# Wizards and formal education **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 27, 2013, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304 "2013-08-27T14:52:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/21 "2013-08-27T15:51:28Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > Apprenticeships are a common arrangement for wizards, possibly more common than any sort of group education, though schools of various sorts seem to be taking the lead in more recent fantasy. There’s also a gray area when wizards have multiple apprentices and their instruction takes on aspects of classroom education. > [ul] > [li]Skeeve was apprenticed to Garkin, then Aahz. No formal schooling.[/li][li]Harry Dresden attended a regular high school, but his magical training was in the form of a rather brutal apprenticeship, and he later takes on an apprentice of his own (and insists that the apprentice finish high school).[/li][li]The Gray Mouser was a wizard’s apprentice before becoming a thief.[/li][li]Pug, of the relevantly titled _Magician: Apprentice_ by Raymond Feist, was an apprentice for some time, but actually attained mastery (in, go figure, _Magician: Master_) by attending a school.[/li][/ul] I was thinking an apprenticeship would be a more common trope, but couldn’t come up with any examples. Which I guess is understandable since I’m not familiar with any that you listed. That’s kind of what made me wonder about this, Ged in “A Wizard of Earthsea” started as an apprentice and then ended up in school. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/22 "2013-08-27T16:16:04Z")
> [@Big\_Norse](#): > > I was thinking an apprenticeship would be a more common trope, but couldn’t come up with any examples. Which I guess is understandable since I’m not familiar with any that you listed. Given the other stuff you’ve read, that’s a bit surprising. For reference, Skeeve is the protagonist in Robert Asprin’s comic fantasy [_Myth Adventures_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_Adventures) series, Harry Dresden is from Jim Butcher’s [_Dresden Files_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_files) (a currently ongoing urban fantasy series), the Gray Mouser is from Fritz Leiber’s old-school (1940s-1970s) sword and sorcery [stories](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fafhrd_and_the_Gray_Mouser), and Pug is from Raymond Feist’s [_Riftwar Saga_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riftwar_Saga). I thought they were all pretty well known. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/23 "2013-08-27T16:31:03Z")
John Constantine, from the _Hellblazer_ comics, is a talented wizard who never received any sort of formal training, either academic or apprenticeship. He’s picked up a lot of tricks by hanging around other magicians, through independent research, and signing the occasional demonic bargain. ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/24 "2013-08-27T16:53:10Z")
The _Rose of the Prophet_ trilogy had “western” (pseudo-European) wizards going to ‘traditional’ schools/universities to learn their trade. The pseudo-Arabic nomads had magic, but it was only done by women, was more informally taught within the tribe and was far less powerful than their better schooled counterparts. Edit: I don’t know that the “western” schooled mages had singular apprenticeships so much as being “underclassmen” or “graduate students” of sorts. One of the principle characters was a student among a group of students chosen to come along on a voyage as a special privilege for their hard work and promise. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/25 "2013-08-27T17:01:49Z")
Skeeve spends most of the series in a one-on-one situation with Aahz (though the line of which one is master and which is student blurs considerably, and Skeeve also takes on an apprentice of his own), but towards the end of the series, Aahz does arrange a correspondence program for him with his own alma mater. ---
**Author:** ![chrisk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@chrisk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chrisk)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/26 "2013-08-27T17:12:37Z")
In Diane Duane’s “Young Wizards” series, a Wizard’s education is intensive but rather informal; wizards have access to magical ‘Wizard’s manuals’ or other information sources that give access to all the information relevant for their current circumstances and skill level. They also routinely consult with higher-ranking Advisories and Senior wizards who guide their education and help them figure out what specialties they’re interested in and what sub-specialties to research next. Diane’s compared it to a decentralized grad school system, with the Advisories as faculty and Seniors as local deans. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/27 "2013-08-27T17:12:41Z")
> [@Big\_Norse](#): > > I’m currently reading Leguin’s Earthsea books, having just finished (what exists of) Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicles and it struck me, do wizards and sorcerers always go to school? It seems a fairly standard convention. Standard nowadays, but it’s relatively recent, compared to the apprenticeship model. See the TVTropes page on [Wizarding School](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WizardingSchool). > [@](#): > > In ye olden days, people learned skills by being apprenticed to someone, so it was natural to assume that magicians would learn the ropes in the same manner. Then, the modern age saw the rise of public schooling and universities almost completely displace apprenticeship as the means of education. In light of this, some authors decided that the school setting was a viable way to educate their magicians. > > Thus was born the Wizarding School, the institute for education in magic. There the young sorcerers go to learn various forms of rule-based Functional Magic (after all, there’s not much one can learn if the magic is random and uncontrollable), divided into different “subjects” or even schools of magic. Expect plenty of Magi Babble on the tests. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/28 "2013-08-27T17:20:03Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > …Magi Babble… As one who writes quite a bit of it, I prefer the term “arcanobabble”. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![N9IWP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/n9iwp/32/3154_2.png) [@N9IWP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/N9IWP)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/29 "2013-08-27T17:20:49Z")
In “Master of the 5 Magics” Alodar starts out as an apprentice thaumaturge but later learns the other 4 magic systems. IIRC alchemy and magic had schools and the others you just had to find someone to teach you. Brian ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/30 "2013-08-27T17:27:14Z")
> [@For You](#): > > I read somewhere that Gandalf and Sauruman were not ordinary mortals who became wizards but were a type of eldritch being descended from the pantheon, or something like that. A mortal would have died in a battle with a balrog, but Gandalf and the balrog were beings of the same order. That seems more in keeping with Tolkein. Unless you’re a hobbit, you have to be born to greatness - greatness is not something a regular person can aspire to on their own. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/31 "2013-08-27T18:21:04Z")
> [@aNewLeaf](#): > > Tolkien’s wizards are more like minor gods and less like educated humans. Gandalf is learned, but he didn’t go to Wizard School. > Merlin did, didn’t he? Wasn’t there mention of his schooling? In one legend, Merlin is the son of a demon and a virgin, intended to be the Antichrist. His mother informed Blaise, her priest and confessor, and he baptized Merlin at birth, driving out the demonic influence. Blaise thereafter served as Merlin’s tutor, but as a priest, he would not have been teaching him magic. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/32 "2013-08-27T18:39:43Z")
> [@Prof.Pepperwinkle](#): > > In the _Face in the Frost_ by John Bellairs, a wizard has two apprentices: needless to say, one wants the other dead. That was a pretty good book. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 6:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/33 "2013-08-27T18:49:44Z")
> [@N9IWP](#): > > IIRC alchemy and magic had schools and the others you just had to find someone to teach you. For those two, schools (or some large, organized approach, at any rate) seem pretty much inevitable. Magic–that is, the specific domain of magic the characters called “magic”, and which I might call “enchantment”–is an extremely fussy business in that setting. It takes a lot of resources and effort to accomplish anything of interest with it, so it makes sense that schools would form. Pooled resources and lots of neophytes to fill roles at ceremonies enabled them to make stuff they otherwise couldn’t. Alchemy benefited similarly, relying on a mass-production approach to overcome the problems of refining ingredients and making products with a relatively low individual success rate. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/34 "2013-08-27T18:53:47Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > That seems more in keeping with Tolkein. Unless you’re a hobbit, you have to be born to greatness - greatness is not something a regular person can aspire to on their own. Gandalf was never born. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 9:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/35 "2013-08-27T21:06:01Z")
This is not just a matter of fiction. In medieval and renaissance times there were real people who aspired (fruitlessly, no doubt) to be magicians and (what is not very different) alchemists. A great deal of their search for magical powers revolved around book learning, the seeking out of obscure manuscripts, the deciphering and interpretation of extremely cryptic texts, and so forth. It is no accident that most fictional wizards fit more or less the same template. (Tolkein’s wizards are an exception, but then, “wizard” is not really the ‘correct’ word for them.) ---
**Author:** ![Big\_Norse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/big_norse/32/9954_2.png) [@Big\_Norse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Big_Norse)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/36 "2013-08-27T21:12:23Z")
> [@Balance](#): > > Given the other stuff you’ve read, that’s a bit surprising. For reference, Skeeve is the protagonist in Robert Asprin’s comic fantasy [_Myth Adventures_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_Adventures) series, Harry Dresden is from Jim Butcher’s [_Dresden Files_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_files) (a currently ongoing urban fantasy series), the Gray Mouser is from Fritz Leiber’s old-school (1940s-1970s) sword and sorcery [stories](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fafhrd_and_the_Gray_Mouser), and Pug is from Raymond Feist’s [_Riftwar Saga_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riftwar_Saga). I thought they were all pretty well known. I’ve heard of the authors you’ve listed and I caught an episode or two of the short lived Dresden file series on TV. And to be perfectly honest, I knew I’d get some good ideas on what to read next from this thread. Looks like Dresden Files and Riftwar are going on the list. ---
**Author:** ![LawMonkey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d6d6ee/32.png) [@LawMonkey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LawMonkey)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/37 "2013-08-27T21:34:36Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > This is not just a matter of fiction. In medieval and renaissance times there were real people who aspired (fruitlessly, no doubt) to be magicians and (what is not very different) alchemists. A great deal of their search for magical powers revolved around book learning, the seeking out of obscure manuscripts, the deciphering and interpretation of extremely cryptic texts, and so forth. It is no accident that most fictional wizards fit more or less the same template. (Tolkein’s wizards are an exception, but then, “wizard” is not really the ‘correct’ word for them.) Indeed, and that’s true (I think) even before we had the shift from the “apprenticeship model” to the “university model” of wizardly education. Part of the shift reflects the change in the way we’re educated, true–but wizards pursue a particularly “academic” career, half-chemist, half-applied philosopher. It’s only natural that they would tend to be produced from schools or universities nowadays, rather than say, fighters or thieves. (Though Mary Gentle’s _ **Rats and Gargoyles** _ did feature an, IIRC, “University of Crime,” an idea I’ve always found strangely appealing. This is what you get for being mildly ganef-besotted like I am.) ---
**Author:** ![Barking\_Dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Barking\_Dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barking_Dog)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/38 "2013-08-27T21:58:22Z")
> [@Tom\_Tildrum](#): > > In one legend, Merlin is the son of a demon and a virgin, intended to be the Antichrist. His mother informed Blaise, her priest and confessor, and he baptized Merlin at birth, driving out the demonic influence. Blaise thereafter served as Merlin’s tutor, but as a priest, he would not have been teaching him magic. IIRC, at one point he goes crazy and lives naked in the woods as some kind of wildman for a period of years. When he eventually regains his sanity, he can speak the language of the birds and beasts and other nifty nature-based powers. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/39 "2013-08-27T22:22:27Z")
Some versions of Merlin have him being a druid, and learned magic through them. Not sure how far back that idea goes, I suspect it’s fairly recent. One series of books I read (name and author escape me at the moment) tried to put as much of the Arthur mythos as possible into a historically accurate (but still fantasy) framework. In those novels, Merlin is the son of Taliesin, the semi-mythical Welsh bard, and learned his magic from him. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2013, 10:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304/40 "2013-08-27T22:36:22Z")
I think the shift from the apprentice model to the university model in fantasy literature is connected to changes in the genre itself. Based on what I can tell, up until the 1980’s most fantasy stories, inspired by either Tolkien or Howard, were set in analogues to Early Medieval settings - pre-1100 AD or so. In such a setting, apprenticeship is the only option. In recent decades, though, many fantasy writers have been moving away from Middle Earth/Hyboria and inventing worlds that are more High Medieval or even Renaissance in tone. Here, universities have a place - and if anyone’s going to be going to university, it’s going to be wizards. Naturally, there are exceptions, like Ursula K. LeGuin (although note that Earthsea is the rare non-European fantasy world). Still, it seems to me that current fantasy writing involves fewer mighty-thewed barbarians and more burghers. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wizards-and-formal-education/667304.md?page=3)