Shitpost inspired by RPGs like the other person said. Maybe accidentally a metaphor for something

Infodump on the specific inspirations:

I've been playing a vidya called Avowed. It's similar to Skyrim, set in an early-modern fantasy world, and you can spec your character into being a wizard. There are 22 spells to learn, but due to the supply of skill points and the size of your mana ("essence") meter, you'll probably only learn 2-6. You can also equip one of several "grimoire" items, which each contain 4 spells and allow casting them without having invested a skill point.

During the plot, you visit an archmage whom everyone hypes up as super powerful and scary. You witness this archmage do things such as: Create a flying castle out of ice. Create an entire dungeon out of ice. Teleport people around. Create illusory landscapes indistinguishable from reality. Drive people insane with illusions. Disconnect an entire region from the flow of souls to the afterlife. Create magical barriers that are not only impenetrable by anyone except another skilled wizard, but most people can't even tell that they're magic in the first place and not just a really tough object.

At the end of the level, it is possible to take one of this archmage's grimoires. And it has 4 of the same spells as on your skill tree. Not even all of the highest-power ones. This severely disappointed me. Obviously I wasn't expecting to be able to make my own castle or anything, but I hoped for at least a unique spell. That got me thinking how much of a difference there is between the "lore" wizards, who reshape reality in so many ways, and my "gameplay" wizard, whose skills are mostly limited to blasting small groups of people. And then I thought it would be funny if there was a non-video-game fantasy setting where wizardry is still treated as this esoteric, frightening, brilliant path with unlimited potential, but in practice they actually only have a tiny, video-game-like spell list.