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This article is currently under construction. The information contained within should not be considered fully accurate and/or complete.
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- "Amanda Orloff’s voice broke the silence. She must have gotten loose somehow and was chanting a spell, rhythmically and rapidly but calmly. The spell was like nothing Quentin had ever heard, an angry, powerful piece of magic, full of vicious fricatives — it was offensive magic, battle magic, designed to literally rip an opponent to pieces."
- ―The Beast
Battle Magic, also known as War Magic[1] and Unauthorized Magic, is the discipline of magic comprised of offensive and defensive spells, the study of magical warfare tactics, and the creation and buffing of magical weapons.
Overview[]
To be added
History[]
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Neeny Bigby taught the course at Brakebills University.
Battle magic was developed as a discipline in times of war to be used solely for combat against other Magicians. It was once a required course at Brakebills University and was notably led by Professor Neeny Bigby, a prolific Pixie-American Magician who previously won the Battle of Gettysburg for the Union during the American American Civil War. Professor Bigby was hired as the department head of Battle Magic in 1893, a move seen as a progressive step forward for Brakebills, which, while long hailed as one of the first magical institutions to embrace ethnic and gender diversity, was seen as rather limited in the species front.
As the scrying specialists at the school detected unrest and stirring dark magic in Europe in the 1940s, Professor Neeny Bigby urged the school to create an advanced track of Practical Applications geared toward training students in Battle Magic. One of the spells Professor Bigby taught was the Rhinemann Ultra, a spell that delivers a powerful blast capable of destroying all matter in a 20-foot radius. James Forsyth and Rupert Chatwin both learned the Rhinemann during their attendance, with the latter notably using it to end the Battle of the Bulge in 1945 and win the Second World War for the Allied Forces. Chatwin, along with the other Battle Magic students of the 1945 class, later participated in the design and implementation of highly-advanced wards around Brakebills.
However, previous concerns of Bigby’s direction were brought to a climax when three students were killed, and one irreversibly transformed into an ostrich, during an unsanctioned duel in the 1979 school year. The course was discontinued and Professor Bigby's eighty-year tenure was terminated after a dispute with the school board against the ruling. Prior to leaving, Bigby hid a copy of Last Hope Options under an anagram in the school's library with instructions for how to contact her when it was their “last hope”.[2]
Kady uses Battle Magic
In 2016, The Beast manipulated Penny Adiyodi into helping Alice Quinn and Quentin Coldwater perform a spell Quinn believed would summon the spirit of her brother, Charlie, but unbeknownst to the group would allow the Beast to bypass the wards surrounding Brakebills, giving him a chance to kill Coldwater before he could discover Fillory. The Beast also previously entered Brakebills in a former reality, but instead killed Amanda Orloff, a Third-year student who managed to break free of the Beast's paralysis spell and tried to fight the Magician off; however, the Beast ate her before she managed to complete her casting.[1] When Coldwater managed to undo the paralysis on the class, Kady Orloff-Diaz shot off the Force Push spell against the Beast to little effect before being knocked down.[3]
In the aftermath of the Beast's attack, Professor Pearl Sunderland investigated the circumstances surrounding the event and discovered the missing book used in the ritual that weakened the school's wards buried in the woods near Van Pelt Fountain. After confronting Coldwater, Quinn, Adiyodi, and Diaz, Professor Sunderland brought the group back to the Dean's office to interview each student. Adiyodi, not wanting to take the fall for the ritual, blamed the entire ordeal on Coldwater, leading to his expulsion.
Quentin Coldwater uses the spell against Penny Adiyodi.
Coldwater, scared of losing magic and Brakebills in his expulsion, confronted Adiyodi outside of the Energy Center and in the heat of the conflict fired off the Force Push at Adiyodi, but the spell rebounded back due to Adiyodi holding a protection amulet, sending Coldwater flying several feet before Professor Sunderland broke the two up and sent them to the Infirmary.[3]