CONCEPT: AFFINITY. almost all mages have exactly one magical affinity. in a lot of cases, it is easy to guess. someone who uses water magic has a water affinity, someone who uses fire magic has probably, you guessed it, an affinity for fire. however, even those who wield magic that does not have an obvious elemental link still have an elemental affinity.
using magic that pertains to the own affinity is easier. using magic that is perhaps not connected to one's affinity is more difficult, but still possible. in fact, people can master magic outside of their affinity. what is genuinely difficult is to truly master a magic linked to the opposite of one's affinity. for example: a fire mage will have a very hard time with water spells and frankly, most would not even be drawn towards it.
while affinities are an established part of magical science, they are often ridiculed. this is mostly the fault of all sorts of pseudo-science that has used the very real affinities for, among other things, personality tests of the kind 'answer ten questions and you'll know which affinity your soul mate has!'and similar things. there are all sorts of superstition about one's affinity having an effect on personality, but that has never been really proven, especially since such talk is shunned by most serious scientists.
the amount of people who have no affinity whatsoever is incredibly small. precise numbers are difficult to obtain as there is hardly a complete registry of all mages on earthland including their affinities, but scientists who have dedicated their life to this science currently presume that less than one in thousand mages has truly no affinity. some believe themselves to be without affinity, simply because their affinity is either quite weak or because it is something they do not expect; the child of a family of light and dark affinities would probably not truly consider the possibility of their own affinity being something like earth.
those who truly have no affinity are in an odd spot. on one hand, there will never be a magic that will be impossible to truly master due to a mismatched affinity, but at the same time, they will never benefit from the inherent benefit one gains. the few recorded mages who are proven to be truly without affinity often ended in a 'jack of all trades, master of none' situation. many of them still developed a preference for kind of magic over others and achieved great skill with their preferred branch whereas others fully embraced the lack of limitations.
as hinted above: while in many cases, affinities do run in a family, it is not always the case that parents pass their own affinity down to their child. a water-leaning couple can have a child with a fire affinity, for example.
this can lead to problems if a specific subset of magic has been passed down in a family from generation to generation, but there is nothing to be done. one either has an affinity or they do not, as there is no way for affinity to be artificially acquired in any shape or form.
it is very important to note that not all light-affine magic is inherently good and that not all dark-affine magic is automatically bad. in fact, no affinity carries any moral connotation as in the end, the mage decides whether they want to use their magic for good or bad. there have been many great, heroic mages who have used dark-affine magic, just like there have many villainous figures in history who had a light affinity. an example that illustrates this clearly: due to the way souls used in takeover are acquired, this magic is dark-affine, meaning that the strauss siblings are all dark-affine mages. at the same time, the spell fairy law that can be used to cause immense harm to both foes and the caster, too.
depending on the source, books about magical affinity will speak of six or more affinities. the ones that have never been fought about are: air, dark, earth, fire, light and water. however, as affinity has become more and more understood by scientists, more have been added to the list, such as lightning, ice ( as it has proven to differ sufficiently from water ) and nature, the latter being extraordinarily common in plant mages and other mages who have a magic that interacts with the living world.
in history, there have been very few truly confirmed instances of mages who possessed two affinities and nearly all cases, this has led to despair rather than glory. for this reason, there have been whispers about mages with two affinities being cursed now and then but again, this is superstition.
in the end, a mage's affinity says nothing about their skill. in fact, in the greater scheme of things, affinity matters very little, but most who are serious about walking the path of a mage still have an interest in finding out what their affinity is as it is a strong indicator towards branches of magic they will take immediately as they will have a natural predisposition. at times, finding out one's affinity can come as a surprise, though --- and this is likely where the belief that one's affinity does say something about one's personality stems from --- there are always cases where the affinity is unsurprising.
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