Pinocchio, if you behave well, I will make you a real boy!
A particular type of relationship involving an ordinary, non-magical character at the mercy of a mage, a god, or another kind of supernatural being. The muggle's status in the relationship may be either akin to that of a beloved child or to that of a servant or a slave... or something in-between. Accordingly, the magician may reward the muggle with miracles and/or punish them with curses.
Such a relationship may be depicted both positively and negatively. Mostly negative depictions date all the way back to Celtic Mythology, in which fairies kidnapped humans and held them captive in their world (often for years, decades or centuries), having fun at their expense and viewing them in the same way as we view pets. However, at some time around the 19th century, with the advent of the Bildungsroman genre, it became commonplace to depict the trope in a positive light. These kinds of works usually have religious overtones and use the relationship between a supernatural creature and an ordinary human as a metaphor for the relationship between God and humanity: in those, even if the "mage" has to resort to tough methods sometimes, it is ultimately for the "muggle"'s good, to enlighten them, and to help them become a better person. Some of the most prominent examples are The Adventures of Pinocchio, Mary Poppins, and the works of C. S. Lewis.
May sometimes overlap with Muggle–Mage Romance; contrast Muggle Foster Parents. For a large-scale version of this, when the society as a whole is governed by magic users, see The Magocracy, Sorcerous Overlord, and Benevolent Mage Ruler.
See also The Renfield for a vampire-specific subtrope; also compare Raised by the Supernatural and Muggle Born of Mages. Another frequently overlapping trope is Mistress and Servant Boy, when the "mage" is an older woman, and the "muggle" is a younger man.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In The Ancient Magus' Bride, the protagonist Chise Hatori, who is an ordinary Japanese orphan, is bought as a slave by the powerful mage Elias Ainsworth who subsequently marries her.
- In Dr. Ramune: Mysterious Disease Specialist, an ordinary human called Kuro becomes a servant of the eccentric magical doctor Ramune in exchange for Ramune curing him of his "mysterious disease".
- In Earwig and the Witch, an orphan girl Erica is adopted by the Wicked Witch Bella Yaga. Downplayed, since she does learn magic later on, and eventually overpowers her master.
- Inverted in Rozen Maiden, where ordinary humans become "masters" of magical dolls. Played straight with the protagonist Jun Sakurada and his doll Shinku though, since in spite of formally being Shinku's master, he is de facto her slave (she is fond of ordering him around and slapping him whenever he disobeys her orders).
- In Spirited Away, an ordinary girl Chihiro becomes a servant of the evil witch Yubaba, and has to do menial work for her in her bathhouse for spirits.
- In ×××HOLiC, the protagonist Kimihiro Watanuki is plagued by visions of ghosts and monsters, and asks the witch Yuuko Ichihara to help him. In exchange for her help, he agrees to become her de facto slave: she does genuinely care for him, but also enjoys having fun at his expense.
Comic Books
- In one of the issues of Donald Duck & Co, released by Egmont, Donald and Scrooge are on an underwater expedition when they meet the old wise sea king Saltomon. Saltomon hasn't had guests for about a thousand years, so he wants Donald and Scrooge to stay with him just for a little while... a hundred years or two. The protagonists manage to leave, and then the villainous Beagle Boys get stuck with Saltomon instead.
Fan Works
- In the D.N.Angel fanfic Of Darkness and Light
, an orphaned boy called Yami asks to stay at the temple of the oracle Lunara, and becomes her servant. He has to obey Lunara's orders, and is forbidden to leave the temple without her permission (and occasionally she also makes fun of him).
Films — Live-Action
- Deadtime Stories: In "Peter and the Witches", Peter is a slave forced to help his evil masters kill villagers in order for them to perform a ritual that will bring back their wicked sister from the grave.
- Maleficent has the titular sorceress Maleficent and her muggle servant Diaval. The usual mode of communication between them is Snark-to-Snark Combat, and whenever she gets tired of it, she transforms him (back) into a raven. There is also some romantic tension between them.
Gamebooks
- The Fighting Fantasy entry Creature of Havoc has several bad endings of this sort:
- In one of them, an unnamed Wizard in red robes puts a Control Creature spell on you, making you his slave for the rest of your life.
- In another, a witch gives you the Potion of Obedience, after which you come to see her as your benevolent master, and remain with her for the rest of your life.
- Downplayed in another ending, in which you become one of the henchmen of the evil sorcerer Zharradan Marr.
- Several entries from the Give Yourself Goosebumps series also feature bad endings of this kind, in which you end up as a slave to some supernatural being:
- Deep in the Jungle of Doom: In one ending, Cronby the Troll hypnotizes you and makes you his slave till the end of your life.
- Hocus-Pocus Horror: In one of the endings, you end up on an eternal probation with the evil magician Mysterio. In another, you are enslaved by a Jackass Genie.
- The Knight in Screaming Armor: In one of the endings, the Evil Knight turns you into one of his personal guardsmen.
- Night in Werewolf Woods: One bad ending has a troll hypnotize you and make you his slave.
- Under the Magician's Spell: One ending has you and your friends become slaves of a Jackass Genie in his castle.
Literature
- In The Adventures of Pinocchio, the relationship between Pinocchio and the Blue Fairy is of this kind. He lives with the Fairy in her house, she takes care of him, but when he misbehaves, she often resorts to Prank Punishments like making his nose grow for lying or giving him fake food.
- In Ascendance of a Bookworm, orphans are often slaves in all but name, while most of those who can afford to purchase them from whichever local institution cares for orphans by default are part of the noble Supernatural Elite. The practicalities of the dynamic depend entirely on the noble. In worse-case scenarios, the orphan was better off pre-purchase.
- Black Dawn: In the Dark Kingdom, which is ruled by vampires and has witches and shapeshifters in its ruling class, this is done en masse to humans; all humans in the Kingdom are slaves to the Night People. Hunter Redfern has grand plans for the Night World to Take Over the World and enslave the entire human population.
- In The Changeling Prince by Vivian Vande Velde, the protagonist Welland is a slave of the evil sorceress Daria.
- The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader has a borderline case between this and Benevolent Mage Ruler. The eccentric magician Coriakin governs an island inhabited by dwarf-like creatures known as Dufflepuds, but the Dufflepud community is small, Coriakin has no formal title, and his role is more akin to that of a caregiver than a ruler.
- Taran, in the Chronicles of Prydain, is the ward of the great enchanter Dallben, whom he regards as his master. Taran has no magical ability of his own and in fact has absolutely no idea why Dallben is the one rearing him or where his real parents are; but he has nowhere else to go, and he sincerely loves both Dallben and his other (non-magical) guardian Coll, so he stays. Only at the end of the series is it finally revealed that Taran was an orphaned infant whom Dallben found and decided to rear in the hopes of fulfilling a great prophecy.
- Discworld has an odd example in that the "muggle" is actually a wizard, but is rarely seen to use magic: Death's manservant Albert was once Alberto Malich, a very powerful wizard who decided to cast the Death-summoning ritual of Ash-Kente in reverse to gain immortality. Instead, he found himself dragged into Death's realm but took on the position of Crusty Caretaker there, as he had very little time left in reality and the other options for immortality were less than pleasant or likely to succeed.
- In Doctrine of Labyrinths, Felix casts the obligation d'ame on Mildmay in large part to keep him protected in the Mirador, as the contract makes them as one legally. But it still makes Mildmay his slave.
- The Faerie Queene has Amoret, who is captured and tortured by the Evil Sorcerer Busirane, with the intent of forcing her into becoming his lover.
- In Fairest of All, the protagonists Siofra and Mahon are taken as slaves by the fairy King and Queen, and subsequently become their lovers.
- In The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey, a fairy punishes a cruel prince by transforming him into a donkey and taking him into her custody, where he is constantly made fun of and has to do a lot of work. Eventually he makes a Heel–Face Turn, after which she warms up to him, and eventually they become a couple.
- In The Familiar of Zero, an ordinary teenager Saito Hiraga becomes a familiar (and basically a slave) of a young magic student Louise, but over time, she mellows out to him.
- In The Folk of the Air, the faerie Madoc takes the two human girls Jude and Taryn whom he orphaned and raises them as his own (together with his wife Oriana).
- In The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue, the titular protagonist has a love-hate relationship with Luc, a powerful supernatural entity who cursed her, and whom she depends on.
- In Jerusalem Delivered by Torquato Tasso, the Christian knight Rinaldo is enchanted by the Saracen sorceress Armida who takes him to her magical island and makes him forget about his crusade.
- Land of Oz: The Marvelous Land of Oz is another negative example, with the main character Tip being raised by the wicked witch Mombi who constantly abuses him.
- In Mary Poppins, the Banks children have a genuinely loving relationship of this kind with Mary. Most of the time, she takes them on exciting adventures, but when they misbehave, she can punish them by transporting them into a decidedly unfriendly magical world.
- In Master of Crows by Grace Draven, the protagonist Martise is a slave of the mage-priest Cumbria who promises to free her if she agrees to spy on a renegade sorcerer, the titular Master of Crows.
- In The Odyssey, Odysseus gets stuck for a year with the sorceress Circe who turns his men into pigs. Later on, he is also forced to remain for seven years with the nymph Calypso.
- In Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto, one of the characters, Ruggiero, is taken captive by the sorceress Alcina.
- In The Ship Who... Won the entire society on Ozran is set up this way, with the "mages" being feudal lords ruling over "furfaces" both in the fields and in their homes. Ozran is a Lost Colony whose "magic" is actually technological and nothing inherently stops a furface from picking up and using the mages' power items... so the mages amputate a finger from each infant furface to foster Operator Incompatibility.
- In The Snow Queen, the titular Queen captures an ordinary human boy Kai and takes him to her castle at the North Pole. A slightly less negative example is the old sorceress who wanted Gerda to stay with her forever in her garden of eternal summer and made her forget Kai.
- Played With in Spice and Wolf. Ordinary traveling merchant Kraft Lawrence encounters the wolf spirit/harvest goddess Holo, and they go on a journey together. Holo teases him by saying that she's Lawrence's mistress who has the right to order him around due to her status as a goddess, but in reality, she hasn't adapted yet to the changes that took place while she was stuck in Pasloe, so the power dynamic between them is more ambiguous.
- In Tam Lin, the titular character is a mortal who had been captured by the Fairy Queen and remained with her in her world ever since. The protagonist Janet eventually manages to set him free.
- Uprooted: The Dragon is a wizard and feudal lord whose only "tax" on his subjects is to take a local girl every ten years to serve him. The locals assume the worst; the truth is he has no ill intentions, and the girls usually just use their pay to move to a nicer city afterwards. Zig-zagged when the protagonist is chosen and soon realizes she has magical potential herself.
- In The Wise Man's Fear, Felurian, a magical Fae creature, seduces and enslaves human men with her charms, bending them to her will. Eventually they either die of sexual exhaustion, or are driven mad by lust after she abandons them.
Live-Action TV
- Lost Girl: Bo's best friend and roommate, Kenzi, is human. Within Fae society, Kenzi is claimed as a "pet" by Bo to protect her from the Fae. This is a legal fiction, and Bo does not consider Kenzi her property — their relationship is that of Heterosexual Life-Partners.
- Star Trek: The Original Series has Alexander, a dwarf not given the psychokinetic power that the other denizens of Platonius have. As a result, he is treated as a court jester and slave, and subjected to cruel treatment, particularly from Parmen.
Theatre
- In the opera Alcina by George Frederic Handel, the titular sorceress seduces every knight that arrives on her island, and then, once she gets bored of them, she turns them into stones, animals, plants, or whatever she fancies.
- The Tempest has Caliban, a savage who has no magical powers of his own, and who is enslaved by the magician Prospero.
Video Games
- In Dragon Age: Origins, Shale the golem (who has no magical powers of his own) spent some time as a slave of the magician Wilhelm before killing him.
- Dragon Quest VIII has David, a servant to the magician Dominico whom the player's party meets in the town of Arcadia. David shows nothing but gratitude towards his master for taking him in when he was alone and starving, even though Dominico constantly bullies and humiliates him and wonders even to himself why he keeps David around. It turns out that David is actually descended from a great sage who transferred his powers to Dominico's family in exchange for them protecting his descendants. So while David himself is a muggle, he's still linked to Dominico by magic, even though neither is initially aware of it.
- King's Quest:
- King's Quest III: To Heir Is Human features a negative version of this. The young protagonist Gwydion lives with an evil sorcerer Manannan who treats him like a slave, forces him to do house chores, and puts Cool And Unusual Punishments on him like transforming him into a snail or making him dance involuntarily.
- In King's Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder!, the evil warlock Mordack (the brother of Manannan) forces princess Cassima to become his scullery girl when she refuses to marry him.
- League of Legends: Inverted with Sylas. He's a mageborn who is imprisoned for years by Demacia's intensely anti-magic government. He eventually escapes though and leads a rebellion of mages against the royal family.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, an ordinary Farm Boy Link becomes a servant of the magical imp Midna who treats him condescendingly at first, but warms up to him later on.
- In Undertale, the protagonist, who is an ordinary human child, is adopted by the female monster Toriel from the Ruins, who is magical like all the monsters, and wants to keep the main character as her foster child forever. For this reason, she tries to use her magic to seal the exit from the Ruins so that they can't leave her and get killed by the monsters outside.
- Twisted Wonderland: The Player Character is a non-magical being Trapped in Another World, who is granted shelter in a Wizarding School.
Western Animation
- Rufus and Amberley are apprentices to the Dream Maker in The Dreamstone, often helping him in his occupation of making dreams and protecting the titular stone, as well as assisting his allies the Wuts, an army of equally powerful mages. This relationship is generally closer to a paid occupation and more benevolent than many other examples, though odd jokes slip in later in the show that the two are often errand runners volunteered for grunt work their far more powerful authority figures would be far better suited for.
- In Over the Garden Wall, an ordinary girl Lorna is being raised by the sorceress Auntie Whispers, who uses a magic bell to force her to work constantly. Auntie Whispers insists that she has no choice, as otherwise Lorna would "fall into wickedness." It turns out to be Brainwashing for the Greater Good—Lorna suffers from Demonic Possession, and the evil spirit has to be constantly occupied or it goes on a killing spree.
- In The Owl House, the Human Luz Noceda is apprenticed to the Witch Eda Clawthorne in return for helping Luz learn magic.
- In Pinocchio, based on the aforementioned novel by Carlo Collodi, the protagonist Pinocchio is taken care of by the Blue Fairy who promises to make him a real boy if he behaves well.
