History Main / MagicMustDefeatMagic

* ''Hekla's Children'' by James Brogden, the [[{{Wendigo}} ''afaugh'']] was stopped in prehistoric times by a Stone Age proto-Celtic tribe using a dark ritual to create a demigod to fight it. In modern times, the afaugh escapes and couldn't be stopped in its rampage until a young student is transported to the distant past and becomes a even greater deity before returning to the present and permanently killing the abomination.

* ''The Night Warriors'' series from Creator/GrahamMasterton has horrors that can reside and attack from dreams, making it impossible to deal with. Luckily, [[TheChosenMany there are people]] chosen by the god Ashapola and given special powers including dream travel to fight these unholy terrors.

* ''The Night Warriors'' series from Creator/GrahamMasterton has horrors that can reside and attack from dreams, making it impossible to deal with. Luckily, [[TheChosenMany there are people]] chosen by the god and given special powers including dream travel to fight these unholy terrors.

* ''Darkfall'' from Creator/DeanKoontz, has an evil Voodoo priest go to New York for revenge. His hated good brother was an investigative reporter murdered by the Mafia, causing the priest to lose face with his dark gods. So he's been conjuring spirits out of Hell to murder mafiosos and eventually start an InvasionFromHell. Good thing the cop assigned to investigate the murders of these Mafiosos is aided by a good voodoo priest who invokes a ProtectiveCharm from benign gods on the cop.

* ''ComicBook/VampirellaTheDarkPowers'': Has this as a major theme arc starting in this series and in follow-up series ''Vampirella vs Red Sonja'' and ''Red Sonja: The Super Powers''. The Project is a super hero team composed of science heroes from various alternate Earths, their only members who have any supernatural abilities are Vampirella and a [[ProtectiveCharm Witch-Marked]] Red Sonja. When the heroes fight against supernatural beings, they keep getting confused by what's happening and get curbstomped until Vampirella and Red Sonja intervene. At one point Red Sonja even asks a superheroine how despite all their amazing powers, the heroes that investigated Hyboria couldn't beat an evil sorcerer. At the end of the theme, Sonja with some assistance from Vampirella becomes the Project's head instructor for defense against supernatural threats.

* ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeagueDark'': The standard Justice League is powerless to stop a series of supernaturally influenced murders caused by a trio of powerful demons. It takes a team-up of independent supernatural heroes to deal with this threat and at the end, the Justice League encourages these individuals to become part of a formal team.

* ''ComicBook/VampirellaTheDarkPowers'': Has this as a major theme arc starting in this series and in follow-up series ''Vampirella vs Red Sonja'' and ''Red Sonja: The Super Powers''. The Project is a super hero team composed of science heroes from various alternate Earths, their only members who have any supernatural abilities are Vampirella and a [[ProtectiveCharm Witch-Marked]] Red Sonja. When the heroes fight against supernatural beings, they keep getting confused by what's happening and get curbstomped until Vampirella and Red Sonja intervene. At one point Red Sonja even asks a superheroine how despite all their amazing powers, the heroes that investigated Hyboria couldn't beat an evil sorcerer.

* ''ComicBook/VampirellaTheDarkPowers'': Has this as a major theme arc starting in this series and in follow-up series ''Vampirella vs Red Sonja'' and ''Red Sonja: The Super Powers''. The Project is a super hero team composed of science heroes from various alternate Earths, their only members who have any supernatural abilities are Vampirella and a [[ProtectiveCharm Witch-Marked]] Red Sonja. When the heroes fight against supernatural beings, they keep getting confused by what's happening and get curbstomped until Vampirella and Red Sonja intervene.

When the threat is non-sentient in nature, like [[BackgroundMagicField a location that doesn't conform to basic normalcy]] or [[MysticalPlague a supernatural pandemic with no traceable pathogen]], expect everyone to [[DoingInTheScientist exhaust every rational method of cure or containment]] before calling in the BlueCollarWarlock to clean up their mess.

* ''{{VideoGame/Aranum}}'': Due to the way magic and technology interact, highly-magical enemies can cause technology to fail (and vice-versa). There's also a college of magic specializing in countering magic.

** Magus' first battle is the TropeNamer for BarrierChangeBoss, in which he takes very little damage from physical attacks and only takes damage from the element the barrier isn't reflecting at the moment (which changes with every attack made against him). No matter the party's composition (on the first playthrough at least), there will only be three elements out of four available to the party (''two'' if you brought Marle as your third party member), ensuring a tough fight.

* In ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', Servants cannot be harmed by modern weapons like firearms, as they're fast enough to DodgeTheBullet or [[{{Intangibility}} simply disperse into spirit form]] rather than take the hit head-on. This is on top of most Servants being so much stronger than humans that going at them with a bat or a sword would be fruitless. As such, Servants are only injured and killed by other supernatural beings within the story such as other Servants, [[spoiler:Angra Mainyu]], magi, or people magically enhanced by magi. This is perhaps best shown in the ''Unlimited Blade Works'' route, where [[spoiler:Kuzuki, enhanced by Caster's magecraft, manages to take Saber by surprise in hand-to-hand combat and defeat her. But when Archer murders Caster, Kuzuki is only able to land one hit that Archer doesn't even bother trying to dodge before Archer cuts him in half.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/CourageTheCowardlyDog'': An episode has the MonsterOfTheWeek, initially disguised as a stage magician, use black magic on Muriel to slowly turn her into just like him and eventually take her as his bride. When Courage asks the doctor for help, aside from his usual CatchPhrase that there's nothing he can do, he explains that "Magic must be fought with magic," which gives Courage some ideas on how he can solve the problem.
* ''WesternAnimation/JackieChanAdventures'': Uncle is the [[TropeNamers Trope Namer]]; "magic must defeat magic" is one of his {{catchphrase}}s, usually spouted whenever Jackie, Jade, or the rest of Section 13 try and apply a non-magical solution (usually involving guns) to fight a magical threat. If Uncle doesn't knock the naysayer unconscious first, he is usually proven correct when the magical threat curb-stomps the poor saps trying to gun down or kung fu it to death. Uncle even makes the whole of Section 13 recite this mantra in the Season 1 finale ("What have we learned?" "Magic must defeat magic."). In later seasons, Captain Black, the leader of Section 13, is shown as more open to the idea of magic (to the point of trying to learn a chi spell or two himself) and lets Uncle take the lead on any supernatural threats; part of the issue, though, is that Black's superiors treat his discussion of Demon Portals, superpowered animals, and monster-summoning masks as delusions, so he has to handle magical problems off the books.

* In Creator/GamesWorkshop games (''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer}}'', et al.), [[OurDemonsAreDifferent daemons]] are resistant [[DownplayedTrope (though not immune)]] to mundane sources of harm -- only attacks of magical, [[HolyBurnsEvil holy]], [[PsychicPowers psychic]] or [[TakesOneToKillOne daemonic]] origin can deal full damage to a daemon.

* ''LightNovel/FateZero'' follows the same principle as the rest of the ''Fate'' franchise that modern weapons are practically useless against Servants... but then subverts it through Berserker, who has the ability to make '''any''' physical object that he wields act as if it was his Noble Phantasm, thus allowing modern weapons and tools to actually damage a Servant. This includes a telephone pole, guns, and even an '''entire F-15J fighter jet'''.
* In ''LightNovel/TheZashikiWarashiOfIntellectualVillage'', youkai are immune to any kind of damage involving the laws of physics. Natural poisons and radiation do not affect them and even the weakest youkai could survive a downpour of nuclear missiles. As such, other magical and supernatural abilities are needed to defeat youkai, and Hishigami Mai needed to have her body thoroughly remodeled via extensive surgeries to develop superhuman abilities and the power to bypass a youkai's invulnerability.

** At his highest level, BonusBoss Spekkio is completely immune to physical damage and can only be damaged by magic. Conversely, he only casts spells, so equipping Lucca with her Elemental Aegis makes the fight very long but almost unlosable.

* In ''VisualNovel/FateStayNight'', Servants cannot be harmed by modern weapons like firearms, as they're fast enough to DodgeTheBullet or [[NighInvulnerability simply disperse into spirit form]] rather than take the hit head-on. As such, Servants are only injured and killed by other supernatural beings within the story such as other Servants, [[spoiler:Angra Mainyu]], magi, or people magically enhanced by magi. This is perhaps best shown in the ''Unlimited Blade Works'' route, where [[spoiler:Kuzuki, enhanced by Caster's magecraft, manages to take Saber by surprise in hand-to-hand combat and defeat her. But when Archer murders Caster, Kuzuki is only able to land one hit that Archer doesn't even bother trying to dodge before Archer cuts him in half.]]