White magic (Japanese: 白魔法 Romaji: shiro mahō) is made up of spells that heal, protect and exorcise evil spirits. It contains very few truly offensive spells, and even those are effective only against unnatural beings such as undead. White magic is well known inside the mazoku barrier, and also the repertoire of the few sorcerers who exist outside the barrier usually consists of simple white magic spells, such as Lighting or Sleeping. Non-humans, such as the golden dragon Milgazia, have also been known to use white magic.
In white magic there are spells such as Recovery which are used for healing, and defensive spells such as Flow Break and Mos Varim. In addition, there are a few offensive spells such as Holy Bless, which can dispel low-level undead like animated skeletons.
The source of white magic is obscure. As the naming suggests it was introduced as the opposite of black magic[1], which would imply that it draws power from shinzoku. Furthermore, most experts in white magic (like Sylphiel Nels Lahda and Amelia Wil Tesla Saillune) tend to be priests or priestesses. However, it is actually holy magic that uses the power of Flare Dragon Ceifeed and his subordinates.
To avoid inconsistency, in the afterword of a Slayers Special novel, Hajime Kanzaka declared white magic to be a part of shamanistic magic, running under a different name, saying that these spells are actually categorized into white magic because of their effects and not their nature.[2] In later stories (novels and anime alike), there are also references in-universe that white magic does not come from the gods[3], but its true nature as a shamanistic variety is never mentioned despite the numerous questions it raises, such as how the magic suppression qualities of some white spells interact with shamanistic spells of other varieties.
Oddly enough, though Encyclopedia Slayers initially sorts magic into the 3 common categories (shamanistic, black, white), later in its spells list it directly shows all white magic spells as part of shamanistic magic.
Spells[]
- Chaos String
- Counter-Sleeping
- Darg Baza
- Dicleary
- Disenchanting Words
- Extball
- Fishing Spell
- Flow Break
- Holy Bless
- Breaking A Spell
- Lafas Seed
- Lighting
- Lock
- Megido Flare
- Moth Varim
- Protection Barrier
- Recover
- Recovery
- Resurrection
- Reverse Recovery
- Rune Breaker
- Sleeping
- Unlock
- Valmaceid
- Vas Grood
References[]
- ↑ Slayers Novel 4: The Battle of Saillune, page 36
- ↑ Slayers Special 8, afterword, page 233. (Original Japanese version.) (http://tokitama.net78.net/slayers-etc/some-special.html#8p229 - Please note that the translation uses "spirit magic" to refer to shamanistic magic in general, not to astral shamanistic magic in particular.)
- ↑ Slayers novel volume 17, chapter 3