There are a lot of stories (books, movies, whatever) where the main character is a wizard/sorcerer/mage/witch/whatever. But in most of them, it seems like the ability to do magic is just something innate, that you either have or you don’t. The main character might (or might not) need to study to learn how to use their power most effectively, but you still have to start by having the power.
What are some works where that’s not the case? Where anyone at all, with hard work, practice, and studying, can learn to do magic? Some people might have more of a knack for it, just like some people might have a knack for acting or plumbing or medicine or whatever, but in principle anyone can do it.
The only one I can think of off the top of my head is Lyndon Hardy’s Master of the Five Magics: The main character starts off in what seems to be a fairly normal apprenticeship to a thaumaturge, and the alchemy world is dominated by big corporations that have small armies of indentured alchemists working for them. Even then, though, wizardry (the summoning and binding of demons) is stated to be purely a matter of willpower, which you either have or you don’t (unless you cheat by using sorcery on yourself).
The official line from Marvel Comics was that, ‘strictly speaking, Doctor Strange does not have superhuman powers. Only the ability to manipulate mystical energy lies within an Earth-born sorcerer, not the energy itself. Theoretically, any Earth human being can tap into an infinite amount of mystical energy. However, each person is limited by his or her amount of training, discipline, knowledge, and enlightenment as to the mystical arts. As Sorcerer Supreme of Earth, Doctor Strange possesses a greater knowledge and mastery of the arts of magic than anyone else on Earth. He was born with a great talent for sorcery, and he has fulfilled that potential through long years of study and training.’
In Roald Dahl’s “The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar,” the title character learns to see through playing cards and predict the future solely through three years of concerted effort.
In the Ethshar series by Lawrence Watt-Evans, there are many types of magic. Most of them require something innate before a caster can learn it, but the most common type of straight-up wizardry is possible for anyone to perform as long as they can reliably duplicate the exact movements and pronunciation precisely enough. Getting it wrong can prove quite hazardous.
The ‘Rivers of London’ series by Ben Aaronovitch comes to mind.
Our viewpoint character Peter Grant starts off as an ordinary beat policeman, but falls in with a mentor (Inspector Nightingale) who puts him through a lot of work and study to learn how to make magic work. Safely, that is, without eating holes in your brain…
[ very dated book and tropetastic, but not terrible ]
I would say that there’s actually at least three main varieties rather than two though.
Lots of novels where ONLY someone with the gift (bloodlines, genetic, etc) can use magic, but may or may not be able to use premade magical artifacts.
Lots of novels where anyone can use some magic, but only a very Very few can use powerful magic, or create new magics, and can go either way on artifacts. So more like how given enough hard work and studying, just about anyone can become adequate at playing an instrument, but only a few are going to be innovators or be able to command an audience on skill alone (marketing is something else).
And those where anyone who puts enough effort in can become amazing at magic, but those from traditionally magic-using households have better training techniques / libraries / experience so they tend to be the best anyway.
I spent so much time in fourth grade trying to cultivate that ability after reading that story.
In the TTRPG Runequest and its setting of Glorantha, ‘battle magic’ (or for later editions, sorcery and spirit magic) are skills that any character with the right characteristic scores can acquire. Many adventures are basically sidequests for a character to improve their ability or learn a new spell.
On the Supernatural TV series, pretty much the whole idea is that our heroes have learned stuff that normal people don’t have a clue about: ghosts are real, and can be dealt with by salting and burning the corpse’s bones; djinn are real, and can be killed with a silver knife dipped in lamb’s blood; possession is real, and exorcism is a matter of reciting the right incantation — and, in all likelihood, of having inscribed key symbols in a circle, so the ringed-in possessor can’t simply leave or attack — and so on.
Now, most of that just boils down to restoring a situation to normal, which arguably falls short of actively doing magical stuff. But sandwiched in there is the bit where they’ve also learned the secret ritual for — and they, like other folks, accomplish magical things by — using little more than a buried photograph and a bone from a black cat to summon a crossroads demon and strike a mystical bargain.
Ooh, it didn’t occur to me (but should have) that if magic worked that way, that those In The Know would want to hide that fact.
And I’d read both “Henry Sugar” and the Dying Earth books, but had forgotten about them.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen any story with magical items, where nonmagical folks couldn’t use them.
That also should have occurred to me, that lots of games have some level of magic that’s learnable by anyone. Though that still might or might not count: It’s still only the Heroes learning those abilities, and it might be that the only people who become Heroes are those that have the Spark or whatever (even if some of them choose to cultivate their swordsmanship or whatever instead of their magical spark).
I’ve seen a few, although in many cases, it’s a subset of the original, in which there may or may not be “universal” magic items, but there are also “magician” exclusive magic items.
For example, in the Wheel of Time, there are items created by magic that anyone can use (Power created swords, the Waygates, various ter’angreal mostly), magic items that only channelers can use, and items that only powerful channelers can use.
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Larry Niven’s Convergent Series.
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Oh, that reminds me of Charles Stross ‘Laundry’ series, where magic is a result of computation complexity. And Bob Howard accidentally almost obliterates Wolverhampton by coming up with a particular rendering algorithm… (some would say it would be no great loss)…
More SF-ish than magic, but in the Galactic Patrol series by E E Smith, a LENS could only be worn by its designated bearer; it would kill any impostor…
That’s not really the same thing; that’s not “magic items can only be used by magical people”, it’s “magic items can only be used by their proper owner”. Even another Lensman couldn’t use a different Lensman’s lens. And an Arisian could, if they chose, make a Lens for any random schmuck (they just wouldn’t choose to do so).
I did think of another couple of examples, though:
In Larry Niven’s Warlock stories, a thief attempts to cast a spell (by speaking a 17-syllable word). The Warlock, being much more experienced, is able to quickly and easily interrupt him, but he presumably could have done it if he hadn’t been stopped.
And it’s not quite precisely magic, but in The Lego Movie, there’s a prophecy about a Master Builder who would save the world, but in the end, it’s revealed that the prophecy was just hokum, because anyone at all could become the Master Builder.
I’m preparing for personal reasons to undertake a six-month magical rite from a 15th century grimoire, and it’s pretty much the real world version of the trope - most of the process is just daily prayer/meditation, self-isolation, and Torah study in order to render yourself ritually pure enough to be able to talk to the spirits.
