Magus

General Information

Game Information

For boss information, see Magus (Monster).

Chrono Trigger

Full Name(s): Magus, Janus Zeal
Japanese Name(s): 魔王 (Maou), meaning 'demon king' or 'magic king'), ジャキ (Jaki)
Theme: Battle with Magus
Age: Indeterminate, early to mid thirties
Species: Human
Home Time: 12000 B.C., 600 A.D.
Home Area: Magus's Lair, North Cape, Zeal, Zeal Palace
Weapon Type: Scythe
Weapons: DarkScythe, Hurricane, StarScythe, DoomSickle
Magical Element: Shadow
Single Techs: ☆Black Hole, ☆Dark Bomb, ☆Dark Matter, ☆Dark Mist, ☆Fire 2, ☆Ice 2, ☆Lightning 2, ☆Magic Wall
Triple Techs: Dark Eternal, Omega Flare

Magus, one of, if not the most popular character in the Chrono series, has one of the most interesting backstories. He was born as Janus, a prince of Zeal and son of Queen Zeal, and was known for mood swings, pacing about the cities, an ability to feel the Black Wind, and a hidden magical power that exceeded his relatives'. He loved only his sister, Schala, and his cat, named Alfador. In the Lavos Timeline, Janus was transported to Pre-600 A.D. in the Ocean Palace Incident, where he was found by Ozzie. Ozzie saw the magic potential within the boy and trained him in the way of the Mystics; Janus, whose only intention was to seek revenge against Lavos for destroying Zeal and taking away his sister, survived the darkness to gain power and eventually renamed himself Magus. He achieved great fame among the Mystics, and later supposedly began a war against the Kingdom of Guardia (though this was likely just an effort to appease his subjects). In 590 A.D., he struck down the heroic knight Cyrus and changed his squire, Glenn, into Frog. In the Lavos Timeline, Magus achieved his goal of summoning Lavos at his Lair to destroy him; however, Lavos apparently defeated and consumed the wizard. In the Keystone Timelines, Crono's intervention caused Magus's summoning ritual to be interrupted, resulting in a colossal, anomalaic Gate that transported Magus to his home era of 12000 B.C. and Crono's party to 65000000 B.C..

Magus, realizing that he had the chance to face Lavos once more in the Ocean Palace Incident, used his knowledge of prior life in Zeal to sway the Queen into believing he was a prophet; he then had the Gurus banished (presumably because they would have recognized him or interfered with his plan) and took charge of the Ocean Palace's construction. Though he captured Crono's party in Zeal at this time, he let them go upon Schala's request. At the new Ocean Palace Incident, Magus unmasked himself as Lavos appeared due to the Mammon Machine's being raised to its limit. He attempted to kill Lavos, but was beaten back; he and Crono's party were later saved through Schala's transporting them to Last Village. After the episode with the Blackbird, Magus was found staring at the azure sea upon the North Cape; his badmouthing Crono provoked a challenge from Crono's party (which can be fulfilled in Chrono Trigger, though it isn't canon history), who declined. Magus then revealed that Gaspar might be able to save Crono, and joined the party. By this time, his personality had become a little lighter than the brooding mage found within the Lair; in the original Japanese version, he was even more rude and dark to the party, essentially calling Crono a cockroach after his death in the Ocean Palace.

Magus eventually came to term with his past, and his former tutor Ozzie was flattened in the Ozzie's Fort Sidequest. After the events of Chrono Trigger, Magus departed through a Gate to 12000 B.C. to search for Schala.

Surviving the darkness through incredible persistence and determination did not leave Magus without a little cynicism, and his lines in Chrono Trigger are some of the most quoted and parodied in the RPG community. His most famous lines are revealed in an ending as being uttered shortly before the Ocean Palace Incident, in which he masqueraded as the Prophet.

 [Magus]
   If history is to change, let it change! If
   the world is to be destroyed, so be it!

   If my fate is to be destroyed...
   I must simply laugh!!

   I'm coming, Lavos!

Tech Learning:

☆Lightning 2: Already Learned
☆Ice 2: Already Learned
☆Fire 2: Already Learned
☆Dark Bomb: 400 TP
☆Magic Wall: 400 TP
☆Dark Mist: 400 TP
☆Black Hole: 900 TP
☆Dark Matter: 900 TP

Chrono Cross

Magus was originally planned to be in Chrono Cross as Guile, but this was scrapped after the designers realized his story would be too difficult to integrate; within the game, he is only referenced as Janus in a letter from Lucca to Kid. According to the Principles of Time and Dimensional Travel, Magus, as he had no participation in Chrono Cross, will not have any memory or way of discovering it ever happened unless he was fortunate enough to be in the End of Time or a similar Pocket Dimension during its transpiring. If the former is true, Magus probably knows little about the fate of Schala, or her current whereabouts.

Magus is rumored to appear in the form of a shadow during the reading of Kid's letter. Additionally, his most famous lines are echoed by Kid on Opassa Beach:

Kid:
   If the world's gonna
   be destroyed, then let
   it be destroyed!
   If history is gonna be
   changed, then let it
   bloody well be changed!
   I'll show you what
   Radical Dreamers
   really dream about!

To view the shadow easter egg, check the images in this entry.

Radical Dreamers

Origin: Zeal
Spells: Black Wind, Inferno, Light Cutter, Levitation, Luminescence, Sacred Host, Search Spell, Unlock Spell (see the Magic (Radical Dreamers) entry)

Magus is quite literally Magil in Radical Dreamers, somehow having discovered Schala's reincarnation to Kid and having made his way to the modern era. He disguised himself as Magil, and saved Kid from her first attempt at revenge for Lucca's death; afterwards, he accompanied Kid on her thievery missions. Serge described his face as stunningly handsome, and often wrote of his seriousness and immense power. Magil retained a quiet and collected personality that, coupled with his uncanny ability to move in and out of shadows, made him an enigma. When he spoke, his words were direct, focused, and cultured, though he was known to joke on extremely rare occasions. During Le Trésor Interdit, he wore a blue cape and was responsible for the group's safety from enemies, as he alone had a mastery of magic (a Goblin was even shocked to see a human with such magical prowess). At the final battle, he was held back by Lynx and unable to protect Kid until she used the Chrono Trigger. After time returned to normal, Magil quickly escaped with Kid, who now knew of her status as the former Schala.

While Magus's identity as Magil is never stated outright in the game, the plot, clues, and a direct statement by Chrono series writer Masato Kato confirm this.

Glancing back over my shoulder, I notice a silhouette silently emerge from the
grove.
Magil...
This associate of Kid's is known to us only as `Magil of the Shadows'.
I know next to nothing about him, except for the fact that he somehow knew Kid
before I came into the picture.
A high-class magician of some sort, he looks to be about thirty. He usually
keeps to himself, though.
The top half of his face is covered with a mask at all times. I've never even
seen what he really looks like.
At times, it seems as though I'm hanging around someone from another world --
traveling with this pack is definitely an interesting experience.
Kid's quiet about her past too, but it's like I know her entire life story
compared to how little I know about Magil.
From time to time I find myself wondering who he is, where he came from, and so
on. I'd ask Kid, but I get the impression she knows as little about him as I do.

"Apparently a pious being such as this may roll its eyes from time to time."
The simple fact that Magil tried to make a joke just there makes me stop and
forget where I am for a second.

And with that, I accidentally knock Magil's golden mask off, sending it
falling down through the night sky to the ground!
Gulp... did I just do that?
This is the first time I've ever seen his true face.
Even for a guy like me, I'm taken aback by his looks. His hair sways in the
moonlight, as his piercing blue eyes survey the environment below.
His beauty is different than a woman's... there's some sort of a fierce,
intrepid quality about him.
He is truly... a beautiful person.

Japanese Equivalent

Janus:

Romaji: Jaki
Translation: Evil Energy (homonym)

Magus:

Romaji: Maou
Translation: Demon King (homonym)

Name Origin

Depending on the kanji used, Jaki can either mean imp or evil aura. Both are quite fitting.

Magus is the singular form of Magi, or wiseman/user of magic. It is a Latin word, and was originally derived from Persian (though it came to mean sorceror). Its most simple Anglicized equivalent would be Mage.

The word Magus also comes from Simon Magus, the same Simon in the Acts of the Apostles who offered Peter and John money for the power of the Holy Ghost. Read the account for yourselves. Later Christian historians are unanimous in condemning him as a heretic. One story says that he tried to ascend to heaven as Jesus did, only that the prayers of Peter and Paul brought him crashing down again. Regardless, the word Magus has been passed down to mean a sorceror of great power and evil. Only the account contained in the Acts, however, is considered reliable by Biblical scholars.

Maou (Magus's Japanese name) Means 'Demon King'. In Buddhism, the Demon King is either a deva, asura, or an allegory for a great obstacle which hinders enlightenment in Buddhism. It can also be used to refer to Satan, the Judeo-Christian devil, or Mara, the Buddhist devil. Looking at Magus's role in the game, all definitions for Maou seem to fit.

The original "Magus" is not Chaldean. The Chaldeans were a group living around the area of Ur (if anyone knows were this is, that is; it is in mid-Iraq nowadays, some ways south of Baghdad.) The term 'Magi', however, has something of a different origin. It comes to us directly from Latin, wherein the word Magus is used to denote a wise man or even sorcerer. In this context, the true pronounciation is Mah-gus. I would also wager, with reliable surity, that Magi would then in Latin be Mahg-ee, even as angelus is ahn-gel-uhs, with a harsh g. However, in Ecclesiastical, that is, Church Latin, the pronounciation of this g becomes a j, thus yielding our modern 'ain-jel'. A similar thing, I believe, occured to Magi, and it became 'Mah-jai'. It is not certain why Magus did not suffer the same fate, yet it appears to remain in common speech similar to the old Latin, save for the a, which is now an 'ay', rather than a short 'ah'.

Now let us take another step backward.

Just like the example of 'angel', magus comes from the Greek/Hellenic vocabulary (where angel is aggelos, the gg being pronounced ng.) Magus here is written as Magos, with the o being pronounced as the u in but - there are different versions, however, depending on the part of speech it is, such as Magous, and Magou, but they are mostly incidental. Of interest, however, is that Magos is not directly a word for sorcerer or magic. Tekhnay, or skill, is the more indigenous word. Magos does, however, figure into at least one other word meaning magician, and that is Magikos.

Anyway, here things become a little shaky.

Magos is not a native Hellenic word. It is rather Persian. Now, the confusion between Persian and Chaldean is understandable, as the Chaldeans lived in an area that was at a time occupied by the Medo Persian Empire. But natively, the Persians live south west of the area, and are about as far east a people as one can get without being on the doorstep of India. Now, the Persians and Medes came to power in succession to the Neo Babylonians, in the mid 500s BC. The historian Herodotus (the first historian, actually) speaks of a certain Median tribe or caste (here seems to be a hazy area for me, as different sources speak of it differently), a member of whom he termed a Magos (or, in English, Magian.) This word, according to one site (and a wiki-pedia one, so I approach it with caution) comes from Magupati, a Persian word, and certain roots denoting strength. One says that magus actually, in origin, means 'mighty one'. Also said is:

The Persian word is a u-stem adjective from an Indo-Iranian root *magh "powerful, rich" also continued in Sanskrit magha "gift, wealth", magha-vant "generous" (a name of Indra). And, far, far more reliable than these wiki sites, the Oxford Dictionary speaks of it as coming from magu-s, which I take to mean that the s is an addition to a root-word. By this, I think that the original Persian pronounciation did indeed use the harsher g sound rather than the j.

But whatever it may mean, they came to be known as priests and astrologers, hence the Hellenes usage of it to denote magicans, whence the Latins and later we inherit it. And it can then be, with near final conclusivity, that the proper, if not common, pronounciation of Magus is Mah-gus.

Analysis and Theory

An article exists solely devoted to Magus's mysteries, titled The Many Mysteries of Magus.

Media

Images

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Guile / Magus / Janus, Radius, Zappa

The team drew Magus in three different stages of his life, eventually opting for the eldest one before removing Magus's backstory entirely and creating Guile.

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