Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-25926288-20170504224453/@comment-25926288-20170506112351

The Apprentice is a special case. Mostly, because:

1. Why/How could Merlin teach Apprentice Dark Magic when Merlin solely wields light magic?

2. Forging the wand with light and dark doesn't mean someone wielded Dark Magic (before the Dark One, given that Merlin had the Apprentice before he met Nimue). Light magic comes in various forms (fairy dust, pixie dust, etc), so dark magic could do so likewise.

3. The wand needs dark magic to traverse realms. Nothing says the Apprentice didn't simply learn light magic and then dark magic later on. Nothing says that the Apprentice had his own personal magic yet as we never see him use magic as a child or with Zoso.

But more importantly, I said "mostly inaccessible". I never said it was inaccessible or impossible, just extremely rarer. If the Apprentice did in fact wield dark magic before Fiona then he was one of the rare cases (seeing how Merlin trained only one Apprentice).

So, the Apprentice is either indistinguishable due to lack of information, or simply a rare case of humans using personal magic (if we ignore the lack of information).