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10/20/2015 12:53:57 AM
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A witch is anyone who practices witchcraft (ie herbology and other holistic practices).
In game they are wizards because they practice wizardry (ie alchemy, manipulation of magical energy or exploitation of science)
A warlock is any witch or wizard cast out from the circle and forced to work alone or in a secret cult.
Gender means absolutely nothing in determining the title- major misconception. Of course I'm referring to historical, real life versions of the terms. Not science fiction such Harry Potter. Stories like that can make up their own rules.
English
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Edited by OurWildebeest: 10/20/2015 1:13:31 AMWell, again ... Is there an example of a female wizard in traditional myth or fiction? I have never heard a rule that wizard means male and I do not believe it would be incorrect to refer to a female as a wizard, but as far as I know, there are zero female wizard citations in any English-language fiction or myth more than 50 years old. I specify English language to filter out recent translations that use the word wizard. I specify more than 50 years old to filter out comic books and the flood of post-Tolkien fantasy novels. Regardless of the fine points of word origins ... Show 100 non-Destiny players the NPCs in question and ask them to guess whether they are called witches or wizards and I suspect at least 80 would say witch.
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As far as Destiny goes, you may be right about asking random people but that's explained as a common misconception so it's a moot point. In game they are called wizard when you target them with your crosshair so every Destiny player has zero excuses to actually call them witches.
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I don't think women were considered to have magic potential in any ancient stories so there wouldn't actually be an example. But wizard and mage are basically synonyms: wizard being proto germanic in origin and mage being Persian in origin so any female mage is a female wizard. There are examples of male witches, about 25 percent of the witches executed during historic witch hunts were men.
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I haven't heard of female mages in traditional fiction or myth, either, though I also don't think it would be incorrect. There have been many magical female characters in traditional literature and myth, but they have not been called wizards (or mages). They have been mostly enchantresses, sorceresses and, yes, witches.
