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Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

Tiggum posted:

I just watched the first episode and I have no idea what's going on in this show. The timeframe seems very confused. Like, Sam Winchester shows up for his first day at wizard school and you'd think he should be in a class of people who are also new (like whichever of those other people who took the exam got in), but it seems like everyone else has been there for ages? Also, half the time he obviously has no idea what's going on, but then other times people will be like "magic is always dangerous, you should know that" like as though he's been at it for years. Or the scene where he's talking to mopey girl and acting like he knows what's going on and won't help her get into the school because he knows she's not qualified or whatever, when he should actually be saying "How the hell could I get them to change their minds about you? I don't know what the gently caress is going on."

And characters just do stuff for no discernible reason, like when the symbol appears on his hand, so he goes to talk to Reece Witherspoon and she won't help him unless he does a seance with her, and he raises some fairly compelling objections to this plan, but then goes through with it anyway and she still doesn't tell him what the symbol is? Or did I miss that? But through most of the episode (or at least the second half) I was just constantly asking "Why is this happening?"

On top of that, all the characters seem to be really shallow stereotypes, like they're characters in an American high school movie. And there's the whole Narnia thing, which I assume is meant to be obviously Narnia by a different name, except that in this world it's some obscure series no one cares about. Does that mean something? It just seems weird and dumb.
I don't know if I'm interested in this show but I read the books so I checked out the first episode and :lol: those are the exact same comparisons I was mentally making for those two actors.

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Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

Tiggum posted:

If hedge witches were just isolated individuals who discovered magic on their own and had no training because they never caught the attention of any magic school recruiters, that would make sense. But given that they organise their own schools and the real magicians are obviously fully aware of them, it makes no sense.
Basically the thing with the hedge witches is that there just aren't that many spells that've leaked out to the public that these sorts of people get the chance to study or learn. So like in this episode Julia got to go check out that other "safe house" the dude told her about, and she looked at their little scrapbook of spells they'd collected and was like what the gently caress, all you have is this little bit of basic poo poo? They didn't have any magic she hadn't already learned. So in addition to what other people have said about Brakebills being able to teach magic in a systematic way including like stuff about its underpinnings and theory, these hedge witches are just sifting around for whatever scraps they can find. It's not a school system the hedge witches have, just a series of safe houses each with their own little scrap book of stuff they've figured out. You could find several of them without being able to learn anything new, although most of the people that hang out in them are such scrubs that their lovely little collections seem like a lot to the majority of them. 99% of them are basically little noobs that the trained magicians would laugh at, although I do think the trained magicians are also unaware of the extent of their "scene" with their network of safe houses and little star tattoo rankings and so on, they only know that some rare people manage to learn a few inconsequential spells out there in the public.

Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

Na'at posted:

Or they could be going with her still resetting time and all that but instead of her smashing the watch because only a couple people died she can't do it because she's the dead one
But how do you pull all that back into the story, how does the watch fit in at all now? Some random third party like the dean pops in and say "She had a magic watch"? I mean Jane Chatwin, the Chatwin children, honestly should be getting talked about more and more prominently when the Brakebills crew start getting into Fillory and now they got rid of her? Like did they seriously just kill Jane Chatwin before anyone even knows poo poo about who she is?

Also not really a spoiler but haha Fillory is obviously already a Narnia rip-off/homage but the show took it even further by having a Chatwin vanish into a closet instead of a grandfather clock.

Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

And I believe he shows up with the button right after Quentin just cheated on Alice and everyone feels like poo poo and wants to die.

Show has gotten better recently but it was really dumb how Travelers are hearing this noise and they all resort to shooting themselves in the head and poo poo and then the Brakebills infirmary is like "oh yeah put this thing on your neck, done."

Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

In the books Quentin is definitely way above average but had to work tirelessly to get there. One of two students to skip a year at Brakebills, one of just a couple to complete the Antarctica race to the south pole thing, how could he be considered average? Still though, there's a big gap between him and Alice and a big gap between him and real masters.

Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

That episode was the best they've done. was funny too. "ok we get it, you hosed animals"

Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

STAC Goat posted:

I was never totally clear on why the Wizards and Witches in the Harry Potter world had Magical Police and secrecy, to be honest. It all came off as pretty elitist and dickish to me what with all the "aren't muggles so quaint" stuff from people like the Weasleys.
It's probably so the kids reading the books can imagine that magic exists in this world.

Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

I didn't really like the books that much but I watched the show out of curiosity and it was still substantially worse and more tween than the books imho (but I'll probably keep watching if Olivia Taylor Dudley isn't killed off)

Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

I flat out didn't really like the books but somehow they still hooked me enough that I read them all, and wanted to check out the adaptation too. After the first book when (half of this happened in the show already and half I think won't happen but spoiler tags to be safe) Quentin cheats on Alice and then she dies I was pretty much just like, okay, I hate absolutely every character now, and then kept reading anyway. Who knows, it's just like I feel sort of attached to the world and the weird difficult grinds they had to go through to get from place to place.

Rhyno posted:

I'm Facebook friends with a guy from Five Second Films and he posts about how funny it is that they're keeping her almost totally covered in every episode. Meanwhile every other role shes had has showcased her goods.
Well she's supposed to be a nerdy goody two shoes so they sort of have to play conservative with her otufits, but "form fitting cute dresses" is a pretty cool look. I think the books actually went out of the way to mention her being stacked but otherwise she was supposed to be rather plain.

Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

Blazing Ownager posted:

I just wish the .. situation was a bit clearer that last episode. Why did the guards just surrender because they moved their castle? Why did the other people surrender because they moved it back? I was kind of like "What the hell is going on with this?" the whole time.

That said otherwise I totally agree with you. Though next week looks kind of awesome.
The castle never got moved. They were fooled into thinking it had been, and that they were deep in Prince S's territory, surrounded by a whole population of enemies, a million miles from Fillory territory. Therefore they thought they were hosed. When Penny told them it was only an illusion and they'd never been moved, they realized they weren't hosed.

Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

Quentin you dumbass, you'd sooner be killed by Renard than release Alice, but then later that night release Alice, gently caress you

Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

I figure Quentin and Elliott both probably would've said gently caress it and hosed off with that mosaic based on their characters, but it was still cool and I liked it. The transfer of magic from Julia to Alice is a little bit surprising but I guess we'll see if that even takes. They need to give OTD a decent new storyline.

Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

Spanish Matlock posted:

The best thing was that it wasn't totally silent, you could hear her footsteps, I'd assume because she'd feel the vibration?
I think because the footsteps made noise. I don't think they muted any of the sound for us, I think there just was basically no sound other than some walking now and then. It isn't as if they showed the head librarian speaking but we couldn't hear it. They just didn't verbally speak.

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Fast Luck
Feb 2, 1988

muscles like this! posted:

Well Hale Appelman is pretty much the only one of them that can actually sing. They positioned Jade Tailor/Kady as being able to sing but it seemed kind of off to me, like they just dubbed her.
I think they dubbed her with her own voice though. Like, yeah it really didn't seem to sync up at all which made it seem off, but that should be her voice; here's her singing on youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e9-SZgOUCo

She was really good and Elliott wasn't bad but also this ep just had a few songs, it wasn't like everything they said was in song, which I think i remember them doing in an earlier episode. So I guess I mean i didn't really see it as a musical episode exactly anyway.

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