Here’s a recap of why I’m writing this series. In a video ranking the Winx couples, YouTuber Unicorn of War dismissed my criticism that Nabu was too perfect by saying, “Why can’t we just have good men?” I wanted to answer that question, plus elaborate on what was wrong with this character.
The first post was about Nabu’s unbalanced personality. Today, we’re talking about his unbalanced magic. To be fair, it wasn’t just a problem with his character. It’s a problem with his entire class to this day. Wizards in Winx Club are OP.
But he was one of the worst. That’s the second of six reasons he was a Gary Stu.
3 Reasons Wizards Are OP
1. Wizards can use light or dark magic without changing class or species.
Page 3 of the Winx season three book I Want to Be a Fairy stated: “All fairy magic is part of the power of light.” So no matter what a fairy’s power source is — water, flowers, the Dragon Flame, animals, etc. — she’s technically a light fairy, too. (That’s what the book says.) Witches are the opposite, of course. They tap into the powers of darkness, conjured from negative emotions, as the Winx learned when they audited classes at Cloud Tower in season two.
What happens if a witch switches to light magic? She becomes a fairy. Best example: Mirta. Out of place for being a kind-hearted witch, she transferred to Alfea in Winx season two. By next season, she had her Charmix/Magic Winx form. (The book classified her as a synergy fairy like Tecna.)
Does that mean a witch can’t be good? No, but she can’t use light magic and stay a witch. For example, Professor Griffin is also a good witch, especially since she was part of the Company of Light, but she still uses dark magic. That’s what she teaches to her students, too.
Conversely, if a fairy goes to the dark side, she loses her wings and becomes a witch. Best example: Lazuli and her friends in Winx season six. She said it herself before the Trix accepted her into their new Cloud Tower:
My name is Lazuli. I’m a fairy — I mean, I was a fairy…
“Broken Dreams” (Winx season 6, episode 11)
Also, just like witches can be good, fairies can be evil. We saw that in Winx season four, while the Earth Fairies were on their quest for vengeance against humans. But using dark magic is against a fairy’s nature. After all: “All fairy magic is part of the power of light.”
So what about wizards? They can do whatever the heck they want! We’ve met wizards who use light magic — well, two: Nabu and Saladin — and a boatload of the fantasy staple, dark wizards: Valtor, the Wizards of the Black Circle, Acheron, Brafilius, and Winx comic exclusives like Kamud, Gregory, and Neruman. But regardless of their alignments or powers, they’re all still wizards.
The only reason this matters is because fairies and witches gain (or lose) something when they switch classes (or species?). When a witch becomes a fairy, not only does she get a pair of wondrous wings, but she also unlocks, to quote Faragonda in Winx season four, “infinite magic levels”: Enchantix, Believix, Harmonix, Sirenix, Bloomix, Mythix, Butterflix…
Time out. Let’s be real: most fairies will earn nothing beyond Enchantix. The Winx are just special. But Enchantix grants them fairy dust, which can break any dark spell, and it connects them to the true essence of their power sources. So it’s an excellent trade — and an enormous loss when a fairy becomes a witch.
Yes, witches have transformations and power-ups, too. The Trix have had Gloomix, Disenchantix, and Dark Sirenix. The difference is someone (the villain of the season) had to give them the magic energy. That happened to the Winx, too, after Enchantix, but witches don’t even have natural forms.
Neither do wizards, but they don’t need them. Why? One reason is point #2.
2. Wizards can manipulate other magic beings’ power sources.
In “A Virtual World” (Winx season 4, episode 16), Ogron accessed Tecna’s computer and figured out she hid the White Circle in the Gardenia Park game. Then he uploaded himself and his fellow wizards into it. When the Winx found out, Musa told Tecna, “I thought only you could do that.” So did she. But Duman — he’d been captured by the guys and tied up in the Winx’s loft — chalked it up to adulthood and experience.
“We’re older and wiser than you are, fairies, and we know more tricks! That’s the advantage of age!”
So, anyone with magic can learn to control a computer and even hop into a video game as they grow up? Then why have a Fairy of Technology? You can’t even say she’d be better at it because Ogron proved it wrong!
Also, what “trick” did he use? All he did was snap his fingers and make his hands glow! He might as well have said, “Abracadabra!”
Well, at least Nabu never stole another character’s thunder, right?
Au contraire.
In “The Nature Rage” (Winx season 4, episode 18), Diana crashed the Winx’s concert at the Frutti Music Bar and trapped them in magic vines. Helia convinced Flora to try to free herself, but she couldn’t. “It’s no use. Diana has total control over nature!”
Darn. If the Guardian Fairy of Nature couldn’t save them, no one could.
Oh, wait. They had a wizard. Nabu loosened the roots of the vines, allowing the Winx to break free. (The Specialists just watched.)
Wait a minute. Why would his magic work better than Flora’s? She’s a full-fledged nature fairy!
“Well, she said the vines weakened her,” you say.
Oh, really? How convenient for him. We’ll talk about that later, as well as his fight against Diana, one-on-one, in a forest, later in the episode.
To be fair, we’ve seen other Winx manipulate weather and yes, flowers and plants. Their simulation chamber test in season one required them to use magic to save a dead planet, which meant growing plants. In “Secrets Within Secrets” (Winx season 1, episode 17), Bloom made a vine lower her out her window, and in the next episode, she turned a bouquet of red carnations pink. And in “The Show Must Go On” (Winx season 2, episode 15), Musa nullified Stormy’s magic with a rain dance.
So yes, magic beings can sometimes control other elements, but we usually know how and why. The Winx learned gardening and rain dances — Musa said they came from Palladium — at Alfea. As for Bloom dyeing flowers, she told her mom, “Flora taught me that trick.” That checks out.
Also, weather and plants are parts of nature, and fairies are nature spirits, anyway. Remember that “listen to the voice of nature” stuff in season one?
But wizards have no connection to nature. Also, like with Ogron and Tecna’s computer, we don’t know what “trick” Nabu used. Did he shake the ground? It didn’t look like it. All he did was slam his staff down, and it worked because…reasons.
3. Wizards have no meaningful limitations to their magic.
Law #2 of prolific fantasy author Brandon Sanderson’s Three Laws of Magic is “Limitations > Powers”. What a magic user or hero can’t do, what blocks their powers, and/or the disadvantages matter more than the abilities themselves. The classic (but cliché) example is Superman is weak to Kryptonite. No matter how incredible he is, if he gets near that stuff, he’s helpless.
Another cliché is running out of mana, magic energy, aer, or whatever the writers want to call it. All magic beings in Winx Club, including wizards, have to worry about this, but so do 99 percent of characters in other fantasy series.
How about more creative examples? I love the weaknesses of the heroes’ “quirks” in My Hero Academia (Boku no Hero Academia). Here are a few of them, for those of you don’t watch the anime:
- Ochaco Uraraka, a.k.a. “Uravity”, has anti-gravity powers, but they make her nauseous. If she overuses them, she eventually pukes.
- Denki Kaminari, a.k.a. “Chargebolt”, has…you guessed it: lightning powers. But when he zaps at a high voltage, he fries his brain and becomes an idiot for an hour, leaving him vulnerable to attack.
- Momo Yaoyorozu, a.k.a. “Creati”, can create any non-living object, but she uses her fat cells as material. Not an infinite resource, of course.
- Last but not least, the protagonist Izuku Midoriya, a.k.a. “Deku”, was born quirkless but later receives the near-invincible, super-strength, super-speed quirk “One For All”. If he misuses it, it wreaks havoc on his body, causing immense pain and permanent damage such as broken limbs.
These downsides, some more intense than others, make the quirks more interesting. If the heroes are stuck in a fight that forces them to go “plus ultra” — push themselves beyond their limits — you know it’ll cost them something. That ratches up the tension. It also gives them obstacles to overcome through training or trial by fire.
Back to Winx Club. Fairies and witches’ biggest limitations are their power sources. Yes, we just talked about how they sometimes control each other’s (especially nature), but it’s rare. Nine times out of ten, they can only use their own.
Even when the Winx gain forms that tap into other elements — the ocean (water) for Sirenix, the Dragon Flame for Bloomix, or the stars (light) for Cosmix — the energy blends with their own and creates variations of spells they already have. Flora gets underwater vines or willow branches. Bloom gets another fire or heat spell, but this time it’s lava. Musa gets a new instrument or the harmony of nature. More of the same, but a tad different.
Another limitation: fairies and witches need access to their power sources, or they can’t use their magic at all.
Well, sort of. Rainbow applies this rule inconsistently. It never affects The Trix. (How often is Icy near ice — unless we mean the hailstone she calls a heart?) As for the Winx, the most common victim is Flora. No living plants in Downland? The flowers are digital? She’s out of commission.
But the other Winx have had this problem, too. Not only couldn’t Stella use her magic well in Downland in Winx season two, but she nearly died without enough sunlight. And in “Fury!” (Winx season 3, episode 14), Valtor used a darkness spell and a vacuum spell on Flora and Musa, respectively, to nullify their magic.
But again, wizards don’t have to deal with that stuff. They don’t even need power sources. All they need is a staff or a wand, a book, potion ingredients, a magic gem, or just their hands!
The Wizards’ Styles of Magic
To recap, wizards in Winx Club are OP because:
- They can use light or dark magic without changing class or species, while fairies can only use light magic, and witches can only use dark magic.
- They can manipulate other magic beings’ power sources.
- Aside from the cliché of “out of mana”, they have no meaningful limitations to their magic. They don’t even need power sources like fairies and witches do.
Has Rainbow even tried to balance these advantages out? Yes, they have. They’ve given most of the wizards styles of magic, which are comparable to power sources for fairies and witches:
- Ogron’s Magic Absorption: He turned magic attacks against him into strength and/or shot them back at his opponents.
- Anagan’s Hyper Speed: He even ran up buildings!
- Gantlos’s Shock Wave Magic: He cast it by stomping or clapping. (It was a lot like Musa’s sound waves, though.)
- Duman’s Shapeshifting: He turned into people, animals, and even water. (Not the most original power, since Wizgiz could do this long before season four.)
- Valtor’s Mark: Arguably the most powerful wizard in Winx Club, he was best known for branding people and transferring his magic to them, mutating them, and/or possessing them. Many of his other powers he stole from throughout the Magic Dimension.
- Brafilius’s Animal Magic: He got his powers from Kalshara, though some of his spells had nothing to do with Wild Magic or animals. But since he was inexperienced (and a freaking idiot), he never posed a huge threat.
- Acheron’s Legendarium: Since he created the Legendarium World, you could say the Legendarium was his magic. Everything he did after Selina freed him was standard evil wizard stuff. Plus, he had a piece of the Dragon Flame, so like with Valtor, we knew why he was so powerful.
What about the two good wizards: Nabu and Saladin? Saladin may have been a part of the Company of Light, but we’ve seen little of his magic. What we have seen has been basic: energy beams, whatever this swirl thing is, etc. Transforming Redfountain was cool, though.
Still, this guy is not as strong as he used to be. He got his butt whooped in “The Wizards’ Challenge” (Winx season 3, episode 23) against Faragonda and Griffin (who he thought were Valtor). So even if he was once a powerful wizard, old age has caught up to him. Is that enough to balance out his magic? Yes.
Nabu, however, was the same age as the Winx and Specialists. What was his style of magic? Plot convenience.
Mr. Magical Swiss Army Knife
Whatever Rainbow needed to move the story forward, Nabu could do it. Fix a car? Check. Speed up a car? Check. Turn a car into a truck? Check. Enchant instruments? Check. Loosen magic roots? Check. Heal a malfunctioning shapeshifter? Check.
Close a portal to the abyss? Check.
Where did he learn this stuff? Um…he studied a bunch of powerful (and random) spells on Andros. Who taught him? Why? How? Who cares! Wasn’t he cool?
“What’s wrong with a character being useful?” you ask. Nothing, as long as there’s a limit to their usefulness.
A normal character is useful when it makes sense for them to be. Maybe they’re an expert, or they’re committed to helping a certain character. But a Mary Sue or Gary Stu is useful in any situation, especially hyper-specific ones where they should be clueless. The other characters don’t get to show resourcefulness or overcome their personal limitations. Instead, they rely on the Mary Sue/Gary Stu’s powers.
Plus, their powers are often vague for that reason: to turn them into a magic Swiss Army Knife, handy for anything. It’s one way the writers justify the Mary Sue or Gary Stu’s existence. To quote TV Tropes’ Common Mary Sue Traits page (gender changed):
His skills will generally be inexplicable and poorly defined….If the characters need a new skill, he’ll often already have it. And even if he does need to learn it, he’ll pick it up in no time. This serves to make him indispensable to the [other] canon characters.
“See? Look how helpful he is! Where would his friends be without him?”
Probably fine, since they have skills, too. But it’s hard to balance them with the Mary Sue or Gary Stu’s infinite powers. How do you compensate for a character who can do…anything?
Think about it. If we don’t know their skill set, we can’t say anything they do is outside of it, right? That’s what makes them a lazy plot resolution tool. If the writers can’t think of how the other characters could solve their problems on their own, they’ll just give the wizard a new ability he’ll never use again to bail them out.
That’s another reason characters need limitations: to rein in their powers and give us clear expectations for them. Stella is the Fairy of the Shining Sun (or Sun and Moon, if you prefer), so we know her spells relate to light and celestial bodies. Aisha is the Fairy of Fluids, Waves, Oceans — whatever you want to call it — so she controls water and other liquids, including her Morphix. Stormy is the Witch of Storms: rain, wind, lightning, etc.
If these characters ever do anything outside those limits — Stella siccs the Great Dragon on someone, for example — we need an explanation. If Rainbow doesn’t give us one, it’s bad writing. Period.
I’m not saying Nabu needed to be “The Wizard of Something” — that’s not how wizard magic works in this show, anyway — but having a style of magic like other wizards would have grounded his abilities. That way, we would have known which powers made sense for his character and which came out of left field.
Extraordinarily Ordinary
Rainbow didn’t tailor all of Nabu’s spells to specific situations, but here’s the awkward thing about the rest of his magic: 95 percent of it was stuff any magic being can do:
- He could fly…er, float. So can the Winx. And the Trix.
- He could teleport. So can the Winx. And the Trix.
- He could create portals. The Winx couldn’t do that with basic magic, but Tecna did it with her gadgets. Older fairies like Faragonda and Morgana can do it. The Trix have done it, too.
- He could shoot energy beams. So can the Winx. And the Trix.
- He could create force fields. So can the Winx. And the Trix.
- He could transform things. So can the Winx. And the Trix.
- He could enchant objects. So can the Winx. And the Trix.
Oh, wait! He could use Double Team! That’s unique, right?
Nope. That’s been Darcy’s gimmick since season one. Rainbow even lampshaded it in his first battle against her:
He wasn’t even the first main character to wield a staff! Stella beat him to it with her scepter in the very first episode! Saladin has a staff, too, and it’s gold with a purple gem like Nabu’s. And in Winx season eight, Obscurum briefly used a dumpy-looking one with that color scheme, too. (I don’t count him as a wizard.)
I guess there’s a Winx Club version of Ollivanders somewhere.
At least Nabu knew martial arts…which wasn’t original, either.
So if his magic was generic, why did we think he was such an exceptional wizard? Well, Rainbow used some magic of their own. Here are three ways they made him seem special.
1. Rainbow had other characters gush about him and his abilities.
The best example is Aisha, of course. Because she was dating him, we saw it as her being rapturous about their relationship, but it also helped boost his popularity. After all, she’s a protagonist, so we’re supposed to feel what she feels — most of the time. (More on that in a future post.)
I mentioned this in my second “Why Nabu Was a Mary Sue” post: I think that was the actual point of how she acted in Winx season four. Rainbow wasn’t trying to show an authentic relationship between her and Nabu. They just needed him to look like a god among men, so they turned her into a drooling fangirl:
- “Oh, Nabu! You’re so great!”
- “Nabu, my love!”
- “Nabu, my sweet!”
- “You’ve made me the happiest girl in the Magic Dimension!”
- “Yes, now that you’re here, I am [okay]!”
No one talks like this, even when they’re in love. Why would we think it was natural for Aisha, of all people? It wasn’t. More on that in a future post.
She wasn’t his only fan, of course. Riven became enamored with him after one battle in “The Crystal Labyrinth” (Winx season 3, episode 22). Actually, two battles. The first was when he thought Nabu was hitting on Musa. After they cooled off, the wizard showed him his martial arts moves, and Riven said, “You’re a cool dude! I like your style!”
That’s it? That’s all it took to win over the least trusting, most emotionally distant guy in the group? Musa should have knocked him out, too. Maybe that would have fixed their relationship years ago.
But as I also said in that second post, a Mary Sue/Gary Stu can charm anyone in minutes regardless of their personality or any bad blood. Even if they’re an enemy.
That brings me to the most egregious example. During Nabu’s one-on-one battle with Diana, she paused and said, “Very good! I shouldn’t have underestimated your magic!”
How often in Winx Club does a villain — or at least antagonist — compliment a hero’s powers in the middle of a fight? Can you think of any other scene? I can’t. Normally, they get angry when the hero shows them up. But Nabu was amazing. Who could get angry at him?
By the way, only one other character fought a Major Fairy alone and survived: Bloom. I’ll leave it at that.
2. Rainbow surrounded Nabu with non-magic beings.
Nabu was a Specialist. Except not. The only thing he had in common with them was being male.
Instead, because of his magic, he functioned more like a seventh (or eighth) Winx. Think of Daphne in season six. He played a similar role but without the encyclopedia of Magix in his head.
Both of them even had redundant powers. Hers were worse, though: the four elements. Bloom, Flora, Aisha, and actually Nex, who wielded the Halberd of the Wind, already had those covered.
Anyway, remember Wizgiz’s lesson on yin and yang in “Up to Their Old Trix” (Winx season 2, episode 2)? A light in a bright room blends in, but a light in a dark room stands out. Next to the Winx, Nabu was the only wizard but one of seven (or eight) magic users. But next to the Specialists, he was the only wizard and the only magic user.
They became the darkness to make him shine brighter.
3. Rainbow displaced or nerfed the more skilled characters, so Nabu got to be the hero.
I hinted at this earlier, but wasn’t it convenient Flora’s magic didn’t work in that scene in “The Nature Rage”? The character who, in any other season, would have been the hero didn’t get to be. Instead, it was Nabu.
Again, it’s because his magic was too general. The Winx don’t step on each other’s toes often because their powers don’t overlap. But he couldn’t help it.
And they weren’t the only victims. Timmy got nerfed in “Mitzi’s Present” (Winx season 4, episode 5) when the guys tried to get jobs as mechanics. He stared at the primitive engine of the car “Mr. Oil” gave them and said, “I don’t even know where to start!” Why would that stop him? He’s a genius and a tinkerer! Remember when he helped design low-tech traps for the Trix in the Wildlands, a place with no magic?
Well, so what? Had to make the wizard look cool!
Oh, and where was Tecna? Elsewhere for most of the episode. If she could master our Internet, I’m sure she could have turned that car into a truck — and fixed it.
But nope. Had to make the wizard look cool!
And let’s talk about Flora one more time. Imagine how amazing Nabu’s duel against Diana would have been if she’d fought her instead. Two nature fairies slinging vines, throwing thorns, and battling for the forest’s allegiance. What a memorable scene that would have been for a Winx who doesn’t get enough development! We would have witnessed how far she’s come from the timid wallflower we met in season one.
But nope. Had to make the wizard look cool…before he died six episodes later.
Still baffles to me how no one in the Winx fandom thinks that may have been the point. It’s Step #1 of How to Write an Emotional Character Death: make the audience love the character. If they don’t, they won’t care if he dies! They may even be happy he’s dead! So you don’t waste a scene like that on an underdeveloped or unpopular character.
But that’s a post for another day.
Final Thoughts
Bottom line: Nabu’s magic was unbalanced because he didn’t have clear and specific abilities. Everything he did was random. It may have looked cool, but it threw off the dynamic of the group, especially for his fellow magic users, the Winx.
But that’s how a Mary Sue/Gary Stu rolls. It’s not about the group — it’s all about him. He’s the greatest, so it doesn’t matter who he upstages: the other main characters, the villains, or even his fiancée.
Poor Aisha, indeed. Stay tuned.
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