#in my defense I have an entire worldview about Hyrulean Magic

[changeling-rin]

Gerudo here, you've mentioned magic systems and magic branches, I'm curious as to how this all works?

It's entirely my own ideas and headcanons. To my knowledge, none of it is actually in the franchise aside from the Branches of Magic as a general thing

My theory goes: there are six Branches of Magic, these being Light, Shadow, Forest, Water, Fire, and Spirit. All magic in Hyrule falls into one of these six Branches, and can be further broken into subsets or specialties. For example, sealing and blessing both fall under the Light Magic Branch, but a sealing specialist will struggle to bestow a strong blessing simply because they haven't practiced it. They can still bless, because it's Light Magic, but they're not good at it the way they're good at sealing. This also works in the other direction, and there are of course Light Magic generalists.

There cannot, however, be a mage who dabbles in all six Branches. It's just not possible. The Branches have a sort of checks-and-balances system, and there will always be one that trumps another. This system goes thusly: Fire beats Forest, Forest beats Spirit, Spirit beats Light, Light beats Shadow, Shadow beats Water, Water beats Fire. You can also think of it in terms of an immunity, or at least a resistance, in that Shadow has a hard time affecting Light for example. Light resists, or is all but immune, to Shadow. So on and thus forth.

To get even more complicated, there are also varying levels of effectiveness within the system. Forest, for example, is rather good against Water - it will do increased damage and take decreased damage when in a battle setting. It's much less effective against Light; where Light has a significant advantage, Forest does much less damage, and takes a fair amount more.

It is possible to split one's focus between Branches, but it's tricky. Mages choosing to learn two Branches are usually considered to be either incredibly gifted, overachievers, or both. Learning three Branches, while technically possible, is basically unheard of. Anything beyond three is literally impossible, both from a physical and magical standpoint.

As a point of interest, Wind is one of the aforementioned Dual-Branch mages, because weather magic is a very complex sub-combination of the Fire and Water Branches. This is yet another reason why weather mages are so rare, on top of all the music and meteorology and aptitude complications. Of course this does mean that Wind is very firmly locked into his two Branches and will quite literally never be able to do anything else, magic-wise, but wow is he good at his specialization

Somewhat less interesting is that all people have a predisposition for a specific Branch, which is sometimes determined by hereditary genetic inheritance and sometimes determined by complete random whim. An example of the former would be any Princess Zelda, for whom Light Magic runs in the family. An example of the latter would be Mask and Ocarina having a natural gift for Spirit Magic despite being raised Kokiri (who as a whole tend to be more in line with the Forest Branch). One can choose to learn a different Branch than what you would be naturally inclined towards, but most people don't bother once they figure out their affinity. It's a lot more work, for one.

It should be noted that no single Branch is inherently good or evil. Magic just is. A Light Mage can absolutely use their sealing abilities for something like taking hostages, and a Shadow Mage could just as easily use their shadow-travel to provide transportation services to the general public. This unfortunately doesn't stop people from forming prejudices against one such Branch or another, but this is how people have always been and likely always will be. Fire can be used to provide warmth or to burn homes. Water can be used to grow food or to drown a victim. It all depends on how the mage is using it.

...I wonder if I ought to make a chart?