Consequences of Magic

Magic is a wonderful thing. However, writers frequently fail at using it at its true potential. First, they either make it too opaque or too mundane. Second, they don't think enough having consequences and ramifications of that magical abilities or beings existing. In this article we will talk about various examples of authors forgetting the after-effects. Note that when I say 'magic' I will often include supernatural things that is not called magic but may as well just be magic.

Free Nuclear Bombs that No One Uses

In real world, military power is what causes a reign's rise or fall. If there is a way to be more powerful, rulers would certainly pursuit it. The warfare technology was always the quickest one to grow for this exact reason, even the most backward minded monarch was happy to spend resources on something that would make them stronger.
This is why it's silly to imagine a setting where you can just throw meteors while having rulers that has no access to any kind of magical power. Why someone can control time wouldn't also want to gain some plot of land? In the same way, it's incredibly naive that characters to achieve god-slaying powers then just to return their lives to pursue an ordinary life. Even otherwise very good stories just will forget this in the name of a "happily ever after" part
Being able set a large area ablaze in seconds will change the rules of warfare, it doesn't make sense people to stick to the late medieval period military gear for no reason. I am aware that Warrior-Thief-Wizard classification has a large appeal but if you really want to have melee fighting as a main method of warfare in your setting you need to come with ways why it is still effective, instead of ignoring even a tiny bolt of lightning would ruin the life of the most battle-hardened knight.

Nuclear Apocalypses that Everyone Ignores

If your setting has magic that changes things on a very large-scale then it should affect how everything works. I am certainly not the first person to point out the destructiveness of super heroes. Such uncritical usage of power will have big ethical questions behind it and considering this causes unspeakable atrocities everyday in the world, perhaps our fictional characters with supposed good morals should really question what they are doing. For example, maybe you should stop and think before you go back in time and change things, even when you change something that seems trivial it can have a huge effect on people's lives. Playing in one person's fate is a heavy question. Playing in a large group of people's fates is not something most people would accept willy nilly.
It often also raises questions about how even everyday life works. If highly destructive battles are a common place in your setting then people wouldn't build expensive buildings just to watch them destroy in weekly alien invasion. They wouldn't build towns near an evil forest with highly dangerous monsters. Despite what Pokémon tells to you, being able to command space-bending creatures would really change nearly everything.

You Shall Not Heal

How is healing magic handled in a setting is also a very important question. One of the most classic gaming memes is Aeris dying slowly in Cloud's arms while he is probably caring some 30+ Phoenix Downs -revival items-  in Final Fantasy 7. It is one of the most iconic examples of gameplay and story segregation, however, that's the wrong focus in my opinion. You can easily claim that any of the deaths that happened during battles wasn't cannon so story doesn't need to account for them. But the more interesting question it brings is the existence of powerful healing items in the first place. Most games will simply focus on the arbitrary difference between 'fainting' and 'dying' but few will put into effort of thinking about how healthcare actually works.
Now, advanced healthcare existing doesn't mean it has to be accessible, as in real world people are currently dying of easily preventable diseases. But you should put into thought about how it works. Even the prices of your items can tell a lot about the world, you can really take your world building to the next level. Is healing magic is in monopoly of some groups or is it widely available? Perhaps it has other consequences that makes it more complicated than simply popping up a pill.
If healthcare is easily accessible then it will bring other questions. How will you approach disabilities, especially mental health? Human mind is complicated and attempts to 'correct' it in certain ways will raise eyebrows, as this example illustrates. You might be really benign but having a fictional world with narrow standards of "healthy" will make it comes across much more fascist than it intended.

Conversely, necromancy gets a lot of more flak than it really deserves. This can change with the nature of your universe - depending on souls and stuff -  but if all you do is playing with some bones, what's really unfathomably evil about it? Such activities are frowned upon in our world because of the culture surrounding death but if coming to back to life, living a long life, skeletons walking around was actually achievable things then people wouldn't be that negative towards them.

'No' Means Casting A Spell to Make It Yes

In real world; consent is pretty fragile and something marginalized people usually bereft of. Bodily autonomy and privacy is so casually rolled over. When thought uncritically, magic just adds so even more ways to ignore fundamental respect to consent. You know what time is it kids, I will whine about Harry Potter again.

But it is a particularly egregious example because it's ethics are supposed to be close to our real world. Yet there are a lot of spells that just isn't approached critically in the slightest. Controlling people and torturing people are rightfully seen as heinous behavior but on the other hand just reading their mind apparently doesn't raise any eyebrows. Or people are never truly criticised for freely using stuff like invisibility and people just teleporting to your house without informing beforehand? Or teachers turning kids into animals for punishment, people being okay with people behind pictures watching them 24 hours a day? And love potion, oh my god don't make me start on the rape potion. I hate when stories depict is as something quirky, it's a literal drug to override your consent. Changing someone's opinions magically still means you crushed their will, I really don't any rape potions in fiction, at least make sure it is depicted as seriously it should be.

Gotta Memorize Some Magic For the Next Day

Of course, magic is only limited by your imagination, so there will be countless variety situations that you need to examine critically and I can probably write a whole book about examining them all. My two main points are, you can't just create a setting then just add some magic into it and although you can crate any type of situation you want your work will affect the culture in the real world and it might hit too close for your audience. If you don't care about this, it will damage the your world-building, or worse your work will unintentionally endorse harmful ideas.