found this on redd*t, someone asking what's the general consensus between the term.
what do you guys think?
i also think he's right, there's no general consensus about these terms in novel, but as for
my personal opinion for this matter:
Magician
this one should be self explanatory, derived from the word
Magic which means someone that using magic.
Wizard
similar to magician, but these wizard also proficient in alchemy and creating magical device, and also wizard is a male form while the female form of it are called witch.
Sorcerer
a magic user that's using a unique way to perform magical arts, which is magic circle! some people also refer those magic circle as
sigil.
Magus
a magician that proficient in ceremonial magic or magic that should be cast together with another magus.
Sage
a pinnacle form of magician, someone who already considered master among magician.
Warlock
a traditional magic kind which using the power of spirit of ancient ancestor or idol (which being worshiped for thousand of years), which is why unlike wizard or sorcerer, warlock aren't the type of someone who's trying to develop a new kind of magic and always stick to the ancient rules.
Shaman
a magic user that performs borrowing the power of spirits or any other kind of astral being (like fairies or such) to achieve miracle/magical arts.
Etc
there's also others like Druid or Necromancer, but unlike the others i think both of them are already having their general consensus (which is druid is a magician specialist in anything that related to a tree, while necromancer are magician that specialize in corpses.)
those are what i think, what about you guys think about these terms? Feel free to refute or contradict me if you like.
also please mentioned if I missed a similar term.
Wow. Ok, this is just your subjective view of course, but just stating it is not particularly helpful to anyone other than to get them thinking.
Really, they all describe the same thing. However, you did make one objective error there. A witch is the female counterpart of a Warlock, not a Wizard. This is straight out of Wicca. The name of a Wiccan female priest is a Witch, and the name of a Wiccan male priest is a Warlock. So, that one is just objective fact.
Now then, there is an actual objective way to evaluate the roles of each of these titles in a manner useful to story telling. That method, as strange as it may seem, is to observe and collect the subjective views from broad swaths of fictional literature and public opinion. An aggragate of the subjective does, in fact, become objective data in a large enough grouping.
Adding in historical uses aids the process quite a bit as well.
Now then, in the spirit of this effort.
Magician
Your evaluation of this one was actually pretty solid. It simply refers to a practitioner of magic.
In fiction, this term is rarely ever seen. However, in the few cases it is seen, it is usually preceded by the words "royal court" as in "the royal court magician." It is usually the formal generalized term for a user of magic, mage being the vulgar equivalent. (vulgar in it's original context, as in speech that is the common tongue of the people and frowned upon by the nobility.) In other words, "Magician" is the noble word for a generalized practitioner of any form of magic.
In real life, Magician is a title that was once used by stage magic performers and was really popular in the 80s and 90s. So, it has a strong association with fake magic in the real world.
Wizard
Your evaluation was not even close on this one.
In fiction, Wizard is more or less an equivalent term to Magician that was popularly used out of English lore. Merlin would be a fairly well known fictional figure that was referred to as a Wizard, and thus it was carried down through any fictional lore inspired by English fiction such as Lord of the Rings. (Gandalf was another user of magic referred to as a Wizard.) Of course, this would also be why Harry Potter, who's character was written by a British woman, was also called a Wizard.
In real life, the term "wizard" is occasionally used to refer to someone who is extremely skilled at a single-player type game, especially one from the first 2 generations of console gaming.
Sorcerer
How do you keep getting these so far off from the rest of the world?
Sorcerer is the term for a user of magic that originates from the French tradition, and is more associated with the summoning of evil spirits. Marvel's Dr. Strange, who is known as the "Sorcerer Supreme," largely disagrees with the majority of sorcerer lore. He was given the title more for the alliteration, but his methods have nothing to do with the traditional lore on the subject.
Dungeons and Dragons has gained a rather strong influence on the lore surrounding sorcery of late though, however it's still not that far off from it's origins in the French tradition. DnD sorcerers are magic users who have some form of bloodline that gives them special magic abilities, allowing them to more easily access magic than traditional magic users. The point where this aligns with the French tradition is that sorcerers were believed to be of a demonic bloodline. DnD merely expanded the potential bloodline origins to include more than just demons. The DnD view is fairly popular nowadays and the one that is likely the most appropriate to use if you want to make a sorcerer in your world distinctly different from other users of magic.
Due to the association with evil in French lore, most mentions of sorcerers before the 2000s usually preceded the term with "evil" as in "evil sorcerer." So, there is a strong negative connotation with sorcery, but DnD has been largely clearing up that association.
Magus
Nope, nope, nope.
Magus originates from the term Magi, which was the title of a Zoroastrian priest. In the biblical story of Jesus' birth, it was three Magi who journeyed to find him and gave him Frankensense, Gold, and Myr.
In fiction, the term "Magus" is used to refer to a user of magic who is to be highly respected and revered in a manner similar to the priestly origin of the term. The high degree of reverence a Magus is given is such that it feels more traditional and toward the position the Magus holds within the culture rather than having anything to do with the Magus having accomplished something worthy of the high degree of respect and reverence he is given.
In other words, a magus is a user of magic who also fills a pseudo religious leader-like role. The magus' magic would be derived from himself and have nothing to do with any form of god, and a magus is generally not portrayed as worshiping a god. However, everyone who interacts with a magus will act the same way around him as they might act around a priest.
Sage
Ok, this one is at least sorta on track now.
Sage is a title that historically and in litterature actually did not apply to a user of magic at all. Sages were perfectly non-magical people in the real world. However, they were still considered great masters and teachers and wise men. The title of "sage" is essentially an old-world title that means roughly the same thing as "professor" does to the modern English speaker.
The term began to take on a somewhat more mystical term in the old world when it became associated with Eastern Mysticism in the form of the meditative practices of the Bhudist and Hindu faith. This association mostly came from fiction rather than these cultures themselves associating the two. Whenever a work of English-language fiction would present a master of some form of meditative art dating back to the early to mid 1900s, that master would often be called a "sage."
This association between sages and mysticism finally solidified into some form of magic user when the Final Fantasy series came up with Job classes for FFIII, and sage was one of the magic user jobs. Later, in FFIV, old man Tellah was also called a sage. Thus, the association between the term "sage" and "highest level of magic" became set and carried forward in works of fiction since then.
Witch/Warlock
As I covered above, Witches and Warlocks are respectively the titles for a female and male priest of the Wiccan faith.
Wicca was derided as a pagan religion by the Roman Christians who sought to convert them. However, Wicca was one of the faiths that Christianity approached with honey rather than vinegar, adopting a lot of their holy days and simply re-purposing them into Christian lore. (Such as making Christmas 4 days after the Winter Festival when by all rights it ought to have been somewhere in April.)
The manner in which Christianity approached Wicca is the only reason why the terms "Witch" and "Warlock" are still around rather than having been completely erased from history as was the case with most other pagan religions.
Wicca was a practice of the natives of what is England today. As such, in some tellings of the King Arther story, Merlin was a Warlock instead of a Wizard. These portrayals of Merlin as a Warlock also state he had demon blood, thus demonstrating the particularly negative view Christian influenced fiction has for Witches and Warlocks.
Even DnD makes the view of Witches and Warlocks rather negative, although they generally treat Witches and Warlocks as 2 separate entities. However, they are rather similar in how they are treated. In both cases, they make some form of contract with an otherworldly power, reminiscent of the original Christian-influenced corruption of the lore that states Witches and Warlocks make a contract with the devil in order to gain their powers.
Shaman
Shaman is the title that early scholars of generalized religion used to refer to tribal mystics. The medicine men or users of mysticism that held a special place for many tribal peoples. The existence of such a person was in a tribe caused these religious scholars to refer to them as practitioners of shamanism.
Fiction largely sticks to this association between shamans and tribal magic, often depicting a shaman as the mystic of some cannibalistic tribe and wearing necklaces decorated with skulls. This association between tribal magic and cannibalisms is the reason why the 2nd popular portrayal of a shaman in fictional literature has them as some form of evil necromancer, usually very powerful and threatening.
Knowing the true origins of the term, the depictions in the above paragraph that are very popular can also be seen as culturally insensitive. A more honest to real life portrayal of a shaman would have them with a position and treatment within their tribe that is similar to a magus in a more "cultured" group.
Etc
So, yeah, contrary to your assessment, there actually is quite a bit of consensus in the roles of these types of magic users. The broad swaths of fiction mostly conform to the depictions I outlined above, and failing to conform to these will place you outside the norm. I will grant that these titles have had a little more confusion about them and need more research than things like "Druid," but most of fiction does still largely use them in the ways I just outlined.
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