Question Ok, you're not the person I bonded with any more

Can a familiar sever it's bond with a mage if he mage really goes off the rails? Thought of it when reading about Lifeline's plan though she doesn't have a familiar

Cryptic wrote: Can a familiar sever it's bond with a mage if he mage really goes off the rails? Thought of it when reading about Lifeline's plan though she doesn't have a familiar

Unless there's an escape clause in the arrangement, it might take a full quest on the part of whichever one wants to exit without severe repercussions to one or both (like breaking a sorceror's contract).

Another possibility is that corruption of the magician causes commensurate changes to the familiar.

I could see a familiar breaking its bond

the contrats was made when you..the human was 'that'...now you are 'this' a totally different being and null void the contract

I am guessing it depends on what the author wants and what general magical mythology is the basis for the story. And of course it doesn't help that familiar is not exactly a well defined term.

We have only a few stories that feature a familiar in anything but window dressing capacity. The consensus seems to be that familiars have sentience and limited independence but essentially can be ordered around for simple tasks. There has been no hint that the familiar had any agency in the arrangement (though equally there is no evidence that it did not).
If the familiar has no choice then it obviously can't leave either. If on the other hand it is the familiar that chooses the mage then clearly the mage has to live up to certain expectations for the relationship to continue.
A middle ground can be found, of course, but I do not think it makes for as interesting (moral) dilemma's as either extreme. More room for humor too.

E.g. the Valdemar series' by Mercedes Lackey very much has familiars who do the choosing and where the mage has to measure up to some exacting standards to remain worthy of the familiar. Losing a familiar is devastating (e.g. a Companion repudiating his or her Herald in that universe is both an extreme act and likely to dirve the human clinically insane). On the other hand there is also the scene where a mage makes an ardurous journey and goes through a lengthy ritual to draw a familiar, only to find that the familiar that does show up prefers the mage's friend and travel companion (as being in much greater need of a familiar) despite her being not a mage.

An example of the other extreme would be the The Hollows serie by Kim Harrison. There familiars are made without requiring consent and the familiar is enslaved to the mage. The only way for the familar to 'leave' is by dying (the mage would break the bond by binding a new familiar and kills the old one in the process). That is bad enough, but things get a lot more sinister when you learn that this is what demons do to the humans whose soul they 'buy'

Hard to get the same gravitas and/or sense of foreboding when the bond between mage and familiar is somewhere in between and more akin to a Disney high school drama.

Valdemar is where the idea came from.

Hmm, I'm seeing a chicken becoming a cockatrice.

Erianaiel wrote: On the other hand there is also the scene where a mage makes an ardurous journey and goes through a lengthy ritual to draw a familiar, only to find that the familiar that does show up prefers the mage's friend and travel companion (as being in much greater need of a familiar) despite her being not a mage.

A little bit like Ruth Choosing Lord Jaxom?