Anti-Magic

Well, at least all that arm-waving and arcane babbling you did was impressive.

—Remand Flavor Text, Magic: The Gathering

The ability to completely negate magic or other supernatural effects. The power is not absorbed or reflected, it simply ceases to be when it comes within the radius of effect. This will usually be an extremely rare, nigh-unheard of, game-breaking power: the greatest of wards become undone with incredible ease, with unforeseen effects.

It can be Blessed with Suck if this means White Magic doesn't work on you either. No magical healing or protection in this case. If the world runs on Magic, this person may be a pariah; especially if it's a power that they can't control.

Fridge Logic kicks in when you consider that it should be trivial for a sufficiently capable magic-user to cause harm to a magic-proof target simply by manipulating the environment—for example, causing the ground to disappear from underneath them, moving a heavy object directly above them, or heating the air around them to several thousand degrees. Indeed, this is often the strategy used when fighting someone with this ability.

For keeping the enemy from using their abilities for a period of time, see Power Nullifier. Similarly, the Kryptonite-Proof Suit can be used to resist the Kryptonite Factor. Compare Walking Techbane, where someone has this effect on scientific technology. Contrast Won't Work On Me, when characters can ignore (not nullify) the powers of others or their defenses. Mage Killers often weaponize this ability. Un Sorcerers often have this; in fact, that might be why their own powers don't work.

Examples of Anti-Magic include:

Inherent Traits

Anime and Manga

  • A Certain Magical Index: Touma has the "Imagine Breaker", a right hand that can completely cancel any esper or magic power it touches. The suck comes in the fact that it also cancels his luck—turning him into a Cosmic Plaything—and leaves plenty of loopholes, like hitting any other part of his body. No-one in the city has ever heard of such a thing because the ruler of Academy City keeps the information about his power as top secret. Meanwhile, all the people in the magic side knows about him very well; Touma acquires a lightning-wielding Unknown Rival who is convinced that his ability to shrug off her attacks is a sign of some spectacular ability that he's holding back.
  • Mahou Sensei Negima
    • Asuna's Magic Cancel ability. It is initially somewhat spotty and unpredictable, but she eventually gets control of this and can extend it as a field, punching out 100% unbreakable seals and dispelling giant falling pillars with a wave of her sword. Not to mention that in the past her power caused a Floating Continent to fall out of the sky, destroying one of the most powerful nations in the world in the process. It Got Worse: at least one Big Bad is after her so he can use her Magic Cancel to erase the magic world from existence.
    • Recently Negi gets this power as well after forming a pactio with Princess Theo on top of All Your Powers Combined, although his is much more limited (he can only use it while holding the BFS, and even then, it only affects what is touching the BFS). Although the pactio is officially omitted after the fight with Rakan.
  • Yu Yu Hakusho: Yomi has this capability (to a degree), as he is capable of putting up a barrier that shields him from all demon energy. However, in the ultimate tournament to decide the ruler of the demon world, Yusuke is able to get around this because as a half-human, half-demon hybrid, he can use spirit energy. In effect, then, Yomi has very specific Anti-Magic.
  • Tsukuyomi Moon Phase: Kohei passes through ghosts with complete obliviousness and breaks up magic without trying, though for some reason this doesn't stop him from being knocked around anyway....
  • Gakuen Alice: Mikan, though it only works when she really needs it. Also Izumi Yukihara Who turns out to be her father.
  • Saber of Fate Stay Night has such high Magic Resistance that while it's theoretically possible for magic to damage her, in practice no magus can touch her.
  • Word of God states that Satsuki of Tsukihime and Melty Blood has a Reality Marble called "Depletion Garden" that she isn't even aware of that just causes Mana in her general area to vanish into the air. This doesn't affect stored mana, but active spells being cast. Too bad nobody has actually cast a spell in her presence.
    • More notably, Shiki Tohno of the same game series and Shiki Ryougi of Kara no Kyoukai have the Mystic Eyes of Death Perception which allow them to "kill" the existence of things, including spells and other phenomena, by slashing at their "death lines". The ability is often key to breaking some Big Bad's Immortality or simply surviving an enemy's magical assault.
    • Although they aren't specifically immune to magic; this ability works on anything such as poison, vampire blood, and HALLWAYS.
  • Oboro from Basilisk is the only one with no ninja power, except that she can negate any ninja power that she looks at.
  • Macademi Wasshoi: Suzuho has the ability to drain any magic out of the area around her, earning her the name of "The Midnight Blue Vampire". It's only her Split Personality Suzuka that can do this; the normal Suzuho is powerless. Also, it doesn't work against weapons like Falce or Psychic Powers.
  • The manga Code Breaker has Sakura Sakurakouji with implied Anti-Magic abilities. All Code Breakers' abilities have been shown to be ineffective against her, and she's even displayed the ability to cancel out the effects of those powers on others. Canceling out their power's effects may or may not require full body contact, since she seems to hug people every time she does it, causing her friends to name it her "rare power hug attack."
  • Umineko no Naku Koro ni has Endless Nine. Endless Nine is Battler's magical resistance level. Basically, he refuses so much to believe in witches that magic doesn't affect him at all.
    • To explain how powerful his Anti-Magic is, the rating of anti-magic normally goes from 1-9, with 9 being Physical God immunity. Battler's rating currently provides the image for Readings Are Off the Scale in relation to his magic resistance and it should be noted that it only shows that number because that's the limit of the scale.
  • Jeremiah Gottwald (a.k.a. Orange-kun) gets the Geass Canceller, the power to completely negate Geass, in the second season of Code Geass. Not only is he immune from such effects, but he can create spheres with huge radii that strip anyone caught in the bubble of any Geass effects they're currently affected by. For Lelouch's Geass, it even resets the "once per person" counter, allowing the victim to be Geassed again.
  • Occasionally in Fairy Tail, one of the characters will go up against an anti-mage. So far there's been one who can send out waves that negate magic, and one that can produce rope that temporarily robs one's powers while they're tied up.
  • The hero of Mahoutsukai (♂) to Deshi (♀) no Futekisetsu na Kankei owns the sin of gluttony which absorbs all magic in the next environment.
  • Rave Master: White Magician Girl Belnika has this ability, though she only uses it once.
    • This is also essentially the function of the Rune Save form of Haru's sword. It allows him to "cut what can not be cut", making it the ideal counter to magic users. The non-magical nature of the sword's BFS base form also works against magic.
  • Bandit Keith's machine-type monsters were immune to magic in the Duelist Kingdom arc of Yu-Gi-Oh!
  • In Iris Zero Kuga has the ability to erase other Irises. However, it was revealed that instead of being a magical ability, it was a psychological trick. If you are able to make someone fear what their Iris lets them see they will subconsciously turn their Iris off
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist, Father can cancel out the ability to use alchemy within a large radius (possibly all of Amestris) due to himself being the source of Amestrian style alchemy.
    • Xing's alchemy equivalent works just fine, though. Again, because it's not Amestris alchemy.
  • In Lyrical Nanoha, two forms Anti-Magic show up. First is the AMF (Anti Magic Field), which weakens mages that enter it. Not that this really affects the extremely powerful protagonists, considering the villains they are fighting against aren't exactly powerful compared to them... And then there are the Eclipse powers of the Huckebein showing up in Force, which seemingly completely nullify magic, to the point of being a Story-Breaker Power.
  • Chikahito from Gate 7 is described as "Not" and therefore "Everythings is cleared out" meaning that magic can't affect him directly but even so he can see Onis and can enter to the battle spaces. This serves to differentiate him as much as associate him to Hana who is "Not" as well


Card Games

  • Magic: The Gathering:
    • Creatures with Shroud can't be targeted with magic or semi-magical abilities. Effects that are sufficiently indiscriminate can still get them, however.
    • A particular variation of Shroud (keyworded as "Hexproof" with the Magic 2012 set) specifically averts the Blessed with Suck aspect by only stopping your opponent's spells and effects from targeting the creature, allowing you to lavish it with helpful magic as you please. (Before it was keyworded, many players called it "trollshroud" after its most famous possessors.)
    • Creatures with protection from an attribute can't be targeted with spells or abilities of that attribute, can't be blocked by creatures of that attribute, and prevent all damage to themselves from sources with that attribute.
    • Teferi severely negates or limit magic use in general, much to the great annoyance of his player's opponents.


Comic Books

  • In the Books of Magic, it is stated that Dr. Thirteen has this ability, which is why it is next to impossible to prove to him that magic exists, as it will disappear before he gets close enough to see it.
  • Lord Joshua Coldrake from The DCU has the ability to outright negate any form of magic he enters contact with in a rather wide radius. Unfortunately, he's been banished to a cold, barren landscape... because of certain incidents in his youth.
  • Venka from Elf Quest has this power. It makes her extremely useful in battle.
  • The mutant Scrambler, that appears in X-Men comic books, has the ability to disrupt any system with physical contact, including machines, energy fields, powers, the nervous system, or even a living body itself, making his power a functional death touch.
  • Cameron Chase from DC's Chase was a DEO agent who could negate metahuman powers.


Fan Works

  • In the Firefly fanfic Forward, there is a special type of psychic known as a "blank" that is immune to the effects of other psychics. The Hands of Blue are stated to be blanks, as is the character of John Garis. All of them are specialists in either containing or hunting down psychics.
  • In the Warcraft fic Gift of the Dark Ancestor, the heroine has this, in that anyone she touches cannot access mana, including her magically-powerful true love.
  • In Article 2, Shane shows traits of this when he touches the quill Twilight Sparkle is levitating and the energy field she's using flickers. When he keeps his finger in contact with the quill, the spell is undone completely. The backstory of his medical internment, as explained by Celestia, confirms that magic works very peculiarly on him, always having unusual (and sometimes dangerous) side effects.


Literature

  • Xanth
    • Magician Grey Murphy can cancel out any magic, but only one target at a time (and can actually make magic stronger by leaning hard on his null effect, then removing it).
    • Magician Bink, whose power is immunity to magic (specifically including all secondary effects suggested by Fridge Logic). However, this power only protects his life, not his dignity, so he primarily escapes magical harm through a series of embarrassing accidents. Bink's ability cancels out Fridge Logic to a frightening extent. It keeps itself secret, through increasingly unlikely coincidence if necessary, just so no-one can think up a way around it; he's widely regarded as being talentless. It's even defended him, indirectly, against the Demon whose ambient magic created Xanth in the first place. It's worth noting that Bink's power isn't precisely immunity to magic; it's that he can't be harmed by magic. Healing spells and other benign forms of magic still work on him. This is also why his talent goes to such lengths to keep itself secret: if his enemies knew he couldn't be harmed by magic, they would just try to kill him in other ways, which would create the paradox of Bink's talent itself causing him harm. In fact the man who first figured it out immediately attacked him with a sword.
      • This means that whenever he tries to tell someone what his talent is, he gets coincidentally interrupted by some emergency, unless there's a good plot-based reason for that person to know.
  • Tilja, the main character of Peter Dickinson's The Ropemaker, has this power... anti-power... whatever you want to call it. At first she's disappointed that she didn't inherit the family magic, but this ability turns out to be much more useful to her.
  • The "pristinely ungifted" of the Sword of Truth series are unaffected by magic from birth. The trait also spreads to any of their children.
  • The "muties" from Sheri S. Tepper's The True Game series suppress the gifts of all nearby Gamesmen.
  • In Magic Steps, "unmagic" soaks up all kinds of regular magic like a cleaning agent, and can also be used for Invisibility and intangibility. Experiencing it from a mage's point of view is literally nightmare-inducing. It also eats the user.
  • In the later Dune books, Siona Atreides and all who carry her genes nullify prescience, allowing them to hide in The Scattering.
  • The Bartimaeus Trilogy
    • Kitty Jones is "Resilient" to magic, meaning that weaker magic fails to affect her and more powerful spells are less effective or wear off. Other Resilients have the ability to see through illusions or to sense when magic is present. Unfortunately, resilience can be overcome by very strong magic, as one of Kitty's resilient friends get killed by a strong demon.
    • Golems also cancel out the magic of demons they touch. This is explained as being because it's a creature of earth, while demons are creatures of air and fire. Oddly enough, this creates an entire potential system of magic, antithesis to the dominant one, that is never really used. Of course, given magicians reluctance to explore any form of magic other than standard Summon Magic[1] and willingness to off the competition this isn't that surprising.
  • Wraith in Holly Lisle's novel Vincalis the Agitator is completely unaffected by all magic in a world where magic is pervasive and advanced. He is also forced to major in Theoretical Magic so that his inability to cast spells doesn't get noticed.
  • In Year of the Griffin by Diana Wynne Jones, the sequel to Dark Lord of Derkholm, this is subverted: A powerful mage is attacked by magically-immune griffins. Her solution? Cast spells that affect the area directly AROUND them rather than hitting them directly, such as hitting them with blasts of super-heated air.
  • The Black Company series features a Chosen One whose power is magic nullification. Interestingly, just like regular magic it can be nullified by someone who knows the user's true name, but we never get any real elaboration on its exact nature.
  • The Thrawn Trilogy has Grand Admiral Thrawn using creatures called the Ysalamiri, which project Force-nullifying fields, against his Jedi opponents.
    • In the New Jedi Order series, the Yuuzhan Vong exist outside the Force thanks to a punishment inflicted on them by their homeworld's Genius Loci for becoming too agressive and warlike; as such, they're completely impervious to being sensed or affected mentally by Force-users, and physical powers like lightning or telekinesis are less effective. However, it's possible for a Jedi who has been directly affected by the Vong's Organic Technology (such as Jacen and Anakin Solo or Tahiri Veila) to develop "Vongsense", a Force-like ability that lets them detect Vong, albeit somewhat imprecisely.
  • Bella from Twilight is immune to many vampire powers; she's the only person whose mind Edward can't read at all.
  • Katie Chandler in Enchanted Inc.. and its sequels.
  • In Harry Potter, many magical creatures, such as giants and giant-kin like Hagrid, are strongly resistant to magic. This makes enchanted items fail to work on them, and causes most spells to literally bounce off them.
  • Ixia and Sitia
    • In Poison Study by Maria V Snyder, Valek is naturally immune to magic. Spells directed at him will slide away and attach to the nearest object, such as his sword. As magic is illegal and it's Valek's job to kill all magic users, his ability gets a fair amount of use. Later Valek learns that he wasn't born special, but is a magic user just like anyone else. However, his hatred of magic is so strong that his own magic nullifies everyone else's.
    • Then, in Spy Glass, Opal gains the same ability by absorbing a Null Shield, and finds out that in the presence of large amounts of magic, this ability makes it almost impossible to move.
  • In The Steerswoman by Rosemary Kirstein, the eponymous Steerswoman discovers that she is apparently immune to the magic that wizards use to protect belongings they want nobody to tamper with and doors they want nobody to open—which comes in handy when it becomes necessary for her to infiltrate a wizard's fortress. Alert readers will realise that the protective "magic" is actually electricity, and that the Steerswoman's immunity comes from the fact that the dress code of the Steerswomen includes rubber-soled shoes.
  • In Naím y el mago fugitivo (Naím and the Runaway Magician), by argentine author Sebastián Lalaurette, there are magicians (called Rumotim) and antimagicians who can nullify all magic in a given radius with center on them. Magic in Belisla is a Magitek: magicians have to extract it from nature before they can use it, and every spell requires a certain quantity of magic. But when Rumotim Ramiro Grimor discovers a way to make magic grow, allowing every magician to dispose of virtually unlimited quantities of it, antimagicians suddenly become more important than magicians: they are the only way to control magic and stop all the world to collapse under the influence of warring spells.
  • Orem, in Hart's Hope by Orson Scott Card, is a "Sink"; he gets the full Blessed with Suck implications (Power Incontinence, et cetera) until he's properly trained in it, but afterwards he's able to negate the Big Bad's entire power-up ritual by duplicating it as she goes along.
  • In the Belgariad and Malloreon, Dragons (well, the dragon, as there's only one left) are immune to sorcery thanks to the tinkering of the God of Evil Torak.
  • From Counselors and Kings, the Jordaini are a specialized caste of humans in The Magocracy Halruaa who are bred to be impervious to magic. They're trained to act as counselors to the wizard-lords, who appreciate having an advisor a rival wizard cannot subvert.
  • In The Wheel of Time, Mat receives an amulet that makes him immune to the One Power. An Aes Sedai quickly discovers that she can still throw rocks at him.
    • Gholam, protean horrors designed by the villains as Mage Killers are similarly immune—the Power just melts away when it gets close—and throwing rocks at one is not a viable strategy.
  • Jurgen's status as a blank cancels all warp-based phenomena in the area in which other people can smell his (admittedly spectacular) body odor (Sometimes it resumes when he gets out of range). This is the reason why his superior Ciaphas Cain managed to live long enough to become a Hero of the Imperium.
  • Pretty much the core mechanic of The Darksword Trilogy, though it can be argued that the protagonist has the additional magical power to render opponents that know full well he's magic immune stupid enough to attack him directly anyway, instead of just setting a fire around him that kills him with smoke, etc.
  • In Elantris, Dilaf is completely immune to AonDor as a result of being the leader of the Dakhor monks (by the same token, he's also something of an Implacable Man). Also overlaps with the "spells" type, as he can destroy Aons even if they aren't actually affecting him, though this takes deliberate action.
  • In Doctrine of Labyrinths, the Grevillian wizards created a space called the Nullity where magic doesn't work.


Live-Action TV

  • Adam, the Season Four Big Bad of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, is unaffected by reality-altering spells. The universe itself may change, but he won't. The exact mechanics of this aren't really explained beyond Adam commenting that he is "more aware of himself" than any other being.
    • Vampires are immune to telepathy, but oddly not empaths.
  • In the series of Sabrina the Teenage Witch, vampires are immune to witches' magic. This gives Sabrina trouble when she has to fend off a bloodthirsty vampire herself.
  • Audrey Parker from Haven seems to negate the "Troubles" of other people, or at least make her somewhat immune to them. For example, Nathan is completely numb, but can feel her. She was able to notice a Groundhog Day Loop.


Tabletop Games

  • Negapsychics from the Palladium RPG Beyond the Supernatural. They, like almost everything else in Palladium's vault of IP, wound up in Rifts. In the original, a "real-world" psychic investigation/horror title, they were people with latent psychic powers who were avowed atheists or skeptics about the supernatural, causing their powers to develop into an anti-magic field. Even if they subsequently come to believe, they keep the ability. In Rifts, not believing in the supernatural isn't really an option given its ubiquity. In this world, the Negapsychics just don't think it'll work on them.
  • Zed talents and contests of Will in Godlike. Talents are inherently harder to attack with miracles, requiring a contest of will to either refute the power or force it to work. This doesn't affect indirect miracles, though, like being shot in the head by an invisible assassin... Zed talents can shut off enemy superpowers entirely by altering the environment around the talent—e.g. if a super-strong talent lifts a tank, the Zed makes the tank much heavier—without getting into a contest of wills. Will contests are out the window in the sequel Wild Talents, though, and it's implied there are no more Zeds either.
  • Warhammer 40,000
    • The Untouchables, also known as "Blanks" or "Pariahs": People who seem to lack a soul, or at least a connection to the warp. Their mere presence tends to shut down any Psykers in their general area, and is oddly Squicky to normal people.
    • There are actually two different forms of this, though the terminology is sometimes quite confusing. There are the Soulless, who have no souls, are largely immune to the Warp, and are really uncomfortable for people to be around, and there are the Blanks, who have negatively psychic souls which actively cancel psychic abilities around them and physically harm psykers and Daemons with their mere presence. The latter are incredibly rare and greatly valued by the Inquisition. Ferik Jurgen from the Ciaphas Cain novels is an example of the latter.
    • Blanks' abilities apparently have limits, as sufficiently strong psykers and/or Daemons can Won't Work On Me their defenses. This is prominently displayed in the Eisenhorn books where Alizebeth Bequin tries to stop a Chaos Titan with her power... and gets knocked comatose for her trouble, with the Titan unaffected.
      • So does Wystan Frauka from Ravenor. He gets burned out and possessed by a powerful psyker.
    • Blanks have variable levels of power, and they use the same scale (I.E the greek alphabet) as Psykers do, Sigma is the weakest level for a blank, these blanks will have a small field that can be overwhelmed by a psyker of decent power, while Omega is the strongest, and while there is no concrete evidence for how powerful they are it's probably that they could shut down even alpha level psykers and cause Greater Daemons and Daemon princes to undergo critical existence failure across an entire continent or something else that's really big, though it's possible that there is a Omega minus level much like there is an Alpha plus level for psykers. It's almost certain that such a powerful blank/pariah would end up being killed at a very young age due to the sheer levels of revulsion that everyone will feel for him/her, and if they somehow survive to grow up, all he/she can look forward to is the inquisition and the necrons racing to get their hands on him/her.
    • An Omega Minus embryo turns up in Atlas Infernal. The effect on psychic individuals is somewhat horrifying. When we first see it, it kills GREY KNIGHTS dead. Immediately. It then manages to outright destroy a powerful Thousand Sons Sorcerer AND give Azhek Ahriaman (one of the most powerful psykers in the galaxy) a physic fit from sectors away.
    • Actually there are two general terminology: Blank = ZERO psychic power, render them all but immune to ANY kind of psychic effect (positive or negative), unless we talk about Won't Work On Me above. And there are Pariahs, which their Psychic level is negative. The first is actual Anti-Magic while the later is more of a Counter-magic.
      • Though the names are often the reverse, especially in Ciaphas Cain. Games Workshop has never accurately defined what the difference between the two terms is.
  • GURPS
    • Some "worlds" have the advantage/disadvantage of Mundane. A basic Mundane is immune to magic, psy, and super-tech; a high grade Mundane turns aliens into Rubber Headed Aliens in his presence. This is most often seen in comedic settings such as IOU.
    • GURPS actually has a lot of these. Static prevents a specific power type (magic, psi, "super") from working on the target. "Magic Resistance" makes resisting magic easier and also makes spells cast on the target more likely to go horribly wrong. "Mana Damper" reduces the amount of mana in the environment making magic harder to use.
  • The Unknown Armies Sourcebook Postmodern Magic provides a character named Eustace Crane, who negates any magic around him. He is an investigator uncovering frauds which otherwise would be seen as evidence for magic or divine wonders (like ghosts haunting a house, blood-weeping statues and the like). Every magical incident around him either doesn't work or can suddenly be explained by science—whatever the case, magic simply does not exist in his vicinity. However, deep inside behind his skepticism he longs for a proof that magic exist, what makes him quite a tragic figure since he can never be witness to anything magical. Well, almost anything. The rules about his anti-magic powers explicitly allow clever use of at least some varieties of major charge to get around them, and his reaction to such proof are detailed -- namely, warmly thanking the prover (assuming he makes his Sanity Check) and giving them their prize money.
  • There's a similar character in Over the Edge, a grouchy stage magician who's a professional paranomal debunker. In a setting where there's psychics, wizards, aliens, ghosts, and other weirdness on every streetcorner, he'd be experiencing massive Skepticism Failure if not for his (completely unconscious) weirdness-cancellation power.
    • He's also an Expy of the stage-magician and skeptic James Randi. Some Real Life "psychics" claim that having people with the wrong mindset around makes their powers malfunction, which Randi's eyes for trickery seem to do for a lot of self-proclaimed psychics.
  • In Dungeons & Dragons, there are plenty creatures with a magic resistance, which mechanic is a percentage of failure for any spell directed at them. Those with the highest scores make offensive spells plain and simply a loss of time and energy against them. Any magic-user worth his pointy hat must learn how to circumvent this resistance.
    • This also applies to some races to a certain limited extent, such as elves, which are resistant or immune to various enchantments.
    • Golems are universally immune to magic, save for a few spells. Demiliches are also immune to hostile magic. Certain epic golem-like monsters can project huge areas-of-effect Anti-Magic auras.
    • In Dungeons & Dragons 3.0, there is a prestige class called "Forsaker". The Forsaker has essentially forsaken magic, so all magic done to him has a reduced effect, and he destroys magic items to become even more powerful. Also, he gets Spell Resistance, which is the only spell resistance that stacks with others in the game.
    • Then there is the Puritan prestige class from one version of Dungeons & Dragons, who is of the belief that the use of magic leads down an apparently very slippery slope to evil. Thereby they refuse absolutely any use of magic on themselves and disdain any magic whatsoever that is not used by clerics of their own religion, and sparingly at that. Their unwavering devotion to this grants them the ability to detect the presence of unnatural effects and beings, to shut off a spellcaster's magic, and to generally be immune to magical effects.
  • Nephilim in Witchcraft cannot be affected directly by magic. Incarnates with the Magic Domain and Divinely Inspired Humans can spend Essence to counter opponents magical attacks.
  • Dwarves in the upcoming Bioware RPG Dragon Age are very resistant to the world's natural magic, to the point where the player cannot be a dwarf mage.
  • One of the low-grade magician types in Shadowrun is the nega-mage, who can counterspell other magicians' sorcery but otherwise lacks paranatural power.
  • In Changeling: The Dreaming, Mage: The Ascension and Demon: The Fallen, the sheer mundanity of normal "sleeper" humans causes difficulty for the changelings, mages and demons to manifest their powers. In case of changeling and demon, the presence of unbelievers simply causes the powers to not work, including manifesting their True Form (and in the case of changeling, adds a splitting headache if seriously "boring" people are present); in the case of mages, this tends to cause Paradox backlash, as Reality strikes at mages who try the "impossible". On the one hand, this has caused Bygones (e.g. dragons, unicorns) to go extinct because people stopped believing. On the other hand, certain areas of the world have different beliefs, and would cause e.g. flying carpets to be perfectly normal, and airplanes to cause paradox as an impossibility.
    • Werewolves and vampires do not have this problem, which is Handwaved because many people subconsciously believe in them. Still, the Technocracy would like to change that.
    • Mages with Prime 2 may actually use a type of counter-spell called "anti-magick". Granted, it is quite hard to pull off properly, but with enough successes on the dice roll and appropriate Quintessence expense, a mage can pretty much cancel any magickal effect. And contrary to basic counter-magick, said mage also doesn't need to know the Spheres involved in the effect.
  • Some such effects carry on to the New World of Darkness. Counterspells exist in Mage: The Awakening, and anyone with Prime 2 can just create "mage armor," an inherent defense that only works on spells, but reduces the success rate of ALL magic. Most other supernaturals do not have this problem, however, but suffer their own ill effects from people observing them at work, like triggering Disquiet for Prometheans.
    • In Genius: The Transgression, Geniuses can use their Wonders in front of mortals all they want (though, as above, there are dangers of that). However, letting the mere mortal touch it, will inevitably result in a Phlebotinum Breakdown. There are also Clockstoppers, who at the most basic level cause Wonders to fail by their presence, but at the highest become a truly nightmarish Walking Techbane.
    • Second Sight, a book dealing with Psychic Powers, mentions that doubt does tend to throw off the ability to manifest said powers... and the more doubters there are, the harder it is to manifest them. There's even a Merit, Anti-Psi, that allows a character to actively suppress psychic powers.
  • Nobles in Nobilis have a small field around them called an Auctoritas. Other Nobles' miracles don't affect anything within the field unless they specifically allocate some of the miracle's power to penetration.


Video Games

  • In the Roguelike ToME the Unbeliever class (and, in later versions, users of the Unbelief skill) can't use magic, even wands and scrolls (which even Warriors can use). In exchange for this, they get a large bonus to their saving throws, and can disrupt magic being cast around them.
  • In Enchanted Arms, the main character Atsuma has the ability to negate various magics because of his right arm (Best seen in the hopeless fight against the Ice Queen Devil Golem). However early in the game has no control of this power.
  • In Final Fantasy Tactics, there is a "Faith" statistic. The higher a character's faith, the more potent his magic, but the more susceptible he is to the enemy's magic. There's also a status effect called "Innocent" or "Atheist" (depending on the version) which causes your effective Faith to be zero for a while. One hidden character (a robot) has zero faith AND (in case you try to boost his Faith) permanent "Atheist" status. Note that Faith is a percentile multiplier, so with 0 Faith one is literally immune to all magic. This also makes you immune to beneficial magic as well, though. "Mind Shield" protects the mind from being attacked properly by anything, even magic.
  • Mother Maya in Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey has an especially vicious form of this. She doesn't only negate magic, she instantly kills the caster.
  • In Vagrant Story, one minor antagonist is completely immune to magic (so you can't hurt him with any during a boss fight), and other sorcerers aren't able to sway him. He's not immune to a giant animated statue stepping on him, though.
  • Defense of the Ancients has a hero called "the anti-mage". Take a guess what he does.
  • Arcanum has a Technical to Magical spectrum. The more skills you learn of each, the more ineffective (and possibly dangerous) the other becomes for you to use or to use against you. (e.g. magic armor won't give benefits to engineers, and guns will blow up when used against mages). Characters with a high technological aptitude have this effect around magical items and have a high resistance to magic. Even the good kind.
  • Bloodline Champions has a few effects called silence and spell block which various sources, but thematically seems to be this trope.
  • Fire Emblem 7 has Kishuna, an enigmatic entity of the "Magic Seal" class, who serves as an optional boss. Kishuna's presence negates every spell in a set radius (which extends over more than half of the battlefield usually), rendering magic users of every site completely useless.
  • The Disgaea series has some examples of this. The Alaraune monsters take halved damage from magic attacks in Disgaea 2: Cursed Memories, and the Healer class halves magic damage dealt to adjacent allies in Disgaea 3: Absence of Justice. Also in 3, the Holy Dragon can halve any magic damage it takes with its Mist Cloak ability (Which it can also teach to any other unit).
  • Exile 3: Ruined World allows characters to chose the "Magically Inept" character trait. It does not allow the character to use magic, but makes them less vulnerable to it.
  • In Eschalon you can choose that your character is an atheist, which makes you immune to curses and healing. It's completely separate from being agnostic, in which case you get no divine bonuses or penalties. Made curious by the fact that the player could presumably see divine magic working on other people, so one has to wonder how he keeps up that suspension of (dis?)belief.
  • Heroes of Might and Magic features all three of these. There's Anti-Magic ground that makes any hero on top of it unable to cast any sort of magic, most dragons are immune to magic to some degree and there's an Anti-Magic spell that makes any unit immune to magic for a couple of turns.
    • In the fifth game, barbarians' unique skill is severely weakening enemy's magic. They themselves also cannot learn it and get war cries instead.
  • Shinja from Battle Realms has a passive ability called "Ye of little faith" that makes him nigh-immune to magic attacks. It's implied that his inherent pragmatism, skepticism and belief in material things (and his lack of faith in fantasy concepts like magic and dragons) is so powerful that it simply makes magic stop working on him.
  • Blue spirits put into a support role work like this in Eien no Aselia. The Ice Banisher skill stops any healing or offensive magic from being cast.
  • The Hanny of the Rance Series.


Web Comics

  • In Dominic Deegan, there are people called "Resistants" that are pretty much immune to all magic, positive or negative. Dex Garrit is the only one to appear as a character. Recently, though, it's been hinted that they're not "immune" so much as just ridiculously resistant: TIM's energy blasts, for example, while destroying the landscape, seem to bounce harmlessly off of Dex's chest, until his inner monologue reveals that, however he looks on the outside, taking the shot hurt like hell.
  • Gunnerkrigg Court:
    • Antimony Carver can cancel out certain kinds of illusion magic. This is not a conscious ability—it just happens when she's around. For example, she has been able to see ghosts and similar beings from a young age.
    • Gamma has a similar ability, although it seems more powerful. Its unclear if this is because she's linked with Zimmy, or if she's just more powerful, period.
  • Harry Potter Comics has Sheriff Ned, a Muggle who is immune to mind spells. Other types of magic work, but his memory of magical events can't be erased or altered, leading to an alliance with Harry Potter and the other aurors.
  • The webcomic Yosh! has its main character be the inheritor of the title "Null". It, of course, is exactly as it sounds: no magic can affect him, ill or good. Additionally, he's also immune to physical damage, though it's unrelated: it's stated that the previous Null didn't have this trait.
  • The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon: Jack Cannon has this power, but it only works against Reality Warping.


Web Original

  • In The Academy of Superheroes Universe, Anchors negate the powers of those around them. Weaker ones are merely immune to superpowers, stronger ones have a radius of effect that extends around them. The most effective can reshape their area of effect at will.


Western Animation

Real Life

  • The portion of the population who are resistant or immune to hypnosis (leaving aside, for the moment, the definition of "hypnosis"). Illusionists generally have a few tricks to weed those people out in a magic show.
    • Hypnosis only works if you willingly allow it to control you, you generally have to try hard to not be immune to it. This was also tested on MythBusters and confirmed.
    • It is quite easy to block out hypnotic suggestion, just play pazaak or something to take your mind off the hypnotist. However, suggestibility is highly individual, and can be tested.
  • In certain parts of Australia and Africa, Shamans are so feared that if they place a death curse on a someone, that person will drop dead simply because they believe so deeply in the curse. It must have have seemed to the shamans that this trope is taking effect when the Europeans arrived and started to live longer than they were supposed to.
  • Psychics, dowsers, and other paranormalists who fail to perform in controlled settings (which prevent cheating) often accuse their testers of this. Extreme versions are that the act of testing itself, or even the presence of someone who doesn't already believe, has this effect.


Artifacts/Environments

Anime & Manga

  • Fate Stay Night
    • Fate Stay Night gives us also the Rule Breaker, which is a dagger that can destroy magical constructs and concepts.
    • Similarly, Fate/Zero's Lancer has a Noble Phantasm called "Gae Dearg", a spear which is essentially a weaker version of Rule Breaker which only works as long as it's in contact with the magically-enhanced object.
  • Mx0: Taiga eventually trades in his dummy magic card for one whose sole ability is to use up the points stored on it to create an anti-magic field. After sufficient training, Taiga is able to control the size/shape/location of the field, such as just within his mouth.
  • Anti-Magic Fields emitted by certain magic-technology in Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha, which nullifies all magic within the area it covers. While a mage can undergo training under AMF conditions to fight the effects, they will still find their magic greatly reduced, and even they will find their magic gone if the AMF is strong enough.
    • Helpfully explained by Nanoha in one of the source mangas: Anti Magi-Link Field works like Area of Effect; a mage firing from outside the AMF only has the magic attack reduced, but a mage firing from inside the AMF to the target will also have reduced power output to boot. In short: if a mage is caught unprepared inside a large-area AMF without boosters and/or having his/her Power Limiter still on, that mage is basically screwed.
    • The recent Force manga additionally introduces the Dividers, artifact weapons that aggressively break the magical links (magic is basically magical energy linked to a usable form in this setting) thus negating any magic they hit as well as any magical effects aimed at the wielder. As such, Dividers are extremely dangerous to mages and commonly referred to as Mage Killers.
  • Horacle in Mamoru-kun Ni Megami no Shukufuku Wo, which can negate any Beatrice powers in the area. Ayako being Brought Down to Normal by one makes the last arc of the series, and also serves as a way to free her from the "Return to the Origin" beast rampaging about.
  • Shakugan no Shana: Shana's katana and Yuji's flame ring have limited power-canceling abilities; the former is also indestructible, and the latter only cancels fire/heat.
  • While at first Taikoubou from Houshin Engi is armed with a wind-power wand Dashinben, he gets an amazing upgrade late in the story that cancels out any paopei (read, magical weapons) effects. This means that not only it stops paopeis from functioning, physical wounds and status ailments from paopeis can be reversed. On the other hand, this also affects friendly paopeis, and this particularly sucks since one of his Ax Crazy but powerful allies, Nataku, is essentially a human-paopei. Then again, Taikoubou rarely fights head-to-head with any enemy, being the typical lazy-ass strategist that he is.
  • A Magitek train from Slayers ran on an artifact that absorbed magic from the surrounding area, causing spells such as "Dragon Slave" or "Fireball" to become about as effective as a toy squib.
  • Mahou Sensei Negima There's a valley in the Magic World in which magic doesn't function. It's filled with monsters and is used for executions. One of which fails, because removing Nagi Springfield's ability to use magic just makes him a Badass Normal, which still lets him rescue his future wife Arika who was thrown in there.
  • One Piece also has Sea Stone, which can render a Devil Fruit user weak and unable to so much as stand or robs them of all their power. They aren't extensively used due to their rarity by the world government however.
  • In Rave Master, Haru Glory's fourth sword, "Runesave", can negate magic and cut intangible things like smoke and lightning, but it passes through solid matter like a ghost.
  • While it oddly never gets mentioned anymore, there's a type of stone in Bleach in the Soul Society that can greatly weaken spiritual power called Sekiseki stone. It's used for the prison tower Rukia was in during the SS arc, and was used partly to break through the SS barrier by Ichigo and friends. It's basically Soul Reaper kryptonite...yet completely disappears from the series after the arc it first appeared in. Did it not occur to anyone that maybe finding a way to weaponize that, like with a gun weapon, could effectively create the ultimate weapon to use against any spiritual being?


Card Games


Fan Works

  • Past Sins introduces an anti-magic collar for unicorns.


Gamebooks


Literature

  • In Orlando Furioso, this is what the Ring of Angelica does when worn on a finger (it doubles as a Ring of Gyges if you put it on your tongue).
  • In Sword of Truth, the Radahan collars also take away the magic of anyone wearing them. Oddly enough, at least in the television version, they aren't immune to magic themselves. In the books the collars could be taken off by magic, but only the Sisters of Light could do it, except for Zed, who was so incredibly badass that he not only was able to take one off despite not being a Sister, he took it off of himself while it was suppressing his magic.
  • The Wheel of Time: Mat gets an amulet that destroys any weaves of the One Power that directly touch him (whether this applies to True Power weaves is unknown); he ends up having a miserable time when one Aes Sedai sets out to see just what the loopholes are (indirect effects like lightning, sparks, and objects thrown by the One Power). Gholam are Nigh Invulnerable creatures who do the same; Mat's amulet burns them on contact (divide by zero?). Steddings (and the city of Far Madding) are not examples of this, however—they are places that block access to the Source but do nothing against the One Power itself, if the channeler happens to have a battery-like ter'angreal on them in which they have stored weaves of the Power.
  • Gold and Black Phoenix Stone in Dragaera do this with sorcery and psionics respectively. Vlad has several items that make use of this, notably an amulet that stops anyone from finding him with magic of any kind and Spellbreaker, a very odd gold chain that appears to have a bit of a mind of its own and does exactly what you'd expect given the name. Later, Spellbreaker gets incorporated into the Great Weapon Godslayer (or, as Vlad calls her, Lady Teldra), which can do this to an even more impressive degree.
  • The Darksword from The Darksword Trilogy. When exposed to magic, it nullifies all magic in the surrounding area. Because the setting is a place where magic is regarded as Life itself, this is considered to be particularly horrifying.
  • Similarly, Marcus' and Viridovix' swords in Harry Turtledove's Videssos cycle are of magical Druidic origin, and one of their two effects is to repel and negate any magic aimed at whoever wields them. Because they were magical even in our own unmagical world, they become so powerful in the magical-fantasy world of Videssos that even the greatest sorcerer in Videssian history is unable to overcome them.
  • Second Apocalypse
    • The chorae are small beads that protect their wearer from magic and turn sorcerers to salt on contact. This makes them extremely valuable in a setting where sorcerers would be otherwise practically unstoppable. Very good archers are entrusted with chorae-tipped arrows. Some sorcerers are smart enough to use indirect attacks such as dropping buildings on chorae-wielders.
    • In the same series, the city of Atrithau is built on "anarcane ground" where magic does not function.
  • In the novel Grunts!, a group of orcs, who have gotten their hands on modern weapons in what was previously a completely generic fantasy setting, find themselves having trouble when their new guns keep getting hit with "fail weapons" spells. To solve this problem, they steal some experimental "Nullity Talismans", which prevent all magic from working within their effective radius.
  • In Gordon R. Dickson's Dragon Knight series, magic doesn't work on consecrated ground.
  • In Larry Niven's The Magic Goes Away series, the Warlock's Wheel is a simple enchanted artifact created by the Warlock; a simple brass disc with a spell to always make it spin faster, and a second spell to keep it from tearing itself apart. Nearly any mage can build one if they know how. When you turn it on it will spin until it's sucked all the mana from the area, killing enchantments, magic creatures, and anything else dependent on mana. When the magic runs out, the disc explodes from an overload of kinetic energy, and the area remains magically-dead for the rest of eternity. No wonder Warlock kept it a secret for years.
  • In Steve Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen, a substance called otataral, found only in one place in the Malazan empire, has the effect of not only negating magic cast into its radius, but actually draining the power out of any mages standing within its area of effect. The mages do recover their powers after a period of time outside its influence. The Adjunct of the Empress is issued with an otataral sword as a symbol of her office. It's implied that Karsa Orlong's resistance to magic is due to the "blood oil" his people anoint themselves with before a battle. Otataral is what gives the stuff its red color.
  • The Dresden Files:
    • Running water grounds magical energy; with faster the water, a given spell needs more energy to overcome it. This has both served Harry well (he destroyed a magical darkness by activating a sprinkler system) and bit him in the ass (such as when a villain had him strung up under running water so that he was completely helpless).
    • The silver swords carried by the Wardens also qualify, as their entire purpose is to undo magical enchantments and thus penetrate the magical defenses of warlocks. Has an added bonus in that enchantments store energy, so when a Warden's sword cuts through an enchantment, it will set the item ablaze; thus, the more powerful your defensive gear, the bigger the backlash of magical energy.
    • The Swords of the Cross have this as one their abilities—they can shut down hostile magic and effectively level the playing field between a Knight and their opponent. This effect is so potent that it is able to shut down the raw psychic willpower of the Red King and his entire court.
    • Madrigal Raith had a pair of anti-magic gauntlets for his duel with Harry and Ramirez. Ramirez helps kill him by destroying the ground underneath him and then destroys his gauntlets with his Warden sword unleashing the results stated above.They are not pretty
  • In Tim Powers' The Anubis Gates, magicians renounce the earth, quite literally. They cannot bear touching the ground and dirt negates their magic altogether. The Antaeus Brotherhood, founded to fight magical treason, protect themselves from magical attack by linking themselves to the ground with the magical equivalent of an earth wire.
  • In The Steerswoman and its sequels, steerswomen and sailors are said to have some immunity to wizards' protective spells; the protagonist eventually figures out that it comes from the shoes they wear. They're rubber-soled, insulating their wearers from electric shock.
  • Spellbound, the second book of The Grimnoir Chronicles, introduces the Dymaxion Nullifier, an as-yet-undescribed object that shuts down any use of superpowers in its vicinity.
  • In The Alloy of Law, aluminum is allomantically inert and can't be Pushed or Pulled allomantically as other metal can, also wearing an aluminum foil hat (or just one lined with aluminum) protects one against allomantic Emotion Control.
  • Mercedes Lackey's Heralds of Valdemar universe has Need, a magical sword that complements its bearer's skills; fighters who wield it are immune to magical attacks.


Live-Action TV

  • In Charmed, there are special anti-witch talismans that can make a witch powerless if they are in the same area.


Tabletop Games

  • The Rod of Cancellation from Dungeons & Dragons, which among other things is one of the only magic capable of destroying the dreaded Sphere of Annihilation.
  • Dead magic zones exist in the Forgotten Realms, particularly right after the Time of Troubles.
  • In Shadowrun, a strain of magic-draining bacteria is cultivated by certain Mega Corps and anti-magic hate groups and used to "magic-proof" chosen locations, as well as kill spirits.
  • All of reality has this problem in Mage: The Awakening. When the Exarchs took up room upstairs, their ascension cut off humanity from the Supernal Realms, and the Abyss quickly moved in. As a result, any non-subtle spell risks Paradox, which can make magic go... wrong. And when an area is heavily tainted by the Abyss, the last thing you want to do is try throwing fireballs.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • The Inquisition also has various anti-psyker weapons designed to suppress psychic powers, including the Null Rod (which generates a short-range anti-psychic field) and Psych-Out grenades (which are loaded with powder that disrupts Warp-based powers).
    • There is also a specially treated steel called Phase Iron, which is used to make lining for psi-shielded equipment, such as holding cells and Daemon cages.
    • Warriors of Khorne wear Collars of Khorne which protects from psychic powers.


Video Games

  • Asheron's Call has low-grade Chorizite which can be made into weapons that ignore magically modified armor and protection values.
  • Nethack and related Roguelikes:
    • The Wand of Cancellation. As the name implies, it cancels magic. The actual range of effects is quite broad and listing them all would be a spoiler. Suffice to say that, as always, The Dev Team Thinks of Everything.
    • Then there's items which grant magic resistance when worn, cloaks of magic resistance and grey dragon scale mail, plus the wizard quest artifact which grants it just be it being held in the player's inventory. This protects against force bolts, magic missiles, polymorphing, teleport other, and death rays. The fact that the wizard quest nemesis picks up the wizard quest artifact on his first turn after waking up, thus gaining magic resistance, makes him a hard kill for wizards who depend on force bolts and magic missiles.
  • In Archon: The Light and the Dark, units that are stationed on Power Points are immune to Wizard or Sorceress magic.
  • Final Fantasy
    • Final Fantasy VIII has the heroes locked up in a prison with their weapons taken away, and their magic abilities nullified by a nearby Anti-Magic Field.
    • In Final Fantasy IX, Oeilvert is protected by an anti-magic field, meaning that you should probably send your physical fighters there. The problem is that the magic-users left behind will have to get through a dungeon on their own too...
    • Final Fantasy X has one boss with an object called a Negator that disables all magic and summoning. You have two choices: destroy the Negator, to temporarily allow magic, but risk the boss using its magical attack; or the Brute Force and Healing Items method.
    • Final Fantasy XII has nethicite, both manufacted (man-made) and deifacted (naturally occurring), which both absorb the magical substance called mist which is used to power magicks.
  • In Vagrant Story, the power of Lea Monde gives Jan Rosencrantz this ability. Unfortunately it only works against direct magic and not, say, a magically-animated 20-foot stone statue.
  • Null Crystals from zOMG! are said to negate g'hi Energy. Any Animated that gets too close to one instantly reverts to an inanimate state, and any Gaian (player) that touches one of the crystals is transported to a special "Null Chamber" that negates the soulbinding effects of their rings, allowing them to be safely removed. Though for whatever reason, no one has considered actually using these crystals to instantly kill any Animated they get close too, they use use them for transportation, recovering from death, and Item Crafting.
  • Ultima:
    • Lord British's Crown in Ultima V dispels any hostile magic used against you while letting you cast your own. It's ridiculously useful (except in the final dungeon, where it doesn't work).
    • Likewise, the Storm Cloak and ditto spell from Ultima VI, and blackrock in Ultima VII.
  • The Empire of Overlord 2 protects it's capital city with an anti-magic shield. Most of the latter half of the game is spent implementing a plan to bring it down.
  • Subverted in Moraff's World. There is an Anti-Magic ring, but since no enemy in the game uses spells, as the in-game guide says, it does nothing.
  • Baldur's Gate:
    • Carsomyr in Baldur's Gate 2 is a +5 (and can be upgraded to +6 in the expansion) greatsword that grants its wielder 50% magic resistance, allows its wielder to cast Dispel Magic three times a day, and dispels magic on opponents with each hit. There's also the Cloak of Reflection which confers complete immunity to all direct damage spells, and pre-nerfing bounced the damage back to the caster too.
    • At the end of Shadows of Amn, Jon Irenicus is trapped in a region of the Abyss that renders his magic useless, leaving him completely defenseless as hungry chittering demons surround him...
  • Dragon Age: Dwarves get a 10% chance of resisting hostile magic and can't be mages, because they developed a resistance from living around deposits of the magical substance known as lyrium. This same substance, is consumed to give members of the mage oppressing Templar Order resistances to magic, let them drain enemy mana with each strike, give them damage bonuses versus mages, and the abilities listed under the spells category.
  • EarthBound has the Shield Killer, which destroys physical and PSI shields, and the Neutralizer, which completely nullifies PSI buffs and debuffs, including shields. Also included is the Counter-PSI Unit, which prevents the target from using PSI altogether.
    • And in the sequel, Mother 3, you can get the Shield Snatcher, which acts like the Shield Killer from EarthBound.
  • Slave Bracers in Morrowind. They drain Magicka from anyone who wears them. Fine if you rely upon weapons, not so much if you need magic to survive.
  • The Wizardry games have anti-magic fields in certain rooms of the dungeon that prevent all magic from being cast.
  • The Staff of Magnus in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim drains Magicka from its target at an astonishing rate and drains health when the target runs out of Magicka. It's also the only artifact powerful enough to temporarily suppress the Eye of Magnus' power.


Web Comics

  • Dominic Deegan has the character of Urban Eddie, whose trump card is a necklace that nullifies any magic directed towards him. He even shows another practical use for it by strangling a spellcaster with it, rendering them helpless.
  • Inanire grenades from Errant Story dispel all magic in a small area and render casters caught in the blast unable to use magic for about a minute. They were created at the tail end of the Errant War, a genocidal war between elves and half-elves that led to the fall of the old elven empire and the virtual annihilation of the half-elves as a people, but due to their indiscriminate nature and late introduction never saw much use. Following the war's end they were tucked away in a vault in the last elven city left standing and mostly forgotten about until the arrival of an insane half-elf mage named Ian who was bent on exterminating the elves, at which point they were used to defend the city.
  • C, a member of T from Homestuck wields a crowbar that negates and reverses any time-manipulation ability or effect. Since nearly every member of T has some kind of time-related ability, this can be quite useful.
  • The "reality zone" in Sinfest is of unknown origin, but nothing supernatural can exist in it. This is bad news for characters like Squigley and L'il E (who fall out of the sky if they fly into it, and in Squigley's case revert to animal form), and worse news for full-blooded devils (who're affected as if by fire.)


Web Original

  • The substance Thunderstone in the play-by-post game Adylheim negates any magic that touches it, but it's very rare. More commonly, iron (but not steel!) destroys elves' illusions or Faerie magic when it touches them, bends or wards away certain sorts of magic, and (though this last one is more of a Power Nullifier) if embedded in the body of a High Mage, prevents them from using their magic at all.
  • Norium in Deucalion Chronicles works to negate any magic it comes in contact with, though magic users can attune themselves to a given piece to bypass the effect.


Western Animation

  • Justice League:
    • Hawkgirl's energy mace (and Thanagarian Nth Metal in general, as we find out in Unlimited) negates magic. She can use it to break through magic force fields, blast through spells, beat Dr. Fate into submission, and even kill an evil god.
    • Lex Luthor later buys an object that similarly reflects away all magic, at an apparently ludicrous price.
  • In Wakfu season 2 episode 8, the Justice Knight's prison feature a device that inhibit the magic of the prisoners. Looking like a sphere with three mechanical eyes, it isn't too hard to neutralize: a piece of cloth covering it will do the trick.
  • Disney's Aladdin animated series faced one obvious problem: How do you keep Genie from solving every problem with just a magical (and literal) Hand Wave? The explanation was usually either that a) Genie got distracted easily (which makes sense, considering his personality) or b) that the villain of the week conveniently happened to have access to a powerful anti-magic device or spell. Of course, being significantly weaker after he was released from the lamp also cut back on his potential to solve problems.
  • In My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic (Animation), Queen Chrysalis's throne generates an anti-magic field the nullifies all non-changeling magic. It's large enough to protect the entire changeling hive.


Real Life

  • Evil Eye charms, consisting of round beads with blue eyes painted onto them said to ward off the effects of the evil eye, have been popular in Armenia, Turkey, and countries in the Middle East since ancient times. The "evil eye" is said to be a sort of Death Glare stemmed from jealousy or just malice that could bring harm to whoever it is given to.
    • Some people tend to see the charms more like a lightning rod. That is, they don't necessarily ward off the "evil eye" but absorb it. There are stories of the charms shattering for no reason, which is linked to the charm absorbing a particularly potent ill will.


Spells

Anime and Manga

  • Mahou Sensei Negima again: a limited version of Magic Cancel is the "Dispulso" spell. The author notes this a "paradoxical" spell, being a magic that disperses magic.
  • The Familiar of Zero: Louise's first controlled void spell. Earlier on, she also accidentally damages the defense wards on a storeroom for magical artifacts.
    • In the third season, Louise's void spell is the only reason the heroes are able to defeat the square golem.
  • The Spell "Flow Break" from Slayers causes all long-term spells (for example, "animate golem" or whatever it's called) to stop working and the Golem or Animated Armor will collapse. If used on a mage, it causes harm.
  • In Fullmetal Alchemist, the Big Bad can completely shut off Amestrian alchemy in an area at will, since he's strongly implied to have invented it in the first place. Even he, however, is surprised to discover that this ability has no effect whatsoever on Xingese alchemy.
  • Wedding Peach has the power to negate devil powers: possession, illusion, mind control etc will be dispelled with her "Lovely Operation Tempete".

Comic Books

  • Le Collège Invisible has Néga-mages, mages who focus on a short-ranged anti-magic spell that they usually maintain permanently around them. The Rival is an apprentice Néga-mage, which has proven useful on occasions.
    • Another secondary character is a master Néga-mage (who inspired The Rival to take the course). He still keeps his anti-magic field up even after the events of the second book broke his mind.


Card Games

  • Insert Magic: The Gathering spell here.
    • The granddaddy of all countermagic is the iconic Counterspell, the card upon which so many others are based. The thing proved to be too overpowered; thus, it is no longer printed. We have a selection of weaker, fairer replacements like Cancel and Pact of Negation.
    • Because of the tendency for counterspells to be countered (and those spells to be countered, and those...) a favorite is Last Word. That can, amusingly, be countered by Time Stop. Which can itself be countered....
    • Anti-magic for enchantments and artifacts come in a great variety of flavors, mostly white and green: there're Disenchant, Tranquility, and their many descendants.
  • Several Yu-Gi-Oh! Monster Cards, such as "Spell Canceller" and "Horus the Black Flame Dragon LV8", have the ability to negate the activation or effect of any Spell Cards. Several Trap Cards, such as "Imperial Order", also fulfill this role.
  • The Star Wars Customizable Card Game has Sense and Alter. Sense cancels interrupts; Alter cancels effects and utinni effects (effects which give you something good or take something bad away when reached by the target). They're both canceled by Control, which also cancels immediate effects and mobile effects.


Literature

  • The Doppleganger duology by Marie Brennan presents its own void magic. Completely unknown until Mirage and Miryo become Mirei, it is exactly this trope, able to completely negate the spells of other witches. Things go haywire though if too much magic is negated, thus leaving too much ambient magic in the air. Can cause a simple fire spell to behave like a bomb.
  • Within Lawrence Watt-Evans's Ethshar series, there exists a spell that permanently cancels wizard's magic in a large area. Forever. Since the majority of the world operates by magic, the spell has been cast exactly thrice in the history of the world: once on discovery, once as a Deadly Prank against a wizard in a flying castle, and once to negate a universal solvent that was likely to destroy the entire world if unchecked. (Note, however, that it only applies to wizardry - the other half-dozen or so forms of magic are fundamentally different, though less powerful, and so are unaffected.)
  • Some spells in Harry Potter, such as anti-apparition, seem to work this way. Certainly, it makes catching those slippery Death Eaters much easier for Dumbledore.
  • Similarly to "Spellstrike" of D&D (below), The Wheel of Time has balefire. While not specifically anti-magic, it has the effect of retroactively countering a person's effects on the universe, including spells, at sufficient power.
  • In The Dresden Files, more than a few badguys—particularly powerful Sidhe, grendelkin, and the Fallen—are adept at countering magic, to the point that Dresden himself is rendered unable to use his magic against them. Fortunately, he's adept at adaptation and dirty fighting. For example, when faced with a cavalry charge of Sidhe nobility, rather than bring his will into direct conflict with 20-odd counterspells, he just trips their horses.
  • In The Black Company series, a wizard who knows another wizard's true name can basically De-Power them permanently. It also works on The White Rose's inherent Anti-Magic.
  • Septimus Heap: The Darke Vortex is a spell that can temporarily drain people of their Magykal powers. It is used by the Big Bad to trap Marcia Overstrand.


Live-Action TV

  • In Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the spell[context?] has to be constantly chanted and prevents only damage by magic. Other things done by magic, however, are unaffected. So, Willow couldn't fry somebody with energy blasts while the spell was being chanted, but she could amplify her own strength and kick their asses.
  • Well, it's apparently supposed to be sufficiently advanced technology that works like magic in some respects, but in Kamen Rider Dragon Knight, Thrust's "Confine Vent" card causes any attack used against him to simply disappear. This extends to attacks that are assisted by an opponent's Advent Beast—the beast fades away as well. How this works, and how it is that the beast can always be summoned again just as easily, isn't made clear.


Tabletop Games

  • Dungeons & Dragons
    • The Anti-magic Field spell (and its psionic equivalent: Null Psionics Field).
    • And Dispel Magic, which is practically required for any spellcaster who can take it.
    • There's also the Mordenkainen's Disjunction spell, which is a near-epic version of Dispel Magic that can even permanently destroy artifacts on a good roll. Mordenkainen's Disjunction is such a powerful anti-magic field that, if used to destroy an artifact made magical by a divinity, there's a chance that the god will take offense and come after you.
    • Other variants of Anti-Magic can also be found in various sourcebooks. One of the more efficient is certainly "Spellstrike" from the Forgotten Realms. It entirely negates the effect of a spell cast previously -- retroactively. Meaning that if some devastating magic had killed several people the previous round, a Spellstrike can bring them back to life by erasing the effects.
  • Similarly, the Anti-magic Circle from Rifts
  • Exalted
    • The sorcerous Emerald/Sapphire/Adamant Countermagic series, listed in order of increasing strength. They even have necromantic counterparts, called (again, in order of increasing strength) Iron/Onyx/Obsidian Countermagic. Spells targeted by these counters have a tendency to... explode.
    • There's also the Sidereal Charm Spell-Shattering Palm, which does pretty much what you'd think it does.
  • In Robo Rally, the option damping field disables all other options within its range.
  • In Ars Magica, the Parma Magica (and the magic resistance it grants) is the primary reason for the ascendancy of the Order of Hermes.
  • GURPS features a "Drain Mana" spell which can permanently rid an area of ambient mana—neither spells nor magic items will work in that area, and powerstones won't recharge. It's an expensive and risky spell (a critical failure costs the caster 1 level of magical aptitude), but useful in designing jails and fortresses.


Video Games

  • Most video game purge spells or powers, which negate all magical effects on a friendly or opposing target.
  • In Asheron's Call medium grade Chorizite must be used as a spell component in spells that have this effect.
  • Final Fantasy
    • Celes of Final Fantasy VI has the ability to convert all magic cast into her MP for one turn at a time. Fairly useless, magic is usually your best offense.
    • Certain specific bosses (particularly bosses that use 90% magic attacks but are vulnerable to physical attacks) are rendered entirely impotent by the Runic ability. The problem is finding those bosses at a time when Celes is in the party.
    • In some Final Fantasy games, spells that protect a party member from magic attacks will also block friendly spells, such as Cure. This can be quite annoying.
    • Silence is one of the Final Fantasy series' Standard Status Effects, and prevents magic and other MP-using skills from being used when it's in effect. Several spells and items have the ability to silence an enemy, including the Mute spell from the original Final Fantasy, which is a must-use on Astos to keep him from using his insta-death Rub spell on you or taking you out with his other high-damage spells.
  • Dragon Quest
    • A particularly annoying tendency for late-game bosses in the games (starting with Dragon Quest III) is to use a "wave of ice" to wipe out all of your party's Status Buffs. These are also usually the type to come at you with powerful weapons or magic, so if they use this attack instead, that means less damage against you... until your next turn. However, this attack can be exploited by having one party member cast a single buff spell every turn, meaning the bosses will only ever attempt to remove them.
    • "Stopspell" from the first game on is probably the first example of such a spell, which keeps your opponent from casting spells, and can be a lifesaver when facing spellcasting monsters, particularly those who can put you to sleep, heal themselves, put serious hurt on you or try to block your spells.
  • In Oblivion there are two spells, Dispel, which removes all non-constant magical affects on the player or enemy, and Mute, which takes away the victim's ability to use magic.
  • In Skies of Arcadia, Aika's Delta Shield prevents all magic from working on the party—even beneficial magic. This is easily circumvented with items, though.
  • World of Warcraft
    • The game has various dispel (removes a magic effect from target) and counterspell (cancels the spellcast and prevents magic from that school from being cast) abilities, but the most straight-up example of this trope is a Death Knight talent that creates an Anti-Magic zone. The zone doesn't prevent spellcasting, but it greatly reduces magic damage taken by party members inside it. Death Knights also have a self-cast anti-magic shell, which has the same effect as the zone but also stops them from being afflicted with curse-like spell effects, and can actually absorb the power of the spells to throw back at the attacker.
    • Warcraft 3 also had several times of magic canceling. There were some like resistant skin that merely blocked most enemy spells, but also pure magic immunity meaning no heals or buffs either.
    • Mountain Giants in The Frozen Throne had a research that made them take less damage from spells as well as outright ignore weaker ones. Then there's the Mana Burn spell on Demon Hunters and some demonic units that causes the target's mana to "combust", consuming the target's mana and dealing them damage equal to the amount of mana burned. Spell Breakers have this as a passive ability: they fry mana with every hit and since non-hero mages usually have mana equal or higher than their health... Oh, and said anti-mana attacks deal extra damage to summoned creatures.
  • Antimagic clouds in the Exile/Avernum series prevent any spells from being cast within (or directly into) them. "Null bugs" are insects that perpetually generate such a field as a defense mechanism.
  • Dragon Age has the spell Glyph of Neutralization, which dispels all spell effects, drains all mana, and negates all magic, both incoming and outgoing, within the radius of the glyph. The spell Mana Clash drains the mana from any enemy mage in its target radius and deals damage proportional to the mana lost, often killing them immediately.
    • Warriors with Templar Order training, have access to several abilities, besides their passive damage bonus against mages, and draining their mana with each attack. Templars can cleanse an area of all magical effects, unfortunately including friendly magic buffs. They also get a Smite Evil like ability that works just like the aforementioned Mana Clash, while at the same time, stunning and/or knocking back, and inflicting spirit damage, on mage and non-mage enemies alike. Dragon Age II gives Templars two abilities that 'silence' enemies, halting and/or preventing enemy use of abilities, both magic and mundane. The latter three abilities make Templars into De Facto Magic Knights, in spite of the Order's Beware the Superman Fantastic Racism.
  • In Golden Sun, there is a spell called Bind which stops magical abilities. However, when used against you this mostly just hinders your healer, as you can still use Djinn and Summons. And most enemies have "Monster Abilities" which can look like magic and function like magic, but are not considered magic.
  • Guild Wars features several such spells: Obsidian Flesh (slows the user down, boosts armour, all targeted spells fail), Spell Breaker (all targeted spells fail), and Shadow Form (all targeted spells fail, all attacks against user miss, and yes, it's exactly as imbalanced as it sounds). There's also Spell Shield, which prevents targeted spells while the user is casting, and Shroud of Silence, which prevents spellcasting in the first place.
  • Magicka's "Nullify" Magick. Casting it will eliminate all status effects from the caster, and most currently-active magicks and spells on the battlefield. Shields? Gone. Summoned minions? Gone. Given that it's mostly for removing debuffs from yourself (of which there are not many) you'd think it's not much use, until... Grimnír's Mirror Image in the Mind Duel sequences? Also gone. It's also very easy to cast rapidly and has a short animation, unlike some of the other Magicks. Not much of a Useless Useful Spell any more, huh?
  • Demon's Souls has the miracle Anti-Magic Field, which for a short period of time prevents all magic from being used within a certain radius of the user. Miracles, which are kinda-sorta White Magic, can still be used however.
  • Orc in The Elder Scrolls get this, to a very low degree. Also, taking the sign of the atronach occasionally lets you absorb magic, although it's quite uncommon. Equally, there are lots of spells that let you absorb magic or ignore its effects, and potions can also do this.
  • The Anti-Magic spell in Seiken Densetsu 3 removes all magical effects from its target.


Web Comics

  • Twokinds has "Dispel", which "Shuts off" Mana flow. No Mana, no magic. Less effective on highly trained enemies, because they can absorb Mana from the ground for just such a contingency. Trace can apparently do it instinctively. May lead to an Oh Crap if the enemy knows how to cast shadow magic by way of "Dark Mana" which works by using the life-force of the earth as magic once all surface mana is drained off. Insanely powerful and insanity-inducing.
  • Order of the Stick :
  • In Endstone, the power of the Endstone. Also, characters who are not stoners can nullify the over-stones by taking them.
  1. ↑ which starts making more sense in book three were we see what happens when someone tries being "creative"
  2. ↑ "Skill Drain" must already be active when Vennominaga hits the field, however,
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