History Main / DoingInTheWizard

* ''WitchHunterRobin'' ends with this, explaining all magical powers to be a result of genetic breeding from the original witch. Which is still really magic at its core, just mixed with science.
** In a similar vein, Ellis of ''ElCazadorDeLaBruja'' turns out to be the product of a project to genetically engineer witches, but these witch powers are genuinely supernatural in nature. The main characters also meet a psychic girl and a harvest spirit disguised as a deceased writer along their journey, without any "rational" explanation given.
* In the manga version of ''ChronoCrusade'', demons are [[spoiler:really aliens who crash-landed in the Atlantic Ocean and are now living underwater in their mothership. So a lot of what seems 'magical' about them is really BizarreAlienBiology or extremely advanced technology.]] However, this doesn't completely explain away their more supernatural powers, and there's still plenty of other magical and supernatural elements that are never explained away with science. The reason why this happened, according to [[WordOfGod the mangaka]] at an anime con in Seattle, is that he was criticized during the manga's run [[CriticalResearchFailure for not having the demons be accurate to Christian mythology]], so he pulled an AuthorsSavingThrow. Also, the anime adaptation ''didn't'' do this and played the supernatural elements straight the whole way through.
* In the manga version of ''SailorMoon'', the [[FanNickname moon cats]] Luna and Artemis, who previously seemed to be just another magical element inherited from the ruined Moon Kingdom, are revealed to be from planet Mau, which seems to explain their ability to talk (and turn human). This being ''Sailor Moon'', there's still plenty of magic behind almost any "aliens" that appear in the story, but it was still a noticeable {{retcon}} -- an earlier side story ''The Lover of Princess Kaguya'' (basis for the ''Sailor Moon S'' NonSerialMovie) where Luna falls in love with a human man has her lamenting being "just a cat"; while it seems to be implied that the cats ''can't'' randomly turn human at will, in this story Luna doesn't seem to be aware that she has a human form and only achieves it because of the Ginzuishou power.

* [[spoiler:The Second Hokage]] in ''{{Naruto}}'' calmly explains the actual process of causing a Sharingan to evolve. Whereas the standard method known for developing the Mangekyo is "kill your best friend", he explains that during moments of severe emotional anguish, the Uchiha's brain releases a special chakra that mutates their eyes.

* The early 1960s ''BlueBeetle'', Dan Garrett, gained superpowers from a magical beetle-shaped amulet from Ancient Egypt. The amulet recently resurfaced in a storyline revealing that it was actually a long-lost bit of ImportedAlienPhlebotinum. Justified in that the alien race behind it, the Reach, have disguised many of their plans and weapons as "magic" so that no one would ask questions, while at the same time doing in wizards that could prove otherwise.

* Likewise, {{Hawkman}}'s powers are ever-changing in nature: He's either the reincarnation of an Egyptian Pharaoh, or an alien. Or the reincarnation of an alien pharaoh. For example, the mystic that gave the third/fourth Hawkman his powers was retconned into being a Thanagarian scientist.

* There was a period when TheMightyThor and his fellow Asgardians were actually SufficientlyAdvancedAliens whose exploits inspired Norse mythology, but who weren't actually gods. This has since been completely ignored.

** The new film also makes the claim that magic and science are in fact one and the same, and Asgard seems to exist physically in another dimension or region of space.

* ''StarWars: ThePhantomMenace'' famously did this to Force ability. In the original trilogy, Force potential is vague, but could be passed down through the family and sensed by other Jedi. ''The Phantom Menace'' revealed that a person's ability to control the Force is possibly determined by the amount of organelles known as midi-chlorians you have in your bloodstream, therefore blurring the lines between magic and science. Thus, Force potential became solidified as a physical property of your body in addition to an abstract talent or metaphysical ability. The Force itself is still just magic, however.
* ''HighlanderIITheQuickening'' reveals that Immortals are aliens from the planet Zeist. The director's cut has them as time-traveling {{precursors}} from the prehistoric past. Both explanations met with CanonDiscontinuity due to unpopularity.

* ''TheCabinetOfDrCaligari'', in which had "it's all in the patient's head'' {{bookends}} attached on the insistence of the movie's producers.

* ''{{Troy}}'' retells ''Literature/TheIliad'' without any gods or magic. In fact, the film's message scorns mysticism, religion, and superstition. In the beginning, Achilles lampshades it when a boy asks if he's really invincible. Achilles responds that if he were, then he wouldn't be bothering with a shield.

* In the film version of {{Thor}}, what would appear at first to be flat out magic used by what appear to be Norse gods, it is shown that they are actually just a shockingly human looking race of aliens from a distant planet, with technology so advanced that it appears as magic to Humans, and the Norse mythology was sprung from centuries ago when they visited Earth and people thought they were gods. A mixed example; Thor's hammer and Loki's magic are both explicitly called magic by Asgardians.

* Done somewhat blatantly in the ''SwordOfTruth'' series and can mainly be ascribed to the Sisters of the Light. In the first few books, magic is described as being one's "gift" and prophecies in-world were very traditionally vague. Once the good Sisters are introduced, they bring along their own descriptions, describing the gift as one's "Han". And beyond the fourth book, the previously well-written and plot-relevant prophecies disappear and are replaced with [[MinovskyPhysics quantum physics]] {{technobabble}} meant to sound more scientific than mystical, going beyond MagicAIsMagicA (this is also, not coincidentally, when the story becomes an AuthorTract).

* In ''The ColdfireTrilogy'', the magic system actively prevents technology from arising (beliefs and fears are made manifest and honestly, who really believes that their car will start each day?). Except... as it turns out, [[spoiler:the inhabitants of the planet are descendants of earlier space travelers, and the "magic" is the result of injured psychic aliens]].

* Marion Zimmer Bradley's ''{{Darkover}}.'' ''[[AppliedPhlebotinum Laran]]'', the setting's word for their magic, is a word for psychic abilities that can be amplified through matrix crystals. Bradley does a good job of showing how most native Darkovans call it sorcery, but those who actually work with it treat it as a science. Although the science behind the psychic abilities boils down to "It's magic but not!"

* In ''The13thWarrior'', the monster is just a brutal primitive tribe, but no less dangerous.

* According to the (pretty strange) rules of magic in Gordon R. Dickinson's ''TheDragonKnight'' series, this is how technology develops. Magicians invent a new type of magical technique that runs on [[{{Mana}} magical energy]] and share it amongst each other. If they share it too much, it ''stops being magical'' and starts being technology and running without mana. The only way to replenish the world's supply of magic is with new magical techniques: the main character invents the theater and special effects in one book which helps replenish the world's supply of magic.
* Some of DeanKoontz's works prefer to settle for a paranormal solution over a supernatural one, and ''The Servants of Twilight'' is a particularly heavy-handed example. The main character's son is pursued by the followers of a religious fanatic throughout, who's had visions that paint the child as the Antichrist. In the final confrontation, [[spoiler: the fanatic is attacked and killed by a horde of bats]], and this, along with other strange occurrences, lead the mother to think her kid might really ''be'' the Antichrist. [[spoiler: And that's when the fanatic's top mook -- who has been mostly silent throughout and shown no signs of higher thinking -- goes into a two-page explanation about how the two characters were most likely psychic and picking up on one another, before walking out of the book entirely]].

* The original ''SherlockHolmes'' stories. Pick ''any'' story (or novel) with a seemingly supernatural element and that element will be given a rational explanation by the end. Most obvious example is ''The Hound Of The Baskervilles''.

* In the ''PeterPan''-ExternalRetcon ''PeterAndTheStarcatchers'' series, the stuff we know as "fairy dust" is actually "[[GreenRocks Starstuff]]", a highly dangerous AppliedPhlebotinum that can do anything. Besides being [[BeethovenWasAnAlienSpy the creative force behind every genius in Earth's history]], Starstuff can make people fly, [[spoiler:turn birds into "fairies" and fish into "mermaids"]], and [[spoiler:keep you from dying or growing older]] if you survive prolonged exposure.

** ''DragonsAFantasyMadeReal'' tries to do the same kind of scientific justification for... well, guess.

* ''Anime/PuellaMagiMadokaMagica'': [[spoiler: [[UnreliableNarrator Kyuubey claims to be]] from a race of SufficientlyAdvancedAliens]]. Magic is still magic, though, more or less.

* ''{{Bionicle}}'' started out as a deeply mystical story with biomechanical beings bearing ElementalPowers living a tribal life on a strange PatchworkMap island, based on prophecies told by their legends of the Great Spirit. Later it was explained that their whole culture is the result of a glitch in their AI and the lies told by their elders, the island was formed by a malfunctioning HumongousMecha who had been put into stasis by a virus, and said robot was their Great Spirit all along, whose mission wasn't to protect them and be their god, but to go on an inter-planetary travel, and ''they'' were in fact supposed to keep ''him'' running. And the Great Beings, hailed as ultra-powerful figures of legend were actually a bunch of geeks/politicians, blinded by ForScience-RuleOfCool far too much. All sorts of other sci-fi-ish elements also found their way into the story, like AlternateUniverse-traveling, a mystical star turning out to be a giant booster rocket, as well as more and more techno-terms and expressions. As WordOfGod put it, Bionicle is a story of people being wrong. Though [[BrokenBase many fans preferred the original, unique flavor of the story, and feel that the sudden overdose of sci-fi made it too generic]].

* ''StarWars: ThePhantomMenace'' famously did this to Force ability. In the original trilogy, Force potential is vague, but could be passed down through the family and sensed by other Jedi. ''The Phantom Menace'' revealed that a person's ability to control the Force is determined by the amount of organelles known as midi-chlorians you have in your bloodstream. Thus, Force potential became solidified as a physical property of your body in addition to an abstract talent or metaphysical ability. The Force itself is still just magic, however.

* Some famous magicians, such as James Randi and Creator/PennAndTeller, specialize in debunking mysticisms with scientific explanations. Houdini was also interested in debunking mediums of his age. He even established a secret phrase with his wife that he would use if he should die and she should try to contact him through a seance. He did die fairly young and his wife tried for many years after his death to contact him through mediums, who all failed to deliver his secret phrase.
** It's not quite that simple. She did have a claimed contact through medium Arthur Ford in 1929. Bess Houdini initially endorsed his claim, but later repudiated it, and others suggested that Ford could have deduced what the code was from existing clues, and that Bess had gone along with the claim from romantic feelings she had for him, with her judgment also clouded by alcoholism. Evidence was found after his death showing Ford faked the seance, and that he looked into potential clients backgrounds ahead of time for information he could use to [[PhonyPsychic make people believe he was contacting their dead relatives]]. So perhaps, in an indirect way, Houdini exposed ''another'' fraudulent medium after he died...

** It's not quite that simple. She did have a claimed contact through medium Arthur Ford in 1929. Bess Houdini initially endorsed
his claim, but later repudiated it, and others suggested that Ford could have deduced what the code was from existing clues, and that Bess had gone along with the claim from romantic feelings she had for him, with her judgment also clouded by alcoholism. Evidence was found after his death showing Ford faked the seance, and that he looked into potential clients backgrounds ahead of time for information he could use to [[PhonyPsychic make people believe he was contacting their dead relatives]]. So perhaps, in an indirect way, Houdini exposed ''another'' fraudulent medium after he died...

** It's not quite that simple. She did have a contact through Arthur Ford in 1929. Ford conveyed the secret code, but Bess later claimed the incident had been faked. Don't know why she faked a seance with her dead husband who debunked fake seances for a hobby/living. As that seems like spitting on his memory, but she did. Unless she was lying the second time for some reason.....

* ''VideoGame/{{Wizardry}}''. There's always been a mixture of magic and science fiction in the series, but when ''Wizardry 8'' was finally released after a long time, some fans [[FanDumb complained about the inclusion of tech stuff]], forgetting it had always been there.

* Justified and inverted ''at the same time'' in Creator/GKChesterton's FatherBrown short stories. At first, something supernatural seems to be going on; in the end, the "ghost-story" phenomena turn out to be this-worldly. However, the crime turns out to turn upon the mysteries of the human heart, treated by Chesterton as far more supernatural and dreadful than any ghost.

* The 2009 film ''Film/SherlockHolmes'', [[spoiler:Lord Blackwood's seemingly magical feats (which where performed so people would recognize him as the Messiah), are unravelled by the title character as resulting from various tricks. After exposing and defeating him, Holmes points out however that the various rituals and sacrifices were carried out exactly as detailed in certain satanic texts, so Blackwood had better HOPE none of it was real, otherwise he would in fact owe the devil his very soul for all eternity]]

* {{Batman}} has done his fair share of this, usually pointing out people explicitly trying to use smoke-and-mirrors to appear mystical, or some ancient artifact that was thought to be "cursed" or "enchanted" having a rational explanation, like a rage-demon-possessed mask that actually had a few small poison-tipped spikes that drove the bearer mad. That said, he's also explicitly encountered ghosts, wizards, gods and demons, so it's less a case of "There's no such thing as magic" as "I won't believe it's magic until I prove it one way or the other."

* Anne [=McCaffrey=]'s Dragonriders of Pern series begins with fire-breathing dragons, telepathy, and teleportation, all believed to be a form of magic. By the third book in the series, the dragons are genetically modified lizards with {{technobabble}} explanations for the telepathy and teleportation.

* ''Series/DoctorWho'' has somewhat of a running gag (spanning decades) in that The Doctor ''refuses'' to say something is magic, and will have a {{technobabble}} explanation -- sometimes correct, sometimes flimsy and hinted incorrect.

Compare and contrast with HowUnscientific. See also {{Demythtification}}, TheMagicGoesAway, and MagicVersusScience. Diametric opposite to DoingInTheScientist. Inbetween you have MaybeMagicMaybeMundane. Compare {{Jossed}}. Contrast MagicAIsMagicA.

** Midi-chlorians only quantify a persons talent with t* ''StarWars: ThePhantomMenace'' famously did this to Force ability. In the original trilogy, Force potential is vague, but could be passed down through the family and sensed by other Jedi. ''The Phantom Menace'' revealed that a person's ability to control the Force is determined by the amount of organelles known as midi-chlorians you have in your bloodstream. Thus, Force potential became solidified as a physical property of your body rather than an abstract talent or metaphysical ability. The Force itself is still just magic, however.he force. If a guy is really good with the force, more midi-chlorians will live in him.
*** That's the whole point. In the original trilogy, how good a Jedi a person is was based on what sort of a ''person'' they are; how wise and strong in spirit they are. With midi-chlorians, one's potential with the Force is codified into their genes and can be measured and quantified scientifically, which is sort of counter to the whole point of the Force in the first place.
*** But there is nothing to say the count is fixed at birth and there is no possible way the Force is a genetic trait [[hottip:*:given that if it were it would almost certainly exist in every person in a species similarly to eyesight in reality, there are numerous species that have Force sensitives in extreme minorities]] unless genetics in Star Wars is different from that in reality. Even with midi-chlorians it is possible for it to be still modified by wisdom and spirit as before, Obi-Wan vs Anakin certainly proves this. And its not as if there wasn't a genetic element to begin with anyway given that Luke and Leia inherited their Force sensitivity from Anakin.

** It's not quite that simple. She did have a contact through Arthur Ford in 1929. Ford conveyed the secret code, but Bess later claimed the incident had been faked. Don't know why she faked a seance with her dead husband who debunked fake seances for a hobby/living. As that seems like spitting on his memory, but she did. Unless she was lying the second time for some reason.....

* ''StarWars: ThePhantomMenace'' famously did this to Force ability. In the original trilogy, Force potential is vague, but could be passed down through the family and sensed by other Jedi. ''The Phantom Menace'' revealed that a person's ability to control the Force is determined by the amount of organelles known as midi-chlorians you have in your bloodstream. Thus, Force potential became solidified as a physical property of your body rather than an abstract talent or metaphysical ability. The Force itself is still just magic, however.
** Midi-chlorians only quantify a persons talent with the force. If a guy is really good with the force, more midi-chlorians will live in him.

*** But there is nothing to say the count is fixed at birth and there is no possible way the Force is a genetic trait [[hottip:*:given that if it were it would almost certainly exist in every person in a species similarly to eyesight in reality, there are numerous species that have Force sensitives in extreme minorities]] unless genetics in Star Wars is different from that in reality. Even with midi-chlorians it is possible for it to be still modified by wisdom and spirit. And its not as if there wasn't a genetic element to begin with anyway given that Luke and Leia inherited their Force sensitivity from Anakin. There had to be some metric used by Jedi to determine whether someone could be trained that is all they are.

* Anne Anne [=McCaffrey=]'s Dragonriders of Pern series begins with fire-breathing dragons, telepathy, and teleportation, all believed to be a form of magic. By the third book in the series, it turns out the dragons are genetically modified lizards and everyone is a human colonist cut off from Earth. Telepathy and teleportation are {{technobabble}}d.

* Ann McCaffrey's Dragonriders of Pern series begins with fire-breathing dragons and telepathy. By the third book in the series, it turns out the dragons are genetically modified lizards and everyone is a human colonist cut off from Earth.

*** That's the whole point. In the original trilogy, how good a Jedi a person is was based on what sort of a 'person' they are; how wise and strong in spirit they are. With midi-chlorians, one's potential with the Force is codified into their genes and can be measured and quantified scientifically, which is sort of counter to the whole point of the Force in the first place.

* ''StarWars: ThePhantomMenace'' famously did this to Force ability. In the original trilogy, Force potential is vague, but could be passed down through the family and sensed by other Jedi. ''The Phantom Menace'' revealed that a person's ability to control the force is determined by the amount of organelles known as midi-chlorians you have in your bloodstream. Thus, Force potential became solidified as a physical property of your body rather than an abstract talent or metaphysical ability. The Force itself is still just magic, however.
** Midi-chlorians only quantify a persons talent with the force. If a guy are really good with the force, more midi-chlorians will live in him.