The Four Matters and How Magic Works

As I explained in Chapter 6 of A Crown's Atonement For Their Misdeeds, this post will act as a reference guide for anything having to do with magic involving the use of the Four Matters and also goes into a little more detail as to what the Four Matters are and how they interact with the Kirby universe, and by extension, Equestria.

The Four Matters
The Four Matter are pretty much what makes up the universe of the Kirby series and also helps maintain said universe as well. Each Matter is unique in terms of how it works and behaves with said universe, with each one helping to maintain the universe in their own ways. Below is a basic overview of each of the Four Matters and how they are also used for magic.

Heart Matter
Heart Matter represents positive emotions as a whole and is how a spellcaster using the Four Matters is able to control both their magic and spells. The way Heart Matter interacts with living things is just that it is simply positive emotions that a being feels and interacts with. Heart Matter is also able to manifest in a physical form and is often used in many artifacts and weapons that Kirby has used in his adventures. Such examples include things such as the Star Rod, Rainbow Sword, Love-Love Stick, the Crystal Gun used against 02, and the Star Allies Sparkler. The last of these being a weapon that has an immense concentration of Heart Matter. Two other physical manifestations of Heart Matter are that of the Friend Hearts and Heart Spears in Kirby Star Allies. Friend Hearts are essentially a small amount of Heart Matter given form that can help purify those corrupted by darkness and evil influences. Heart Spears on the other hand have a similar use, though they are more often used for sealing things of immense darkness or negativity away, as they are seen keeping together the seal surrounding the Jamba Heart at the beginning of Star Allies.

Dream Matter
Dream Matter is simply that of the dreams that a being can have. As stated by Null, Dream Matter is pretty much the idea or thought of a spell that all the other matters use as a sort of baseline or mold in which the other matters assist in using said mold to create a spell and allowing the spellcaster to use it. I also like to think that a few artifacts in the Kirby series also use a large amount of Dream Matter as well. These include the Star Rod, and by extension the Starship, and the various transformations Kirby uses in Epic Yarn.

Soul Matter
Soul Matter is the strength of one's own soul which also contains a being's mana pool. As explained, Soul Matter refers to a being's own soul and a being's willpower as well. As one's mana pool is directly tied with one's own soul, this means that when a being's mana pool increases allowing one to cast more powerful magic, a being's own soul and willpower also greatly increase as well. Soul Matter is also able to manifest itself, though it's often not in a really good situation. Throughout the Kirby games the final boss tends to have a secret, stronger version that you can only face at the end of the True Arena that also goes into more detail about the final boss as well. I like to believe that these secret versions are a result of a being's own Soul Matter manifesting, causing their bodies to change and causes them to greatly increase in power. To put it simply, when a being's Soul Matter manifests, it's usually because of a life or death situation, and that a being is doing everything that they can to ensure that they won't end up dead.

Dark Matter
Dark Matter is the exact opposite when compared to Heart Matter. Dark Matter represents negative emotions instead of positive emotions and when used instead of Heart Matter when casting spells or magic, the magic ends up becoming somewhat wild and erratic due to the negative emotions being used for it. Dark Matter is also used primarily in a select few elements of magic as well. While there aren't many artifacts in the Kirby series that I can think about that use Dark Matter, there is instead a group of entities made of Dark Matter instead. These entities being that of Zero and, well, the Dark Matters. As they are composed of Dark Matter, they are especially weak to any sort of weapon or artifact that utilizes Heart Matter.

Elements of Magic
The elements of magic refer primarily as to what kind of element a spell or specific type of magic belongs to. There are a ton of different elements within the Kirby series, and I thought I would add on some of my own that either aren't represented a lot in the Kirby series or some that I feel like would be interesting and unique to include. Also note that almost every element interacts with one another in unique and interesting ways. One other thing to note is the art of infusion, or often times called channeling. This refers to a weapon being imbued or coated with a specific element, meaning that the weapon gains the effects of the element that it is channeling. A good example of this is a sword channeling the element of fire, in which the sword gains the ability to do things such as burning things, melting ice, and lighting fuses. Under each description of an element, if it can be infused, then I will talk about what kind sort of weapon one becomes while channeling an element. Going back to the example of a sword channeling fire, the sword would be referred to as a "Sizzle" weapon. One final thing to mention is elemental affinity. This essentially refers to what kind of magic a spellcaster is proficient with. A spellcaster's elemental affinity is usually effected by either their species, the environment they grew up in, or just being exposed to an intense amount of a particular element. As Null stated in Chapter 6, a dragon would usually have an affinity with fire magic, but if they lived someplace that was really cold and snowy, then they may develop an affinity for ice magic instead. Or an earth pony may have an affinity with earth magic, but they grew up somewhere high up and windy to the point where they are as familiar to the wind and air as a pegasus is, causing them to have an affinity for wind.

Fire
The element of fire is seen quite often throughout the Kirby series, and refers to pretty much anything that is fire or has fire-like properties. Abilities used by Kirby that focus on or somewhat use this element include Fire (obviously), Fighter, Circus, and Mecha. Some examples of fire magic include creating and launching fireballs, summoning streams or pillars of fire, to even something as small as creating a small flame.

Weapon Channeling Fire: Sizzle Weapon

Water
Water is an elements that doesn't really show up in the Kirby series a lot. In fact, as of this post, there are really only two abilities used by Kirby that involve using water: Water and Bubble. Getting back on track, the element of water focuses on utilizing water itself as as weapon or just controlling it. It's pretty much just a form of hydrokinesis, as water magic involves things such as creating giant waves of water, throwing balls of pressurized water at your foes, and using water to surf around on land. Water breathing is also a form of water magic as well.

Weapon Channeling Water: Splash Weapon

Ice
In some games and media I have seen both water and ice are just classified as water magic. I don't really like this as it is somewhat clear that these two things function quite differently from one another. Thankfully, the Kirby games also sees them as being different. The element of ice mainly focuses on magic that is cold in both nature and temperature, and is often considered to be somewhat graceful in appearance. If there is one thing that the element of ice shares with water, it is how little it is represented in terms of abilities used by Kirby, as the only ice element ability I can think of off of the top of my head is literally just Ice. Some examples of ice magic include creating things out of ice (small structures and objects), creating freezing winds or small breezes of snow, to fun things such as ice skating on both land and on liquid surfaces.

Weapon Channeling Ice: Blizzard Weapon

Electric
The element of electricity, or as I sometimes like to call it the element of thunder, is actually one of the more common elements in the Kirby series in terms of abilities. There are a lot of abilities that utilize this element, but the main ones are that of Spark, Plasma, Beam, and the rare UFO ability. Magic that is part of this element usually involves using electricity in some way, shape, or form. These include producing electric sparks, creating barriers of electricity akin to the ones Spark and Plasma utilize, to even being able to call down bolts of lightning.

Weapon Channeling Electricity: Zap Weapon

Wind
Another element that isn't really seen much in the Kirby series, this element revolves around the manipulation of air to create strong winds among other things. This element focuses more on mobility, as the main abilities that use this element are that of Tornado and Clean. Use of wind magic involves things such as creating powerful gusts of wind, using wind to make things float in midair, to even using it to move around freely in midair at high speeds.

Weapon Channeling Wind: Bluster Weapon

Earth
I like to think that this element in particular is seeing more representation, as previously, Stone was the only ability that represented this element. Now though, Drill could also be an ability that represents the element of earth quite well. To put it simply, earth magic involves the manipulation of the ground around the user or controlling rocks and stone that can be used in a variety of ways. Some simple examples include just removing a large chunk of rock from the ground and launching it at an opponent, creating small structures and objects out of stone (somewhat similar to ice), to even generating small earthquakes. The element of earth is considered to be more of a reactant element, as it interacts with other elements in unique and interesting ways.

Light
An element with high highs and low lows, the element of light is hardly even represented in the Kirby series as an ability. This is also one of few elements in which Heart Matter is used directly in order for light magic to be used. Some examples of the lows of this element include creating small orbs of light that can only really act as a small light source to even just creating bright flashes. The highs on the other hand, are very powerful. Summoning pillars of light, firing beams of concentrated light, to even creating powerful explosions of light. The element of light is also unique as, when combined with another element, the result is the spell being a "light" variant of that spell. To put it simply, let's say that a simple fire spell is combined with the element of light. The result would be that fire spell having the properties of both the elements of light and fire, thus being a "light" variant of a spell.

Weapon Channeling Light: Shining Weapon

Dark
An element that is pretty much the opposite of the element of light, the element of darkness is never used by Kirby in any way, though a lot of foes that Kirby has faced have used this element to some degree. The element of darkness utilizes Dark Matter in order for it to be effectively cast, and it also is similar to the element of light in which it has low lows and high highs. Said lows include just simply making the area around the caster darker to simply just temporarily blinding opponents by making them see nothing but darkness. The highs on the other hand include turning one's own body into a shadow to easily dodge any attack that comes their way, firing beams or launching orbs of concentrated darkness, to even creating small black holes that aren't as destructive as an actual one, but still pack quite a punch. Another similarity this element has to that of light is that, when combined with a spell, that spell will become a "dark" variant of that spell, having the attributes of that spell's element and the element of darkness.

Weapon Channeling Darkness: Dark Weapon

Neutral
As the name implies, the neutral element is somewhat balanced in terms of how it works. First off, nothing is resistant or weak to neutral magic, meaning that it is pretty much a sort of safe and reliable kind of magic. It also doesn't interact with any other element of magic either with neutral spells also not having a light or dark variant. Another thing to note is that neutral magic cannot be channeled into a weapon, meaning that there is no "neutral" version of a weapon. Other than that, neutral element spells are also known to be quite powerful for multiple reasons. One being that they are just powerful in nature, and the other being that since nothing can resist neutral magic, opponents will always take the full force of a neutral element spell. In the Kirby series, the only ability that I can really attribute to the neutral element is the Crash ability.