Guild Wars 2

What I mean is, to use the old D&D comparisons, is magic something you can learn (Wizard) or just you just wake up one day and you’re all “I know magic!” (Sorcerer). I don’t think I’ve ever seen this clarified ingame.

I don’t think it’s ever directly stated, but I believe it’s assumed that the characters have undergone some sort of training. I imagine it’s not to different from real life. You can have a natural aptitude for painting, but you’ll need practice or training to be any good. You can have a natural aptitude for cutting yourself and speaking to the dead, but you’ll need Necromancer training to summon anything more menacing than an undead squirrel.

I think it’s something that you have to have at least -some- aptitude to learn(Since the Bloodstones have limited magic, and you can only know/use one type now).

Since most of the armies have an evident scarcity when it comes to warmages, I would say that either learning is incredibly difficult or you have to be born with it. Given that you can be a streetrat mage, I would say the later is more probable.

Each race seems to have a different answer to this. Humans are given magic by the gods, who since the time of the Bloodstones, have sealed it such that only one type can be used at a time. This would seem to imply that for humans magic some thing you are born with.

Asura believe magic is a manifestation of the eternal alchemy. For them it is something learned, meticulously researched, and carefully harnessed.

The Sylvari seem to believe their magic stems from the Pale Tree and the Dream, again being something innate you are born with, but perhaps also something which can be earned over time.

It’s an interesting question that I don’t think there is one answer to.