Shows that are an insult to use of magic within them
 

These are two shows I think are and insult to the use of magic. I think this because they don't do magic the right way neither are the spells anything worth mentioning:

Charmed
Buffy The Vampire Slayer

Charmed is one because non of the magic they do is anything near what anyone knows about. The only thing they come close to is modern day witchcraft(or Wiccan). But not even those spells,charms, or enchantments come close to what Wicaan is all about.

Buffy is another one, this just got a mention because at least the spells were in latin and not some crazy rhyming(however you spell it) phrases. The spells on that show made more sense but lacked something dear. What is it you say? It was a good after effect, like if someones soul got sucked out, it would be cool to see their body light up like a christmas tree and then come crashing to the ground like a great THUD. Instead they had minor effects and stupid reactions.

What is your input on this and is there anyone else who wants to mention a show that insults magic?

It wouldn't surprise me if Penn & Teller: Bullshit fit the bill on that, but in another way...

Anyway, moving to General, that should make up for serious enough discussion. ^^

Hmm, insult to magic you say? Then I think the fairly oddparents is an insult to the very real fairies in the world and i am insulted that anyone would defy the sacred wings.

praise be to yevon.

How is it an insult to magic when no one can prove if real magic exists? Therefore, magic is what a person percieves it to be. Therefore magic can be portrayed in many different forms, depending on the reason for the 'magic' and the form it is in - for example, A TV SHOW.

Did you even see the episode where Willow slowly drives a bullet into a guy, then gets bored and stips away his skin? Plus, the show has an excuse, namely, everyone who could use magic was a beginner at it.
But, if I'm reading your post right, you want videogame magic? TV Shows usually can't do great big explosive graphic extravaganzas because of budget and technology constraints. Besides, less is more sometimes right?

I don't want video game magic nor do I want big poofy special effects. I just want the magic to actually make sense. I think they have the budget to show someone being burned to death by a gigantic fireball or someone drowning in a big flow of water from magic or someone being blown away by an incredible gust of wind or an earth shaking fissure which swallows up anyone standing over it. Instead on Charmed, you have these puny excuses for magic, they don't even do the class system right. A necromancer is supposed to be able to bring back those from the dead to fight for them, not use a contract to keep and control souls. The only thing they made right was demon world and magic traps. Buffy had poor demon names, Vengence demons, the gentelmen(although they were pretty cool), the Judge, and the Mayor and had cheap ways of killing them.

How does using busted-up dog Latin necessarily make the hokey magic in Buffy more legitimate than the hokey magic in Charmed, though? From what little tiny bits I know about the folk magic traditions of the Appalachian mountains, more than a few of their "spells" are in simple little rhymes -- probably made it easier for folks who couldn't read or write to remember them. Neither of these forms is any more or less silly than goofy-ass Zatanna saying things like "Tah ym fo tuo tibbar a llup em hctaw, ykcor yeh!" backwards to do magic. Latin sounds better, sure, and it has a little more tradition behind it (Kramer and Sprenger REPRAZENT), but it's still just people shouting gibberish to let the special effects team know when to set off the sparkly smoke bombs.

I'd rather see balls-out stupid magic like Zatanna's than the self-important pseudo-mystical Loreena-McKennit-going-AAAAuuuuAAAAAuuuAAA-on-the-soundtrack crap you see on shows like Buffy, Charmed, and Smallville -- at least that stuff knows, admits, and enjoys its own corniness.

Mekaleka-hi meka hiney ho, mekaleka-hi meka Jambi ho.

Edit: You do know that D&D magic isn't actually real, right? Anyone can make up their own interpretation of what a necromancer is supposed to be because they're not real, nobody is going to be getting angry calls from the National Necromancy Anti-Defamation League if they get the formula for zombie juice wrong or have the spells chanted in Sanskrit instead of Hebrew.

ok useing charmed as an example you have demons that can summon up energy orbs or fireballs and oh wait those arnt hoky spells. and as RMB stated that the entraping spells or "magic traps". then of course there were the sister indavidual magics. Sure Phobe(sP??)seeing into the future was not that great a gift but she also had levitation.
Page was half white lighter and well the whiite lightser had some good abilitys plus she could summon stuff just by saying the name of the object that came in pretty handy.
I cant remeber the last sister name at the moment but the ability to freez time/blow things up was not a cheep power.
Oh and so whay the rhymed to do their really powerful spells beats having to do latin or some other language. and at least thier base powers did not need a verbal componant(except for page who actually had to name the object to get it) just a wave of the hand and frozen in tim or blowen up. and as we know not all spells need verbal componants eather.

So so far i have found nothing wrong with the magic in Charmed.

Now buffy as mention willow peeled the skin off that one guy when she was the "evil" willow. and yes only at the end did willow ever get that good cause most of the peole that used magic were begginers or just did not use it often enough. also the point of the show was not the use of magic it was killing demons and vampires. and sometimes they had to use a little magic to help them. but again it was not supposed to be a big part of the show.

As For D&D magic well ok im sure there is a base component that people take out of D&D then they go ahead and make up their own brand of magic cause well if all the magic was done the same on every single show then it would get boring and no one would like fanatasy any more.

Non of the class things on Charmed make any sense whatsoever. White lighter? Charmed one?

Okay, now Buffy, (and yes I know DnD magic is not real, I'm not stupid, but it makes a lot more sense) it doesn't make sense that she was a "vampire" slayer and she killed demons as well. How she was brought back to life so many times is beyond me. The one evil still made no sense to me. I know it was the very first evil to walk the earth, but why it was still around after all that time is still beyond me. Also, the whole "Key" thing made no sense to me as well. I only got very little of the storyline while it was on. I think the vampires or villains should've just blown her head off and been done with it. The series finale left a BIG opening as well.

One more mention is Angel, only because it left a gigantic hole at the series finale as well, magic still made no sense either.

The point is, there IS no basis for magic as a whole. Each variation, for whatever purpose, is completely different. You could class the skills that the X-men have as a type of magic. You could say that people who have prophetic dreams deal with magics. There isn't one set of magic, it's a whole lot.

I read through an actual website once which told of how to summon a demon of great power. No bullshit. (At least that's the disclaimer.) Although you had to pick an exact plant on an exact mountain at an exact time in the exact light for anything to even remotely start going your way. It sounded thought out enough, but for it to have been realistic, who could have known. I sure as hell am not going up no mountain to pick a leaf off of a bush.

How exactly should they make magic better in TV shows, then? As far as I can tell, it's all just about whatever spell makes the storyline progress and whatever looks coolest. And as far as I know, that's all it takes to gain fans of said shows.