Dark Magic is apparently difficult to master

[OrangePerson]

I'm going to mostly talk about the GBA games.

So In the GBA games we get a really low amount of playable Dark Magic users because of it's dificulty to master, 7 in total (Counting both Athos and Ewan). But the point I'm trying to make is, why is Dark Magic hard to master, if some maps are just filled with a ridiculous numbers of enemy Druids? (Mostly in FE 6) Like Chapter 21X of FE 6, when like every Magic user is a dark magic user, or that boat Map in FE 7 with all the shamans, and all of the Beserk Staff wielders in FE 6 and well, you get the idea.

So the final questions are:

Why do we get such a low amount of Dark Magic users, if the enemy gets so many Dark magic users?

Why is Dark Magic difficult to master if there are so many enemy Dark Magic users?

[Moblin Major General]

3 minutes ago, OrangePerson said:

So the final questions are:

Why do we get such a low amount of Dark Magic users, if the enemy gets so many Dark magic users?

Why is Dark Magic difficult to master if there are so many enemy Dark Magic users?

I like to think that most enemy Dark Magic users were insane to begin with or went insane. As for the playable ones, the only ones I would term as good people are Ewan, Sophia, and maybe Canas. Raigh pick-pocketed Hugh for the Nosferatu tome, Knoll knowingly helped create the Dark Stone, Niime pushed all but one of her sons into catatonia and even abused her grandson, and Athos participated in probably one of the biggest mass extinctions in all of FE (not to mention he and his 7 friends bent the laws of nature in that moment). Even Salem, Pelleas, Lehran, Tharja, and Henry have something about them that says "Dark magic will fuck you up if you have no idea what you're doing."

[Etrurian emperor]

30 minutes ago, Hylian Air Force said:

I like to think that most enemy Dark Magic users were insane to begin with or went insane. As for the playable ones, the only ones I would term as good people are Ewan, Sophia, and maybe Canas. Raigh pick-pocketed Hugh for the Nosferatu tome, Knoll knowingly helped create the Dark Stone, Niime pushed all but one of her sons into catatonia and even abused her grandson, and Athos participated in probably one of the biggest mass extinctions in all of FE (not to mention he and his 7 friends bent the laws of nature in that moment). Even Salem, Pelleas, Lehran, Tharja, and Henry have something about them that says "Dark magic will fuck you up if you have no idea what you're doing."

On the other hand dark magic seems even rarer in Tellius than in the other continents but most of its users there don't seem to be negatively affected by it. The dark mage who guards Zelgius camp actually seems like one of the most normal Begnion commander, Pelleas doesn't have a malicious bone in his body and while Lehran isn't fully sane its another kind of insanity then that of most dark mages. Izuka is rather...unique but he was probably that way long before he touched a dark magic tome. 

The biggest reason for the presence of dark Mages despite their supposed rarity is probably for gameplay purposes rather than lore ones. Having them just brings more variety in the enemy forces than not having them. Though in Sacred stones Grado seems to carry some affinity for dark magic in general. Its founder wielded the legendary dark magic tome, its real leader is a dark mage and him having a whole research team of them implies they weren't all that rare in Grado.

Edited May 4, 2017 by Etrurian emperor

[OrangePerson]

1 hour ago, Hylian Air Force said:

 As for the playable ones, the only ones I would term as good people are Ewan, Sophia, and maybe Canas.

I mean, I wouldn't call Ewan a good person... I mean "accidentally" throwing Saleh's tomes to the river, shaving a man's mustache off, and being troublesome overall... So I guess Ewan is pretty evil in his own way.

[Zapp Branniglenn]

Because we are the light that pierces the dark. And I know now, without a doubt, that kingdom hearts is LIGHT!

GBA era has the most lore with dark magic, and you see some interesting sides of it with the characters. Knoll was part of a team of sorcerers that saw the future of Grado's destruction which led to Lyon using the Dark Stone. They only wanted to save their people. There's also the mirror of Brammimond and Nergal where Brammimond wasn't consumed by the dark. And in the end he has the power to resurrect the girl. Nergal loses so much of himself gaining power that he forgot why he needed to open the Dragon's Gate in the first place. And Canas' support with Pent talks about how so much of his family was ruined by the darkness. Would be a neat plot point if you ended up fighting some of his brothers as morphs.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

41 minutes ago, OrangePerson said:

I mean, I wouldn't call Ewan a good person... I mean "accidentally" throwing Saleh's tomes to the river, shaving a man's mustache off, and being troublesome overall... So I guess Ewan is pretty evil in his own way.

He's mischievous, but not malicious. He's just a kid.

[L9999]

2 hours ago, Hylian Air Force said:

I like to think that most enemy Dark Magic users were insane to begin with or went insane. As for the playable ones, the only ones I would term as good people are Ewan, Sophia, and maybe Canas. Raigh pick-pocketed Hugh for the Nosferatu tome, Knoll knowingly helped create the Dark Stone, Niime pushed all but one of her sons into catatonia and even abused her grandson, and Athos participated in probably one of the biggest mass extinctions in all of FE (not to mention he and his 7 friends bent the laws of nature in that moment). Even Salem, Pelleas, Lehran, Tharja, and Henry have something about them that says "Dark magic will fuck you up if you have no idea what you're doing."

Raigh is just an asshole kid who learns dark magic by interest, Knoll for all intents was trying to do something good, Athos later repented, Salem quit the Loptyr cult and later wrote a book of their evil deeds, and Henry just had a messed childhood. The only ones truly affected with dark magic and I would call bad people are Niime and Tharja, who don't care much about their comrades or family. Of Dark mages not mentioned, Owain's transition makes 0 sense, Ophelia is a happy go lucky who contradicts everything dark magic stands for, and Nyx used to be evil but after turning herself into a loli she is atoning for her deeds so she isn't completely bad.

[Extrasolar]

Part of the reason for dark mages' scarcity is the general difficulty of learning to channel dark forces, but also because of the inherent risk cavorting with eldritch powers and stuff carries - that is, your soul is in danger of being lost and/or corrupted, which I can imagine puts off a lot of people from trying their hand at it. If your will isn't strong enough, there's a huge chance that you'll end up as a vegetable like Canas' brothers, or lose your personality in favor of being a walking, talking vessel template for some dark being.

Then again, there are plenty of of people take the risk anyway, simply because of the promise of raw power that dark magic holds, if they're not doing it for religious reasons like the Loptyrian cultists (and lust for power was definitely a part of that).

As for why the enemy seems to field dark mages in large numbers, I chalk it up to shamans being an easy enemy because of the whole "dark = evil" cliche, as well as the in-universe fact that tons of dark mages tend to work for the villains in question, who are trying to use eldritch powers to get a leg up on the heroes. Tellius' lack of dark mages makes sense, since Yune seems to be the origin of darkness-related powers (as the counterpart to Ashera, who has light powers), and as Yune was sealed away and had every trace of her identity erased and painted over, it makes sense why there would be almost none of them able to channel that power.

21 minutes ago, L9999 said:

Ophelia is a happy go lucky who contradicts everything dark magic stands for

Dark magic doesn't really "stand" for anything. It's just another force in the world, the same as light magic. It's not necessarily evil...but people that use it can certainly be, and it's often used that way. Like someone mentioned above, Pelleas uses dark magic, and he's a squishy, shy and generally well-meaning guy.

[ping]

43 minutes ago, L9999 said:

Raigh is just an asshole kid who learns dark magic by interest, Knoll for all intents was trying to do something good, Athos later repented, Salem quit the Loptyr cult and later wrote a book of their evil deeds, and Henry just had a messed childhood. The only ones truly affected with dark magic and I would call bad people are Niime and Tharja, who don't care much about their comrades or family. Of Dark mages not mentioned, Owain's transition makes 0 sense, Ophelia is a happy go lucky who contradicts everything dark magic stands for, and Nyx used to be evil but after turning herself into a loli she is atoning for her deeds so she isn't completely bad.

Raigh is an interesting case if you compare him with Nergal's backstory who after all used to be swell dude after all. Raigh's motivation to persue the power of dark magic is the same as Nergal's - to protect his family - and Raigh (as well as Niime) gets pretty excited about Idoun's power if he's brought to the final chapter. It's not too hard to be reminded of Nergal who at some point just forgot the cause for accumulating power and just went for it for its own sake.

My impression is that dark magic in both Elibe and Magvel is indeed more dangerous to one's sanity than the other disciplines. In Elibe, we have Canas' brothers who went into a vegetative state from messing with the dark arts, there is of course Lyon (depending on the twin you chose there is still some Lyon left in there)... Compare that to Light and Anima magic - afaik, the former is never stated to be dangerous at all, and I think that Anima magic is "only" stated to be dangerous on a more physical level, like the magic getting out of control or that the user gets drained by overextending himself.

[SatsumaFSoysoy]

1 hour ago, L9999 said:

The only ones truly affected with dark magic and I would call bad people are Niime and Tharja, who don't care much about their comrades or family

I think Niime still cares about her family, otherwise she wouldn't have raised Hugh at all. She just seems to prioritize passing on all her knowledge to a successor than Hugh's own interests. It's selfish, but it's not like she despises him.

Edited May 4, 2017 by SatsumaFSoysoy

[Interdimensional Observer]

The topic of magic in FE, in particular Dark Magic, seems to be a fascination of many on this site, myself included.

A history of Dark Magic:

Spoiler

Originally in FE (1-4), Dark Magic was enemy only (well Gotoh had Swarm- but thats it). And being enemy only, Dark Magic could have things that the player couldn't use, namely a spell that drops enemy HP to 1 if it hits (with scary decent accuracy).

FE5 began opening Dark Magic to the player, but the only unit who could use it had only two options: a heavy but powerful tome, or an even heavier long range tome, and you had capture baddies if more than just 20 uses of the first. Salem was basically stuck with using Anima or Staffs most of the time.

FE6 is the game which truly made Dark Magic into a normal weapon type, whilst maintaining its emphasis on gimmicky tomes with Nosferatu (stolen for the first time from Light Magic) and Eclipse. FE7 invented Luna to further Dark Magic's uniqueness, but by restricting you to one Shaman ultimately made Dark Magic less open to the player. FE8 opened it a little more than FE7 with Ewan being able to go Shaman or Pupil 3, but it not much. FE7 is the game which truly built a well-crafted place for Dark Magic in FE's lore, though 8 and 10 did some supplementary construction as well.

FE9 did away with Dark Magic completely, FE10 integrated it into the Tellius world well enough, but removed any semblance of Dark Magic's uniqueness and it had two token users.

FE13 made Dark Magic both totally open to the player and very gimmicky at the same time. In this game, Dark Magic is at its best.

FE14 learned from FE13's mistake of making Nosferatu too strong, but basically did away with Dark Magic completely. Gimmicks were shifted onto Staffs and Skills with stuff like Poison Strike and Enfeeble. Dark Mages shouldn't even be called Dark Mages, given normal Mages don't exist in Nohr.

Tear Ring Saga, FE's sister, restricted Dark Magic to a lone unit and gave said unit bad stats, but Dark Magic and infinite range self-Warp made her fairly good.

Berwick Saga limits Dark Magic to a loner player unit, and they can't even use it until the game is almost over (C13). And when they do, it's just a long range healing spell (which you have to steal from an enemy) and Nosferatu (Janura) with a mere 50 hit and 20 uses which they can wield. Basically it was enemy only, like T776.

Given how Dark Magic so easily corrupts, it'd be interesting in a future FE to have as minor playable characters one or two people who travel across the world in the name of the church or justice investigating and defeating those who have fallen victim to the power of Dark Magic. Darkness Hunters or something.

[Byte2222]

Real answer: 1. dark is scary and thematically aligned with villainy and 2. hold-over from FE4, where it was genuinely evil and the domain of the Lopt cult.

 

Lore discussion: the lore of different FE 'verses is independent and magic is a prime example of this. You don't have to dig too deep to find contradictory information from, say, FE5, FE7 and FE10. In Akaneia, there was no distinction between magic types (beyond some tomes being enemy only). In Jugdral, dark magic was explicitly evil and was practised exclusively by the Lopt cult. In Elibe, it was just different to anima and light (it was 'Elder magic') but it was powerful and willful, capable of corrupting its users. Magvel didn't elucidate much, if I recall correctly, but in Tellius it was said to be practised by spirit charmers (source: Gareth in a second playthrough base conversation in the tower). Spirit charmers are explained to have made a deal with a spirit - magic power for your soul - and it is therefore implied that dark magic is so hard to learn that only spirit charmers can use it (Pelleas is a spirit charmer, the druid boss Veyona has a spirit charmer mark on his forehead and Lehran is a special case). In FE13, a clear distinction is made between conventional magic (of which dark magic is a subset) and hexes, which are stated to pervert the course of nature. FE14 doesn't discuss the nature of dark magic, IIRC.

 

TL;DR: dark magic lore is different in different games, with very few common threads

[Slumber]

Canas' supports indicate that Dark Magic warps your mind, and it takes a lot of will and effort to not turn into something else(A fried out, soulless vegetable like his brothers).

For the villains who don't give a shit and willingly sell their souls for power, this isn't as big of a problem. At least in the Elibe games.

Edited May 4, 2017 by Slumber

[NekoKnight]

It's not like dark magic is explicitly hard to learn, just that it's far riskier to use than other schools of magic. It's not like one is guaranteed to be warped by using dark magic but evidence suggests that the MASTERY of dark magic does cause a loss of self (Nergal and Bramimond). This is of course a principle of Elibe dark magic so it might be different for other settings.