I have some questions for my fellow practitioners of magic. To you, what is it about a type of magic or act involving magic that qualifies for it to be forbidden or taboo?
Is the forbidden magic in question inherently corrupt or is it often used by evil figures? Is it taboo to the point where any who uses it is killed? Can this magic be used for more beneficial reasons or can it only be used for destruction?
These are my questions to all of you.
In more simpler terms, talk about a magic that you would call forbidden/taboo and explain why.

I believe all magic is gray it can be used for both good and evil. Fire can warm the hearth, just as easily as it can turn armies to ash. Necromancy can be used to trap souls for eternity, while it can also be used to defend. A necromancer could raise a group of skeletons to tend the fields so farmers could spend time with their families, just as easily as it could be used to defend a town from a bandit raid. Soul magic could torture a person in ways we can't even imagine, such as tearing there soul slowly apart. It could also be used to revive the dead. Life magic could turn a barren battle field into a lush and fertile forest, just as it could warp life in unnatural and strange ways.

So to summarize magic is a tool and it is not the tool that matters. It is what the wielder does with it.

6027948
I think it would have to do more with the culture that makes the magic taboos then the magic it self. Example: For ponies Dark Magic would be considered forbidden because it is a corruption of harmony, something sacred to the ponies, or as close as they ever get to sacred.

6027977
I agree with your overall statement, since it makes a lot of sense. I'm curious though, what about a magic that is simply killing, not through any element, it just brings death? Could magic that only has the power to kill be used in a purely good and harmless way?

6028011
If there is a magic used purely for killing; then it's wielder is spectacularly closed-minded. Like 6027977 said, magic is a tool; it exists for the wielder to use and by extension, discover more uses.

6028028
Oh, I understand that, but that does happen in some stories and stuff. I mean, what about the killing curse from Harry Potter? That is forbidden, and its only ability is to kill whatever it hits.

Edit: Fixed some grammar.

6028042
Ah, but it painless killing, no? And above all that, it leaves the body unmarked? Right off the top of my head, I can see uses for euthanasia, and the painless slaughter of cattle for food.

6028046
Hmmm, you make a good point there. I'll have to agree with you here.

6027948
6027977

Well I know there's a form of divination that allows you to see the future via ripping someone's entrails out in a riual sacrifice. It's called Anthropomancy, and is a varient of hepatomancy, which was the same magic, but using livestock (chickens, cows, sheep,) that you can eat after the ritual instead.

Can hardly argue that Anthropomancy is a gray magic when hepatomancy exists. Butcher a man and go to jail, or butcher a chicken and get drumsticks.

There's also Entropomancy which is simply "I want you to have a Bad Day" (TM) magic, which ranges anywhere from "your shoeslaces snap and you trip" (The dickish), to "your shoeslaces snap and you trip in front of a bus" (the murderous), all the way to "Your shoelaces snap and you fall in front a primary school bus which tries to swerve out of the way and crashes into a gas station, turning the block into a fireball" (the "I'm going to Hell and laughing all the way down"). Hard to turn that one into a positive.

6027977
I share a similar belief. I say similar due to another belief that I hold. That being that there are no absolutes in this world. No being or thing is purely good or purely evil. While I do believe that magic is a tool and morality is dependent on the wielder, I also believe that there are exceptions to this rule. A possible exception could be a spell that makes the victim suffer nigh endless pain while preventing the victim from passing out. The only positive use I can see in this is punishing a criminal who has committed a serious offense, say murder for instance.

6027997
I can see that. What's taboo in one culture could be custom for another. For example, one culture could see necromancy as unnatural and evil while another culture could see it as normal and perfectly acceptable.

6028241
The only reason I can see someone using Anthropomancy over Hepatomancy would be if killing a human allows the user to see into the future more clearly or see more of the future.

6028854

Not really, if you know what you're doing.

It's the difference between repairing something the slow, methodical, and professional route, or wrapping something in duct tape and calling it fixed. Yeah same results, but one's faster and far, far messier. Also likely to get the cops on your ass.