The Ban of White Magic/Black Magic

[elemental10]

Strike from your mind that White Magic is good and Black Magic is bad.

Both are weapons of war, that caused too goddamn much damage that it would be too hard to reverse the effect.

Think of Nukes and Biological warfare. Why do you think they are banned in rules of war? Same applied as White Magic and Black Magic.

[Kaiser-Ace]

Strike from your mind that White Magic is good and Black Magic is bad.

Both are weapons of war, that caused too goddamn much damage that it would be too hard to reverse the effect.

Think of Nukes and Biological warfare. Why do you think they are banned in rules of war? Same applied as White Magic and Black Magic.

For the clarity of the example you gave Black Magic would be the Nuke (Outright Destruction) while White Magic would be the Bio-Weapon (The corrupted use of a natural force).

[myahele]

Despite War of Magi being very bad, it was specifically the abuse of White Magic that ushered forth an Umbral era. Why is this?

As far as I know BLM uses the aether inside themselves and mix it with abit of the void to powerup their spells.

Whereas WHM states lots of times that they draw aether from the environment itself to fuel their magic; not too different from primals drawing aether to sustain themselves.

It was also said the Amdapori wielded magic that can "alter the very fabric of existence itself"

[treuhavik]

I'm seeing a lot of mixed answers. It's my understanding that Oha-Sok brought about the flood because white magick was being abused (used for unintended purposes). And, it's very likely that, said abuse was occuring because of the War of the Magi, which started as a magickal rivalry between Nym, Amdapor and a third unknown nation.

The elementals probably cared very little about the conflicts between the spoken, but when you take white magick, which was gifted by these elementals to balance black magick, and twist it into a weapon of mass destruction, threatening the planet, nay, "existance itself", you're gonna catch some attention.

After all was said and done and the flood over with, these races were forbade by the elementals from living on the surface of the shroud (their home) until The Pact of Gelmorra was made between the tribes and elementals - pact which basically stated "Don't do it again!" (using white magick in batte).

[Kaiser-Ace]

In addition to White Magic, Black Magic seems to be a Heretical evolution of Thaumaturgy by the Order of Nald'Thal. So the Black Mages in Ul'dah are also looked at with fear and/or suspicion. The Nymian Acrima would likely be viewed with similar scepticism and contempt had the art have survived the destruction of Nym being as the only knowledge we have is inherited via The Scholar Crystal.

[myahele]

This show's Elementals easily disintegrating/making the woodwailers vanish. So if they did teach WHM to Amdapori's then would kinda make sense that they might have similar spells (along with holy) as this link shows. Hence "alter the very fabric of existence" that Amdapori were capable of.

https://youtu.be/qA_KJozoIsA?t=2m50s

[Kaiser-Ace]

This show's Elementals easily disintegrating/making the woodwailers vanish. So if they did teach WHM to Amdapori's then would kinda make sense that they might have similar spells (along with holy) as this link shows. Hence "alter the very fabric of existence" that Amdapori were capable of.

https://youtu.be/qA_KJozoIsA?t=2m50s

Wow. Looks like the Elementals literally Un-Made them. <Shudders> I guess I should really stop talking shit about them when I'm in the Twelve's Wood for now on.

[Cherub]

Don't quote me on the following but trying my best now.

When people re-discovered magic they could only use the aether within their bodies. I'm not sure if that would be called thaumaturgy now because the aether within seems quite limited and thaumaturgy simply looks and sounds stronger than that but seeing how obsessed the thaumaturges guild is with aether I wouldn't be surprised after all. Anyway...
BLM was developed by Shatotto as we all know.

How does black magick work exactly?
You might be a bit surprised! Black magic uses the very environment itself to draw and channel tons of aether. No voidsent, no limited aether from only within your body. They just use the environment to draw aether. I know what you might be thinking "Cherub white mages do that, not black mages" Ja well no. That's how BLM works.

How does White magick work?
White mages also use the very environment, the nature around them. Black magic and white magic are quite similar in that matter.

It seems when the elementals gifted the people with white magick, they taught them to draw power from their environment, the nature , gave them an "okay" to do that.
It SEEMS that the elementals, at least, first intended white magic to oppose black magic. Destruction and succor. White magic was probably never meant to be this extremely offensive and even to some point sinister.

When did the abuse of white magick start?
Prior to the war! The abuse didn't start because of the war. People were using white magick for their >own good<. It's possible that white mages did shady things in the war, went dark ways with their holy magic but the abuse started already prior to the war.

So what reasons are there for the elementals to be angry at?
1: The extreme over use of aether. BLM & WHM in masses. On top of it the SCH also use aether in one way or another though I think they don't particularly use their environment for their own spells. (No including the fairy as they are bound to the soulstone anyway)

2: The abuse of white magick. It was never intended to be used in such a way.

The elementals probably cared very little about the conflicts between the spoken, but when you take white magick, which was gifted by these elementals to balance black magick, and twist it into a weapon of mass destruction, threatening the planet, nay, "existance itself", you're gonna catch some attention.

QFT
The elementals couldn't care less on their reasons but the war between them certainly had an impact on the elementals.

3: Someone summoning voidsent into the heart of the woods.

4: The war itself. You're destroying places and the woods is no exception.

5: Most likely much more than we can imagine!

Who to blame for the flood?
ALL 3 nations (and maybe even more). It is not something only the white mages did. Elementals wouldn't be so ignorant to punish the white mages for defending themselves. People did bad stuff, white mages, black mages and scholars.

Why was white magic forbidden?
Well what happens in the 5th astral era stays in the 5th astral era. You might wonder, what happened to all these white magick users. Great amount of them died in the war. Great amount of them also probably died during the floods. Non magick users also got pretty angry at magick users and actually exiled them from their cities, possibly did even worse to them. The arts died out. Quite literally. It seems there is a shady group of white mages thats hidden somewhere (I'm assuming they are responsible for summoning Ferdiad but that's just a guess). Not quite sure how they learned the arts... Sons of the survivors of the calamity I'd assume. But the elementals now only taught a few chosen individuals white magick (Padjal).

[Waffilicious]

When you say white magic changed the very existence itself, don't you think it is the beginning of the zombies in thanalan? i know the story is about an alchemist doing that but making a zombie isn't as easy as it looks from the point of the story of the alchemist storyline even less to sustain a zombie unless you go into //system->dead=alive; True. On reality.

[myahele]

the thing is zombies/animating things like suits of armor, statues, etc seem to be a specialty of the Bela'dians (survivors thanalan mages after the flood), which were eventually passed to Ul'dah and Sil'dih