History Main / TheMagicGoesAway

* The Creator/HayaoMiyazaki film ''Anime/PrincessMononoke'': Humans are expanding and imposing themselves on the natural world, heedless of the consequences and damage it causes, and the spirits cannot keep up with the technological pace of humanity. Each new generation of gods is smaller and dumber than the last, and soon they will be just more beasts. [[spoiler:While the Deer God's death marks the end of an era for the mystical beings, as the forest and its many animal gods are either gone or diminished, but the Deer God will continue as he is both "life and death". Towards the end, we see a Kodama rattle its head, so the spirits aren't quite gone. Yet.]]

* The Creator/HayaoMiyazaki film ''Anime/PrincessMononoke'': [[spoiler:While the Deer God's death marks the end of an era for the mystical beings, the real end of magic is that humans are expanding and imposing themselves on the natural world, heedless of the consequences (which has dire results for many), and the spirits cannot keep up with the technological pace of humanity. The movie makes it clear that the forest and its many animal gods are either gone or diminished, but that the Deer God will continue as he is both "life and death". Towards the end, we see a Kodama rattle its head, so the spirits aren't quite gone. Yet.]]

This trope is distinguished from HereThereWereDragons in that the work is about the events which result in (or at least happen around the time of) the magic going away. In HereThereWereDragons, the magic already went away long ago, and the story isn't about that disappearance. May overlap with EndOfAnAge in that both involve the loss of wonder, but differs in that it is specifically about magic and magic settings. Can also overlap with DeathOfTheOldGods, although that does not necessarily mean magic goes away entirely so much as it becomes less obvious to and involved with the lives of humans; or {{Gotterdammerung}}, although that usually implies a more sudden, cataclysmic loss of the gods and magic than this trope. Often an example of GrowingUpSucks, but on a more universe-wide level. See TheMagicComesBack and PowerNullifier if this is a temporary status and it actually returns. Compare to TwilightOfTheSupers, a modern equivalent in which {{Superhero}}s disappear from a setting.

%%* Creator/UrsulaKLeGuin's ''Literature/{{Tehanu}}'' is clearly moving this way in the end.%%ZCE -- how?

* ''TabletopGame/{{Alternity}}'' (and later d20 Modern) setting ''TabletopGame/DarkMatter''. When large amounts of dark matter sweep through the solar system (AKA the Dark Tide), magic and psionics start to work, miracles begin to occur and fantastic animals and monsters appear. When the amount of dark matter decreases, these effects stop working. The Dark Tide has come and gone many times in Earth's past.

* In the TabletopGame/D20Modern setting ''Shadow Chasers'', magic comes and goes in waves as the Shadow realm merges and separates with our world. The game world of ''Shadow Chasers'' is an inversion, since the magic ''has been gone,'' but now [[TheMagicComesBack it's coming back]].
* Another d20 Modern setting, ''Urban Arcana'', could be considered the "second stage" of this cycle, as enough stuff has come through the Shadow to make it into outright ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''-flavored UrbanFantasy.

Of course, with all magic gone, all beings whose very existence were tied to magic must go away, too. Either they vanish into nothingness, or travel to [[AnotherDimension a better realm]]. Those that use the former may be more of a DownerEnding, as everything magical that the player worked hard for is now gone, while those that use the latter are more of a BittersweetEnding, as even though they're gone, they're in a better place.

* This is implicitly a big part of the ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' saga, which is known for using MagicalRealism rather liberally. Almost all of the games involve ''some'' vaguely-explained hint of the supernatural that's accepted as "normal" by the characters, whether it's telepathy, shamanism, supernatural luck, or control over animals. Interestingly, though, the {{prequel}} ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', which takes place in the 1960s, comes the closest to being an outright {{fantasy}} game, with characters exhibiting supernatural abilities ''far'' more blatant than any seen in previous games; the most noticeable example is also the oldest character in the series, who was likely born around 1860. But by ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'', which takes place in [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture the (then-)near-future year of 2014]], the series has only two characters left with supernatural abilities, one of whose are now augmented with technology, next to a whole bunch characters who exclusively rely on technological augmentation. One of them has an extremely minor role, and both are dead and gone by the end of the game. Though it never addresses the issue explicitly, the implication is that magic-users are the old guard and that they're gradually displaced by the onset of the digital age; by the time of ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'', another four years later, there are no characters with magical abilities whatsoever.

** In Valdemar, magic is believed to have disappeared centuries ago with the [[Literature/LastHeraldMageTrilogy last Herald-Mage]]. Later, it turns out that it isn't really gone; [[spoiler:there is just a massive BrainwashingForTheGreaterGood spell in effect that makes Valdemarans [[LaserGuidedAmnesia forget]] about it and think of it as only real in the past tense, and watcher spirits in place to stare at any mages that show up until they go away, though these mages certainly can still work magic. When facing enemies who have magic, Valdemarans become able to think about it as real in order to deal with it, though they tend to overestimate it and mages due to inexperience, but this ability ebbs away pretty much as soon as magic isn't an imminent threat and it takes serious effort to overcome this brainwashing for even a few moments.]] Getting the magic back becomes a major plot point of the ''Mage Winds'' trilogy.

** In Valdemar, magic is believed to have disappeared centuries ago with the [[Literature/LastHeraldMageTrilogy last Herald-Mage]]. Later, it turns out that it isn't really gone; [[spoiler:there is just a massive MindControl spell in effect that makes everyone [[LaserGuidedAmnesia forget]] about it, and watcher spirits in place to stare at any mages that show up until they go away]]. Getting the magic back becomes a major plot point of the ''Mage Winds'' trilogy.

*** ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyX2'' gives a more in-depth look at the bittersweet consequences of changing the world. Life is undeniably better and people no longer live in fear. However, now that Spira is no longer stuck in stasis the beautiful Macalania Woods are dying. The Thunder Plains have been tamed, which makes them much nicer to travel but also takes the awe out of them. (Who would have thought you could miss getting hit by lightning?) The ruins, former destination of the sacred pilgrimage, are overrun with tourists, understandably upsetting for Yuna. There are dark aeons, however.

* In ''TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering'', the power of the planeswalkers has been drastically weakened after various multiverse-threatening disasters. The older planeswalkers are the only ones who realize how much power they lost. [[BigBad Nicol Bolas]] is particularly bitter and schemes to regain what he lost, and several of the game's storylines -- such as the Alara, Amonkhet, and Ixalan arcs -- are driven by bids on his part to claw his way back to his old levels of power.

* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft: Cataclysm'' ended with the [[OurDragonsAreDifferent dragonflights]] losing the vast majority of their power and the Dragon Aspects losing their immortality along with it. While magic still exists in the rest of the setting, the dragons are significantly less powerful than they were before ''Cataclysm'', to the point that ''Legion'' reveals that the entire species has become sterile along with their magic.
** Further back in ''VideoGame/Warcraft3'' when the World Tree was destroyed to prevent Archimond from corrupting it the Night Elves lost their immortality and connection to nature. Major characters in [=WoW=] have begun showing signs of aging for the first time in 10,000 years.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/LoveDeathAndRobots'' short "Good Hunting", the GoodOldWays of mythical China give way to the [[SteamPunk rapid mechanization]] of the invading British Empire. Yan is a shapeshifting ''[[AsianFoxSpirit huli jing]]'' who gradually loses her ability to transform and is left trapped as a beautiful woman with no skills to find employment in the modern world, leaving her no choice but to turn to prostitution to survive. Likewise, Liang and his father, [[HunterOfMonsters monster hunters]] by trade, end up jobless as the old ways fade -- a detail left out from the original short story [[spoiler:has Liang's father [[DrivenToSuicide hang himself]] when he loses his respect and source of income.]]

This trope is distinguished from HereThereWereDragons in that the work is about the events which result in (or at least happen around the time of) the magic going away. In HereThereWereDragons, the magic already went away long ago, and the story isn't about that disappearance. May overlap with EndOfAnAge in that both involve the loss of wonder, but differs in that it is specifically about magic and magic settings. Can also overlap with DeathOfTheOldGods, although that does not necessarily mean magic goes away entirely so much as it becomes less obvious to and involved with the lives of humans; or {{Gotterdammerung}}, although that usually implies a more sudden, cataclysmic loss of the gods and magic than this trope. Often an example of GrowingUpSucks, but on a more universe-wide level. See TheMagicComesBack and PowerNullifier if this is a temporary status and it actually returns. Compare to TwilightOfTheSupers, a modern equivalent in which {{Superhero}}s dissapear from a setting.

So the BigBad is defeated, right? All things are going back to where they ought to be. [[OrderVersusChaos Order]] is taking over again. But there is no room in this new world order for magic. Perhaps magic has finished its work in the world, maybe the Big Bad was tied to the source of all magic, or maybe it was sealed away. Maybe a MasqueradeEnforcer emerged to drive magic into hiding, and the magicians decided that it was easier to leave for some more magic-friendly MagicalLand. but all traces of magic are now gone, or at least disappearing fast. TheTimeOfMyths is no more.

'''Not to be confused with ''Literature/TheMagicGoesAway'', the {{Trope Namer|s}}'''.

*** At the end of ''[[Anime/DragonBallGT GT]]'', Shenron decides that humanity has become too dependent on the Dragon Balls, and decides to take them and leave Earth for a hundred years, so that humanity can learn to solve its own problems.

* A series of ''ComicBook/WizardsOfMickey'' seemed to end like this: the EldritchAbomination who had laid the crystals that the heroes got their powers from has taken them back and left the series's setting to go back to its dimension from which it had been marooned millennia ago. However, the series was revived thanks to readers asking for more of it, and it was [[RetCon retconned]] that only one type of magic was tied to the crystals, and the heroes are now trying to master other kinds of more ancient magic.

* In ''Fanfic/TheBridge'', this happened to the version of Terra (Earth) that Godzilla and the other kaiju hail from thousands of years ago. 77,000 years ago you had TheFairFolk, floating cities (Atlantis), and {{Magitek}} everywhere. Post one narrowly averted apocalypse from the prehistoric BigBad? First Civilization utterly destroyed and the modern magic users could be counted with one hand. Which leads to the FridgeHorror that the BigBad has the same plans for Equestria.

* In keeping with the decline in relative importance of magic on the canonical Literature/{{Discworld}}, Creator/AAPessimal has moved to exploring how a pseudo-Victorian {{Steampunk}} mentality might emerge on the Disc. ''Fanfic/ThePriceOfFlight'' has the Witches of the Air Watch realising they have to come to terms with non-magical flight beginning on the Disc, and therefore breaking the monopoly on flight that magic users have hitherto enjoyed. As on our world, the first flight was by Frenchmen in hot-air balloons. The first ''powered'' flight was by Germans in zepellins. The Air Watch is therefore first challenged by Quirmians flying "Bongolfier Devices" and then by [[{{Kaiserreich}} Überwaldeans]] who have worked out how to power and steer their ''Luftschiffs''. Both hot-air balloons and - just about - Zepellins would have been acheivable on the Disc at the time of ''Literature/RaisingSteam'', given enough ingenuity.

* In the film ''Film/{{Dragonheart}}'', Draco (voiced by Creator/SeanConnery) notes "I ''am'' [[LastOfHisKind the last one]]". [[spoiler:And he doesn't survive the film.]] Later subverted in the {{Narm}}tastic ''Dragonheart II'', where a long-forgotten dragon egg hatches, and an evil dragon who was in hiding reveals himself. The young dragon, Drake, beats the evil one, but it's suggested that there may be more dragons still out there.

* ''Literature/TheDarkswordTrilogy'' ends this way, as the magic held concentrated in Thimhallan is once again spread evenly throughout the universe. A partial [[AvertedTrope aversion]], since this restores magic to the rest of the universe as the cost of destroying the magic-filled land of Thimhallan. To the survivors it is played straight, with an example being cited in Book 4 of a 20-year-old woman who cannot walk and the doctors who cannot understand the reason. Having been surrounded by concentrated magic her whole life, she simply never learned to move herself using her feet. Now that magic is weak but everywhere she is pretty much bed-bound.

* Nicholson Baker's ''Literature/TheFermata'' is about a guy who has the ability to stop time. As one would expect, he mostly uses it to undress women and then re-clothe them before starting time again, with no one the wiser. Eventually he falls in love with one of his victims, and somehow passes his magic on to her. He does mention elsewhere in the book that he has gone through periods where his powers were absent, and he seems to expect them to return at some point; but for now, he's at his girlfriend's mercy.

* This is how Creator/RoaldDahl's ''{{Literature/Matilda}}'' ends; the titular ChildProdigy cannot do magic anymore as she's been allowed in upper level classes at last, causing her brain to have apply itself traditionally again.

* In "A Night at the Tarn House" by Creator/GeorgeRRMartin (part of the ''Songs of the Literature/DyingEarth'' anthology), magic is failing as the Earth dies; spells are becoming weaker or can't be learned any more, and grimoires are crumbling as their protective magic fades.

* ''Literature/TheQueenOfIeflaria'': Minor case. Part of the reason Rhodia is having so much trouble with dragons is because their battlemage population has been sharply declining. While they have plenty of other types of magic, battlemages are those blessed by Talcia, and best equipped to fight dragons. Esofi brings a cadre of trained battlemages and plans to build a university. [[spoiler:This apparently pleased Talcia, as she blessed a number of adults with magic -- something that normally doesn't happen.]]

** The page quote comes from a conversation between Maester Luwin and Bran Stark in ''Literature/AClashOfKings'', when the latter asks the possibility of greensight still existing. Maesters of the Citadel have, over the years, been chronicling the fading of magic, myth, and legend, often debating among themselves via their volumes of text whether magic ever truly existed as a strong force at all. Most come to the conclusion that, yes: powerful things existed, once. However, that time and myth have enlarged or mislabelled their actual effects. It is then revealed in ''Literature/AFeastForCrows'' that [[spoiler:the Maester Order may have helped kill the Targaryen dragons, which are intimately tied to the presence of magic, in a bid to found (or hasten the birth of) a new and secular age of science and scholarship. However, since three new dragons have been born recently, [[TheMagicComesBack magic is coming back in a big way]]. Nobody in the Seven Kingdoms is prepared for the ramifications.]]
** The Dance of the Dragons is the seminal event for the disappearance of magic, as all of the dragons are killed during the event, leaving only eggs. One hatches during the reign of Aegon III, but it is small, weak, and definitely not combat worthy. It dies shortly after, taking the last remnant of magic in the Seven Kingdoms away with it, as dragons won't be reborn until over a hundred years later.

* ''Literature/SwordOfTruth'': This seems to be where the world is going in the series for the last three thousand years, due to a group of wizards locking away part of the human gift. During the events of the books, the process is accelerated, partly because of the efforts of the Imperial Order, which seeks to stamp out all magic, and partly because of the Chimes, demonic entities that destroy magic. At the end of the final book, Richard [[spoiler:uses the Power of Orden to both fix the damage caused by the Chimes, and to create a parallel world to send the Order's army to, along with the "pristinely ungifted", and the chimes, resolving all remaining subplots simultaneously]]. This world is destined to lose all magic and all memory of magic, while the old world's magic is on the recovery. A spinoff taking place a thousand years later has the world as a full fledged {{Magitek}} society.
* In ''Literature/TalesOfTheFiveHundredKingdoms'', the lands are suffused with an ambient magic called "the Tradition". It will fade from a land which has lost its sense of magic and wonder, and the lives of the people who live there will be diminished as a result.

* This is a major plot point in ''Literature/WorthTheCandle'', where individual branches of magic are [[ObviousRulePatch locked away to a specific areas called exclusion zones or removed from the world entirely by the DM]], usually due to someone finding a way to use magic he doesn't think is balanced.

* According to some Christian scholars, the reason God doesn't do miracles anymore is because Christ's resurrection was The Big One, making all the others pale so much in comparison they're no longer necessary. This is known as "cessationism".

* On the last day of every year, all magic fails to work in the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' game-setting of ''TabletopGame/{{Mystara}}''. At one point during the Wrath of the Immortals, this effect lasted for a full week, causing massive disruptions in places like the Hollow World, where the internal sun went dark. [[spoiler:That could happen again, and this trope might become a permanent reality, if the Nucleus of the Spheres isn't stopped from draining magic out of the world. Indeed, that's what many of the Immortals feared, that stirred up the Wrath of the Immortals in the first place.]] Gazetteer ''The Principalities of Glantri'' explains some of the details. [[spoiler:The Nucleus acts as an AmplifierArtifact for magic, at the price of slowly and irreversibly lessening it overall. The loss of magic may be stopped by going back in time and destroying the artifact, but that causes the nation to [[RetGone cease existing]]]].

* In ''TabletopGame/WarhammerFantasy'' the culmination of the first Great War Against Chaos (c.7000 years before the present) saw the High Elf Mage Caledor Dragontamer create a magical vortex to drain the majority of the magic away from the mundane world and back into the Realm of Chaos -- to deprive the daemonic hordes of their sustenance and end the war for good. The plan worked, and now there is far less magic in the world than there used to be -- and Elf mages no longer bestride the world like colossi as once they did. Several times the Dark Elves have plotted to undo the vortex and return the world to its prior state, but it remained in place thanks to Caledor's eternal sacrifice [[spoiler:right up until the End Times, when Chaos attacked in force. High Mage Teclis had to break the Vortex and infused the Winds of Magic into certain prominent heroes, with the plan of using them to create a large seal that would permanently drive back the powers of chaos. [[DownerEnding He failed]], and Chaos destroyed the old world]].

* ''VideoGame/ArcanumOfSteamworksAndMagickObscura'' has magic and technology existing in cycles; an era of magic, a period of technology and magic coexisting, an era of technology, another period of coexistence, and so on. The game takes place in a period of coexistence when humans are developing new ways to harness steam engines, causing magic to go into decline. It turns out to be a bit more complex than what it first seems ([[spoiler:what was thought to have been the last era of High Magic turns out to have been an era of co-existence]]), but even so it fits - the verse's rules for magic/technology interaction means that technology weakens magic in the local area, and that magic is frowned upon by technology-focused civilizations. The game manual mentions an unexplained event some 900000 years ago that caused the magickal energies of the world to suddenly skyrocket. Scholars call this time period in Arcanum's history the Epoch of High Enchantment. It is in this highly magickal time that the Elves and Giants evolved from humans, and many of the more fantastic creatures, that have since become extinct, came into existance by either transforming or merging together creatures that existed at the time. It is implied that ever since then magick has been slowly draining from the world.

* In ''VideoGame/DwarfFortress'', the world starts in the ''Age of Myths'', where great powers such as dragons, titans or hydras are numerous. Over the course of history generation however, these progressively start dying off. After 1/3 of them die, the world enters the ''Age of Legends'', then the ''Age of Heroes'' at 2/3. Then comes the ages of Three, two, then One power. Once they are all dead, the ''Golden Age'' starts. Then, if non-mundane creatures start dying off, the world enters the ''Twilight Age'' when less than 50% of all creatures are magical, then the ''Age of Fairy Tales'' at less than 10%. The final state of this end of magic is the ''Age of Civilization'', where magical creatures have disappeared entirely.

** Happens slowly over the course of the Ivalice timeline. In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' and ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'', magical beings abound, {{magitek}} is everywhere and some areas are thick with Mist, magic in the air so thick that it looks foggy. By the time of ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'', most of the magical beings are either dead or simply gone[[note]]a process begun in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXII'' when the heroes killed the gods[[/note]], {{magitek}} has become LostTechnology, Mist is nowhere to be seen, and a great deal of faith is required to make magic work, when it once worked automatically. Fast forward even more to ''VideoGame/VagrantStory'', and magic's almost entirely gone and relegated to myth, and for most people, the little bit left is so hard to get at that you lose your soul in the process. By ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'', magic is completely gone and is only talked about in myths and stories.

* In ''VideoGame/GodOfWarRagnarok'', one of the optional conversations reveals that this happened to Kratos on a personal level. While he still has the strength of a god, he can no longer use the magic he wielded in the Greek era games. Atreus guesses that it's because Kratos' magic was tied to Greece. The destruction wrought upon Greece by the end of III took Kratos' magic with it.

* The penultimate episode of ''VideoGame/{{Killer 7}}'' ends with whatever cursed magic woven by [[spoiler:'real Harman Smith' and Kun Lan on Emir Parkreiner]] that binds all of the dead Smiths unto Garcian being undone by unkillable Black Heaven Smiles. When only Garcian remains (you can't switch to him until all the other Smiths are gone), Garcian can use a weapon lying on the floor to defend himself against the Smiles and defeat the warped politicians and escape. From that point onward in the plot, the other Smiths which you've been relying on throughout the entire game are completely and finally dead, leaving you with only Garcian, the most vulnerable of all the Smiths.

* This happens in ''VideoGame/TheLongestJourney'' universe at least twice (both times in the BackStory). First time was when the original Earth was split into two parallel worlds about 10,000 BC: Stark and Arcadia. From the perspective of Stark, all magic went away, so it had to rely on technology and science completely. From Arcadian perspective, all but the most rudimentary technology stopped working and soon became myth, remembered as "reliable magic". Also, ''VideoGame/DreamfallTheLongestJourney'' reveals that right after the original's ending, a catastrophic event dubbed "Collapse" shook up Stark, after which most advanced technologies simply stopped working. It has been theorized by the fans that said "technologies" were actually magic that seeped into Stark from Arcadia and was passed off for science for the lack of better term. And the new Guardian of the Balance simply fixed that by removing all traces of magic from Stark again; at that point, anything in Stark that was based on magic ([[ArtificialGravity Anti-Gravity]], FasterThanLightTravel, etc.) stopped working, as the laws of physics took over.

* This is implicitly a big part of the ''VideoGame/MetalGear'' saga, which is known for using MagicalRealism rather liberally. Almost all of the games involve ''some'' vaguely-explained hint of the supernatural that's accepted as "normal" by the characters, whether it's telepathy, shamanism, supernatural luck, or control over animals. Interestingly, though, the {{prequel}} ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater'', which takes place in the 1960s, comes the closest to being an outright {{fantasy}} game, with characters exhibiting supernatural abilities ''far'' more blatant than any seen in previous games; the most noticeable example is also the oldest character in the series, who was likely born around 1860. But by ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots'', which takes place in [[TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture the (then-)near-future year of 2014]], the series has only two characters left with supernatural abilities, one of whose are now augmented with technology, next to a whole bunch characters who exclusively rely on technological augmentation. One of them has an extremely minor role, and both are dead and gone by the end of the game. Though it never addresses the issue explicitly, the implication is that magic-users are the old guard, and that they're gradually displaced by the onset of the digital age; by the time of ''VideoGame/MetalGearRisingRevengeance'', another four years later, there are no characters with magical abilities whatsoever.

* By the end of ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'', Armageddon is triggered, and during it all the major locations of the game are destroyed, all of the fantasy races are driven to extinction, the valkyries are completely massacred, and all of the Psypher weapons save for Mercedes' crossbow are sacrificed in the Cauldron to release their phozons to restore the world. In the GoldenEnding, the only non-human race left are two Pookahs, who do away with even more magic by finally gathering all of the Valentine Kingdom's magic coins and using the wish granted by doing so to lift the Pooka curse, restoring them to human form and freeing the souls of all the dead Pooka, leaving Mercedes' crossbow buried underneath the newly grown World Tree and the now-leaderless Netherworld as the only fantastical remnants left.

* ''VideoGame/SecretOfMana'' features the BigBad [[spoiler:''vaporizing'' [[WorldTree the Mana Tree]], taking out the strongest source of magical power on the planet, and at the end of the game the main characters are forced to kill the Mana Beast ([[FusionDance a fusion of the world's monsters]]) rather than let its fight with the Mana Fortress [[TheWorldIsAlwaysDoomed destroy the world... again]]. This, and the destruction of the Mana Fortress, strips most of the magical power from the world, and forcibly separates the inherently magical Sprite from the other party members]]. By the time of ''VideoGame/LegendOfMana'', the low levels of magic and long time-span with no [[WorldTree Mana Tree]] have lead to long periods of pointless war, needless sorrow, and fractured even the powerful elementals into minor splinters of their former abilities. The world itself falls apart during the opening cutscene. There, the concept is inverted, and the protagonist's goal is to bring the magic and [[WorldTree the Mana Tree]] back. This occurs in ''VideoGame/TrialsOfMana'' as [[spoiler:the Mana Tree is chopped by the BigBad, depriving the world of mana until the faerie, who's the Mana Tree's seed, matures into a new tree 1000 years from the events]]. (Making things really lame for Angela, whose story revolves around her learning to use magic.)

* Happens in the end of ''VideoGame/{{Xenogears}}'', where the destruction of the [[spoiler:Zohar engine]] not only prevents magic from functioning, but removes the power source of all of the planet's Gears as well! Except for the Xenogears itself. It runs on a different power source (that being [[spoiler:the Wave Existence, which is basically God]]) and thus continues to function.

* In ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'', magic threatens to undergo a major change if it gets too public and the {{Masquerade}} breaks. From the perspective of most magic users this manifests as magic suddenly ceasing to work. Pandora has [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2016-08-05 memories]] of the last time this happened. Technically, TheMagicComesBack immediately afterward but completely different and only special individuals who make up 1 in 7 million humans are informed of how it works. Those individuals then have to teach everyone else. This [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2018-01-29 cycle of change]] has [[EternalRecurrence existed as long as humans have]]. However, the Will of Magic can be convinced to stop the cycle of magic going away and coming back and instead just deal with TheUnmasquedWorld.
* In ''Webcomic/{{Inverloch}}'', more and more elves are being born Severed, mortal and unable to use magic due to a lack of connection with the spirits. The whole race becoming Severed would eventually result in the loss of magic because human magic originates with elven ancestry. Elves who were exiled for being severed, like Lei'ella, speculate that the elves are being punished by the spirits. [[spoiler:Raul and Silvah are trying to actively bring this about by inflicting a mass-severing on all the elves, using Kayn'dar's immense magical power. Ultimately this is prevented when Neirenn induces Silvah to kill Acheron, which undoes the FreakyFridayFlip and puts Kayn'dar back into his real body. Not only can he he heal the Severed condition, he was also raised ''outside'' elven society and is in a better position to reform it.]]
* In ''Webcomic/SupernormalStep'', as the world became better and better at using magic, the increasing saturation of magic started to go out of control and threaten TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. In order to fix this, a witch named Myrrine Whalen used a spell to warp the world, moving everything touched by magic off to a PocketDimension where artifical rules could be used to keep it under control. [[spoiler:In the end, the BigBad manages to overload the spell keeping magic under control, causing TheMagicComesBack. The main protagonist, Fiona, comes to realize that MagicIsEvil and that Myrrine was wrong to merely control it instead of destroying it completely. Fiona then uses a final spell to get rid of magic forever and for good.]]

* Used as part of the {{Backstory}} in Literature/TheLayOfPaulTwister: "at some point over a thousand years ago," magic on Earth went away, because it was part of a distinct world that somehow used to be connected to Earth before they drifted apart. Through some unexplained means, the protagonist ends up being instantly transported from modern-day Earth to the magical world, where the story takes place.

* ''WebAnimation/{{RWBY}}'': Long ago, in ancient times, Remnant was a world where everyone had powerful magic and [[PhysicalGod the gods walked among humans]]. [[spoiler:Then [[BigBad Salem]], who had previously been cursed with CompleteImmortality for her hubris, convinced humanity to try to overthrow the gods. The gods responded by [[ApocalypseHow wiping out]] the entire human race, leaving only Salem alive. Humanity eventually returned, but they only had a tiny semblance of their magical power, and were completely at the mercy of the Creatures of Grimm until they discovered [[PowerCrystal Dust]]. Salem and [[BigGood Ozma]], the last two original humans, retain their full magical powers, but Ozma gave up most of it by [[SuperEmpowering empowering]] the [[PersonOfMassDestruction Maidens of the Seasons]], and a few other allies like [[VoluntaryShapeshifting Qrow and Raven]]]].

* ''Literature/WhateleyUniverse'': When the Five Fold Court of {{Atlantis}} had the EldritchAbomination known as The Bastard on the ropes, it responded with an anti-magic spell which destroyed the Court and killed most of the Fae and other magical beings, and event known later as The Sundering. However, there was some residual magic left which sustained [[TheLastOfHisKind a handful of survivors]], and over time the Earth healed, leading to [[TheMagicComesBack a renewal of magic and the Fae races]] at the time of the main stories.

* Part of the backstory for the world of Salomoty in ''WesternAnimation/SiegfriedAndRoyMastersOfTheImpossible''. At some point in the (fairly recent) past, all the magic of the world simply vanished, leaving once magical creatures to eek out meager existences beside mundane humans while once potent places of enchantment simply stopped working. As it turns out, the magic didn't so much "go away" as it was brutally stripped away by [[BigBad Loki]] in an attempt to bribe Zeus into letting him undo the seals on four powerful spirits Loki wanted to use in a bid to take over the pantheon. When that failed, Loki attempted to use a kidnapped human queen in something of a XanatosGambit, which is where the titular duo came in. After Siegfried and Roy manage to defeat Loki, Zeus ([[JerkassGods grudgingly]]) offers them the reward of restoring the world's magic as it was, only for them to request the return of the Queen. Bound by his word, Zeus accepts but states that without his help, it will take generations for the magic to return naturally and none of the old places of power will ever regain their full strength again. Siegfried and Roy seem okay with this.
* A Halloween episode of ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' parodies this trope. In this episode, the Simpsons live in a medieval fantasy world, which is basically a mixture of the very well-known franchises (Dragon Age, Game of Thrones, Dungeons & Dragons). When the last dragon dies at the end of the episode, all magic disappears, and this world is almost no different from the ordinary Middle Ages. While Lisa triumphantly announces that the age of science is dawning, Homer revives the dragon so that the magic returns.
* In the GrandFinale of ''WesternAnimation/StarVsTheForcesOfEvil'', Star and her predecessors destroys the Realm of Magic since it's the only way to stop the BigBad and she had concluded magic did more harm than good anyway. Something of a downplayed example, as TheMultiverse of the setting has many fantastical creatures that were completely unaffected, barring the amount that were {{Pure Magic Being}}s. The same event also [[MergedReality merged Earth and Mewni]], making them ''much more'' prominent to Earthlings.

This trope is distinguished from HereThereWereDragons in that the work is about the events which result in (or at least happen around the time of) the magic going away. In HereThereWereDragons, the magic already went away long ago, and the story isn't about that disappearance. May overlap with EndOfAnAge in that both involve the loss of wonder, but differs in that it is specifically about magic and magic settings. Can also overlap with DeathOfTheOldGods, although that does not necessarily mean magic goes away entirely so much as it becomes less obvious to and involved with the lives of humans; or {{Gotterdammerung}}, although that usually implies a more sudden, cataclysmic loss of the gods and magic than this trope. Often an example of GrowingUpSucks, but on a more universe-wide level. See TheMagicComesBack and PowerNullifier if this is a temporary status and it actually returns.

* In keeping with the decline in relative importance of magic on the canonical Literature/{{Discworld}}, Creator/AAPessimal has moved to exploring how a pseudo-Victorian {{Steampunk}} mentality might emerge on the Disc. ''Fanfic/ThePriceOfFlight'' has the Witches of the Air Watch might come to terms with non-magical flight beginning on the Disc, and therefore breaking the monopoly on flight that magic users have hitherto enjoyed. As on our world, the first flight was by Frenchmen in hot-air balloons. The first ''powered'' flight was by Germans in zepellins. The Air Watch is therefore first challenged by Quirmians flying "Bongolfier Devices" and then by [[{{Kaiserreich}} Überwaldeans]] who have worked out how to power and steer their ''Luftschiffs''. Both hot-air balloons and - just about - Zepellins would have been acheivable on the Disc at the time of ''Literature/RaisingSteam'', given enough ingenuity.

* The ''Literature/TheWheelOfTime'' series is presumably heading for one of these. It is presented as set on our world in the far distant past/future (which amount to the same thing, as time is cyclical). At some point the world must lose all access to The One Power before The Wheel spins around to our time again, [[spoiler:though this event doesn't take place within the context of the series]]. ''The Wheel of Time'' stands out in this regard, as it's only a perceived Magic Goes Away scenario: [[spoiler:While characters comment repeatedly throughout the series that magical numbers are dwindling compared to their ancient advanced "age of legends", near the end of the series it is shown to the reader that this is entirely untrue. It turns out the perception of this is simple incompetence and the use of a very unreliable and outdated system of discovery.]]