Spargel: Elzar had been seduced by the dark side of cooking. Cilantro, mango salsa, raspberry vinaigrette!
Bender: That drizzler!
Bender: That drizzler!
Basically, The Dark Arts are any science, discipline, magic, or martial combat stylenote that is deemed by society in general and the establishment in particular as a Bad Idea.®
In other words, if there are Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, you can expect someone to have thought it would be cool to make an easy to read how-to book on it. The "Dark" Art might not necessarily be evil or dangerous, but there's always at least some cause to consider these powers/skills inherently hazardous, if potent, and not to be left open for everyone to learn.
This can be for any of the following reasons, sometimes several at once:
- It's very dangerous for the practitioner and those around him, usually because it is:
- Explicitly evil and corrupts the practitioners.
- Has a really ghastly price to use.
- Can only be obtained by evil activities.
- It's very painful for the person casting the magic.
- It invokes dangerous forces, beings, and entities which are impossible to control once released, and which tend to hold a grudge about being forced into service — if they were ever really under the user's control to begin with and not just giving them the rope to hang themselves with.
- All its Potential Applications are destructive.
- All the products end up Going Horribly Wrong, or worse, Horribly Right. Robots rebel, resurrections are botched, superpowers cause insanity and death. Basically, if you can build a Fantastic Aesop out of it, it's this.
- The Dark Art represents a threat to the establishment because it:
- Looks really scary, or a small but dangerous band used it. Usually the Art itself is Dark Is Not Evil, but the negative cultural associations make the establishment distrust it.
- Can empower normal people to stand up to it. Expect the Establishment to be a Hypocrite that wields these arts in secret (or openly) to oppress the people.
- Could dramatically change the status quo by altering social, economic, or military realities. This can be good if it would remove the weakness in a Terminally Dependent Society (and bring the corrupt leaders down with it), or bad if the change would cause widespread chaos.
There are a lot of possible tropes that can be treated as a Dark Art; here are a few:
- Blood Magic
- Creating Life
- Dangerous Forbidden Technique
- Anything when it's done For Science!
- Anything nuclear
- Resurrection
- Everything in the Scale of Scientific Sins
- Mind Control
- Necromancy
- Touch of Death
- Robotics and AI research
- Politics
- Public Relations and political spin.
So, just who practices the Dark Arts in spite of all these dangers? Lots of people/things! If it's magical, then an Evil Sorcerer, if it's a science, then a Mad Scientist of course, and if it's a martial art, then the Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy is likely to know it. Expect them to learn their craft in the Academy of Evil. If any kind of magic/science is considered to be the Dark Arts, you have Magic Is Evil or Science Is Bad.
Even though the only crime in art is bad taste, the Mad Artist usually knows how to drive viewers mad (in the bad way) with their art. A hero might be able to "redeem" the Dark Arts, or at least use them without becoming damned/addicted when the Godzilla Threshold is crossed.
This trope refers to the social perception of magic. If a kind of magic is inherently evil in the universe's morality system, or is inherently dangerous in some form, it might fall under Black Magic.
Not to be confused with shadow magic, which allows the user to bend and make darkness and shadows via magic; this tends to be morally neutral, maybe leaning slightly towards evil.
Examples:
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Anime and Manga
- In Delicious in Dungeon, Marcille dabbles in forbidden magic, believing that magic is inherently neither good nor evil and only man can be both. She could also be terribly, terribly wrong about this — when she's using forbidden magic to cast dispel on the Lunatic Magician's dragonblood minions, she starts chuckling and smiling as she's spattered with blood, bleeding from the nose, and her eyes are unclear and distant. However, these are also symptoms of large usage of mana, which Blood Magic uses, so it might just be that.
- The Black Arts in Fairy Tail, made up of Living Magic and Death Magic. Living Magic involves breathing life into often inanimate objects, while Death Magic instantly kills anything it touches. For rather obvious reasons, both of these types of magic are explicitly banned by the Magic Council, especially after the Black Wizard, Zeref, absolutely mastered them, and literally wrote the book on it. He knows damn well what he's done to the world because of it.
- Fullmetal Alchemist: Human transmutation is forbidden because it violates Rule #1 of Alchemy, Equivalent Exchange. "For what can equal a human soul?" Because of this, practitioners always lose body parts and resurrections always come back wrong.
- In Naruto, Forbidden Jutsu are any jutsu that are either too dangerous (e.g. Fuuton: Rasenshuriken, which nearly destroys Naruto's arm when he uses it the first time) to perform, or plain immoral (e.g. Edo Tensei, which involves human sacrifices), preferably some combination of the two. Bear in mind that normal jutsu include mind attacking illusions, fireballs and lightning attacks used for assassination, any of which can kill the user if used too much. That's an idea of how bad these can be.
- Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Magia Erebea is powered by nasty stuff. Negi isn't even human anymore due to overuse of it. In fact, Evangeline starts teaching it to him because she wants to corrupt him into her "mini boss" flunkie... at least, she jokes about it. She could tell soon after meeting Negi that his Martyr Without a Cause complex would cause him to jump at the chance to learn it if that ever arose, and didn't so much teach it to him as slant his regular training towards surviving making that choice. That this suited her sadistic tendencies just fine (it meant she had to break him — just a bit, and carefully — as while you don't quite have to be evil to use Magia Erebea, you can't consider yourself entirely committed to any ideal or virtue) was providentially coincidental.
- Given a comic twist in the Ryu Kumon storyline of Ranma ½: Ryu uses Yamasenken, a martial arts style Genma developed that can destroy houses barehanded. He taught it only to Ryu's father, as a desparate favor, then swore off ever using or teaching it again. When Ryu reveals he recreated it, Genma recluctantly teaches his son Ranma the complimentary Umisenken style so he can defeat Ryu, the terms of their duel forcing them all to abandon both. This initially seems because it's so violent and destructive that Ryu's father accidentally killed himself with it (albeit because he used it so recklessly as to literally bring a house down onto himself). However, Genma is just as ashamed of Umisenken despite it just being a much-less-violent style based on stealth. At the story's end, Genma admits he's just plain embarrased he made fighting styles from two different forms of burglary—one where you break the door down, the other where you sneak in the back. Ryu Kumon is also displeased to hear this, so he's fine to be rid of it.
- Witch Hat Atelier: In ancient times, All-Accessible Magic led to the world being embroiled in conflict. After the witches of the Great Hall seized power and monopolized all magic use, one of the measures they took to enforce stability was condemning any magic that affects the human body as "forbidden magic". This includes transformation, teleportation, and even healing. But even techniques that are only indirectly related were banned: twin bottle magic, used to remotely share the contents of one container with another, was proscribed because of its association with medical witches (who used it to keep their patients' medicine topped up) accused of human experimentation. Memory erasure magic is the sole exception, because it's used by the Great Hall itself to enforce its laws.
- The Cyberdarks in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX. Apparently, the wrong set of children's playing cards exude evil energy and can give people heart attacks.
Fan Works
- Alicorn: Twilight Sparkle says that some types of magic have been outlawed in Equestria since before it was Equestria, mentioning necromancy, Blood Magic, and chaos magic as examples. She later mentions anathemas, vile abjurations, and execrations as other types of forbidden magic.
- In crawlersout, "dark" magic is magic that requires a "price" (usually emotional, but spiritual or physical aspects are possibilities as well) to perform. They're considered "dark" because they're much easier to abuse than "light" magic. It's actually perfectly legal to learn dark magic, it's just heavily frowned upon in magical communities that are highly conservative, such as Magical Britain. Some of the more useful and comparatively less objectionable spells, such as the Patronus Charm (which is fueled by happy memories) often return the "toll", and thus many are unaware that they qualify as dark magic. On the other hand, there are some spells whose "tolls" are so terrible that usually only the most evil of people would ever consider using them; the Killing Curse, for example, takes a piece of the user's soul. The three Unforgivable Curses, along with Blood Magic and soul magic, fall under this category.
- A Game of Cat and Cat: Demon summoning is illegal because it is believed to require human sacrifice. While killing humans is a valid way of gathering enough energy to summon a demon, it's possible for a summoner to use their own life force, or to steal it from slain demons, which is what Kazuya does.
- In New Blood (artemisgirl), Hermione has read a few of these books from Quirrel, even if she has no intention of using them.
Film
- Attachment: Lev tells Maja how some practices are considered black magic by the Talmud and so forbidden. Nonetheless, he resorts to a forbidden ritual after nothing else works, one that risks the life of everyone nearby when it's performed.
- Star Wars mostly averts and subverts this, as while there are good force users (the Jedi) and evil force users (the Sith), it in general seems that both sides have access to the same set of powers and skills, it's only that those on The Dark Side are using it for their own gain and evil purposes and the Jedi for the greater good. This means that the good guys also can use powers that seem more morally ambiguous, for example Obi-Wan uses Mind Control on some Storm Troopers in A New Hope and Luke force chockes some minions in Return of the Jedi, but they still are seen as being on the light side. According to Word of God the Force is based on Taoism, which means good and evil are equally necessary parts of the Force.
- The one power only used on the Dark Side is Emperor Palpatine's usage of Force Lightning, most prominently shown in the climax of Return Of The Jedi. It's implied in works of the Star Wars Expanded Universe, that Jedi could use this technique but as it is very aggressive and clearly offensive, they don't do as a Jedi shouldn't mean harm to their opponents.
- However, Palpatine actually invokes this trope in Revenge of the Sith when he seduces Anakin to the Dark Side by telling him of Darth Plaguis the Wise who appearantly found a way to cheat death by telling him the Jedi would never allow him to know about this powers and he only can learn it by joining the Dark Side. However, how much of this is true and how much is part of his manipulation is up to debate.
Folklore
- The Scholomance, from Romanian mythology, is a school for evil wizards which teaches the dark arts to students. In particular, attendees of the school are said to learn how to talk to beasts and control the weather, with one student even being forced to stay after graduation and ride around on a dragon handling the world's weather for all eternity. In some tellings, the school is supposedly also where Dracula learned how to become a vampire.
Literature
- 12 Miles Below: An interesting variant. Warlocks call the soul fractal "the forbidden fractal." According to Hexis, all warlocks universally forbid the use of the soul fractal until a student has reached the highest levels of the art. This isn't quite because it's evil, but using it is considered a torturous experience for the warlock, and the machines kill any city that they find using it. It's too dangerous for too little gain, so it's forbidden. Keith quickly realizes that this is because the soul fractal allows humans to traverse the digital sea and potentially face Relinquished without having to fight through twelve levels of the world. Relinquished is still basically invincible, but having to face humans in the digital sea would be a threat, if a tiny one, and they could eventually do damage to her by sheer weight of numbers. Better to cut off that possibility entirely.
- Necromancy in An Army of the Dead, which revolves around using the energy of formerly living things to power spells. Oddly enough, the time it was actually used was for a good reason.
- Bazil Broketail: The Masters of Padmasa along with their servants practice magic which involves drawing blood, inflicting pain or killing to work. It's used for creating horrific war monsters.
- Black magic in The Black Magician Trilogy involves drawing magical energy from a target through a cut, and allows a magician to store far more power than they would otherwise be able to generate. Actually, "higher magic" is only forbidden in the Allied Lands; the Sachakans and Traitors use it all the time. Also, the good guys eventually wise up and start using it to defend against anyone else who might use it, but put strict limits on it to avoid abuse.
- The Celestial Kingdom: The Mind Talent is a forbidden power in the Celestial Kingdom due to its potential for mind control. After the nation's war against the Demon Realm, the Talent was banned; anyone who wanted to stay in the Celestial Kingdom either had to suppress their power or leave.
- In Dragaera, normal sorcery is done by manipulating the energy of raw chaos which has been filtered through the Imperial Orb. Elder sorcery directly manipulates raw chaos, and is a capital crime, because any blunder can dissolve the landscape for miles around. Of course, this doesn't prevent several of the main characters from dabbling in elder sorcery.
- The Dresden Files has the Seven Laws of Magic laid down by the White Council that bar against certain types of magic; the penalty for breaking any of them is death. These laws prohibit: using magic to kill a mortal, necromancy (specifically, human necromancy), Time Travel, changing another's shape, Mind Rape, or summoning Outsiders. Preventing killing and Mind Rape is pretty self-explanatory, changing someone else's form will probably destroy their mind as a side-effect, time-travel is too likely to backfire in your face, and Outsiders want to destroy all reality. The laws are always enforced with death after the first transgression (unless the transgressor is vouched for by another wizard), which is actually a case of Shoot the Dog. See, to make magic happen you have to believe that doing it is right; ergo, Black Magic users are genuinely choosing to jump off the slippery slope real fast.
- Harry Potter:
- There's some categorization in-universe on the seriousness of offensive magic, as such spells are called either jinxes, hexes or curses. Jinxes are defined by Word of God as "spells whose effects are irritating but amusing". Hexes are darker, intended to cause some pain or discomfort, while curses are described as "the worst kinds of dark magic". Three in particular, the "Unforgivable Curses" — Crucio, Avada Kedavra, and Imperio — are so called because any use of them is punishable by life in prison. Villains use them all the time, naturally, but our heroes will only consider it after crossing the Godzilla Threshold.
- One of the core subjects at Hogwarts is Defense Against the Dark Arts (DADA), which is exactly like the name suggests. A foreign wizarding school, Durmstrang, teaches actual Dark Arts, explaining why Lucius Malfoy almost sent Draco there before Narcissa objected. In Deathly Hallows, Hogwarts teaches Durmstrang-style Dark Arts for a year throughout its occupation by Death Eaters.
- Her Spell That Binds Me: Dark magic, or maleficium. It's used only to hurt people, with the caster gaining power from killing and mutilating animals as sacrifices. This poisons them slowly, making the magic go out of control, with the caster going mad.
- The Confederacy in the Hostile Takeover (Swann) series bans LEGO Genetics of humans or other sapients (explicitly including new types of Moreau), A.I. in any form, and Nanomachines likewise. The first two date from the devastating wars immediately preceding the Moreau Series, the third from a Grey Goo incident on Titan. This prohibition is so strong that Orbital Bombardment of any community found to be practicing them is considered restrained. Sterilizing the entire planet is also on the table.
- In The House of Night, using the power of any element/force of nature or an ancient immortal, whether it's Darkness or Light, is Power at a Price. It's played straight with Neferet but subverted with Rephaim, who has only been shown thus far to use his Dark powers in a good way.
- Journey to Chaos:
- Bladicraft contains a number of techniques that are known as "Forbidden techniques" because they are either unethical, dangerous, or considered sacrilege. One of these is "Conversion" and it transforms another living thing into a member of the Bladi clan, which runs a high risk of killing them. Another is "Bladi Puppetry" which involves hijacking someone's blood vessels to mind control them. The last person to practice them was killed and then Unpersoned.
- Ordercraft gives everyone the willies because it is contrary to reality, which is based on chaos, can shut down all other forms of magic, and will eventually corrupt its user into an Empty Shell. It's treated as Necessarily Evil, and those who practice it legitimately, as guardians, are held in high esteem.
- For a considerable time in the Known Space history, almost all technological research was considered this. The Earth government suppressed any new technology that could be weaponized, which turned out to be everything.
- In the Lord Darcy series, black magic is a matter of symbolism and intent, using dark symbols and/or intending to harm. It inevitably harms the soul of the practitioner. In one story, a major MacGuffin is a magical device that disrupts those intending to do harm. Since it only sows confusion instead of intending harm, it is not itself black magic.
- In Pact, Diabolism is seen as this because making a Deal with the Devil tends to cause damage to the world itself and nothing good comes from it.
- In Pale Lights, Signifying, or any other form of Gloam-wielding, is a poisonous art that will invariably kill the user eventually. A single mistake while tracing a Sign will cause a backlash that's likely to destroy a limb if the signifier can't handle the pain of losing the first finger, and even without accidents, the signifier's body will gradually be "obscured" one organ at a time until finally the damage catches up with them all at once.
- In President's Vampire, necromancy and some forms of alchemy are called "Dark Arts" by Cade, due to the fact that they need Human Resources to work properly.
- The magic-users of Rental Magica has the set of taboo, mainly prohibiting things that either turn the user into an insane Blob Monster more often than not (including resurrection) or cause a massive area contamination. A plain magical crime (like slaughtering the whole village to get a lot of zombies quickly) apparently isn't lumped with it. Of course, there's an opposition, Ophites.
- Shades of Magic: Among the five types of elemental magic in Red London, Bone magic is strongly discouraged because it lets the user make People Puppets, thereby magically overriding human will. Those born with a gift for Bone magic are expected to unlearn it... tough luck if it's the only element they can control.
- In Shadow Ops, the "dark arts" are "prohibited schools" of magic, which are rare but immensely powerful types of magic, or use of a "legal" school in an illegal way. These include Necromancy, Sentient Elemental Conjuration, Gate Magic, and Negramancy, with the illegal uses of legal schools being Whispering (use of terramancy to control animals) and Rending (offensive use of healing magic). If a human manifests powers in any prohibited school, they get a simple choice: death by execution or death resisting arrest, with the secret third option of military service. In the latter case, if you don't shape up, they lobotomize you to make you more compliant.
- Black magic in Shaman of the Undead includes Necromancy and everything connected to demons, as first requires necromancer to do some terrible things and second mostly ends with magician possessed by demon (not good — most of them prey on people when given chance to escape to mortal world). However, magical police of the setting hires necromancers because the knowledge resurrected people may provide is sometimes almost invaluable. Other wizards treat them with dislike and distrust.
- Sorcery in The Silent War revolves around summoning demons, Mind Rape and gruesome curses, and works better if human sacrifice is involved. It is also stated to corrupt anyone using it, explaining the general mindset of the Brotherhood of the Pit.
- Slayers: All spells of the Lord of Nightmares are destructive, likely to go horribly wrong, the most well-known of them can end the world, and they are based on the power of an Eldritch Abomination creator deity. Even Lina, who tends to cast the tamer Black Magic spells like there's no tomorrow, is very serious about these spells. The Unholy Nuke "Dragon Slave" is Played for Laughs every second time; these spells never are.
- Steel Crow Saga: The Tomodanese utterly forbid the magic of Shadepacting, which lets people bond and empower animals as Familiars, because they honour animal spirits and see the practice as slavery. Jimuro is shocked when an Enemy Mine situation shows him the close, mutually respectful partnership that most pacters have with their Shades.
- Sweet & Bitter Magic: Dark magic here means the kind that draws power directly from the earth, causing a severe imbalance that can do things like release mystical plagues which kill people slowly. It's a fast way to power with terrible consequences for everyone else, and the world generally. It also quickly corrupts the user, turning them cruel and hateful; once depowered, they will return to their previous personality.
- The Tough Guide to Fantasyland: Black Arts are involved with killing and enslavement, usually requiring sacrifices or blood at least. This blood will be taken by force, not willingly given, and summoning a demon will likely follow. A pentagram is likely to be used for a symbol.
- Tokyo Ravens: "Imperial-style" Onmyōdō is a cross between this and Super Prototype - Japan's first properly systemised form of magic, originally created for Military Mages during World War II. While many of its spells were dangerous or unethical, it also includes harmless techniques like a Flash Step which are still used by some characters, and were only excluded from the modern Onmyōdō curriculum because there was no adequate way to simplify them.
- Void Domain has two forms of magic that, while technically morally neutral, are frowned on by Magical Society:
- Demon Summoning Rituals are shunned because Demons tend to be amoral, bloodthirsty, bored, and powerful, and often try to escape or eat their summoners. Eva gains several trustworthy demon allies, but catches a lot of distrust for it.
- Blood Magic can be fueled by the blood of the mage or of a consenting human or demon, and even has positive applications like healing otherwise lethal zombie bites. However, its greatest spells require bloodstone, which is transmuted from freshly extracted human hearts, so most people assume that every blood mage is a Serial Killer.
- In The Wheel of Time, the problem is largely irrelevant in the beginning of the story because the only people openly channeling are the Aes Sedai, who willingly put themselves under a powerful Geas that prevents them from doing anything really bad with it. Nevertheless, some One Power weaves and uses are seen as evil:
- The Balefire weave is a Dangerous Forbidden Technique whose use permanently damages the structure of the universe. Mere knowledge of it is supposed to be enough to be Stilled by the White Tower, since the world was once almost destroyed by channelers abusing it. The significant number of people knowing it we encounter in the series show that this ban is not so strictly enforced, but all of the good guys (and even some of the bad guys — and we are speaking of people who have no problems killing or torturing thousands of innocents at once) consider it something inherently wrong and to be used as a last-resort weapon only. When it starts being openly used in the last book, the world literally starts to fall apart, with cracks to nothingness appearing in the ground.
- Compulsion (magical mind-control) and Rending (torturing and directly ripping apart someone's body using the Power) are seen as weaves that can almost only be used for evil purposes. In the beginning of the series, the knowledge of them has been lost for a long time anyway, but most Aes Sedai consider that a good thing.
- The True Power, which is a variant of the One Power bestowed by the Dark One, is incredibly addictive and will make you mad. The Dark One only allows his most favored minions to use it, but even they are not really overenthusiastic about it (except Ishamael, who is mad.)
- In When Demons Walk, there are all sorts of magic spells that can be fueled by blood, body parts, or torturing people. Using one's own blood is somewhere in between, some think it is evil, but the protagonist considers it justifiable.
- The Witch of Knightcharm is set at an evil Wizarding School dedicated to teaching these. Judging by the skill of the team which attacks Emily during her first mission, it’s very effective.
Live-Action TV
- Pili Fantasy: War of Dragons: Martial arts from the Demon Realm are generally this, not evil per se but usually nasty to the victim. For one, there's the "exploding head technique".
Music
- Music has been connected to the dark arts more than once. This is why certain types of music is banned in strict religious communities, and totally banned in muslim societies like Afghanistan during the Taliban regime, or even Iran during the Khomeini regime.
- Medieval Europe had a religious clause (although not very strict) that music could be used, but not music with rhythm. Couple this with dancing, and you have The Devil in your heels pretty quickly.
- The Hardanger Fiddle music was accused of this a lot. Legendary fiddlers, usually from the eighteenth century and before, was known for doing tricks with the fiddle, like moving inanimate objects (usually pots of beer) while playing or luring girls, just by plucking the strings. This, coupled with an uncanny knack for going into trance while playing, and making people dance against their will, made the fiddle an acceptable target for religious movements come the nineteenth century. Fiddlers going into trance while playing — let's just say it is still happening. At least one fiddler who died as late as 1970, was notoriously known for getting the girls he wanted just by playing for them.
Tabletop Games
- Blue Rose has arcana classified as sorcery, which involves directly enforcing your will on another being, and harms the wielder in the long term. While there are few effects exclusive to sorcery, using sorcery is almost always easier or more powerful than the alternative, making it a temptation to those willing to risk the costs.
- In the Champions supplement The Blood and Dr. McQuark, people on the planet Ea are forbidden to use magic or powers that involve interdimensional travel because it could lead to the unleashing of Eldritch Abominations.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- From the C2 adventure The Ghost Tower of Inverness:
Duke Justinian: Hodar, you dared to defy a royal order and continued to dabble in sorceries which I had forbidden to all the people of my realm.
- Later editions have a wide range of spells tagged [evil]. Many are poorly explained (Animate Dead uses raw energy to create a non-sapient construct, while golems, which involve enslaving a sapient being, have no such tag) have it for no reason whatsoever (such as Deathwatch, which basically says if a person is dead, near dead or alive). Later source books state that undead exude negative energy, and so make the world a worse place just by existing. That's just one spell.
- The Book of Vile Darkness sourcebook notes that any spell that taps into negative energy is dabbling in forces that are best left undabbled-with. To see someone's condition with Deathwatch, you're looking through negative-colored glasses. Animating a golem isn't truly "slavery", it's temporary (albeit long-term) attachment of a spirit to the parts (and in the case of clay and flesh golems, it's unstable attachment at that); it's arguable if they're even sentient. Raising a corpse as an undead, on the other hand, is the sort of thing that kills the grass on your lawn even if you're in the basement at the time.
- In Forgotten Realms, there are prohibitions from the gods of magic (covering Fantastic Nuke, endangering of the world's magical circuit and a few crimes against the magic-using community) plus whatever local laws and traditions don't approve, typically including the most unpleasant forms of necromancy and/or using wild magic in populated areas. From what is known about the elven kingdom of Cormanthyr, it prohibited some enchantments that allow massive binding of magical items and creatures, some blood magics, using mass-destruction and later also selective spells in modes aimed to harm elves or "allied" beings. A few areas don't approve arcane magic at all, claiming it's "dishonorable", but in fact it's the places when magic may attract a curious spell-grub, and no one wants that anywhere around.
- Dark Sun defilers aren't tolerated by anyone including most other defilers, because their magic is fueled by draining the life-force of every living thing around them, and centuries of using magic this way resulted in the world of Athas becoming a harsh and inhospitable wasteland. All magic is looked upon with at least some suspicion because of this.
- The magic of warlocks, spellcasters whose power derives from deals made with fiendish otherworldly beings, is typically considered strange and evil, as it tends to draw from sinister patrons that are at best alien and amoral and at worst cosmically evil.
- Depending on the setting and exact location there, any use of magic can become this if the local authorities decide to forbid it (usually on pain of death). General bans on arcane magic aren't unknown in some places, though in at least one famous case (Mystara's wizard-ruled Principalities of Glantri) that's replaced with a strict prohibition on clerical magic instead.
- From the C2 adventure The Ghost Tower of Inverness:
- A few ones in the Exalted setting.
- Necromancy. Although it is not evil or corrupting in itself and some spells can actually be used for good, it almost always involves gruesome rituals or blood sacrifice. And its foremost practitioners (but not the only ones, and not even the first ones) are the Deathlords and Abyssal Exalted, who are evil by most standards.
- Demonology in general is seen as a dangerous, risky and best avoided field of study. The line between demonology (using demons) and infernalism (being used by demons) is thin, it is easier to summon a demon than to control it or to banish it, and during the First Age the sorcerers of the whole world had to to gather for a great feast every Calibration night just to make sure none of them attempted the dreaded ritual to summon a Third Circle demon (which can only be done during that night). The fact that summoning demons is one of the first spells you learn at the Realm's Wizarding School contributes much to the awe and dread it evokes. (Although it is actually a no-nonsense and intelligent approach: the idea behind it is that most wizards will end up trying to summon demons anyway, so it is more sensible to teach them how to do it properly and to thoroughly warn them about the dangers than to ban or restrict the spells and let the would-be demonologists dabble into it on their own with partial knowledge.)
- Some martial arts styles are really frowned upon. The Ill Lily style is about poisoning one's opponent and has a horrible reputation. The White Veil style is only taught by an infamous and semi-legendary secret society and knowing it is equivalent to admitting membership in the conspiracy. The Infernal Monster style is a brutal and unusually powerful celestial martial art but it literally comes from hell and many sifus don't want to have anything to do with it and they are absolutely right to be cautious, since mastering it allows the Yozis to mind-control you once in your lifetime. The Kaleidoscopic Border of Logic and Obsidian Shards of Infinity styles are so powerful they question things like identity and the nature of reality, and the Exalts who know them will only teach them to students they really, really trust. Finally, the Quicksilver Hand of Dreams style is linked to The Fair Folk and is considered unsafe by most experts since nobody really understands where it comes from and how learning it changes you.
- Charms like Ghost-Eating Technique that can permanently destroy the essence of spirits and gods are considered very very evil by said gods and spirits, who usually consider themselves immortal and hate being reminded that it is not really the case. They can intuitively feel any Exalt who knows such techniques and they fear and hate them intensely.
- You have also infernal charms with the Blasphemy keyword. These are powerful techniques that are linked to the nature of the Yozis (demon princes); their use unleashes a surge of infernal energy which is detected by nearby gods and spirits and also triggers automatic alarms in the control room of the Realm Defense Grid, and at the Loom of Fate in Heaven, quickly alerting both the keepers of Fate (the Sidereal Exalted) and whoever is in charge at the Imperial Manse (currently the Scarlet Empress) that someone is somehow using evil energies which are supposed to be sealed away for a long, long time and they should investigate at once.
- Interestingly, infernal charms with the Heretical keyword are considered the Dark Arts by the demon princes themselves, since most of them are designed to allow Infernal Exalted to free themselves from their patrons and become their equals. A few charms are even labelled as both Blasphemy and Heretical, which means that both Heaven and Hell freak out if you use them.
- In GURPS Technomancer, this concept as such isn't really a part of American magical discourse. Knowing a spell is almost never illegal (though you might be asked questions if you lack the proper security clearance, and some potions and items are illegal), raising zombies is unlawful interference with a corpse (except in Louisiana, where executed criminals work on the zombie chain gang), and summoning demons is a violation of immigration law. The one area where this trope is widely played straight is that everyone is rightly afraid of magical mind control.
- Blood magic and Toxic/Insect shamans in Shadowrun.
- Blood magic also has a fun little outcropping called cybermancy. It's one of the fundamental laws of Shadowrun that cybernetics and magic don't mix, and the more 'ware you have in you, the more your... not necessarily "soul," but "spiritual reserve" is compromised, to the point of impairing magical capacity. Too much 'ware can effectively kill you... but through merging blood magic and cybernetics, it's possible for an individual to survive past the point of death and even gain strength from installing 'ware beyond their body's limits. The only downsides are you have to take a heavy regimen of drugs to avoid having your body completely turn against itself and become cancerous; you need a special chip in your brain to keep yourself from permanent dissociation; and you become a walking black hole on the magical landscape. Y'know. Small stuff.
- Dark technology also exists in the form of Dissonant Technomancy. There are places on the Matrix where the very code is evil, or at least drives people insane, and some technomancers tap into this dark code on purpose.
- The World of Darkness settings (Old and New), naturally, are full of those.
- Infernalism all round the oWoD: Nephandi, Baali, Black Spiral Dancers, human Wyrm cultists, Earthbound Thralls...
- Left-handed Legacies for the Mages of Awakening. Most of them involve trafficking with Eldritch Abominations and/or stealing souls.
- Refinement of Flux for the Prometheans, which is based around rejecting humanity and accepting one's monstrous side. Centimani, as they're called, often twist themselves into hideous mutations, and due to the nature of Vitriol, can no longer gain it normally — forcing them to rely on lacuna, a form of Mind Rape that Prometheans view in much the same terms as actual rape.
- Princess: The Hopeful:
- The Calignes, spells that call on the All-Consuming Darkness. Just to learn one is a ding on the Karma Meter (and usually requires human sacrifice), and nearly all of them are morally repugnant to use.
- The three Twilight Invocations grant greater power than the Radiant Invocations, but each comes with both risk and moral flaw.
- In Werewolf: The Apocalypse, multiple practices can leave Gaia Garou at risk of Wyrm contamination.
- Among the Silent Striders, members of the Eaters of the Dead camp practice the Rite of Dormant Wisdom. Participants ritually devour a dead person's brain to acquire their memories. Not only is the rite a grave violation of the Litany, but participants risk attracting the attention of the Urge Wyrm Foebok. If a Garou takes part in the rite more times than their permanent gnosis score, they become a slave of Foebok.
- Among the Stargazers, members of the Oroborean camp learn about the Wyrm by drinking bane blood or consorting with Black Spiral Dancer hives.
- The Dying Cubs camp of the Red Talons practices a rite that "feeds" the earth with the pain of a tortured human. The rite cleanses the land and lowers the Gauntlet of the immediate area, but the effects are temporary. Moreover, spiritual guardians of the region will no longer defend the land against Wyrm incursions.
- Some Red Talons learn a gift that allows them to regain rage or gnosis when they spill another being's blood upon the earth. The gift is taught by decay spirits and banes.
- In Wraith: The Oblivion, three Arcanoi are forbidden in the Western Underworld on pain of soul-forging — Intimation, the power to create and remove desire (because of its great capacity for abuse); Mnemosynis, the power to explore and manipulate memory (again, because of its capacity for abuse), and Flux, the power to affect the structure of inanimate objects, strengthening them, decaying them, and animating them (because of wraithly politics, rather than any potential to abuse others).
Video Games
- Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land: Alchemy is considered to be an evil, forbidden art in this world, due to it being practiced in the long-fallen Aladissian Empire where it was used for some very immoral deeds, like human experimentation. Yumia herself is only able to practice alchemy openly due to the game taking place during an expedition into Aladiss, where it's impossible to progress without it.
- One in-game book in Caves of Qud discusses the Dark Calculus, a branch of mathematics with some disquieting implications about the nature of consciousness itself. Even Ptoh agreed to leave them alone, though he indicated his agreement by destroying an entire research station.
- Dark Souls:
- The games have variously treated Pyromancy and Hexes as dark and nefarious. Pyromancy is seen as unrefined and wild in the first game, with practitioners from the Great Swamp being stigmatized for using it. It doesn't help that there is a history of practitioners literally burning themselves to death or descending into madness. The corruption of the Witch of Izalith when she used her Soul of Flame to try to create a substitute for the First Flame (and dooming herself and the citizens of the city of Lost Izalith to become demons in the process) may have had something to do with that.
- By the second and third games, Hexes had taken Pyromancy's place as the most reviled form of magic. Hexes are what you get when you take sorcerous/wizardly Functional Magic, or holy White Magic and corrupt it so that instead of using intellect or faith to power them, using the connection to the Dark Soul of humanity and the Abyss. Sometimes Hexes don't just cost typical Vancian Magic attunement slots, but drain your character's Soul (XP). The reputation isn't entirely undeserved, since the "bad guy" faction of New Londo is also big into hexes, and often described in flavor text as using negative emotions or causing the targets pain.
- Outsider magic (that is, most if not all Functional Magic) in Dishonored. Its practitioners are hunted and slain by the Overseers of the Abbey of Everyman. The Overseers are a fanatic religious police headed by corrupted people in league with an oppressive political power, but as bad as they are they might have a point on that magic. It looks extremely corrupting since people who get involved with it fall in two categories:
- The huge majority of people who get interested in runes and bone charms just end up fascinated and obsessed with them, usually to the point of madness, paranoia, murder and death. You found plenty of examples of such people in the game.
- The happy few who are bestowed the Mark of the Outsider don't become mad (or at least not immediately) and can use a powerful magic, but they don't fare so well. Known recipients are Daud (murderer of the Empress), Vera Moray (formerly a beautiful aristocrat, now an ugly half-mad witch), Delilah Copperspoon (evil witch heading a conspiracy to steal the body of the heir to the throne), and Corvo Attano (Player Character who may or may not be a bloodthirsty lunatic depending on how you play him).
- On the "misunderstood" side of things, Dishonored: Death of the Outsider emphasizes the fact that the Outsider himself is not inherently evil or good, and the people who made him into what he is, without having direct access to the magic, are much worse. Essentially, the powers of the Void are just tools, and it is up to the caster for how they decide to use them, though direct connection to the Void is akin to a magical variation on radiation poisoning.
- In the Divine Divinity series, Source magic is known to be dangerous, powerful, and likely to drive its users mad. It's used for Healing magic in the original game, but by the time of Divinity: Original Sin II, Source magic also attracts Voidwoken and Sourcerers are being rounded up en masse.
- Dragon Age has Blood Magic. While magic itself is not evil, blood magic revolves around using life force for power. Most of the blood mages in the game are evil, or at the very least enemies of the heroes. The power is also taught to humanity by personifications of emotions (in-game, only a personification of desire teaches it, no information on which emotions are able to), and while it can just be used as an alternate means of powering normal spells, the big headline blood magic spells allow for mind control, blood-boiling and similar nastiness. Also, of course, the life force you use to power the spells need not be your own, a temptation that few blood mages can resist. (However, other magic schools serve to light people on fire or freeze them alive, hurt or even kill them by tormenting them with visions and so on.) According to one codex entry, the Tevinter archons of old were taught Blood Magic by the Old God Dumat the Dragon of Silence. Since an Old God is basically an Eldritch Abomination that happens to look like a dragon this makes Blood Magic even more unsettling.
- The Elder Scrolls:
- Necromancy is banned in most places throughout Tamriel, with pretty good reason. Although it can be employed without any major consequences, the mere fact of raising a dead body — without its soul or intelligence — is generally considered evil. Tamriel's long history with evil necromancers, especially one Mannimarco and his Order of the Black Worm threatening the whole continent, doesn't help, nor does the tendency of lesser necromancers to hide out in caves, kill anyone who walks by, and use them for experiments. Thus, many magic schools ban it outright, and the ones that don't (there is a contingent that argues Necromancy can be useful and ethical) tend not to publicize their use of it.
- In addition to necromancy, Redguard society considers most schools of magic to fall into this category. The sole exception is made for Destruction magic, because dealing more damage is always good to the Redguards and because it is considered to have fewer of the nasty effects of the other schools. In addition to Conjuration, which includes necromancy, Mysticism and Alteration/Illusion are also disliked due to their associations with soul stealing and altering reality (literally or perceptions of it), respectively.
- Daedric "Ritual Magic" (the kind used by most mortals to commune with the Daedric Princes and to permanently summon/bind lesser Daedra) is almost universally considered this, though exceptions may be made for those invoking the Daedric Princes considered to be "Good".
- Fire Emblem:
- Dark Magic pretty explicitly serves as this role within the mainline series, being the resident Powerful, but Inaccurate type of magic; according to the series's Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors, it beats elemental magic — as in, Anima Magic — but in turn is beaten by Light Magic. Of all the schools of magic, Dark Magic is explicitly with the largest ranges of effects, from draining other people's vitality (i.e. Nosferatu, though in some installments this is Light Magic's domain instead), to reducing somebody's HP to One (i.e. Hel and Eclipse), to summoning the spirits of the dead and monsters, to other kinds of abilities; sufficiently advanced Dark Magic even lets the user kill somebody from anywhere in the world with a mere hair from their body, swapping bodies with another, bring back the dead (though expect them to have Came Back Wrong if you use this method and not true resurrection) or even rewinding time itself. The specifics on how Dark Magic works varies heavily depending on the game and installment; sometimes it's inviting the power of darkness into yourself and trying not to let it gain sway over you, sometimes its the willingness to acquire eldritch knowledge regardless of the ethical cost, sometimes it manifests through Heroic Willpower, and sometimes it's a deliberate perversion of the natural order, in both good and bad senses. About the only consistent details in between games regarding Dark Magic is twofold; the fact that is strictly more powerful than most forms of magic with far more applicability, and the fact it usually comes at a massive cost that is effectively a Deal with the Devil where the Devil is usually not sentient. This is the reason why the vast majority of Dark Magic units in the series are enemy-only classes and characters, as the magic itself tends to result in Death of Personality at best and outright twisting you into evil at worst, and notably, the corruptive effects do not discriminate based on the moral character of user, it will screw you over without prejudice if you let it. Just ask Lyon, Canas's siblings or Nergal and Bramimond to see the end stage of unwise use. It's because of its association with "power at any cost" and tendency for the local Religion of Evil to specialize in it no matter the game that most Dark Magic users tend to be utter bastards, leading to Dark Magic having a very bad reputation for most of the Fire Emblem universe. However, Dark Magic itself isn't inherently evil, as that same lack of prejudice means it isn't actively trying to screw good-natured people who treat it with caution and respect. There have been many playable heroic Dark Magic users throughout the series who learn of the dark arts but are perfectly decent or good people, like Salem, Raigh, Sophia, Niime, Canas, Knoll, Ewan, Lyon (pre-Demonic Possession), Pelleas, Etzel, Odin, Nyx, Ophelia, Leo, Hubert and Lysithea.
- Apparently, in addition to the normally-benign Magic Music of the Galdrar shared by the Heron Royals in Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn, there exists a Dangerous Forbidden Technique in the dirge of ruin that can be sung by the royals to destroy all who dare intrude upon the sacred Serenes Forest. The would-be singer, Reyson, is so driven by hatred of humans for wiping out his entire clan of people in a genocide that he has to be talked down by a disconcerted Tibarn from singing the song, as it would've come at a horrible price. This is more of an Informed Ability than anything; it never comes up in future chapters or Reyson's supports ever again.
Web Animation
- Dreamscape: This is one of the main things that drew Melissa to become Melinda's apprentice. She now swears off using it due to that association.
Webcomics
- Cunning Fire: Creating the Elixir of Life is probably a bad idea.
- Drowtales: Nether Summoning is viewed by most as an evil and dangerous art, as in the past, the nether demons nearly wiped out the fae races, killing entire kingdoms with their aura feeding abilities. The Sharen's use of it in combat marks the sheer desperate levels they have fallen to in their war against the Sarghress, who are winning their war.
- Kill Six Billion Demons is based on a universe where Might Makes Right is basically encoded into its foundation, and as such there are very few things and arts that are outright described as 'dark'. This includes making deals with actual devils for power, as power justifies itself. There are still some arts of Atum cultivation that are described as 'dark arts', and are ill-defined by the comic except they are implied to involve Cannibalism Superpower or Vampiric Draining of others' life forces for your own ends. Incubus is all but outright said to practice most of them, as befits a God-Emperor who embodies the concept of 'shortcuts to power'.
- Unsounded: Gruftgramary is the practice of encoding custom spell effects into a personal magical device, making them accessible as a sort of Simplified Spellcasting. It's banned for regulatory purposes — governments encode their own custom spells into the Background Magic Field for both public and restricted use, and they don't like hackers.
Western Animation
- Avatar Legends has Bloodbending, which lets user control water in a body of another person turning him/her into a human puppet. This technique is mostly seen as morally questionable, because it takes away the victim's freedom and violates his/her body. Almost every known Bloodbender seems to use it for sinister purposes (Hama kidnaps innocent villagers, Tarrlok forces Korra out of the city, Yakone used it to try and conquer the city, Amon/Noatak used it to remove people's bending), and only one who doesn't (Katara) has to be forced to learn it because she is terrified and disgusted at a very thought of using it on another human being. She does use it again when she's in an especially bad place mentally. Bringing this back to the "misunderstood" side of the trope, the show website once referred
to this as a non-violent counterpoint to Firebending's ultimate technique of lightning generation. Rather than destroy an opponent, Water seeks to control and pacify. Potentially, an ethical Bloodbender could subdue any opponent without harming them. They also point out as fact that those who use this technique open themselves up to madness.
- The Dragon Prince: Dark Magic, which was introduced a thousand years prior to the shows start, is widely reviled becuase its use involves consuming the primal magic within magical plants and creatures, in fact it's discovery prompted a mass exile of humanity from the land of Xadia by the Dragons and Elves to the eastern half of the continent. Compounding matters is that despite the cost of Dark Magic, to both the user as well as the over consumption of ingredients it caused, it was considered the only way humans could use magic leading to it receiving a level of tolerance by the Human Kingdom's.
- Dark magic in My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic appears to be this since even Twilight Sparkle, who is very knowledgable on the subject, was surprised by it when Princess Celestia uses it to demonstrate the threat King Sombra poses in the Season 3 Premiere. Twilight herself manages to use it later, but it does not look anything less than painful to even cast.
- All the main characters in Ninjago use Spinjitzu, and while that isn't considered a dark art, variations on it such as Forbidden Spinjitzu and Airjitzu are. There are also certain magical artifacts in the show that could, in theory, be used for good, but are never used by heroes because of how dark they are. These include the Helmet of Shadows and the Oni Masks.