What is a fantasy worldwithout its magic system? Even outside of anime, a fantasy world needs a solid, rounded system to immerse fans in the story. Otherwise, viewers end up with a flat magic system that takes away from the story or cheapens the action of the series.Overlordhas a magic system that’s yet to be fully explored.
While the anime series is relatively light ondelving into the magic structure, the original light novel provides a more expansive view. The anime has far to go and fans will likely see it in greater detail as the series progresses, but so far they’ve been able to see two primary forms of magic: tier magic and wild magic. Tier magic is used by most magic users in the show, but what is wild magic?
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What is Wild Magic?
Wild magic is aless commonly used form of magicin the series and for good reason. Initially, the series mentions it offhandedly, so it was easy to go in one ear and out the other. However, at the anime’s current point, wild magic has begun to play a bigger part in the series, but let’s start at the top. So, what is wild magic?
Wild magic was the primordial form of magic used in the new world. It didn’t exist in the world of Yggdrasil, and it barely exists in the new world at current times. For the most part, magic can only be used by true dragon lords. The “true” title matters because dragon lords born after the age of the dragon lords can’t use wild magic, so they’re only known as false dragon lords.The show didn’t make it obvious, but viewers have been introduced to a false dragon lord before.
Olasird’arc Haylilyal, the frost dragon (white dragon lord), that Ainz defeated inOverlord’s fourth season was a false dragon. It’s not very surprisinghe was too weakto use wild magic considering Ainz defeated him in seconds with a telepathic heart crush.
To become a user of wild magic, you either need to possess the blood of a dragon lord or possess an innate talent for wild magic. Additionally, the weaker the descendants are, the more difficult it is for them to use wild magic. There are also items, like Climb’s ring, that were created using wild magic and are crazy difficult to be created again in the same way due to the lack of wild magic users.
Tier Magic vs. Wild Magic
As similar as they may sound on the surface, thesemagic forms have some huge differences. The key difference between the two of them is their source of power. Tier magic uses MP, also known as mana, which viewers have seen countless times before in fiction, so it’s fairly easy to understand. Wild magic uses souls, so basically it uses life force or hp. Since wild magic literally drains a user of their life force to perform spells, most magic users wouldn’t be able to hack it even if they had dragon lord blood. Tier magic is also categorized more clearly since it’s broken down into tiers and each of the tiers is tied to character level. Hence, a character under level 30 has no hopes of casting a tier 8 spell any time soon.
Towards the end ofOverlord’s fourth season, viewers got a little hint at seeing wild magic in action whenPandora’s Actor fought Tsaindorcus, the platinum dragon lord, and Pandora’s Actor was able to see Tsaindorcus’ health drop before making moves.
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Even with his health dipping every time he powered up, Tsaindorcus still had a huge bank of health to pull from, and it looked like Ainz Ooal Gown finally met his match for the first time. At least until, moments later, a scene revealed that Pandora’s Actor had been fighting the platinum dragon lord while disguised as Ainz.
Still, if the question were a matter of power, wild magic would take that win. Wild magic has been used to accomplish feats and effects that only world-class items have been able to produce. The power that comes from souls or life force outclasses the power from mana.
Tier Magic is the New Black
As powerful as wild magic is, it fell out of fashion before the series began and tier magic spread throughout the world pretty easily. Understandably, there are a few reasons that tier magic overtook wild magic asthe dominant form of magic. It started with the Eight Greed Kings, a group of powerful beings who mysteriously appeared around 500 years ago and defeated most of the true dragon lords. Even before the dragon lords were defeated, wild magic was still used mostly by just them.
The Eight Greed Kings spread tier magic around the world, and it became the next hot thing because of how easy it was to use and learn. As more tier magic users popped up, the interference from tier magic made it even harder to wield wild magic.
It clearly worked out better for the series to introduce tier magic as the currently dominant form of magic instead of wild magic. Understanding a show’s power mechanics and world setup is hard enough without adding in a less structured system like wild magic. Still, it’ll be interesting tosee how the rest ofOverlordportrays wild magic and whether viewers will be able to see it wielded by magic users who aren’t dragon lords.
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