Line #66 Main/EthnicMagician


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6	In most fantasy series, if the resident spellcaster isn't a [[WizardClassic long-white bearded Merlin type]], or a VainSorceress, then they're probably reminiscent of a non-European culture (or at least a European culture outside the Western European Germanic- and Romance-speaking countries). Part of this is FlawlessToken. After all, if magic is that world's equivalent of science, somebody particularly adept at it is TheSmartGuy. Also, many African and Asian cultures (not just Egypt) were already advanced in terms of agriculture, literature and so on, while Europe was just getting itself together. On the other hand, it becomes something of a cultural {{Flanderization}}, reinforces stereotypes of non-whites having [[MagicalNativeAmerican some mystical nature]], and may evoke a sense of the hero being full of valor and vigor, while the darker skinned spellcaster is a weaker SquishyWizard.
7
8	Common in sword and sorcery settings, though in HistoricalFantasy or UrbanFantasy settings, the "reminiscent" part can be filed off, with the character hailing from an actual culture non-white culture rather than a FantasyCounterpartCulture
9	.
10	For instance, [[MagicalNativeAmerican Native Americans will fill the mystic slot]] in Westerns. Those of African origin, including their descendants in the Americas (especially in UsefulNotes/{{Haiti}} and UsefulNotes/NewOrleans), would practice HollywoodVoodoo; meanwhile, Aboriginal Australians are steeped in HollywoodDreamtime. Scandinavian works have historically tended to use the Sami people, and Japanese works often use white or Chinese people for this role, but the principle is the same.
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12	Not to be confused with MagicalNegro (or its supertrope MagicalMinorityPerson) or TokenWizard, though both overlap from time to time. Often results in ReligionIsMagic. Related to MagicalRomani, MagicalNativeAmerican, and MagicalAsian. Compare WitchDoctor, which may be the progenitor.
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14	----
15	!!Examples:
16	[[foldercontrol]]
17
18	[[folder:Anime & Manga]]
19	* Mohammed Avdol from ''Manga/JoJosBizarreAdventure'', an appropriately dressed Egyptian fortune teller who introduces the main cast to the concept of a [[FightingSpirit Stand]]. His own stand, appropriately enough, is named ''Magician's'' Red and gives him [[PlayingWithFire power over flame]].
20	* May Chang from ''Manga/FullmetalAlchemist'' is from Xing, the [[FantasyCounterpartCulture setting's equivalent]] of China. She's the only practitioner of alkahestry seen in the story.
21	* Mahajarama from ''[[VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork Rockman.EXE]]'' practices "yoga magic", is a master of disguise, and operates the Merlin-esque Magicman.
22	* ''Manga/NegimaMagisterNegiMagi'' features Western, HermeticMagic-using magi interacting with Eastern, {{UsefulNotes/Onmyodo}}-using ones, thus managing to fulfill this trope from two cultural perspectives.
23	* Creator/RumikoTakahashi used this at least twice, if one doesn't count the recurring appearances of magical Mikos (Sakura, Kikyo, Kagome) and Buddhist priests (Sakurambo/Cherry, Miroku):
24	** In her first fantasy manga, ''Manga/UruseiYatsura'', she featured a comedic ''inversion'' of the trope in Tsubame Ozono, boyfriend to Sakura, the magical {{miko}}. Tsubame is a Japanese man who went and studied '''Western''' magical traditions; he calls himself a "master of Western Black Magic" and dresses up like a [[MagiciansAreWizards Western-style stage magician]] as a result. This is highlit in one story where he fights a duel against Sakura's uncle, a magical Buddhist priest; whereas Sakurambo conjures {{Obake}} during the fight, Tsubame counters by summoning creatures from Western stories, such as a {{Medusa}} and a FrankensteinsMonster.
25	** When Ranma from ''Manga/RanmaOneHalf'' needs esoteric lore, he goes to Cologne, an unspeakably ancient Chinese wisewoman.
26	* In ''Manga/CardcaptorSakura'', [[ButNotTooForeign Clow Reed]] is famous for merging Eastern and Western magic styles, because his father was British and his mother was Chinese.
27	* In the ''Manga/{{Genzo}}'' extra, the BigBad Genzaemon mentions the use of sorcery "from the western lands".
28	* In ''Manga/{{Berserk}}'', the Western-analogue cultures like Midland and Tudor have very few (human) magic-users, really only a couple of witches who subscribe to an oppressed, near-dead nature-focused pagan religion. The Kushan, on the other hand, an Indian / Persian FantasyCounterpartCulture, have sorcerers out the yin-yang. This is justified; Midland, Tudor, and the other "Western" countries are tightly controlled by the Holy See, which is an exaggerated take on the worst of Inquisition-era Christianity, while the Kushan Empire is run by an [[DemonLordsAndArchdevils Apostle]].
29	[[/folder]]
30
31	[[folder:Comedy]]
32	* Recording artists/[[PrankCall prank callers]] The Jerky Boys had a comical version with their character "Tarbash, the Egyptian Magician," whose stage tricks included eating hot coals, punching his chest and making it disappear into the audience, and terrorizing audience members with a mountain lion.
33	[[/folder]]
34
35	[[folder:Comic Books]]
36	* Creator/MarvelComics has Jericho Drumm, a Haitian who trained as a psychologist in America and returned to Haiti to become a houngan called [[ReligionIsMagic Brother Voodoo]]. He succeeded Comicbook/DoctorStrange as Sorcerer Supreme.
37	** Strange's own tutor in magic was a Tibetan Chinese man called the Ancient One.
38	** The Ancient One himself invoked this on a previous student and candidate for Sorcerer Supreme, Anthony Ludgate, by unlocking his magical potential which inexplicably [[RaceLift turned him from a white man into an asian man]].
39	* Creator/DCComics has Zatara, full name Giovanni Zatara (aka the father of {{ComicBook/Zatanna}} Zatara, one of the DCU's most powerful magic-users - who by proxy also fits this trope). As you can probably guess from the name, he's your [[MagiciansAreWizards standard Italian magician but with actual magic powers]]. Adding to the sheer level to which this trope is played utterly straight, ''his'' father had the equally-super-ethnic-sounding name of "Luigi", and both are supposed to be descended from Leonardo da Vinci. Though the "backwards speech" that Giovanni and his daughter use to cast their spells is technically based on English (the spell to levitate for instance is "ETATIVEL!"), they're fluent in it to the extent that it's a genuine second language, which especially given how it sounds when used out loud for say, the animated adaptations, can further emphasize the "foreign magician" feel.
40	** This is taken even further with the alternate-universe ''ComicBook/DCComicsBombshells'' series, which reimagines Zatanna herself as "the daughter of a [[TwoferTokenMinority Jew and a gypsy]]", whom Joker's Daughter smuggled out of the Nazi death camps.
41	** ''{{ComicBook/Hellblazer}}'' had two African magicians, one who needed Constantine's help with a famine demon in the first issue, and another who ''ate'' fellow magicians to gain their power and memories (and uses hyenas and baboons as attack dogs).
42	* Subverted in ''ComicBook/DemonKnights'' - the Moorish genius Al Jabr is the only one on the team who doesn't rely on some type of magic.
43	* Calpurnia Crisp from ''ComicBook/CourtneyCrumrinAndTheNightThings'', the only Black witch in the entire coven. A subversion too, considering her magic is in no way linked to her ethnic roots.
44	* Usually played straight in ''ComicBook/TexWiller'', as non-white magic users tend to be this. Then we have El Morisco, who is Egyptian but has knowledge in ''all'' forms of magic...
45	** They also escape the negative connotations by being extremely competent at what they do and often physically fit (indeed, the only ones who are {{Squishy Wizard}}s are Mefisto and his son Yama, who are whites, the Tibetan Padma, [[JustifiedTrope who is a monk and thus eats very little]], and the Egyptian El Morisco, who is rather fat), with Rayado being an all-around badass who ''deflected bullets with his axe'' and overpowered and nearly killed Tex in hand-to-hand combat.
46	* ''ComicBook/YoungJustice'' Has Anita Fite, A Haitian-American voudou practitioner.
47	* In ''{{ComicBook/Mampato}}'' we sometimes find characters that fall into this trope, in stories located in places like the island of Rapa Nui of the fifteenth century or the city of Baghdad of the seventh century (with djinns and magic carpets), although there are also sorcerers more western, like Morgana le Fay.
48	* The Chilean comic ''Bichos Raros'' has two diametrically opposite examples. One of his characters is Hans, born in the infamous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonia_Dignidad colonia dignidad]], a descendant of blond and blue-eyed Germans, and therefore "ethnic" in Chile, as well as being a powerful sorcerer. Another example is Zel, a woman belonging to [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mapuche the Mapuche tribe]] and also possessing magical powers.
49	[[/folder]]
50
51	[[folder:Films -- Live-Action]]
52	* ''Film/ThreeHundred'': During the battle, the Persians send out troops who chuck explosives of some kind. The narrator refers to them as cowardly magicians.
53	* The first ''Film/ConanTheBarbarian1982'' film had Creator/JamesEarlJones (though he was no SquishyWizard in the beginning) and Creator/{{Mako}} as the respective evil and good wizards. The second one also had Akiro, who also fits.
54	* ''Film/TheScorpionKing'' inverts this in that the primary SquishyWizard is not only white, but very British, and played by Bernard Hill. Though the Sorceress is played by Kelly Hu, and appears very much Asian.
55	* ''Film/RobinHoodPrinceOfThieves'': [[MagicalNegro "The Moor"]] Azeem was added to the Robin Hood mythology as a TokenMinority (a massive historical liberty), and spends most of the movie commenting how barbaric and primitive Britain is. At one point, he introduces them to [[MagicFromTechnology black powder explosives]] which they adapt to using [[FridgeLogic rather quickly]]. [[ClarkesThirdLaw He's not actually a magician though; he just has better technology]]. The whole Middle East did at the time (although the explosives are a little dubious).
56	* In ''Film/ErikTheViking'', the mysterious wise woman Freya was played by Eartha Kitt with an exaggeration of her customary vaguely-foreign accent.[[note]]Born and raised in South Carolina, Miss Kitt had a Dutch-speaking stepfather and spent many years in France. She spoke eleven languages.[[/note]]
57	* In ''Film/{{Holes}}'', the old Egyptian curse-woman Madame Zeroni is ''also'' played by Eartha Kitt with an exotic accent.
58	* Averted in ''Film/DoctorStrange2016'', as the Ancient One was {{Race Lift}}ed from Tibetan Chinese to white, specifically Celtic. (The role was also {{Gender Flip}}ped from male to female, but that's beside the point.) The film also features non-white sorcerers such as Mordo (black) and Wong (Asian), with the overall effect that magic is unrelated to race.
59	[[/folder]]
60
61	[[folder:Literature]]
62	* OlderThanPrint: In the [[Literature/TheIcelandicSagas Norse sagas]] -- for example, ''Literature/{{Heimskringla}}'' -- if a character was a Finn (note that this word usually referred to those who later would be called Lapps or Sámi, not Finnish/Suomi people), it was implied they were inherently magical. This tradition went on for a ''long'' time. The last person to have the reputation of a Lapland Witch died in early 20th century.
63	** Carried over to the age of Norwegian Television: Sámi characters tend to be used as a Scandinavian equivalent of the MagicalNegro even today.
64	** ''Literature/TheSnowQueen'' features the Old Finn Woman and the Old Lapp Woman, who have some vaguely defined but shared magical powers.
65	* In the original, ''Literature/ArabianNights'' version of ''Literature/{{Aladdin}}'', the main characters were Chinese while the EvilSorcerer was from North Africa. The [[Franchise/DisneyAnimatedCanon Disney]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Aladdin}} version]] settled for making the EvilSorcerer more of a stereotypical Arab than the heroes, and a [[UsefulNotes/GrandVizierJafar villainously-upgraded historical character]] as well.
66	* The ''Literature/{{Earthsea}}'' setting was created simply to avert many heroic fantasy tropes, with the aforementioned pale barbarians and darker-skinned advanced races, but in doing so helped cement this trope.
67	* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings'' mentions that the less Europeanish corners of Middle-Earth have sorcerers and magical cults. Although you have to bear in mind that this doesn't say anything about if they are actual 'magic sorcerers' or just believed to be, as the typical generic fantasy spellcasting kind of wizards doesn't exist in Middle-Earth. And "wizards" like Gandalf & co. are [[AngelUnaware another thing entirely]].
68	** And there are also sorcerers who come from Númenórean descent as well, though according to Faramir this generally does not happen in Gondor. The Witch-King himself was one prior to his, ah... [[WasOnceAMan alteration]]. "Sorcery" (as opposed to the wizard or elven magic) is generally presented as the province of Sauron and his minions, regardless of what culture they hail from.
69	** The Drúedain are described as a race of men with some degree of magic, who also build statues of fat men sitting cross-legged and engage in meditative techniques while in the same position themselves, definitely evoking oriental [[UsefulNotes/{{Buddhism}} Buddhist]] imagery.
70	* In Creator/RobertAHeinlein's {{Magitek}} novel, ''Literature/MagicInc'', Archie Fraser is surprised to find the English accented magic expert on the phone turns out to be a black African "witch smeller" in person.
71	* In Rick Cook's ''Literature/WizBiz'' series, the leader of the Wizard Council is Bal-Simba, a towering black man who ''has his teeth filed to points and wears a lionskin loincloth''. It's practically a lampshade...
72	* Most of the {{Evil Sorcerer}}s that ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'' fought came from Stygia, the Howard universe's [[FantasyCounterpartCulture analogue of Ancient Egypt]].
73	* Aces with magical powers in ''Literature/WildCards'' are almost exclusively this. Justified in that the powers manifest from subconscious, so western people usually get super-strength, flight, telekinesis and other stuff, while people of less advanced cultures get whatever powers are known in their native cultures. Likewise, western jokers are almost exclusively half-animal hybrids, while in other countries they tend to be mythical beasts: among infected Mayans there were literally hundreds of Quetzalcohuatli.
74	** The most straightforward example of this trope is Fortunato, a tantric magician ace who is a twofer minority: black/Japanese, his powers have nothing to do with his nationality but root in the fact that he is a pimp, thus gets sex-based powers. His counterpart, Astronomer, whose powers use rape and violence as a power source, is very Caucasian, though.
75	* The red priests from ''Literature/ASongOfIceAndFire'' are seen this way, at least in Westeros where their monotheistic religion never took hold. Of the three prominent red priests in the series, ScaryBlackMan Moqorro fits this trope the most.
76	* Mild examples in ''Literature/NightWatchSeries'', since this is an UrbanFantasy setting, many powerful [[DifferentlyPoweredIndividual Others]] are very old, and don't usually talk about their origins. Geser is a powerful Light Other, originally from Tibet, although he has adopted a Russian name after moving to Moscow and his vaguely Asian appearance doesn't seem strange to people (considering how many ethnic groups live in Russia, it's not surprising). He is, occasionally, seen walking around in an Eastern robe and pointy shoes. Zabulon's origins are unclear, although an old friend of his calls him Arthur in a spin-off novel, and another novel indicates that he lived in Ireland for a time, so he may have been born in the isles thousands of years ago. The latest novel also introduces a powerful Jewish mage whose spells tend to be related to his culture in some manner (for example, he creates a golem to fight the Tiger and commands it in Hebrew). Overall, it's not that magic is different from culture to culture (MagicAIsMagicA, after all), but the way the Others use magic tends to be affected by their culture. For example, Western Others tend to go for more direct magic. When Anton meets a Taiwanese Other, he notes how intricate and beautiful the Asian mage's spells are, composed of multiple interconnected layers like a tapestry.
77	* In ''Literature/{{Holes}}'', Madame Zeroni is an old Egyptian woman with dark skin and a very wide mouth. She puts a curse on Elya and his descendants for not carrying her up the mountain so she can drink from the stream.
78	* In ''Literature/KingdomOfLittleWounds'', Midi isn't actually a witch, but everyone--including the other protagonist Ava--treats her like she is because she is "The Negresse."
79	* In ''Literature/SkinHunger'', it is ethnic minorities that have the most knowledge of magic spells and songs. The WizardingSchool (that is a BoardingSchoolOfHorrors and the setting for the part of the plot that takes place many years later) is implied to be the result of a white, aristocratic male gathering all magic knowledge for himself and intentionally eradicating everyone else's.
80	* Literature/TheVinlandSagas: Clearly the Skraelings, the natives the Norsemen encounter in Vinland, are magic-users. They put a sleep spell on Thorvald and his companions (''Saga of the Greenlanders''), make Thorfinn and his party believe an illusionary host is attacking them from the rear (''Saga of Erik the Red''), and sink into the earth like ghosts (''Saga of Erik the Red'').
81	* ''Literature/TheSagaOfThePeopleOfVatnsdal'': The soothsaying woman who tells Ingimund that he will settle in Iceland is a 'Finn' (i.e. a Sami), and so are the three wizards whom Ingimund hires to undertake a spirit-journey to Iceland.
82	* ''Literature/TheBlackCompany'' has two black wizards, One-Eye and Tam-tam, this is justified because the black company is called precisely because originally all its members were black, from the equivalent of Africa in this fantasy world , although over the centuries their demography changed and these two magicians - who are also very old - are the only black men left in the company.
83	* In ''Literature/TheMagicians'', Brakebills has hired professors drawn from a wide variety of cultures over the years; along with the Native American Professor Foxtree and the Haitan Professor Petitpoids, there's also mention of hiring Micronesian shamans, Egyptian {{Blue Collar Warlock}}s, and Tuareg necromancers.
84	[[/folder]]
85
86	[[folder:Live-Action TV]]
87	* Zezylry in ''Series/KrodMandoonAndTheFlamingSwordOfFire''... though he isn't very good at it.
88	* While the ''Series/MahouSentaiMagiranger'' and ''Series/PowerRangersMysticForce'' use Western, Franchise/HarryPotter-style magic, their resident {{Sixth Ranger}}s Hikaru and Daggeron have more of an Arabian flair, including a genie in a lamp and a magic carpet. Daggeron is also played by [[UsefulNotes/NewZealand Maori]] actor John Tui. In addition, Lunagel and her counterpart Claire (in her capacity as Gatekeeper) have distinct UsefulNotes/{{Romani}} motifs.
89	* Early in ''Series/TheVampireDiaries'', most witches are shown to be descended from one apparent family line of black people... Descendants of a ''handmaiden''... The writers may have notice this, as going farther back in the family tree shows ''her'' ancestor to be [[spoiler:Qetsiyah, one of the most powerful characters in the show's mythology.]] Averted in later seasons with the introduction of other clans of witches of varying races. The aversion continues in the other series in the TVD-verse, ''Series/TheOriginals'' and ''Series/{{Legacies}}''.
90	* In the ''Series/{{Earthsea}}'' miniseries, most of the characters (canonically brown, including Ged, with a few black) were given a RaceLift to become white -- save for Ged's mentor, played by Danny Glover. So the only black actor was the (quite literally) MagicalNegro who helped the white hero with his magical talents.
91	* ''Series/GameOfThrones'' has the Red Priests, who are considered exotic to Westerosi society. One of the priestesses depicted in the series was played by an East Asian actress, and per WordOfGod hails from the China-equivalent region of Yi Ti in the far east of Essos. Another we see is black. The rest so far have been white though.
92	* A brief and fascinating example in ''Series/{{MASH}}'', of all places, in the fifth-season episode "Exorcism". When Col. Potter orders a [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jangseung jangseung post]] removed from the camp, a rash of incidents ensue -- mostly annoying, a few more serious. [[MaybeMagicMaybeMundane Just coincidence, right?]] Until an old farmer jumps in front of a jeep to scare [[DemonicPossession his own evil spirits]] away and is badly hurt. His English-speaking granddaughter insists on getting a "priestess" to exorcise him and the entire camp. What she means is a ''[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_shamanism mudang]]''. Her [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wL4FtvGK1oI sacred dance]], probably a ''dodanggut'' ritual, is shown at some length, ''and it works''. Klinger might be interested in the fact that these shamans cross-dress, because they embody male and female spirits.[[note]] The actress (if she was an actress and not an actual ''mudang'', keeping in mind this was all filmed in Southern California where there are many Koreans) has never been identified.[[/note]][[/folder]]
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94	[[folder:Myths & Religion]]
95	* When the pilot Jose Maraleda (who really existed by the way) wished to prove his proficiency to these huilliches (Mapudungun means "southern people") and establish that he was the most formidable sorcerer in the world. The locals didn't believe him and called upon the Machi Chilpilla, who lived in Quetalco, to confront this intruder to their lands. Moraleda was defeated and in recognition of this offered the Machi an enormous book of ancient witchcraft around the world. Further, Moraleda wrote that the natives of Chiloé were not as deplorable as he had believed and, in fact, were even better than some Chileans. This being the origin story of the "Warlock of Chiloé."
96	* Queen Hvit in ''Literature/TheSagaOfHrolfKraki'' who was the illegitimate daughter of a Sami chieftain.
97	* In ancient Jewish culture, Egyptians tended to be associated with magic and astrology. One notable example is the priests from the Exodus story, who had [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jannes_and_Jambres a collection of legends]] written about them.
98	[[/folder]]
99
100	[[folder:Radio]]
101	* ''Radio/DimensionX'': In "[[Recap/DimensionX19TheCastaways The Castaways]]", the island natives cast a curse before killing themselves by intentionally drowning in the lagoon where the bomb is being tested. [[spoiler:{{Subverted\|Trope}}, the Polynesian "natives" are actually aliens from another planet; the lagoon is holding their spaceship and they needed nuclear power because they had run out of fuel.]]
102	[[/folder]]
103
104	[[folder:Tabletop Games]]
105	* ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'':
106	** In the ''Birthright'' setting, the Khinasi culture (the setting's generic Middle Eastern Turkish/Persian/Arabic mishmash) is particularly renowned for its wizards, who are held in even greater esteem than magic-users of the other human cultures, and this is reinforced by the Khinasi getting a cultural bonus to Intelligence.
107	** In the ''Ravenloft'' setting, the Vistani are a race of magical gypsies, based off of the stereotyped gypsy fortune teller.
108	* White Wolf's infamous ''World of Darkness: Gypsies'' supplement attempted to do this for the real-life UsefulNotes/{{Romani}}. See the Romani entry for just how ''that'' turned out.
109	* ''TabletopGame/MageTheAscension'' Justified due to the way the setting's metaphysics work.
110	** In universe, magic works around and is flavored by the belief of the practitioner. As mages are fundamentally human, and the game takes place in an UrbanFantasy setting, many of he playable factions are based off of real life mystical practices and take on many ancient culture's aesthetics and beliefs.
111	** In-universe these practices are passed down from mentor to student for hundreds if not thousands of years. This results in many rituals and spells taking on a thoroughly "ethnic feel".
112	** It's important to note that ethnicity of any kind is by no means necessary to practice magic. Just that the form any given rituals may take are likely to be colored by the specific mage performing it, and how much stock they place in the tools they are using.
113	** Most of the more blatantly "ethnic" magicians are found in the Dreamspeakers. This was a political move by the other (mostly white and European) Traditions, lumping them all together into one group. Needless to say, this ''really'' pissed off a lot of them, with a significant portion of the new "Tradition" leaving mage society entirely in disgust.
114	* ''TabletopGame/{{Pathfinder}}'':
115	** The continent of Garund (a much-more-developped-than-usual fantasy Africa counterpart) has a few examples, such as Old-Mage Jatembe and his Ten Magic Warriors, who are largely responsible for humans in general rediscovering wizardry after [[ColonyDrop Earthfall]] and the [[AfterTheEnd Age of Anguish]], and the alchemist Artokus Kirran, discoverer and crafter of the nation of Thuvia's main claim to fame, export, and unifier, the [[ElixirOfLife Sun Orchid Elixir]].
116	[[/folder]]
117
118	[[folder:Video Games]]
119	* ''VideoGame/{{Everquest}}'': The Erudites. Their skin was changed to gray for the sequel.
120	* ''VideoGame/{{Shadowbane}}'': One of the "seven races of man" is the Indyu: "dark as the Northmen are fair", and "magic runs in their veins".
121	* ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' series:
122	** ''VideoGame/Diablo1997'' game has a black sorcerer and two white warrior types as player characters.
123	** ''VideoGame/DiabloII'' mixes it up a bit -- the two distinctly non-white heroes are the Sorceress (a SquishyWizard type with a haughty intellectual personality) and the Paladin (a decidedly non-squishy fighting priest type, complete with lots of analogies to real-world monotheistic religions). The Barbarian class is the only one that doesn't use magic of any kind, as his culture forbids it, and he is white.
124	** ''VideoGame/DiabloIII'' has a white Barbarian, a black Witch Doctor, and an Asian Wizard.
125	* In ''VideoGame/AgeOfConan'', most of the magic classes are Stygian (an Egyptian/Middle Eastern FantasyCounterpartCulture) or Khitan (Chinese/Korean based FantasyCounterpartCulture).
126	** And in the ''Franchise/ConanTheBarbarian'' universe, Stygians are indeed the most common sorcerers of the world (and Conan's [[EvilSorcerer most frequent villains]] as a result) along with certain sorcerers of Khitai.
127	** There are also sorcerers from Hyperborea, which is somewhere around the real-world Greenland - these ones are white.
128	* In the most recent versions of ''{{VideoGame/Gauntlet}}'', the wizard is a black Egyptian ''and'' the Sorceress is black as well.
129	** By default. All the other colour variations of the classes are white. In fact, ''every'' class can be black if the yellow variant (default for spellcasters) is used.
130	* In ''VideoGame/FableII'', two of the three legendary heroes are white, as is the hero [[RedRightHand (if he/she isn't blue)]], but the [[TheSmartGuy Hero of Will]] is dark skinned with cornrows, scholarly, and voiced by [[{{Series/Firefly}} Book]].
131	* ''VideoGame/QuestForGlory'' has several of these, which is only fitting in a series where each game takes place within a different FantasyCounterpartCulture. Of the full-human spellcasters, Erasmus is Germanic; Aziza, Al Scurva, and Ad Avis are Arabic; the Leopardmen are African; and Magda is UsefulNotes/{{Romani}}.
132	* TheDragon of ''VideoGame/TheWitcher'' is a fire-using mage who is basically {{Fantasy Counterpart\|Culture}} Arab.
133	* The sisters offering teleportation service in the Pirate chapter of the second ''VideoGame/TheLostVikings'' game are stereotypical old Gypsie women.
134	* The Occultist class in ''VideoGame/DarkestDungeon'' is Middle Eastern looking and wears a turban. He's almost certainly a reference to Abdul Alhazred "the Mad Arab", the Creator/HPLovecraft character who wrote the {{Necronomicon}}.
135	* The Battle Mage in ''VideoGame/{{Sacred}}'' is notoriusly dark-skinned, and one of his armor sets is a MysticalIndia costume complete with a turban, a curved sword and a crescent-shaped shield.
136	* One of the characters in ''VideoGame/BioShock2'''s multiplayer mode is an Indian mentalist and stage performer named Suresh Sheti, who is implied to have possessed prodigious psychic powers even before coming to Rapture and discovering [[AppliedPhlebotinum plasmids]].
137	[[/folder]]
138
139	[[folder:Web Comics]]
140	* In ''Webcomic/ParallelDementia'' Commander Silverton fufills this role, most visably in [[http://pd.milkinthepantry.com/?strip_id=476 This Comic]]
141	* ''Webcomic/StandStillStaySilent'': Lalli and Onni Hotakainen are post-apocalyptic versions of the Magical Finn. It's also mentioned in the comic that Finland has taken to worshipping the Old Gods and spirits to an even larger extent than the other nations of the Known World, and have the highest relative number of magicians. (The author is also a Finn herself.)
142	[[/folder]]
143
144	[[folder:Web Original]]
145	* In ''Literature/HundredCompanions'' second in command [[WizardClassic One-Eye]] is described on the author's blog as looking like Creator/MorganFreeman cosplaying [[Literature/TheLordOfTheRings Gandalf]].
146	[[/folder]]
147
148	[[folder:Western Animation]]
149	* ''WesternAnimation/DextersLaboratory'': An episode has Dexter and his friends playing a ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''-style game. Two of his friends are the knight and ranger, while his Asian friend is a wizard.
150	* Hadji from ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuest''. "Sim Sim Salabim!" anyone? The update of the cartoon, ''WesternAnimation/JonnyQuestTheRealAdventures'', had Hadji be a [[BollywoodNerd computer hacker]] instead of a mystic.
151	* The 1968 ''WesternAnimation/FantasticVoyage'' cartoon had Guru, "master of mysterious powers". He wore a turban and had the mandatory slightly lower albedo. Yeah.
152	* The venerable Shaman in ''WesternAnimation/{{Bravestarr}}''.
153	* Zigzagged in ''Franchise/AvatarTheLastAirbender''. ''Everyone'' in the world comes from a FantasyCounterpartCulture for either China, Japan, Tibet, the Inuit, or the [[{{Mayincatec}} Aztecs]], meaning there are no "Europeans" to compare them to. At the same time, however, each nation and corresponding ethnicity is still firmly linked to one particular element and its associated bending style, which is part of why Aang had to travel all over the world so he could learn all the styles where they were actually practiced, so in that sense they're still all Ethnic Magicians to ''each other''.
154	** The Guru Pathik is the best example, he is the one who helps Aang to open his Chakras and enter the Avatar State, and he seems to be a man of Indian descent, the only one in the entire Avatar universe.
155	* A purely literal example in an episode of ''WesternAnimation/KingOfTheHill'' featuring a Hispanic stage magician.
156	* Zecora is the closest approximation of this in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic''. She is a zebra, the only one in Ponyville, and grew up in the FantasyCounterpartCulture to East Africa. She lives in the [[EldritchLocation Everfree Forest]], collecting various herbs for use in potions or elixirs. Oh, and she [[RhymesOnADime speaks entirely in rhyme]], so that's nice. Despite all that, a surprising amount of effort went into her character design and backstory given that she wasn't meant to be a recurring character (the producers even tried, unsuccessfully, to cast a Swahili-speaking voice actress) and her debut episode was used for an Aesop about not fearing people who are different.
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158
159	[[folder:Real Life]]
160	* Think of how many classic magic performers have stage names ending in "-i" or "-o." That's because in the 19th Century the best-known magicians on the English music-hall circuit were Italians. So later generations of magicians adopted pseudo-Italian names to sound all magickey. Erich Weiss, a Jewish kid from Hungary originally and raised in Wisconsin, took the name of a Frenchman and added an Italian -i suffix to become... Houdini.
161	* The man whose name Houdini took was Robert-Houdin, who did his best to subvert the version of the trope common in his day - by replacing the traditional orientally dressed sorcerer with the gentlemanly StageMagician. He famously went to Algeria in that apparel when a rebellion was brewing, to show that the European magic was too strong for the Africans to fight.
162	* The word "magician" comes from the Old Iranian "magush" that refers to a Zoroastrian priest, and some tropes, such as RobeAndWizardHat, also have roots in ancient Iran.
163	* In Medieval Europe, this was the popular perception of Muslim philosophers and scientists, partially due to cultural bias and partly due to the belief that AlchemyIsMagic. Some Sufi scholars ''were'' occultists, but they were extremely rare.
164	* Hoodoo is a form of folk magic practiced in the Americas primarily by people of African descent. Downplayed slightly due to the syncretic nature of the tradition: the "ethnic" elements are often combined with Western occultism and elements of Christianity.
165	* According to legends, the Galicians were descendants of the witches.
166	* Chung Ling Soo was a stage magician who invoked this in his acts. In reality, he was a white New Yorker named Will Robinson ([[Series/LostInSpace no, not that one]]), an actor who already specialized in performing in blackface, and originally used the disguise to fool a casting agency looking to compete against the "mysterious Chinese conjurer" Jin Lingfu. Lingfu, who was ''actually'' Chinese, was not amused.
167	* This was a perception of Jews that existed in Classical Greece and Medieval Europe. In part, this was a misinterpretation of some traditions of Jewish mysticism combined with unfortunate stereotypes of the Jewish people. It's not for nothing that Kabbalah became popular with European occultists, or that the grimoires and magical texts that started springing up during these time periods were either attributed to authors with pseudo-Hebrew names or Old Testament figures, or contained vaguely Hebrew sounding gibberish. In fact, the stock magic incantation -- abracadabra -- is thought to be derived from what was erroneously believed to be a Hebrew healing charm.
168	* Priests of the Ancient Egyptian religion have this reputation in pop culture. This one owes something to the accounts found in the Book of Exodus, but also is the result of the rituals of the religion looking quite a lot like magic to the uninitiated. This was also a religion that made virtually no distinction between natural science, theology, and what we would now call "magic," so it's not an entirely unfair characterization.
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Context Main / EthnicMagician