A 'definitive' list of battle magic spells from The Magicians

[sincerelyeugene]

Hey, cool video. Just wanted to throw in a small tip. According to the magician lore, the more advanced and more learned a Magician becomes, the less tutting Is necessary, master magicians and Gods can cast spells with just a single stroke of the pen that encompasses entire universes. So, at these power levels you won't see much tutting. But even for the lower levels as they advanced over the years as students of brakebills, less signs, etc need to be used for casting, seeing as they had better control of their internal circumstances.

[kmallory]

Actually, the Dean's hand gestures were always designed to be less complicated because he was supposed to be powerful enough he didn't need all the flourish.

[Hades]

From what I've learned from Margo gun is a very strong spell.

[Thrillr]

This show so underrated. Thanks for this list mate needed it

[quincybriley]

This is one of the few shows/movies where I feel the show exceeded the books in entertainment. Great books mind you, just even better show.

[Knight.]

Fantastic video, well researched, and super accurate to the show. 10/10 Eliot is the best

[paulpoumet]

Regarding the fire ball spells, it's not because the effects are the same that it is the same spell through the serie. That's actually one of the key point of magic within the books : through the years, all around the world, magicians created and still create tons of differents spells for the exact same goal or effects. For instance, in only one country there are already at least 75 spells invented, from yesterday to thousands of years ago, in order to create simple fire. Hence one of the purpose of magicians school such as Brakebills, magical cooperation, for inovation, education and experimentation, since, if magicians alone throughout the world can invente the exact same spells, it would be even way better if there are schools in order to enhance and improve this phenomenon through professional centralisation.

Season 2 Alice's magic missile is just a regular one, she simply casts it again and again and again, it's not a different version.

[FattyMcFox]

The magic in the Magicians is not fully Vancian, and thus the spells that seem to only have one effect when they are being taught or learned can have multiple, more versatile expressions when used later with more experience. Some of the background features also explain that some magicians can concentrate power more efficiently, and thus their Tuts are simpler and more streamlined. Alice's tuts are different from Margos, and even Margo's and Alice's tuts are less involved in later seasons when they are stronger.
It is like tying a knot. Someone may be able to tie the same knot with more time and movement than an experienced sailor, but the sailor can do it efficiently, quickly and use it for more things than someone just tying it for the first time from a book.

[spiritofzen]

I think the hand gestures in this series is what makes it unique as I and many other different spiritual paths use similar hand gestures to create energy for spell work

[masonguthrie]

Honestly battle magic is probably the one area that I would change in the magicians. The spells themselves are fine but honestly I wish the effects were much stronger/bigger.

[supernaturalawesome]

Great video 😊
Not enough people talk about this amazing show. I'd love to see more. The lore, the magic, the timeliness and God's 😲🙏
So many things to talk about.

[integralmath]

lol. 'it's got everything'. That reference and your delivery earned a sub.

[AndromedaCripps]

I never read the books but I never knew the hand signs were called “tuts”!!!

Edit: Also very helpful! I run a Dungeons and Dragons game with my own rulesets to modify it for the world of The Magicians, and this is a great resource for getting gifs of the hand signs- er, tuts- of spells to show my players when those spells are cast in-game!!

You pointed out two big things I missed, one of which being the qualities of the Sumerian Shield Charm in comparison to the more temporary Barrier spell. I knew of both spells and their differences, and I already had assigned an existing DnD spell to the Barrier one (Shield), but I didn’t realize until your analysis of the Sumerian Shield Charm that there is actually ANOTHER existing spell in DnD that perfectly matches that as well (Shield of Faith)!! Oh and secondly, all this time I never payed close enough attention to the SFX and Tuts, and thought that the Force Push and the Magic Missile were the same spell. Which now it’s so obvious they’re not. Luckily, there is yet again another DnD spell for Force Push that works perfectly! So I will have to go and fix the stat blocks for the characters that should have that spell (like Kady especially; she uses it CONSTANTLY). So thanks for that!

Edit 2: ok this is completely non-relevant to any of the above, but I came back expressly for taking screen captures to make gifs of sone of these spells, and I got thinking about Eliot’s Telikinetic neck snapping spell. Why? Where did he learn this? Why so few tuts? Why are his fingers red??? And I got thinking.

Here on out is wild speculation and fan-theory, FYI:
I have a headcanon, completely unsupported, which may apply here. When I wrote up my version of the Bottle Emotions spell for my DnD system, I thought about what it does and the effects of it. You place this little red essence of your emotions into a bottle, and temporarily, you are capable of feats of great emotionless logic, and therefore, great unchecked power and ruthlessness. Kind of like people like The Beast and Julia who cut out their shades 👀👀👀 The shade is supposed to be the part of you which contains your empathy, your soul, your humanity, your morality… your emotions? So what if Bottle Emotions is actually *temporarily holding back your shade* by bottling it up? Now, here’s the part that annoys me: I had another reason for this, which I CANT REMEMBER, but I’m 85% sure that later in the series, much much later, we see something else related to shades where the spell or the shade or something has that *same red energy color* as what’s in the bottles for Bottle Emotions. I can’t remember exactly what but maybe someone reading this can. It might be in my notes for the series but I don’t feel like reading through all my pages of notes right now 😂 (ANOTHER EDIT: I’m still convinced we see something later in the series, but I remembered that right in season 2 when Martin temporarily pulls out Julia’s shade to show her how simple it is, ITS A BALL PF THAT SAME BRIGHT RED GLOWING ENERGY!!!! Iirc, that’s what first gave me this headcannon. The red energy is the Shade, and it’s also in the bottles.)

Anyway, if my theory of red energy=shades=emotions is right, then it makes perfect sense. Eliot is hardly casting a spell. He is a Physical kid with a specific penchant for Telikinesis (his Discipline?), and he’s overpowered by the emotions of the moment. So he does sone Telikinesis. Telikinesis so fueled by emotion that *you can see it*, the red energy of his enflamed shade, his intense emotions transforming
this simplistic magic gesture from sone basic Physical tuts into a full-blown battle spell, in the moment. That’s just my theory, of course, but it makes a lot of sense to me, and if you believe the whole red energy/shade theory, then it has evidence in the series to support it! It seems to answer a lot of those questions satisfyingly. Why does he never do it again? Where did he learn it? Why is it red? He can’t; not exactly, he didn’t; not exactly, and the emotions, his shade, are powering it. Makes sense to me!

[bluesoulwriter]

The Rhineman Ultra requires a human to be a Master Magician or enhanced by a God or something similar to work. :D

[Zaber]

you should of included "magic missile" cause -- quote Q. "That's straight up Dungeons and Dragons" *Geeky smile*

[KayeThanx]

Poster forgets to mention the emotional control required to cast battle magic. The main cast had to cast a spell that turned them into sociopaths in order to simply practice battle magic. Let alone cast in a real life moment.

[karapluemer]

I read that Summer, the woman who plans Margot, wasn’t very good at learning the choreography for the Magic and kinda just did her own thing, so her movements are usually more simple then the others.

[purplecat]

Great video I would so love more magicians Contant it’s hard to find things that actually explain and talk about what’s going on deeper in the show

[rei]

0:37 even when I watched it for the first time, I noticed that quite literally every character was attractive 💀 I genuinely cannot think of a single unattractive character/actor in the entire series.

[bcbabbles]

I'd call the "Slasher" the "Wind Scythe".