters like Wynne, Vivienne, Morrigan, a mage Warden/Hawke/Inquisitor can come and go as their please and often ignore the harsh rules imposed on their peers, meaning the harsh treatments supposed to contain dangerous mages are mainly used against those who [[SelfFulfillingProphecy wouldn't even become a threat to society had they not been driven to the brink by the aforementioned rules and mistreatment]]

* ''VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic'': Smuggler companion Guss Tuno was briefly a Jedi apprentice, but lacked both the talent and the temperment to excel there. A later expansion implies that his methods of using the Force are [[TakeAThirdOption simply unconventional]].

* Harrison from ''WebAnimation/CampCamp'' is able to use magic, and some rather powerful ones at that. Unfortunately, he seems to be the ''only'' person in the show's universe to possess such powers, so his lack of training means that his attempts at using them often do more harm than good to him and everyone around him. It probably doesn't help that his primary interest is in stage magic and that he may be oblivious to possessing actual magic powers. (He did honestly make his brother disappear but it's unclear if he's aware that there may be more eldritch circumstances behind it.)

* Uncle Oswidge from ''WesternAnimation/DaveTheBarbarian''. It's eventually revealed that his incompetence is because he's not a qualified mage; he ''did'' go to sorcery school, but as a trainee cook, not a student.

** Madame Razz from ''WesternAnimation/SheRaPrincessOfPower''. She actually very powerful, but is so ditzy and absent-minded that she tends to mispronounce words. Fortunately, her mistakes still beat up bad guys. For example, when she tries to conjure a wall to stall the bad guys, she says, "ball", and the conjured ball bounces and smacks the bad guys around.

* Played with regarding Willow in ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse''. She was a late bloomer when it came to magic and was mockingly referred to as "Half-a-witch Willow" by her peers (not helped by the fact that her parents had her studying in the abomination coven track due to its better career opportunites despite her lacking any talent for it), but she has incredibly powerful plant magic and excels once she's allowed to start studying that instead.

* Grimshaw Griswald Grimsby from ''Literature/TheUnorthodoxChronicles'' is a witch suffering serious PowerInconcinence due to the physical and psychological scars from a childhood housefire. He can only do three spells, and when he tries to join [[TheMenInBlack the Auditors]], he fails miserably for being a "Decent person, mediocre witch."

** Ron, as exemplified in the page image, has this issue throughout most of his second school year. Because his wand is damaged in an accident at the beginning of the year, it messes with his ability to do magic.

* ''VideoGame/{{Atelier}}'':

* ''WesternAnimation/TheLittleMermaidIIReturnToTheSea'': None of [[BigBad Morgana's]] magic works by itself; Morgana depends on items such as Ursula's leftover magic and Triton's trident to actually pose a threat.

** Renji has poor magical skills. He attempts to use magic to create a ball of light to guide his group's way through dark tunnels but only manages to produce a tiny marble-sized ball that gives off barely any light. Rukia chastises him for trying to cast magic non-verbally since only talented shinigami magic users can get away with that and Renji isn't good enough to do it. Later on, he uses this habit of spells backfiring on him in battle against Szayel Aporro, deliberately casting the same spell (this time properly chanted) so that it explodes on both himself and Szayel at point-blank range. They both survive, but Szayel has to call a temporary time-out from fighting to pull himself back together.
** Omaeda is also noted for having poor magical skill. When he attempts to cast a spell during his fight with Barragan, it doesn't work at all well and he bemoans the fact he lacks the magical ability that certain other lieutenants are famous for.
** Iba chastises Ikkaku for his lack of magical skill. Ikkaku states he's not cut out for it, but Iba implies that he could be if only he wanted to be.
** Zaraki is the only captain with absolutely no magical ability whatsoever. Although he's not the only captain who doesn't use it, others (such as Komamura) do have some small level of ability, even if the ability is only poor. Zaraki, however, has zero ability for it. [[TheBrute Not like he really cares though]]; if anything, it just makes [[BloodKnight the fights funner]].

* ''Manga/{{Naruto}}'': Naruto almost failed his [[WizardingSchool ninja academy]] exam in the first episode due to being unable to make proper Illusion Clones (any attempt resulted in a duplicate that looked pale and sickly and malformed). However, he ends up passing after learning the Multi-Shadow Clone Jutsu, which makes an army of solid physical clones (and is considered forbidden because it could drain the user of their chakra). However, it's implied that Naruto's massive amount of chakra and poor chakra control is why his normal Clones failed. The Shadow Clones are more taxing, but likely a lot easier for him to use because they consume more chakra and thus easier for him to divide his chakra into.

** Rincewind is a borderline case. By all rights he is a proper wizard: he can see octarine, see Death (he does not seem to have the proper wizard [and witch] ability to know their death when it nears, but that probably has more to do with all the stuff he's been involved in messing up his timeline so much that even ''Death'' does not know when Rincewind will die), detect magic, and act as a magical lightning rod just like all other wizards. Thing is, he can't actually cast any spells, because during his short time at Unseen University he read one of the eight spells that created the universe, which made itself at home in his head and ruined his chances of ever learning any other spells. He actually does say it (along with the other seven) at the end of the second book, [[VancianMagic freeing him of them]], but apparently his ineptitude for magic is permanent. He also casts a simple spell unaided in that book, but that might be chalked up to EarlyInstallmentWeirdness (and the effort nearly kills him in any case). In at least one of the books, it's noted that, when Rincewind finally dies, the average spell-casting ability of the human race will actually ''increase'', very slightly.

** Neville Longbottom is easily the most prominent sample until he TookALevelInBadass in [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix the fifth book]]. It doesn't help that he's been using [[spoiler:his father's wand]] for most of the series instead of a wand better suited to him, which of course doesn't explain but still ties into his klutziness in unrelated fields like, say, broomstick flying.
** Ron Weasley is rendered fairly inept for much of ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheChamberOfSecrets'' when his wand is broken. See the page image. Amusingly, it ends up saving him and Harry when [[spoiler:Lockhart gets his hands on it and tries to wipe their memories. It backfires.]] It being second-hand also hindered him in ''[[Literature/HarryPotterAndThePhilosophersStone Philosophers' Stone]]'' as well. Because of both, it wasn't until he got his own that he showed considerably greater competence and proved that he was really no worse than the others.

** Gilderoy Lockhart counts as the only true example in the series because the character solely factors into the ineptitude: [[CripplingOverspecialization The only thing he seems to be good at]] is memory charms. He was initially a very promising (but self-entitled) student who was sorted into Ravenclaw due to his brilliance, but he just decided at some point that he could get by on that and his natural charisma alone. (And he very nearly did.) Years of neglect rendered his skills at magic besides memory charms faulty beyond repair, leaving him barely competent enough to be considered a wizard in adulthood.

* Louise from ''LightNovel/TheFamiliarOfZero''. She can't cast any spells, and any attempt to do so has them instead manifest as comically powerful explosions. Subverted in that [[spoiler:later in the series, it's revealed that this is because she's attuned to a magical property known as the Void, which everyone assumed to be little more than myth. As such, while she can't perform spells of any other type, she's an absolute savant at void magic. Naturally, this is about the point in the series where she [[TookALevelInBadass takes a level in badass]].]]

* ''ComicBook/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' protagonist Zayne Carrick was never a very good padawan, seeming destined to be passed over when it came time for he and his classmates to be promoted to Jedi Knight [[CosmicPlaything on account of some literally supernaturally bad luck]].

** The evil WizardingSchool has a few of these of these too, including a girl that didn't want to join up and seems afraid of her own powers, and a very lazy witch who keeps trying to bribe others to do her work for her and thus doesn't actually put in any practice herself.

* ''Fanfic/ChildOfTheStorm'' has Hermione - she can perform ordinary magic flawlessly and even learn wandless magic, if less intuitively than Harry. This is largely because she thrives on [[MagicAIsMagicA rule-based magic]]. Unfortunately, she is also potentially the most powerful wielder of Chaos Magic since Wanda Maximoff - herself the most powerful Chaos Mage in centuries, if not millennia. And Chaos Magic, as is observed, tends to point and laugh at rules, working on a principle of [[RealityWarper bullying reality into doing what you want it to.]]
* In ''Fanfic/FateStarryNight'', Ritsuka has all of one magic circuit and wouldn't be able to support a Servant if not for Chaldea's infrastructure. What he does have is a working knowledge of the basics, Mystic Codes to let him cast simple but useful spells (though he has practiced Gandr enough to use it even without a Mystic Code, albeit with diminished effectiveness), and unsurpassed compatibility as a Master. When he learns that Shirou has been trying to use his own nerves as Magic Circuits, Ritsuka decides to get him to a proper magus (read: Rin) for training ASAP, as he can't teach Shirou much of anything.

* ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'' has the titular magician Andrew Ketterly. Note that this is "inept by comparison InUniverse": with his MadScientist approach to magic, Andrew is able to create magic rings that let people ''teleport to other worlds'' (although forging them takes him a few decades) - but he's completely outclassed and humiliated once he meets the likes of Jadis (who completely [[ApocalypseHow destroyed]] an entire ''planet'' with a word) and Aslan (who creates a new ''universe'' by [[MagicMusic a song]]). Given that Andrew Ketterly is a big bad wannabe, this is just as well; as Jadis alone wrecking havoc in the series is quite enough, Andrew has a bad [[AdmiringTheAbomination crush]] on her, and would desperately like to prove himself to her if he could (she's not interested in the least).

* ''Literature/TheMagiciansNephew'' has the titular magician Andrew Ketterly. Note that this is "inept by comparison InUniverse": with his MadScientist approach to magic, Andrew is able to create magic rings that let people ''travel to other worlds'' (although it takes him a few decades) - but he's completely outclassed and humiliated once he meets the likes of Jadis (who completely [[ApocalypseHow destroyed]] an entire ''planet'' with a word) and Aslan (who creates a new ''universe'' by [[MagicMusic a song]]).

* Glenn in ''LightNovel/AkashicRecordsOfBastardMagicInstructor'' isn't able to shorten magical chants like his students can, and has low magical reserves. However, he does have extraordinary knowledge of magic, can cast some high-level spells if he has time to chant them, is experienced at applying his magic to combat, and even invented [[AntiMagic a spell of his own]].

* Koyomi of ''LightNovel/ModernMagicMadeSimple'' knows ''one'' spell. She can turn a spell into a falling washpan. ''Any'' spell, belonging to anybody. A cantrip, a fireball, a nuke, a MacGuffin... Yeah, once the implications are realized, the other mages see her usefulness, although she doesn't quite realize what a GameBreaker she has.

* In ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'', the abundantly competent white-magic user Shilfiel tries her hand at black magic to balance out her repertoire and be more useful in combat. She's so woefully incompetent at this (her spell creates a [[spoiler:magic carrot]]) that Zelgadis later asks her to cast the spell for him, relying on her inability to make it harmful, since he wants to use it to snap a teammate out of their trance. Subverted in the second season, when [[spoiler:she uses the Dragon Slave against Phibrizzo, and later says she learned it to be more like Lina so she could travel with Gourry]] proving that she has no inherent weakness in offensive magic, is just unpracticed at it.

* Shirou Emiya starts out this way in the ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight''. He only knows three spells in the beginning, and only two he can do well. What's more, until he's corrected by Rin, he's doing them wrong because he misinterpreted his only teacher's instructions. (Granted, if you've read ''LightNovel/FateZero'', you'll get the feeling that said teacher probably wasn't in the best condition to teach magic.)

* Mongo Iron-Hand from ''Comicbook/TheWarlord''. Mongo is an eccentric who has considerable skill at performing small-scale magical feats but has difficulty performing large-scale ones. He somehow has knowledge of the Earth of our present day, which enables him to conjure up cigars and martinis for himself.

** The ''TabletopGame/AdvancedDungeonsAndDragonsSecondEdition'' ''Tome of Magic'' sourcebook introduces the Wild Mage. Although able to master "wild magic" spells otherwise forbidden to other wizards, the level of power of their magic is variable, and they run the risk of causing a "wild surge" -- a totally random effect -- with every casting. Wild Mages aren't actually inept (unless that's how you play one). Just ''crazy''. Consider their signature spell: "Nahal's Reckless Dweomer"; a spell that the mage casts in order to attempt to shape it into any other spell he knows without having the spell memorized. Wild Surges can be extremely deadly if you're lucky; casting Magic Missile has an equal chance of making your opponent (and everything in ten feet of it) explode messily as it does the chance of summoning harmless squirrels. The thing that really drives them toward possibly being inept mages was that whenever they cast a spell, not only do they have a chance of a Wild Surge, they also have a variable applied to their caster level, which can cause them to cast it at either a higher or lower level than they actually are. If they cast it at a level that is below the spell's minimum caster level, the casting fails completely. For example, Fireball has a minimum caster level of 5, so if they roll a result of 4th level, the spell fizzles.

* Juga from ''Animation/QumiQumi'', thanks to not bothering to pay attention and believing he's better than he really is. The biggest issue is the fact that his ''entire tribe'' is built around magic. His magic staff is also ridiculously finicky, a simple tap on the ground can cause an out of control magic burst.

** Renji has poor magical skills. He attempts to use magic to create a ball of light to guide his group's way through dark tunnels, but only manages to produce a tiny marble-sized ball that gives off barely any light. Rukia chastises him for trying to cast magic non-verbally since only talented shinigami magic users can get away with that and Renji isn't good enough to do it. Later on, he uses this habit of spells backfiring on him in battle against Szayel Aporro, deliberately casting the same spell (this time properly chanted) so that it explodes on both himself and Szayel at point-blank range. They both survive, but Szayel has to call a temporary time-out from fighting to pull himself back together.

* ''Anime/LittleWitchAcademia2017'': Akko is one of these, not even able to fly a broom. This initially seems like a combo of her being both of {{muggle}} heritage and just not taking her studies seriously, but even when she rectifies the latter, she still struggles. Then it's revealed that it's because [[spoiler:her magic was unintentionally taken by her idol, Shiny Chariot, while attending the magic show that inspired her to become a witch in the first place. This also reveals that Diana was also once this, as she attended the same show.]]

* Nina Sakura in ''Manga/UltraManiac'' is one of these. Eventually it is revealed in the manga that [[spoiler:this is because her magic potenital is so ''high'' that any magic she casts is over powered and thus messes up, she just needs specialist training.]]

* Mongo Iron-Hand from ''Comicbook/TheWarlord''. Mongo is an eccentric who has considerable skill at performing small-scale magical feats but has difficulty in performing large-scale ones. He somehow has knowledge of the Earth of our present day, which enables him to conjure up cigars and martinis for himself.

** Harry is by no means inept, but notes that he lacks the finesse and knowledge of most members of the White Council, only making up for it through brute force, stubbornness, and cheating, holds some water. Harry tried to fly once via a broomstick he'd enchanted; in some combination of this and not knowing how to fly to begin with, [[NoodleIncident it didn't go so well]] (and [[SugarWiki/FunnyMoments went down as a UFO]]). Harry's track-record with potions isn't very good either, as they've done things like [[GoneHorriblyRight make him so unnoticeable he can't warn someone there's a werewolf approaching]].

** Neville Longbottom is easily the most prominent sample, until he TookALevelInBadass in [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheOrderOfThePhoenix the fifth book]]. It doesn't help that he's been using [[spoiler:his father's wand]] for most of the series instead of a wand better suited to him, which of course doesn't explain but still ties into his klutziness in unrelated fields like, say, broomstick flying.

** Nynaeve is the most powerful female channeler seen in the centuries, but her mental block prevents her from using magic, unless she is very angry. While she still can be helpful in the battle, it severly hampers her training.

** Sabrina herself, most of time. Though in this case it's mainly from her being too quick to read the fine print or not thinking things through.

* Marnie Stonebrook from ''Series/TrueBlood'' doesn't have a clue on her spells. But whenever she gets possessed by the ghost of the witch Antonia Gavilán, she becomes one of the most powerful villains in the show.

* The poem ''Der Zauberlehrling'' (''The Sorcerer's Apprentice'') by Creator/JohannWolfgangVonGoethe is about a sorcerer's apprentice who enchants a broom to do his chores, but doesn't know how to ''stop'' the broom.

** This is downplayed significantly with ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragonsFifthEdition'' Wild Magic Sorcerers, who function like any Sorcerer but have a (small) chance of unleashing a Wild Magic Surge. The results of this may be beneficial but may also occasionally screw you over, especially if the Sorcerer happens to be standing in the middle of the party ''right'' as they randomly casts a fireball centered on themselves. At higher levels, they gain advantage on the roll for Surge results, almost entirely removing any risk of ineptitude.

* ''VideoGame/FateGrandOrder'': The [[PurelyAestheticGender protagonist]], Ritsuka Fujimaru, was an ordinary student who had no knowledge of magic who ended up dragged into a world-saving adventure. Though Ritsuka is slowly taught magic by their peers, they are constantly noted to be behind most mages and can only perform the most basic of spells. If not for their exceptional compatibility for being a Master to Heroic Spirits, Ritsuka would've been useless to Chaldea. They eventually develop impostor syndrome over not being a proper mage like other characters and [[spoiler:subconsciously fear either being replaced or sidelined by someone better.]]

** In ''Wizardry 8'' the chance of success to cast given spell depends on the magic school skill and elemental school for given spell (for example Wizardry school and Fire magic for Fireball spell), spell tier and power with which the spell is cast. The power levels explicitly indicate the probability of spell to succeed (green border for given power level means it's safe to cast, while casting at power level with red border will literally never succeed). This means beginner mages will likely either cast low-tier spells at low power or having their own spells blow in their (and their party's) face all the time.

* Harrison from ''WebAnimation/CampCamp'' is able to to use magic, and some rather powerful one at that. Unfortunately, he seems to be the ''only'' person in the show's universe to possess such powers, so his lack of training means that his attempts at using them often do more harm than good to him and everyone around him. It probably doesn't help that his primary interest is in stage magic and that he may be oblivious to possessing actual magic powers. (He did honestly make his brother disappear but it's unclear if he's aware that there may be more eldritch circumstances behind it.)

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Gawayn}}'', Elspeth's spells don't always work right, and it takes her three to four times to get it right. She sometimes misinterprets the instructions on the Great Book of Magic.

*** Twilight Sparkle has her moments as well, not due to any lack of technical skill but because she can be rather reckless when excitement over a new bit of MagiBabble or frustration at her inability to figure something out get the better of her.