Quote:
Originally Posted by David Johnston2
The Lord of the Rings is a problematic example. There's some kinds of "magic" are learnable exotic skills, while there's also a kind of spiritual power that is a function of how many generations separate you from the creation of the world or how long long you have been absent from Eru's presence. But it is true for example that Aragorn has healing powers that he gets from the elven ancestry that makes him a rightful monarch of Gondor. My list is much more straightforward in their "magic is apparently genetic" orientation
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Ok, the problem is that the only thing on your list I am familiar with is Harry Potter, and Harry Potter incorporates so much colonial era yuck into its worldbuilding. The novels do not approve of all of it (house elves, squibs from great houses, tormenting of muggles- J.K. Rowling grew up working class after all!), but the setting is built on a basically conservative view which includes some people from some families having special gifts which lift them above ordinary people. Those stories about boarding schools are a 19th and early 20th century thing after all!
Tom Brown's School Days came out in ?1857? and Orwell skewered the genre in one of his literary essays.
I would have to research the rest to say anything intelligent about them.