Ban on Magic

Banning witches is probably a good idea on its own.

"Also, when Oz first became a fairyland, it harbored several witches and magicians and sorcerers and necromancers, who were scattered in various parts, but most of these had been deprived of their magic powers, and Ozma had issued a royal edict forbidding anyone in her dominions to work magic except Glinda the Good and the Wizard of Oz. Ozma herself, being a real fairy, knew a lot of magic, but she only used it to benefit her subjects."

— The Tin Woodman of Oz

A ban on using magic. Usually in effect just for certain places or circumstances, but occasionally is complete.

When an Antimagical Faction is in control, a ban on magic is always in effect, since it is an almost inalienable part of their policy. The ban is often prompted by a notion of magic being evil.

There is more than one sort of magic ban. For purposes of definition, we will divide them into these classes:

Partial bans. As noted, most bans are this sort. Subtypes of this:

1. Certain schools of magic are banned — The Dark Arts, necromancy, the Light Arts...
2. Magic is banned to certain people. This usually means everyone outside a certain class. It may be limited to licensed wizards, people of noble birth, or people of ignoble birth; or it may be allowed to only one or two people. This and A1 may be mixed; there may be schools of magic that are banned to most, but not all, people. See also Super Registration Act.
3. Magic is limited to certain times and will be punished outside them.

Complete bans on magic. Especially fun if the heroes are magic users. Note that many situations that look like a total ban are really a partial ban — you rarely find magic banned to everyone unless there is a non-magical way to enforce the ban. See also Muggle Power.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Fullmetal Alchemist has a 3-part restriction on alchemy: Alchemy used as a weapon against the general law and order is forbidden (much like any weapon). It is also forbidden to transmute gold (to avoid destroying the gold-standard economy), and human transmutation, the act of creating human life or resurrection, is forbidden. All knowledge of the Philosopher's stone is also ruthlessly repressed and probably illegal if people even knew about it. In the two latter cases, it's to keep the military's monopoly on them — or in the 2003 anime, to intentionally make it Forbidden Fruit for sufficiently desperate alchemists.
• Fairy Tail in Edolas — magic is a non-renewable resource there, so mage guilds are outlawed, and the only people who are allowed to use large amounts of magic are the higher-ups in the kingdom.
• In the Lyrical Nanoha, using personal flight spells is forbidden over populated areas of Midchilda to everyone except TSAB personnel (and even they need to get clearance beforehand), for the fear of collisions with muggle air traffic (types A-2 and A-3).
• Witch Hat Atelier: There was a time that everyone could use magic, but this caused the world to go into mayhem and face war after war, the most responsible witches then, agreed to create a limitation to magic, they erased others memories and hid with them the secret that magic can be used by anyone with magic ink. Furthermore, one of the most important rules is that no magic can be cast in human bodies, not even healing, with the sole exception being memory manipulation and only in the necessity of protecting the secret of the witches.

Card Games

• Magic: The Gathering:
  • Ib Chandra Nalaar's home plane the use of fire magic is punishable by death.
  • The Atarka in the new Tarkir timeline have a total ban Dragonlord Atarka is afraid of the old shamanic arts, so anyone caught practicing them by a dragon of Atarka's brood gets summarily devoured. They're still being practiced in secret, at least.

Comic Books

• Pathfinder: Worldscape: The Holy Therns forbid the use of any and all kinds of magic to everyone in Shareen since they regard it as blasphemy against their goddess Issus, with the punishment being sent to the arena. The only one allowed to practice it is Kulan Gath, who serves the local despot Empress Camilla as her Court Mage.
• Legends of the Dead Earth: In The Power of Shazam! Annual #1, the Science Council that rules Binderaan has outlawed magic as it regards its use as being against the public good.
• Okko: Communion with kamis to influence the forces of nature is against the beliefs of the Monks of the Silver Plum and is thus forbidden within their monastery.

Fan Works

• In the Alternate Universe My Little Pony Fanfic The Son of the Emperor depending on the country, unicorns are either banned from using magic altogether or allowed certain weaker spells.
• Warriors of the World - there is a ban on old magic being used within the Kingdom. The law extends to sentient non-humans and creatures as well.
• The USA has enacted a Type B magic ban in The Affairs of Wizards, enabled by the discovery of Cold Iron, which has magic-canceling powers. Stark Industries manufactures not only lethal "anti-psionic" weapons that specifically target magic users but "Deadlock" weapons that force the magic out of a witch's body. They can then be taken alive and used for human experimentation or slavery. Loki is not pleased; his fight spurs on the plot.
• Oz still has a ban on magic in The Love Club, even in modern times. Turtle Heart was deported for practicing magic.
• Vow of Nudity: Fiora grew up in a werecat clan where magic was forbidden to anyone except the "Sister," aka the village shaman/matriarch. Most of the underhanded or immoral choices Fiora makes in her origin story involve trying to secretly learn magic without her clanmates finding out.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 5Ds A Live: Thanks to Streibough's actions that led to the rise of Odio, magicians and Psychics were killed en masse. Those who survived went into hiding.

Literature

• Harry Potter has a few partial bans: one forbidding the use of magic to students when they're on holiday from school, one forbidding the use of magic in the vicinity of Muggles (although this may count as upholding The Masquerade), and one forbidding the use of The Dark Arts, especially the Unforgivable Curses. (The first two can be violated in life-threatening situations. The third has occasionally been lifted for aurors during times of war.) References are also made to certain magics being prohibited within Hogwarts, such as Apparation (which can't be performed on Hogwarts grounds anyway) or using Transfiguration as a punishment for students. (Although that last one is sort of like using a taser on students — it's considered Disproportionate Retribution.) Apparation is also legally restricted to those who are trained and licensed to do so, like driving in the Muggle world. Creating unauthorized portkeys is also outlawed — not that it stops Dumbledore from doing so in front of Minister Fudge.
  • One of the stories in The Tales of Beedle the Bard features a muggle king who bans all use of magic — except for himself, not realizing that he can't learn magic. This makes him an easy mark for a charlatan pretending to be a teacher of magic.
• The Seven Laws of Magic in The Dresden Files forbid killing mortals with magic (you can kill other things with magic, and you can defeat a magic user with magic and strike the finishing blow with a plain old gun just fine), involuntary shapeshifting magic, Mind Reading, Mind Control, Necromancy, Time Travel, and looking beyond the "Outer Gates". The penalty for any breaking of the laws is beheading. At first it's thought to be very cruel on the part of the Council, but later we find that committing certain acts with magic will leave you Drunk on the Dark Side and almost inevitably lead to much worse. The Council answers "yes" to "would you kill Hitler before the Holocaust if you could?"
• The Laws of Ramos in the Deryni works label the use of Deryni magic as heresy, punishable by death by burning at the stake. Particularly true for any Deryni who dares to take Holy Orders as a priest; such an execution is depicted in the short story "The Priesting of Arilan".
• Black magic is banned by the guild in Trudi Canavan's The Black Magician Trilogy, looking at the title probably tells you how well that goes.
• In the first book of Septimus Heap, the Supreme Custodian tries not very successfully to outlaw Magyk.
• From the 13th century Heimskringla: When the Aesir had taught magic to the ancient Swedes, they used it for everything. But because magic makes everything too easy, they soon felt that the men were becoming too soft. So they passed a law that only women were allowed to learn magic, and this is supposedly the reason why the Norse ever since frowned upon men practicing sorcery, while it was okay with women.
• In Pamela Dean's The Secret Country a few hundred years ago, three of the four major schools of magic- Green Caves, Blue, and Yellow- drove the fourth, the Red, out of the inland countries where the books take place. What exactly the Red Sorcerers did to make themselves so unpopular is never really explained, only that they are still considered rather unsavory and that the forces they wield are both more powerful and more dangerous than those available to the other schools.
• In The Belgariad by David Eddings, it is against the law to practice sorcery in the Empire of Tolnedra. Which is ironic, because Tolnedrans don't believe in sorcery or magic as a matter of principle.
• In The Elenium by David Eddings, the Elene Church refuses to recognize Styric magic (or any other magic). Especially ironic, since all the Knights of the Church are trained in Styric magic. This gets turned on its head in The Tamuli when a Styric refuses to recognize Atan magic for many of the same reason that the Elenes disregard Styic magic.
  • There's actually a specific exception provided for the Knights of the Church.
• Labyrinths of Echo has an almost complete ban of magic around the World's Heart, since using up too much of its power would eventually bring The End of the World as We Know It. Magic used far away doesn't tap this power — which also makes it much harder. Of course, adherents of the ban had to stop near-unchecked magical Orders — requiring War of the Codex that made everyone throw around more magic and thus was counterproductive. So the World of Rod already have slipped past the critical point late in the war and by the start of the series was kept barely "alive" via artificial means.
• A couple of cases in The Wheel of Time:
  • The nations of Tear and Amadicia are both type Bs, banning magic altogether (the former mostly out of general distrust, the latter because it is all but ruled by a militant religious order that believes Magic Is Evil) and the city-state of Far Madding is effectively one, owing to the fact that it exists in an Anti-Magic field. Tear, ironically, sends a high number of students to the main Wizarding School, if only to get those with the ability to use magic out of the Tairens' hair, and the general attitude is that they don't care what channelers do, as long as they don't do it in Tear; the Amadicians and the ruling Children of the Light have a more direct solution.
  • A partial ban is in effect over most of the world; across most of the Westlands, channeling is at best frowned upon and at worst actively prohibited unless one is a woman who has been trained in the White Tower, though the Tower's ability to enforce this is shown to be much more limited than it would hope.
  • The Empire of Seanchan is also a have a partial ban since its people believe that Magic Is Evil, but instead of outright forbidding it they use a'dam to enslave channelers and force them to serve the Empire. Free channelers (marath'damane) are considered dangerous freaks and actively hunted down and collared.
  • Male channelers are almost always executed or severed in any part of the world, owing to a curse placed upon them by the God of Evil that causes them to go spectacularly insane after using their powers for a while (the exact amount of time this takes varies) and are nearly universally hated and feared as a result.
• The Earthsea series:
  • While wizards are not strictly forbidden from using forms of magic other than illusion, there is a powerful taboo against it, for very good reason.
  • All "magic" is prohibited to Kargs and in the Kargad Lands. As it turns out, they worship evil gods who hate magic, which is actually OK.
• The Magic in Ithkar anthologies take place in a huge yearly fair, and unauthorized magic is strictly forbidden within the fair, primarily to keep the trading honest. This provided a helpful source of conflict for the writers.
• In the Curse Workers series, magic has been banned throughout most of the world, leading to the rise of crime syndicates that control an underground trade in magical services. Australia is notable for being one of the few countries where magic is not illegal; it is generally understood that the reason for this is that, due to its origins as a penal colony, many of the first European settlers were people who had been deported from England for the crime of using magic.
• The Federation in The Heritage of Shannara is a type A2 that pretends to be a type B. Official policy is that magic is illegal and anyone caught using it will get the Seekers (the Federation's secret police and Elite Mooks) sicced on them. The truth is that the Seekers (and indirectly, the rest of the Federation government) are a front for the Shadowen, who both use and feed on magic and want to gather all the magic in the world for themselves.
• Type B2 in the Gentleman Bastard series. The bondsmagi of Karthain decided they should be the only wizards in the world. There used to be other magic-users around, but the bondsmagi coerced them into joining them and killed those who didn't agree. Now they manage to detect most of the people gifted for magic at a young age and teach them, and no other group of wizards exists.
• Mistborn: The Original Trilogy:
  • Allomancy is strictly limited to the nobility. Commoners who use Allomancy get ritually executed by having a hook with a rope tied to it shoved down their throat, so that the hook comes out of the throat and the rope out of the mouth, and then getting hung by that rope (this punishment is explicitly reserved for commoner Allomancers). In addition, if you've got Allomancy there's a chance any of your children could have it, so the government will track down and kill them too.
  • And Feruchemy is absolutely illegal, to the point where a thousand-year-long breeding program was initiated just to get rid of the potential for that ability.
• In The Dark Sword Trilogy this trope is inverted: there's a ban on not being magical (type B!). The vast majority of humanity have at least some inborn magical talent. Those who don't have it are called "dead" and often end up that way for real, if discovered. The shadowy enforcers can stop others from using magic, often crippling them. One country also bans technology, since it allows you to do things without magic.
• The Laundry Files is about an English secret agency that spends almost all of its time enforcing a ban not just on magic but on branches of computer programming and higher mathematics that might lead to magic, because unsupervised amateurs could accidentally summon eldritch things which devour the world. The rest of their time is spent stopping eldritch things from devouring the world because they don't have the budget to keep track of every gifted mathematician in the UK, and the politics involved when dealing with other nations' magical agency.
• In The Iron Teeth web serial, only the Mage Guilds are allowed to use or research magic. They thus enforce a magical oligarchy on the rest of society. If anyone else tries to learn magic they are usually killed by agents of one of the guilds.
• In Inheritance Cycle Nasuada plans to impose regulations on the use of magic. King Galbatorix, the big bad, was also planning the same thing.
• The novel A Criminal Magic uses type A2 to make a Prohibition-era mobster story using wizards. In addition to criminals using magic to rig sporting events and to express the mob boss' displeasure with people, there is an ongoing trade in magical drugs, the most powerful being Shine, a magical drink whose saleability is limited by the fact that the magic dissipates a day after it is created, so Shiners can't stock up a supply (anything not sold within a day of brewing will be worthless the next day, so there's no point in making more than you can sell later that day) or distribute their product too far away from the production facility (if it takes more than a day for the Shine to reach the end customer and be consumed, somebody's going to find themselves holding a bottle of very expensive water). Then one day a Shiner invents a way of sealing Shine bottles so that the magic doesn't start fading until after the bottles are unsealed...
• For most of The Kane Chronicles, the House of Life imposes a type A ban punishable by death on any magician who follows the path of the gods or even hosts a god by accident. This practice began with the fall of Egypt and stems from a belief that the Gods were to blame for being too hard to control, but is dropped by the end of the series out of necessity to prevent the rise of Apophis. It also makes the protagonists, as hosts of Horus and Isis, fugitives for most of the trilogy.
• The Paper Magician has a type A1. While all the other schools of magic are widely practiced and accepted, Excision (flesh magic) is completely banned...and with good reason, since all its practitioners rely heavily on Human Resources.
• In Legacy of Orïsha, all magic is banned and those who have magical abilities (known as maji) are executed by the government, with very few remaining.
• In L. Frank Baum's Land of Oz series, magic is banned from Oz for all except Princess Ozma, Glinda the Good, and the Wizard of Oz, making it a type A-2 ban. This is to prevent anything like the Wicked Witches from rising again. Of course, the plot of almost every book in the series from the time the ban is mentioned involves someone unlawfully using magic.
  • This comes to the forefront in The Patchwork Girl of Oz, in which a young Munchkin boy named Ojo is arrested for picking a six-leaf clover; an ingredient needed to cure his Uncle of being turned to marble in a magical mishap. He at first finds it silly to have a law against picking six-leaf clovers, but the law is in place as part of Oz's magic ban. After explaining his side of the story, Ozma grants him special permission to continue gathering the ingredients; however by the end of the story she takes away the powers of the magician who accidentally caused the mishap with his magical powders.
  • In Handy Mandy in Oz the title character comes across a poster with the ban on practicing magic for good or evil printed on it. Ever the snarker, Handy Mandy laughs and says she doesn't practice magic because her magic is already perfect.
• In Dread Empire, El Murid's religion initially completely banned all practice of magic (El Murid himself used a magical amulet that let him control lightning, but genuinely believed it to be a holy artifact and not a sorcerous one). Later, at the urging of some of his more aggressive followers, he relaxed the ban slightly, grudgingly allowing the training of a small group of sorcerer-assassins, but only so long as they swore loyalty to him.
• The Dreamscape Voyager Trilogy features a type B; magic seems to stem from the Fae, and any dealings with them is outlawed.
• The squirrels in Tasakeru enforce a ban on magic, believing that only the Gods should be able to change the laws of nature. The degree to which the ban is followed varies from family to family; some families are willing to use magical tools and objects enchanted by other mages, and others refuse to use any magic at all.
• The Deed of Paksenarrion is a A2, with magic generally forbidden unless learned from and authorized by a culturally acceptable church. This is justified by the fact that pretty much everyone who learns magic does so from a church, and generally use it in the service of their patron god or saint. People who weren't trained in a temple of a good entity like Gird or Falk are likely trained in a temple of an evil god like Achrya or Liart, and thus are considered black mages. Then, in the sequel series, people start spontaneously manifesting magical ability without any training at all, leaving people to wonder what to do now that the original logic behind the ban no longer applies.
• Discworld: In Ankh-Morpork, and possibly related areas, there is a strict ban on magic unless you are a wizard accredited by Unseen University or one of its sister colleges. (The status of trained witches is kind of hazy; I Shall Wear Midnight seems to imply that UU and the Watch just pretend there aren't any witches the city.) Given how dangerous Discworld magic can be, there are very good reasons for this, and the punishments are severe, if the practitioner is found while still in any condition to be punished. UU also has a firm ban on necromancy, which is rigorously enforced by Dr Hix of the Post-Mortem Communications Department (which can't be the same thing as necromancy, because if it were, he wouldn't be allowed to do it).
• Split Heirs: The Gorgarians have banned men's magic and high wizardry, which Hydrangeans practice, after the Hydrangean wizards tried to stop their conquest. Clootie is the only one who escaped the purge and fled into the countryside, training Wulfrith later.
• Into The Broken Lands: Magic is strictly banned in Marsanport because full mages inevitably become power-mad reality warpers, often ruining a lot of the surrounding landscape in the process. The satellite town of Gateway doesn't enforce the ban against people with safer, limited talents, which faintly terrifies citizens of Marsanport who learn about it.
• Of Fire and Stars: Mynarians mostly believe Magic Is Evil, considered treason, so it's outlawed there. The Recusants, who think otherwise and are mostly magic users, have been rebelling against this law increasingly which has caused violent outbreaks.
• A Master of Djinn: The US has infamous anti-magic edicts, it's mentioned, as when magic came back, persecution occurred there of people who had it (this is implied as partly being due to some people with this being black).
• So This is Ever After: The Vile One killed other magic users while others went into hiding to escape this, presumably as they might be a threat.

Live-Action TV

• In Emerald City, the Wizard has decreed that all magic in Oz is illegal. Those who break this rule are sent to the Prison of the Abject.
• Part of the premise of the BBC's Merlin: Magic is forbidden in Camelot, under penalty of death. Lest we get the wrong idea, the show often helpfully reminds us that magic users are wrongfully persecuted and that using magic is who you are, not merely a lifestyle decision. The ban itself is type B.
• Wizards of Waverly Place is type A-2. All of a wizard's children will have powers, but they must eventually face each other in the Wizard Competition. The winning sibling becomes a full wizard, the losers are Brought Down to Normal.

Myths & Religion

• Type B for some, not all, types of Abrahamic religion in general, where Magic Is Evil is fully in effect. Expect Burn the Witch!. Other interpretations is that it's a Type A, with certain types of magic being banned. The only type of magic that was allowed in the Bible were miracles directly performed by God through one of his prophets. Most other wizards spoken of in the Old Testament either worshiped a pagan god (making them evil) or used smoke and mirrors (making them manipulative and dishonest, and therefore evil).

Tabletop Games

• The Elysium areas in Vampire: The Masquerade are set up by the Camarilla as neutral grounds where all vampiric disciplines are forbidden. A territorial ban but a type B one it seems.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • In the Dark Sun RPG setting, magic was banned and its users are hunted as it is held responsible for the apocalyptic conditions of the planet. A Type A1 ban. Psionic (common) and Spirit-magic (rare) are okay.
  • Type A2 is extremely common in the Forgotten Realms, with several nations and city-states limiting magic in civilized areas to its own mages/police force. A good example is the Cowled Wizards of Amn, whose ban on magic shows up in Baldur's Gate II (further down the page).
  • A1 is the most common in Anti-Magical Faction — generally either arcanists banning priestly magic or priests banning arcane magic (psionics tend to be rare enough in most settings that there isn't a set policy on it). The Inspired in Eberron combine it with A2, viciously cracking down on arcane magic, encouraging divine magic in adherents to the Path of Inspiration, and monopolising psionics amongst themselves
• Warhammer and Warhammer 40,000:
  • In both universes, the God of anger/war/hate/rage Khorne openly hates magic users, his followers considering them cowards and to be killed at every opportunity. There is no such thing as a Sorcerer of Khorne, and many game mechanics tend to forbid any magic users from following Khorne and vice versa. Magic weapons that let you kill more efficiently are fine, though.
  • Both settings also see Type A bans among most races over magic (in WH) or psionics (40K) — anyone who practices them without the explicit permission and control of those in power are hunted down and executed. The reason is that supernatural power in both settings stems from Hell, and even the slightest fumble can be a cue for The Legions of Hell to come in and wreck reality.
  • The Emperor of Mankind once inflicted a Type A ban by class (anyone not a Navigator, an Astropath, or The Emperor Himself). The fallout from this directly led to the crippling of the Space Wolves Legion and utterly destroyed/banished the Thousand Sons Legion, and after the Emperor was mortally wounded by Horus the ban was almost immediately ignored by a number of powerful organisations (such as the Inquisition, Astartes, and Imperial Guard) who continued to apply it to everyone else... Including, in some cases, each other.
• In Ironclaw, Calebria has a strict ban on necromancy, with the Church condemning those found breaking it to torture. In Antolia, the Malachite religion bans all magic, with penalties being a fine or imprisonment. (This means that it's safer to be a necromancer in Antolia than Calebria because they see all magic as equally bad.)

Theatre

• The Kansas Collection has a type-B ban. The newly crowned king of oz, Scarecrow, has banned all magic, including Glinda the Good Witch's magic.

Visual Novels

• In Lads In Distress, only the Lunar Kingdom allows and endorses magic, which is part of what makes them (and the lead, Princess Charming) so powerful. Surprisingly, the other kingdoms still see them as somewhat respectable.
• In Long Live the Queen, magic is looked down upon, and only a few people practicing it are respectable (ie, only the Queen). It's hard to get your hands on the stones mages need in the first place. Justified, considering the consequences of going overboard with magic are right outside the kingdom's doorstep.

Video Games

• This is half the plot of Zork: Grand Inquisitor.
• The Elder Scrolls is fond of partial bans on specific magical forms (type A1):
  • Morrowind:
    • The Tribunal Temple has banned necromancy and considers practicing it punishable by death, despite it being legal (with certain reasonable restrictions) elsewhere in the Empire. This is rooted in their religious beliefs which include significant ancestor worship.
    • The Tribunal Expansion Pack takes you to the city of Mournhold, where all forms of levitation and flying magic are banned by its patron goddess Almalexia. The out-of-universe reason for this is, of course, to prevent you from flying over the surrounding city walls and discovering that the city basically floats in the middle of generic ocean, instead of being surrounded by an even larger city and miles and miles of mainland, as the lore says it should.
  • In Oblivion, Necromancy is banned by the Mages Guild archmage Traven, and its practitioners are not happy about that.
  • Oblivion also references an (in-universe) controversial "Levitation Act", that bans the use of all levitation and flight. Out-of-universe, the reasoning is much the same as in Tribunal above: from Oblivion onward, the bigger cities are within their own game cells.
  • A few hundred years later in Skyrim, the College of Winterhold is much more relaxed in allowing conjurers to resurrect the dead (it was apparently never affiliated with the, now collapsed, Mages Guild). However the local Nord population are a Proud Warrior Race who have (apparently recently if the amount of respected mages in Sovngarde are anything to go by) a strong cultural dislike of magic, making it an unofficial partial ban (many NPCs won't even talk to you if you have a summoned undead or daedra following you and guards will even tell you off for using "Shouts", which everyone knows marks you as The Dragonborn). The only Nord mage in the college has been all but disowned by his family for studying there.
  • Throughout the series, this is present in Redguard culture. Like the aforementioned Nords, they too have a strong cultural dislike of magic. This dislike generally stops short of an outright ban, but one exception is necromancy as Redguard religion forbids their warriors from raising arms against the honored dead. They do have a specialized order known as Ash'abah dedicated to fighting the undead, but they are shunned despite the necessity of their role and mostly wander the Alik'r desert as exiles until needed.
• Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. The Azadi Empire is upholding a strict type B ban on magic in its lands, branding it as evil. However, they also have mages (that they call "thaumaturgists") and their Prophet seems to use magic, and it is speculated that they ban magic because they want to have it all and because they are afraid that someone else knows more about it than they do. It is also shown that their so-called technological advancements (e.g. steam engines, airships, ridiculously huge towers) are actually Magitek, as normal technology cannot function in Arcadia (except for bicycles).
• Dragon Age has mixed-type A ban.
  • A2: The Chantry has all but branded magic as evil, and has imposed a strict ban on it. Anyone shown to have magical ability is shipped off to the nearest Circle, under the constant supervision of the Templars. Anyone who doesn't submit to this is hunted down and brought to the Circle or executed depending on the circumstances.
  • A1: Anyone caught using Blood Magic is killed on sight (with very few exceptions). And like 40K above, this is a case of Properly Paranoid; mages have a tendency to attract demons through no fault of their own, but blood magic increases the chances of demonic incursion and possession significantly. Whether this justifies the systemic oppression of mages, however, is heavily debated both in and out of universe.
  • The Qunari strike an even harder line with mages. Any mage is put in a special harness that prevents them from using their abilities and has his mouth sewn shut. All mages are named Saarebas, which is Qunari for "dangerous thing". In Dragon Age II, you meet a Qunari bounty hunter, specializing in hunting down Saarebas. If you let it slip out that anyone in your party is a mage (including, possibly, you), he will freak out and immediately attack.
• Final Fantasy XIV has a Type A-1 ban on White and Black Magic. Both schools of magic were the cause of Sixth Umbral Calamity, due to the War of the Magi draining the world of too much aether and causing devastating floods. In the present day, White Magic is limited to a select few people, and the misuse of it is a grave crime. Black Magic, on the other hand, is outright banned: the only reason players can use it at all is because they're The Hero. The White and Black Mages' beginner classes, Conjurer and Thaumaturge, are considered legal because they are not as dangerous to the caster or others.
• Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Ring of Fates has a ban on crystals and magic after the timeskip, much to the surprise of the heroes. The ban was set down by the Crystal Temple thanks to the emergence of corrupted red crystals that create dangerous monsters. However, the corruption is a result of their own experiments. Although this doesn't cause the party much trouble as they never use magic in town, it does disconcert the citizens and the magicite vendor tries to sell you matches when you first talk to her.
• Baldur's Gate II has a type A2 enforced by the Cowled Wizards on the city of Athkatla (but not for divine spells, and only outdoors). It exists to act as a plot point: At the end of the prologue, the wizards will arrest your childhood friend Imoen and the Big Bad for unlicensed spellcasting, which sets in motion the plot. Of course, said plot point is a case of Gameplay and Story Segregation: If you start casting spells the Wizards will just try to kill you after a one-strike warning. 5000 gp in the right pocket "buys" you a "license" that leaves you free to spell-sling to your hearts' content. You can avoid buying the license by killing enough of the guys they send to enforce the ban, but it's usually easier to just avoid casting spells outdoors until you can afford the license.
  • Curiously, the ban only extends to Arcane Magic, from wizards, sorcerers, or bards. Divine casters such as Paladins, Clerics, Druids, and Rangers are free to blaze away from the start.
• In Heroes of Might and Magic III, there is a single scenario called "Heroes of Might, not Magic" which, true to its name, prevents the player from playing with magic-oriented heroes and learning any spells. In-universe, this is explained by all the magic being stolen by a witch.
• In Age of Wonders 2: Shadow Magic the human ruler has forbidden the use of any magic, supposedly to prevent the arrival of the shadow demons. Of course, since every faction leader is a magic user, he is also a very big hypocrite.
• DragonFable's third Book is all about a group called The Rose. They believe that magic is more dangerous than useful and therefore try to convince the people of Lore to stop using it entirely. When this doesn't work, they force them to do so. So far, the group's pretty successful - even the king, Alteon the Great, supports their cause.
• In Emerald City Confidential, magic is banned for everyone except those who are licensed users working for Queen Ozma.
• In Tyranny, Kyros the overlord runs an empire with Type A restrictions on magic. Like many other aspects of life under Kyros' rule, magic is regulated. Every mage must be a member of one of the officially recognized mage guilds. Rogue mages are not tolerated. That said, Kyros' Law includes the "Magician's Folly" clause which essentially grants sanctioned mages legal protection if their spellcasting causes damage to life or property as long as they worked their magic for the glory of Kyros. It's up to Fatebinders such as the player character to determine if said sanctioned mages did indeed work for the glory of Kyros. Kyros also bans forbidden knowledge (and they alone determine what is forbidden), magical or otherwise. The Sages of the Vellum Citadel tried to hoard forbidden knowledge, and Kyros responded by reducing the Citadel and the surrounding region into a blasted hellscape with the Edict of Fire.
• Twisted Wonderland:
  • During Camp Vargas, all students have their magical pens confiscated to teach them not to rely on magic in survival situations. Magical pens have pieces of magical stone mounted on them, which are crucial for safe magic use, and casting magic without the stones will pose great danger to the magic user's health.
  • Catch the Tail duels in the Sunset Savannah also forbids magic use.
  • Kelkkarotu race in Harveston is an inversion; it's a magic-user-only event.
• A Very Long Rope to the Top of the Sky: Genevieve's lessons on the relatively recent history of The Long Conflict mention a ban on magic after a war 750 years ago.
• Yes, Your Grace: Ivo gets very militant about eliminating the practice of witchcraft in Atana later in the game. The Player Character can also participate in a complex ritual meant to ensure that his newest child will be male so he'll have an heir. If the ritual gets botched, it will result in the death of the child's mother, and the latter event will contribute in magic getting banned in Davern, the player's own kingdom, as well.

Webcomics

• The gaming group shown in Another Gaming Comic have an actual real-life treaty enforcing a 1A-type ban. The gist of the treaty is that the GM is banned from using any form of illusion that is not obviously illusory (so it's ok to use a blur spell because any idiot can see that you're magically blurry, or a mirror image spell because anyone can see the images coming in and out of you), and the players agree to stop bogging down the game by testing everything they see to confirm it isn't an illusion.
• The dimension-hopping (and magic-using) heroes of Beyond Reality visit a world that enforces this, because any local magic-user invariably goes violently insane.
• The Cummoner: The Templars certainly seem to hate all magic-users. Their methods range from imprisonment to summary execution. It turns out to be more of a Type A2 situation: they freely use magical potions and enchanted weapons, and have no trouble with the makers of them; it's witches and warlocks they hate, "because in your mad lust for power, you always go too far and end up hurting people." Vilga, the main character and a witch herself, has to admit he's got a good point.
• Carciphona has "The Prohibition," which was enforced after the assassin Black Bird went on a killing spree of several magic users, believed to have been using the power of demons and being possessed by said demons.
• Realta: Ever since a cataclysm a millennia ago, magic has been banned and replaced with steampunk technology. Magic users are arrested and experimented on to drain their magic and use it to power tech.
• Suitor Armor: Magic is highly regulated in the kingdom, with only a handful of licensed mages, and unlawful spellcasting strongly prosecuted. Other lands have been torn apart by unrestrained use of magic, so they're being Properly Paranoid.
• In Swords and Sausages, Kiela explains that Vale Valley has banned the use of magic outside academia because "no one has demonstrated complete control over it", which has led to wanton destruction in the past. This is why she hides the true extent of her sorcerous powers.
• Unsounded: In the magic-centered world of Kasslyne, Rachshane stands out as one of the few countries that bans magic and Magitek outright. Naturally, the ruling class is exempt from this law. To be fair, there's actually an ancient prophecy in Kasslyne's main religion stating that magic would one day destroy the world - no other country thinks about this enough, and true to form, a magical abomination created by a mad scientist tries to destroy the world on the other side of the continent.

Web Original

• In The Gamer's Alliance, Alent is remarkably tolerant of practitioners of many kinds of magic, including The Dark Arts, and can be rather liberal even on experiments which many other societies would consider unethical. However, they have a ban on using Blood Magic due to how destructive it can be in the wrong hands. After the necromancer Razravkar Dominus is framed for murdering an officer of the Anti Mage Police, Councillor Durin Halfstaff ends up using it as an excuse to begin a manhunt for any active necromancers who are arrested in the city, which leads to a ban on necromancy until the killer of the officer can be brought to justice.
• RWBY: The existence of magic is kept a heavily guarded secret; less than ten people in the entire world have it. As Ozpin explains to Pyrrha, if word got out that magic actually exists, then a lot of things in Remnant would be destroyed, such as religion.
• In The Call of Warr, using magic is a crime, which causes Mabel and Ashes to hide their powers from the soldiers at any cost. Mabel's magic shop, however, existed before it became illegal- which Prince decides is "preemptively breaking the law".
• Magic is fairly neutral in Things Bob Is Not Allowed to Do on TV Tropes, but Bob himself is so bad at it that he's the only one banned from doing magic.

Western Animation

• Avatar: The Last Airbender: The Fire Nation kidnaps and imprisons any Bender who is not Fire Nation. A type A ban.
• The Owl House: On the Boiling Isles, magic is only supposed to be done by those who join a coven and submit to only being able to do certain types of magic. "Wild mages" like Eda are outlaws and ruthlessly hunted down. Emperor Belos harbors a dislike of wild magic as it harms him badly, thus he plots to destroy all wild magic forever with the upcoming Day of Unity. It's revealed in the back half of Season 2 that Belos is actual a Witch Hunter from 17th century Earth, who is working towards wiping out all witches and ending all magic, the coven system just being a convenient way of setting up his final scenario.
• The Simpsons: In "The Serfsons" King Mitothin forbids magic by mages who are not serving him. Those who aren't serving him are essentially drafted.

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