Muggle with a Degree in Magic

A character has an expert-level understanding of magical theory and applications — too bad they can't use the magic themselves.

While they can't use the magic of their expertise, they're the best one to explain its theory and how it works better than anyone. If you need to know the history of an artifact, the reason a spell works the way it does, or the favorite foods of a magical creature, this is the guy you come to.

They may act as Mission Control to less brainy mages, who can put all of this muggle's knowledge and theories into practice. As The Smart Guy of a team, they may also be the one to solve ancient mystical riddles and give play-by-plays of what magic is being used and why.

While many are content just to study and observe, some are really longing to actually practice. If the fates are kind, they may just be a late bloomer who eventually develops the skill. If the fates are less kind but they're still determined, they might be able to build some Magitek that functions mostly the same. While the applications of their inventions may be limited compared to The Archmage, it still allows them to climb pretty high up the Super Weight scale. Also, working twice as hard for half as much means they may discover a trick or two that conventional magic lacks the ingenuity to discover. It may be up to them to use their research and tools control magic run amok and kill dangerous creatures, or to restore the magic that has been lost to the ages.

Occasionally appears as a magic-user who was Brought Down to Normal by losing their powers; they didn't start as a muggle but ended up that way without losing their knowledge. These ones often gravitate toward a Mentor role, because those who can't do, teach.

This type of character depends on a universe where Magic A Is Magic A.

The Muggle Born of Mages and the Mage Killer are often this. Downplayed examples can overlap with Inept Mage — the character doesn't need to be a literal Muggle. They just lack a useful level of magic compared to the Differently Powered Individuals around them. See also Fight Like a Normal.

See also Occult Detective (a regular occupation for these characters) and Kung-Fu Wizard (wizards with a degree in kung fu).

See also Clarke's Third Law and Sufficiently Analyzed Magic for potential workarounds to a lack of magical ability.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Sion in The Demon Girl Next Door has a deep understanding of black magic, despite being a muggle in a town where they peacefully co-exist with demons. While she can't use the magic herself, she has successfully prepared different magical potions.
• JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable: Hayato manages to figure out how Stands work, despite not having a Stand of his own (and by extension, meaning he can't see them).
• Princess Anisphia from The Magical Revolution of the Reincarnated Princess is incapable of casting magic on her own, so instead she became the world's foremost researcher in developing magical technology that anyone can use.
• While she never personally studied magic, Kobayashi from Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid demonstrated herself to be a master of magical theory in chapter 65 when she got first place on a high-ranking magic exam. This is due to the fact that the magic system is almost identical to the programming languages she uses at her job (the former having been used as the basis for the latter In-Universe).
• Mitama Security: Spirit Busters: Soya is a professional spirit-hunter, having aced all of his exams back at the training academy and naturally gifted in anti-spirit fighting techniques, despite not being able to see them at all. Played for Laughs, as Soya isn't aware that other people can see spirits and technology to detect them doesn't exist in this series, resulting in him trying to fight ghosts by attacking aimlessly. The one reason he still has his job is because, thanks to his knowledge, he is unparalleled in administrative work in exorcism.
• Most people in the world My Hero Academia are born with a Quirk (a superpower), though main character Izuku Midoriya is one of the very few people born Quirkless, at least before All Might, Japan's greatest hero, transfers his own Quirk to him. Still, his main hobby is to analyze the Quirks of the superheroes he meets, trying to find strengths, weaknesses, and new ways to use and/or improve them. He has twelve notebooks completely filled with such information and working on a thirteenth.
• Nasuverse: Waver Velvet, later known as Lord El-Melloi II, is a magus who has excellent knowledge of magical theory but is incapable of all but the simplest spells because of the way magic power is developed. Typically, a family passes down a Magic Crest that takes generations to develop, but Waver is only a third-generation mage and the first in his line who studied magic seriously. In Fate/Zero, as a student, he still manages to find Caster's base before anyone else — by collecting water samples from around town and performing the mana equivalent of a litmus test. As an adult, he's become one of the Clock Tower's most popular lecturers: while cranky, he's excellent at breaking down complex concepts so that they're easy to understand, and his background enables him to speak to students as equals.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Takahata grew up around experts in Functional Magic and Ki Manipulation, but lacks the ability to use them himself. To make up for this he became a master of Kanka — the simple but difficult technique of connecting your body's mana and ki flows together to increase your physical abilities. True mages rarely bother with Kanka since while powerful it drains a lot of energy, and spells that enhance the user's strength are easier to learn.
• Pokémon: The Series:
  • In Pokémon the Series: Ruby and Sapphire, May's brother Max is too young to be a trainer, but he studies Pokémon day and night, and is more knowledgeable about the Hoenn region and its creatures than anyone else on the team...or so he says.
  • Team Rocket's Meowth often keeps Jessie and James updated on Pokémon moves and types, and being one himself, can even translate what they say for them. Since he spent most of his life learning to be sapient, however, his own abilities as a Pokémon are limited, making him an ineffective battler most of the time.
• Ran and the Gray World: Tamaso-sensei is a Muggle Born of Mages, but that doesn't stop her from being the leading expert on magic in the story.
• In Overlord, even though Climb has no talent for magic, he is informed he should still be familiar with it up to Tier 3 spells. That way, he would know what to expect and defend against them.

Comic Books

• Batman trained under some of the world's greatest occultists and knows a lot of arcane lore, but both he fears magic too much to actually cast a spell except in emergencies and he's too rationally-minded to have the faith to do more than minor magicks.
• The Adversary, A.K.A. Gepetto from Fables learned how to do all the magic that the Blue Fairy does by watching her but doesn't have the power to do it until he hooks her up as a Living Battery.
• Stormwatch PHD: Black Betty explicitly chooses to be one of these because the lifestyle sacrifices she would have to make to channel magic herself aren't worth it in her opinion.
• Prodigy from X-Men has the knowledge of every person he's ever met up to losing his mutation. This includes powerful sorcerers and mages. While he describes magic as too irrational to use, he manages to feint a spell that scares a universe-devouring horror long enough to escape her.

Fan Works

My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic

• The Great Alicorn Hunt gives us Presto, who, despite being born an Earth Pony (ironic, considering both his parents are a. Unicorns, and b. profs. of magic at the local university), is deeply fascinated with learning about and experimenting with magic. This, combined with his Eidetic Memory, means he's learned more about magic than most folks have forgotten about. What's more, he's figured out how to channel spells into crystals via his innate Earth Pony magic.

Star Wars

• In Eliezer Yudkowsky's Truth of the Sith, an alternate ending for Revenge of the Sith, Palpatine is revealed to actually be this. He studied ancient Dark Side practices all his life but cannot use them, hence why he was so determined to get Anakin to join him.

Films — Animated

• Onward: Barley Lightfoot has an encyclopedic knowledge of magic from tabletop games and card games that are based on historical events and can easily figure out how to make magical spells work. However, while he himself can't use magic, his younger brother, Ian, can. Naturally, Barley makes himself Ian's mentor.
• In Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, "Big" Jack Horner was annoyed how his nursery rhyme was so mundane and unappreciated, so he started collecting all the magic objects from more popular stories. By the events of the film, he has an arsenal large enough to make him a very effective villain.

Films — Live-Action

• The Wise Man from Army of Darkness knows a lot about magic but doesn't seem to be able to do any until Ash gets him the Necronomicon.
• In Star Wars, some people can be quite well-versed in matters relating to the Force despite not being sensitive to it themselves.
  • Han Solo notably ends up like this by The Force Awakens despite his skepticism in the original trilogy. His mother-in-law Padmé Amidala in the prequel trilogy became similarly savvy after marrying a Jedi.
  • Even though Chirrut Imwe from Rogue One has a Jedi master-like understanding of the Force, he can't use it the way a Jedi can. Though he has learned to sense it, which comes useful in both defensive and offensive combat applications.

Literature

• Artemis Fowl: Artemis decodes a fairy's book to learn their language, and uses it to learn the limitations of their magic, and uses those limitations against them, despite not having any magic himself.
• A Certain Magical Index:
  • One of the secret weapons of the Anglican sorcerer society "Necessarius" is the Index Librorum Prohibitorum - a girl with Photographic Memory who has read 103,000 magical grimoires, surviving the process only because she lacks the Mana to cast spells herself. This allows her to perform Awesomeness by Analysis on enemy spells, instantly figuring out their building blocks and how to counter them. In some cases she can even perform a kind of spell phreaking - precisely modulating her voice in order to send fake control signals to enemy spells, allowing her to disrupt or hijack them.
  • Motoharu Tsuchimikado was once a master Onmyouji, but since infiltrating Academy City and becoming an esper he can no longer channel external forces through his body without suffering extreme pain, internal bleeding and potentially death (and being a Level 0 esper, he didn't even gain any useful powers in exchange, just a weak Healing Factor). While he is incredibly well-informed on both the Magic and Science sides, he uses magic only as a last resort and when he's sure that an ally will be able to complete his mission while he's disabled. In all other situations, he Fights Like a Normal, using firearms and mundane spy skills.
• Common through The Cosmere. Due to the Magic A Is Magic A nature of the setting, at least a base level of understanding a given planets local magic system is expected, even for people who can't use it. All the books also include an "Ars Arcanum", short guides on the magic systems and other elements of The 'Verse. These are portrayed as in-universe documents compiled by the Invested scholar Khriss and her Inexplicably Awesome assistant Nazh, with Khriss being probably the best example of Trope in the setting. She's not a muggle strictly speaking, but doesn't have or use the vast majority of powers she studies.
• Detective Steele, in the Daggers And Steele series of fantasy police procedural books, has a degree in the study of practical magic. She has no magic talent herself, but an early conceit of the series (more or less dropped in later books) is that she pretends to be a seer to get people to take her seriously despite being female in a male-dominated field. As it is, her understanding of the mechanics of magic frequently comes in handy when they have to investigate crimes involving magic.
• Dr. Abraham Van Helsing from Dracula is one of the essential examples of this trope in Gothic Horror literature. He is a Dutch Omnidisciplinary Scientist who is the first one to figure out the nature of Lucy's affliction (read: vampire attacks) and to devise effective treatments for it. Later on, he uses his knowledge to lead the Vampire Hunter team and employs hypnosis on Mina to exploit her connection to Count Dracula to track his movement.
• The Dresden Files:
  • Waldo Butters, the geeky, polka-loving medical examiner, is one of the foremost experts in the world on wizard physiology. He studies Harry whenever the titular wizard gets injured (which is a lot), and also gets a crash course on magical theory (circles and the use of "will") in Dead Beat. By Changes, he knows more about how Harry's body works than Harry does, and as of Ghost Story, he has Bob the Skull, who he loves to quiz for more information, which Bob is only too happy to provide. While Butters has exactly zero magical aptitude himself, he knows more about magical theory than any other main character and even some of the wizards on the Senior Council. This makes Butters a very dangerous man, and also a very big weak point, given that his knowledge could be used against everyone if he's captured. So it's a good thing that as of Skin Game, he's now a Knight of the Cross, wielding an honest-to-God-with-a-capital-G lightsaber.
  • Inverted with Captain Anastasia Luccio of the Wardens, a formidable wizard who is fascinated by computers and has read extensively about them, despite being unable to use them due to how mortal magic interferes with technology.
• Dr. Greta Helsing: The title character is an internationally acclaimed (within the Masquerade, at least) medical doctor to supernatural entities of all kinds, so she's well-studied in everything from ghoul immunology to the Ritual Magic involved in rewrapping a Mummy. She has no magical ability herself, but has a witch as an assistant and brings in other magical medical practitioners for the work she can't personally do.
• This is the function of "magicians" in the Enchanted Forest Chronicles. Whereas witches and wizards have an inborn connection to and use magic, magicians study it scientifically to try to understand it. The magician Telemain, a central character in the series, reminds us of this distinction at every opportunity.
• Harry Potter:
  • Squibs are non-magical people who, on account of their magical ancestry, can comprehend magic to a degree. While most Squibs live among the Muggles, a few choose to integrate themselves with the wizarding world. Filch works as Hogwarts' cranky caretaker, while Mrs. Figg is a member of the Order of the Phoenix, sent to keep an eye on Harry during his stay at the Dursleys.
  • One of the founders of Ilvermorny, the magical school of North America, was a No-Maj named James Steward, who headed the Pukwudgie House and served as a Headmaster. However, the school otherwise only accepts wizards and witches as usual.
• Ghost Roads: Laura Moorhead is the premier researcher on the Phantom Prom Date (aka the protagonist, Rose Marshall) and ghosts in general. Despite not having any innate magical ability of her own, she is able to trap Rose in a Seal of Solomon, and is the only person Rose can turn to when she undergoes an Unwanted Revival and is trapped in the world of the living with no ghostly powers.
• Jason Wood in Paradigms Lost. A data and image analyst, he has built a huge library of magical and supernatural creatures from folklore and other sources and makes use of that to both counter and communicate with them.
• In Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell while true magic was a powerful force in the distant past, it seems to have gone away entirely and most "magicians" are actually this, guys who have their own private clubs and talk about what they've read but never been able to do. It comes as an enormous shock to society when two titular magicians, who can actually perform magic, come onto the stage. The book also contains something of an inversion, as there's a street magician named Vinculus who, unlike many other fake street magicians actually has the aptitude for magic, but absolutely no learning, and so he can never get his attempts at magic to work.
• The Long Price Quartet: Any poet who currently does not have an andat bound qualifies as this. Since binding an andat is extremely dangerous, poets who aren't really, really sure they can pull it off instead spend their time training students, doing theoretical work on possible new bindings, and acting as the tahi-kvo's envoys.
• Lord Darcy has Sir Thomas Leseaux, who has no magical ability, but is the world's leading expert in creating new spells due to his knowledge of magical theory.
• In Robert A. Heinlein's Magic, Inc. Archie isn't a magician himself but he runs a moderately successful construction business that employs a lot of them and he's pretty well aware of what they're capable of.
• In My Brother is a Superhero, Luke is an eleven-year-old boy and a huge comic book fan...which only makes it more annoying when his nerdy older brother, Zack, becomes a superhero instead of him. (Luke was in the bathroom when The Chooser of the One arrived.) Luke instead becomes Zack's heroic mentor and, inevitably, has to save the day when Zack is kidnapped/sick/etc.
• In the MythAdventures book Another Fine Myth, Aahz loses his apparently high-level powers to a stunt of Garkin's. Unable to do magic and with Garkin dead by the end of the first chapter, Aahz takes on Garkin's apprentice Skeeve and begins to teach him. This relationship continues after Aahz finds out the cause, a practical joke powder, and that there's no antidote, and it'll take a hundred years to wear off.
• In The Rithmatist, the main character, Joel, doesn't have the power to use Rithmatics (a form of chalk-line geometry-based magic), but is very passionate about the theory and strategy behind it. He gets the chance to study under a teacher of Rithmatics, and ultimately teams up with Melody, who has the power but isn't as skilled; they're able to effectively work together by having Melody trace the lines Joel draws.
• Vampirocracy: Leon doesn't literally have a degree (he was forced to drop out), but took college classes in Mythozoology, Thaumobiology, and Thaumodynamics. He understands how magic works, even if he doesn't or can't practice it himself. He's also part of the roughly 50% of humanity that can "feel" magic and has deliberately cultivated this awareness. All this is important to his job as a supernatural PI and Hunter of Monsters.
• The Wheel of Time: The innkeeper Setalle Anan has knowledge of the One Power and Magical Accessories that's usually closely held by the Aes Sedai Magical Society. Subverted when she admits that she's a former Aes Sedai who lost her powers to a Magic Misfire.
• In Xanth, while Good Magician Humfrey DOES have magic, he never thought of his talent, the ability to divine and find the magic he wants as truly Magician caliber, so much to the point that he had to earn a doctorate in magic to truly get the title of magician in order to marry his third wife Rose.

Live-Action TV

• Nowhere Boys:
  • Phoebe Hartley does not possess magical potential unlike the titular characters. However, she is so knowledgeable in magic and supernatural creatures, she is still able to act as The Mentor to them.
  • The feature film reveals Felix's father, Ken Ferne, was once a magic user but was Brought Down to Normal after a depower event. But he still retains his immense knowledge of magic, having left behind clues for advanced spells (including a spell within a spell), to defeat the Big Bad.
• In Penny Dreadful, Vanessa and (to a much lesser degree) Ethan are the only good guys who have supernatural powers. Victor (Frankenstein—yes, that one), meanwhile, does the analytical and scientific work for the team, helping them untangle the villains' dark magics. He is also episodically helped by Ferdinand Lyle, who, as a linguist, helps them decipher ancient prophecies and incantations.
• On Supernatural, Hunters are Badass Normal who hunt monsters. Most have no magical abilities and compensate by relying on centuries of accumulated anti-monster lore to give them a fighting chance. Sam and Dean are often shown studying old journals, books, or searching the Internet to figure out what type of monster they are fighting and what its weaknesses are. Bobby used to have an extensive library of lore books and was often consulted by other Hunters who faced an unusual monster.
• Teen Wolf: Stiles Stilinski is the team's resident smart guy who is often relied on to devise a solution whenever a new supernatural threat arises. Despite various teases, he remains a human throughout the series.
• Jerry Russo from Wizards of Waverly Place is an unusual example in that he used to be a wizard, but gave up his powers to marry his mortal wife due to a law forbidding wizards from marrying mortals. He still knows everything about being a wizard, though, and is his children's primary teacher for magical subjects.
• Agent Fox Mulder of The X-Files seems versed in the mystical and arcane, including raising golems, voodoo curses, and dark magic blood sacrifices. He's paired with the science and medicine-minded Agent Dana Scully. Together, They Fight Crime that's tinged with weirdness.

Tabletop Games

• Ars Magica:
  • People with no magical Gift can train in the Magic Theory ability, although even the sourcebook warns that it's of minimal value to non-magi. It does, however, make them fantastic lab assistants for any mage, adding their skill score to the mage's own.
  • House Mercere is unique in the Order of Hermes for accepting un-Gifted members. They receive the same apprenticeship as Magi, and their role as the Order's messengers and middlemen puts them in a place to learn even more about magic and the supernatural.
• Blades in the Dark doesn't draw a particularly clear line between mysticism and hard science (since every weird bit in it is powered by electroplasm), so all player characters have some access to strange powers, which allows the dedicated Gadgeteer Genius playbook, Leech, to sub in for the dedicated weirdness archetype, the Whisper, through their faculties of observation and experimentation.
• In Burning Wheel, all magical skills are attainable for any character, but only those with Gifted trait can actually cast magic. For the rest, the skill use is merely academic.
• Dungeons & Dragons Edition 3.5:
  • The "Use Magic Device" skill, normally found on Rogue-type classes, allows the user to ignore the requirements of magic items. This includes using a Magic Wand or scroll without having the ability to cast spells or using a sword designed for elves without being an elf.
  • On a more basic level, a character's ability to identify spells and magical effects depends not on their levels in spellcasting classes, but on their ranks in the Spellcraft skill. Any character can take ranks in Spellcraft, regardless of whether they have the ability to cast spells (though they may have to jump through a few hoops to add it to their class skills). Inversions are also possible, such as a Squishy Wizard who can identify thousands of martial arts techniques without being able to perform them.
  • The Artificer class specializes in creating magic items and altering their effects. While they cannot cast spells themselves, they can replicate the effects of just about any spell in the game by "infusing" an object to turn it into a temporary wand keyed to that spell.
• In GURPS, in a Low or Normal Mana world only characters with the Magery advantage can cast spells. Because the standard magical system treats spells as skills like any other, it's entirely possible for characters without Magery to learn spells, even if they can't cast them. The Thaumatology skill represents a knowledge of the underlying structure of magic and likewise does not require Magery or spellcasting ability.
• Mage: The Awakening: Though the Occult skill is available to everyone, only a few Muggles can even perceive Awakened magic without Disbelieving it. Some of them get courted by the Mysterium, a Magical Society devoted to collecting supernatural lore, and can even gain middling status in it as "honorary mages".
• In Monster of the Week, the Expert is a person without special powers who has access to vast knowledge about the supernatural and history, as well as various rare materials for applying that knowledge.
• Pathfinder: In 2nd edition the Thaumaturge class doesn't have any spellcasting ability but they are very knowledgeable of magic and creatures and know how to exploit their weaknesses.
• Shadowrun:
  • In early editions, a character without any magical ability could take the skill Magical Theory and understand how magic works. They could create new magic spells, design magic items, etc. — they just couldn't cast the spells or create the items. However, they could teach magicians how to do so.
  • In 5^th edition, one of the magic sourcebooks has a few runners briefly discussing this concept when one of them found out Mundane students were earning degrees in magical theory, and the stereotype was that only Awakened (that is, magic) students were earning these degrees. (In many cases, Initiating into higher levels of magic is performed as a thesis.)
  • Also in 5^th, while it's hard to impossible for mundanes to gather knowledge from first-hand experience for how magic works, they are still able to learn a great deal from what other people have discovered and shared. Notably, the Arcana skill, which is the skill that associates with magical theory, is the only magic skill that doesn't actually require a Magic attribute.
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay: Several Careers allow characters to study the academic theory of magic or learn a Language of Magic without necessarily being able to use magic themselves. A Language of Magic is necessary but not sufficient for spellcasting, and magic theory is neither.

Video Games

• Dragon Age: In Origins, Dagna is a dwarf who wants to study at the Circle of Magi. Dwarves have absolutely no magical talent beyond rune crafting and enchanting, which is a slight problem. However, Dagna's analytical understanding of magical theory is so impressive that she's made breakthroughs that gained the recognition of archmages. She puts this to use, along with her background as a smith's daughter, to craft masterworks in Inquisition.
• The Elder Scrolls:
  • Throughout the series, both Alchemy and Enchanting are classed as magical skills. However, becoming an expert in either does not require casting even a single spell. (Enchanting does require that you at least know the spell in order to imbue it into an item, but you don't have to be able to cast it.) Still, numerous characters in the series have been able to rise to the highest ranks of the Mages Guild and College of Winterhold thanks to their expertise in these non-directly-magical skills.
  • Starting with Oblivion and carried into Skyrim, skill requirements to advance in the magical factions were dropped. This means a Player Character who doesn't even know a single spell can brute force their way into the position of Archmage simply by completing the faction questline. Skyrim does at least have one portion where demonstrating that you can cast a spell is required, but the example spells are the most basic ones in the game and even then, this can be bypassed if you advance far enough through the main questline in order to demonstrate the Thu'um instead. (Which is a more primal and divine type of magic than the Functional Magic studied by the College).
• Final Fantasy VIII: Dr Odine is a scientist who specialises in studying magic, and the owner of the Odine Labs facility in Esthar. He can create machines that mimic the abilities of supernatural entities, and his research led to the discovery of Guardian Forces and para-magic, both of which have made magic more accessable to those without sorceress powers.
• Golden Sun: Kraden is an old researcher who understands alchemy, but isn't adept himself. He travels along with the party, analyzing the lighthouse and making suggestions on how to solve the mysteries of alchemy and psynergy.
• Claus from Tales of Phantasia is a human scholar in a world where magic can only be used by those with elven blood. He gets around this by rediscovering a different type of magic that involves making pacts with spirits and binding them into magical rings.
• In Twilight Syndrome, both Chisato and Aramata have a considerably higher-than-average knowledge of the supernatural which comes in handy in dealing with the rumors investigated by the main characters, but none of them have any actual abilities that make doing so any easier than it would for any other person^* Though Chisato displays some Psychic Powers in the over-the-top Suda51-led sequel Moonlight Syndrome, which was quickly declared Canon Discontinuity.

Visual Novels

• Professor Lukas Gilbert from Tyrion Cuthbert: Attorney of the Arcane was a respected magic instructor in the Imperial Academy some decades ago, even though he lacked the ability to use it.

Webcomics

• El Goonish Shive is a world where magic is a fundamental force of the universe, so that comes in handy when local Mad Scientist Tedd doesn't wanna just sit around being mission control next time danger comes around. Cue him building a power fist that stores the minuscule amount of magical energy he generates, and releases it all at once in battle mode. This gives him Black Eyes of Evil and lets him see an Eldritch Abomination's true form. Later subverted when Tedd is revealed to be a rare type of wizard called a Seer. He can’t learn or cast spells naturally, but can learn how they work via Aura Vision and then create wands with the same effects that anyone can use, himself included.

Web Original

• Most SCP Foundation personnel are basic humans who have to deal with supernatural/alien/eldritch/memetic/logic-defying anomalies on a monthly to daily basis. A lot of them die quite quickly, especially D-Class personnel, but those who survive long enough tend to accumulate a lot of knowledge of SCPs' properties and abilities, while usually developing no specific supernatural powers. Even doctors and professors who feature seriously anomalous properties themselves, most likely due to prolonged exposure to SCPs, rarely ever use direct powers. To contain or destroy dangerous SCPs, the foundation mostly relies on knowledge, other SCPs, planning, coordinated action, generous amounts of shooting if required (and efficient) and on-site nuclear warheads as a last-resort measure.

Western Animation

• Zig-Zagged with Iroh from Avatar: The Last Airbender. He's no Muggle, being a powerful firebender. But he's also become an expert at the other three elements, despite being unable to use them. He's even used what he's learned to develop new firebending techniques, like lightning redirection.
  • In the sequel series The Legend of Korra, Zaheer was a nonbender expert on airbending, but when he first appears, he's just been granted airbending powers. Convenient to not have to spend years mastering them.
• Sorcerio from Disenchantment is a Court Mage who knows the theory but can't do any magic without elf blood. Even when he gets it, he can't make the Elixir of Life without the Eternity Pendant.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
  • Sunburst. While he is indeed a unicorn and can cast spells, his magic skills are on the level of common unicorns, unable to match the power that prodigies like Twilight Sparkle and Starlight Glimmer were born with. Yet, his knowledge is far greater, and he considers it an embarrassment that he can't actually use that knowledge. However, Sunburst saves the day in "The Crystalling - Part 2" with his magic knowledge — he identifies the exact combination of obscure spells needed to avert the wintery apocalypse, though he has to rely on others to cast them.
  • Zecora, despite being a zebra, which functionally means she has no way to use magic like unicorn characters can, knows an incredible amount about magic. She knows enough where she can function as Twilight's mentor on the subject, despite that she herself can't use any magic. On several occasions, she's used her knowledge to either create potions for the ponies or to give them the information that leads to the episode's solution.
  • Meadowbrook is an earth pony, and as such lacks the ability to cast spells or use active magic. However, much like Zecora, she's an accomplished herbologist and alchemist, and gained legendary status due to her ability to cure any ailment, magic or mundane, that she encountered. She's also evidently well-versed in unicorn magic, as shown when she's able to tell that a newly devised experimental spell would be able to work successfully after briefly reviewing its written form.
• In My Little Pony: A New Generation, the Distant Sequel to Friendship is Magic above, despite being of a race that can't fly or cast any magic spells even in the presence of magic, Sunny is determined to restore Equestria's magic if it kills her. Averted at the end once she becomes an alicorn and gains access to a horn and wings.

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