Where Are All the Sorcerers in MLP? · 1:00am Dec 1st, 2018
Some of you might be tempted to answer this question, “There’s tons of sorcerers in MLP! Look at Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer, for instance. They are (were) evil and they use powerful magic.”
And I would say that they’re not sorcerers, they’re wizards. Now let me define sorcerer. A sorcerer is not necessarily evil. Sorcerers use magic, yes, but it’s the way that a magician uses magic which makes them either a wizard or a sorcerer. The distinction is a bit nuanced, like the distinction between a clever plot twist and bad writing, but the distinction exists.
INTRODUCTION
A wizard is one who meticulously studies magic, poring over books and scrolls to learn spells and the lore behind them. Thus, they have a huge arsenal of different spells at their disposal. However, they must practice extensively to cast them. They also consider themselves part of an academic community, and see magic more like a science than an art. Just like in the show with Princess Celestia’s School For Gifted Unicorns.
A sorcerer is one who practices magic that they draw from their own inspiration. “Sorcerers create magic the way a poet creates poems, with inborn talent honed by practice." -D&D manual. They have little use for studying dusty books and scrolls, as they invent spells by themselves. They see magic as an art rather than a science. But as a consequence of eschewing magical tradition, they can’t cast the diversity of spells that wizards can. Just like in the show with… um... well, this is a problem, isn’t?
See, almost every powerful unicorn in the show fits the definition of wizard far better than sorcerer. They study books and scrolls, and while they certainly do have some innate talent, it takes academic pursuit for them to become good at magic. Don’t believe me? Let’s go through all the powerful unicorns in the show. Other than Twilight, I won't comment on the alicorns directly, because that topic is extensive enough to deserve its own post.
THE MAGICAL COLUMNS
Twilight Sparkle: As shown in her cutie mark flashback, Twilight Sparkle has a good deal of innate talent to mess with reality. However, from when she was a filly, she read and read and read books to learn magic, and attended school for it. Then read more books. Then made lists of all the books she's read. She continues her intensive academic pursuit throughout the show. She’s definitely goes in the wizard column.
Starswirl is Twilight’s idol. He’s called a wizard by name several times through the show, and his extensive corpus of books and scrolls plainly indicate his pursuit of magic as an academic. Wizard. I would’ve just put “Starswirl - Wizard” instead of this paragraph, but I hate writers who assume that their ideas are self-evident. (They share the same circle of hell with those who say, “X needs no introduction.”)
Sunburst is basically the modern-day Starswirl. He studies magic so much that he has few powerful spells of his own, because he hasn’t practiced casting them. He didn’t have the knack for practicality, so he’s doomed to be an egghead trapped in an awkward friendship with Starlight. This makes him a wizard. (The egghead part, not the awkward friendship part).
Sunset Shimmer: A foil to Twilight. Also went to Celestia’s school, so I would presume that she’s a wizard. I’ll admit I have not watched any EQG films past the first one, so I’m sorry that this entry is rather sparse. If I’m wrong and she actually is a sorcerer, please feel free to skip down to the comments and tell--you’re already down there, aren’t you.
Starlight Glimmer: When she appeared in Cloudsdale and fought Twilight to a draw, many fans were upset because she’d never went to school for magic, that we know of, casting simply from her powerful emotions. What’s wrong with that? We need a few canon sorcerers, and Starlight certainly… kind of, isn’t one. She mentioned in “The Cutie Map Part 2” that she’d studied a force field spell for years. She studies Starswirl’s scroll and makes it better. After her reformation, she studies magic (and friendship) right along side of Twilight. Though she is definitely more of an independent-minded magician than the others in the wizard column, she’s still a wizard.
Rarity: Now she’s interesting. After season one, we don’t really get to see Rarity perform any powerful magic, because the writers nerfed her. That’s aside from Inspiration Manifestation, but that was an evil tome that wasn’t part of Rarity’s natural magic, so we won’t count that one. In S1, it’s a totally different story. Rarity turns an entire tree into wooden figurines of her own design, and creates a dress out of Trixie’s stage curtain. Talk about practicing magic as an art instead of a science! We never saw Rarity study any magic, and she discovered her gem detection spell by herself. I’m tempted to say that Lauren Faust was making her out to be a sorceress of fashion, which would’ve been fabulous to behold, but then her successors re-wrote her character. Now she’s just as plain as the other background unicorns when it comes to magic. We just don’t know for sure what could’ve been. Due to the small sample size and Rarity’s post-S1 nerf, I’m sadly forced to say that she’s a toss-up. For years I've wanted to do a story explaining Rarity's nerf in-universe, but I probably won't get around to it.
Sombra: There’s a lot of comic book canon about him, but I’m mainly sticking to the show in this post. Sombra’s magic is described as dark magic, but we don’t know what that is. Are there books on dark magic? Are there schools for it? We just don’t know. The comics say that a shadow pony corrupts Sombra and gives him his power. However, if he had his power given to him by another, he is neither a wizard nor a sorcerer; he’s just a conduit. Toss-up.
Shining Armor: I honestly, sincerely have no idea.
Trixie Lulamoon is probably the closest thing to a sorcerer that we see in the show. She does stage magic. She probably didn’t go to school because she doesn’t know how to teleport or do various spells that come easy to the other unicorns on this list. But she did still have some magical talent. When Starlight Glimmer agrees to teach her, she acts like she’s never been taught by anypony. We won’t count the Alicorn Amulet; see Rarity’s entry above. With all of that, I’d say that Trixie started off as a sorcerer, but is now trying to follow a wizard’s path. Which is a shame, because it would be cool if she was almost as powerful as the learned ponies, but took a different approach to it and didn’t know quite the same number of spells. Instead, the show decides to lampoon the idea of a pony learning magic outside of “official” channels by portraying Trixie as clueless without them.
Background unicorns: They mostly use telekinesis, maybe a few cantrips like lighting their horn in dark areas, creating a small flame on a candle, or mending small, broken items. There aren’t any schools for this sort of magic, but that doesn’t make every other unicorn in the show a sorcerer, because sorcerers devote their entire lives to magic, like wizards do. So they’re neither sorcerers or wizards.
Baby unicorns: Unicorn and alicorn foals experience bursts of odd magic. We see this with Pumpkin Cake in S2, and with Flurry Heart in S6. What’s interesting is that they cast somewhat advanced spells that normally do require schooling. With Flurry Heart it was teleportation and energy beams, with Pumpkin it was walking through a solid barrier and flying around like Starlight. I’m tempted to say that only a few baby unicorns have such power surges, because if all baby unicorns had them like Flurry and Pumpkin, then the infant mortality rate for unicorns would be 99%. (The other 1% end up permanently maimed.)
Perhaps whether or not a pony can become a sorcerer is determined in foalhood. Much like acquiring perfect pitch or many languages, it's easier when you're an infant and you're exposed to it. Were the parents of a unicorn infant to encourage it to test out its shiny new horn, then perhaps the baby would develop a knack for magic that few other unicorns possess. However, these bursts of magic are seen as things to prevent. Sad!
CONCLUSION
Where are all the sorcerers in MLP? There aren’t any, really. Which is rather disappointing. But, I think I know why, and it’s tied to the progression of the show.
In S1, they were setting up Rarity to be a sorcerer of sorts, but I think they changed the rules to where there were two classes of unicorns. “Ordinary” unicorns only knew telekinesis and a few minor cantrips, while “gifted” unicorns knew all sorts of spells. Rarity was caught in the middle, and since she couldn’t be classified as gifted, she was demoted to ordinary and stripped of her magic. Dammit Hasbro, don’t you know that magic is non-binary? And yes, I do realize the irony.
This happened due to the inertia of Twilight. Since she attained her powers in a certain way, the writers made a template that all similarly powerful unicorns must attain their powers in a similar way. Her background of magic studies was elaborated on as the show progressed, leaving less and less room for any sort of diversity in magical styles.
Twilight's idol Starswirl went from being some random wizard who was important to her due to his expertise and similar moral leanings but rarely mentioned otherwise, to the Ultimate Authority of Magic™. Little or no other prominent unicorns of the past are mentioned. Even the evil, world destroying Starlight piggybacked on Starswirl's time travel spell. Magic is essentially tethered to him.
Starlight's introduction didn't help matters. Fan reaction was mixed when she fought Twilight to a draw, probably because over five seasons, viewers had been conditioned to equate magic with wizardry. They'd been conditioned to believe that a magician could never get by on natural talent and self study alone. The writers do often listen to us, so because of that schism, I think the door is shut to canon sorcerers forever.
But that's where we come in! Have you ever written a sorcerer into your story? What sorts of powers and limitations did you give them? Did your readers react positively? Let me know in the comments.
Huh. Interesting.
I think one of the bigger mistakes they made with the show's world-building was expanding horizontally rather than vertically. What I mean is that they had Equestria, a whole country to work with, and yet they still decided to expand beyond to dragon and Yak territory, and Mount Ares, and whatever else, instead of just adding to what they already had. It's like they prioritized complexity over depth. There could have been whole arcs dedicated to different magic schools, or more history episodes, or about alicorns.
An important rule of world-building is to never reveal absolutely everything. There should always be some unknown territory beyond, since the archetypes of the Known and Unknown territory appears in ancient stories, where "home" is familiar and orderly, while the Outside is chaos and danger. Earlier in the show, it was a massive undertaking for the characters to travel outside of Ponyville, towards the edges of the map. Nowadays it feels like they can go everywhere and anywhere, like it's quick travel from a Bethesda game.
The Crystal Empire was probably my favorite addition to the show in terms of new locations, but that probably should've been it. Less additions and more expansions, if that makes sense.
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That's part of the reason why I don't really care for the newer seasons. The young six, please tell me why I should care about them, they aren't even ponies nor are they long-time characters. Chancellor Neighsay actually had a good point in the sense that the show should be mostly restricted to ponies, because it's called My Little Pony. The young six could've just as easily been some of the fillies and colts from around Ponyville, with maybe one or two non-ponies thrown in, but not five. Spike could've gotten a chance to shine.
Or the new six central characters could be some of the adult ponies that are secondary characters but are now getting screentime. Who do the fans care more about, Berry Punch and Derpy Hooves, or some hypogriff and dragon? For that matter, we still don't know a whole lot about zebras. Why not flesh out the existing nonpony races before adding extras, it's like they're catching Pokemon.
I made a joke one time in a Fimfic group, "The writers took time to introduce the duke and duchess of Maretonia, who nobody cares about, meanwhile we know next to nothing about the Princesses' past, or Equestria's own government for that matter."
I was downvoted for whatever reason.
In all of my stories, I generally focus on Equestria, with other countries taking a backseat. I also explore secondary characters who we don't know much about. Prince Blueblood, Berry Punch, Nurse Redheart, the (adult, not-clop) Cake Twins, and several others. I've written about 400,000 words of fanfic and I spent maybe 10% of that on locations outside of Equestria.
I dunno though, maybe the fans like the show's new direction more than I do.
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Welp. Here's hoping for G5.