The Magicians: "They just slapped each other over and over, for hours"

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > The Magicians: "They just slapped each other over and over, for hours"

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

I frankly think that the show goes too far in shifting Quentin away from competitive rear end in a top hat and toward sad sack. He was always depressive in the books, but it was also obvious that he was a smart guy with potential that he'd earned through hard work, and that made him a lot more likeable to me.

An example that immediately comes to mind is that, in the first book, both during the Brakebills exam and in a demonstration on the first day of class, he's asked to perform stage magic, and he's not only competent, he's genuinely impressive. In the show, when he's asked to perform magic as part of his exam, he immediately fucks up by dropping his deck of cards.

I'd much rather watch an rear end in a top hat with talent than a nice guy who is afraid of his own shadow, but somehow lucked into being important, for no apparent reason. The flawed-but-talented rear end in a top hat also works much better thematically.

# ¿ Feb 23, 2016 20:10

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 13:59

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

QuarkJets posted:

I read the first book years ago, but I don't think that the point of "magic is a lot of insanely hard work, now start memorizing all of this inane poo poo all day every day" was really made clear until Antarctica, which we haven't seen yet. I'm guessing that they'll have to make this come across in dialogue somehow.

Up to this point in the story I think that the reader only knew that all magicians came from a group of top-performing obsessive students with a mix of mental issues. Quentin and many of the other characters actually seemed like slackers, only really working on stuff that they're really interested in, and this is coming across in the show really well.

These aren't crucial details, but I'm putting them behind spoiler bars in case anyone who hasn't read the books decides to: Prior to Antarctica, Quentin, Alice, and Penny are singled out as high-flyers and offered the chance to move up to the next class a year early. They work like crazy, and Quentin and Alice make the cut, with Penny being left behind. Earlier than that though, Quentin realizes just how hard he is going to need to work when Alice one-ups him with her glass horse thing at the front of the class, directly after his virtuoso stage-show. The professor's point in contrasting the two, I think, was that Quentin and the other students might be hot poo poo outside the college, but that their talents are unremarkable compared against even the simplest magic. Quentin then works his rear end off trying to replicate Alice's spell. This is also close in time to Eliot's observation to Quentin that he's going to be surrounded by his peers for the first time in his life, and that he's not going to like it.

In the books, I think it's less that Quentin is a slacker, and more that Quentin is the sort of guy who works his rear end off, but tries not to be seen doing it, since he doesn't want to admit that there are other people around who are naturally better at things than he is. In Antarctica, Quentin and the others just go from working their asses off to stay on top of the material (like, say, typical engineering undergrads) to being completely and relentlessly immersed in it.

Ersatz fucked around with this message at 21:10 on Feb 23, 2016

# ¿ Feb 23, 2016 21:03

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

True, but that's more evidence of personal growth than of being a poo poo magician. Granted, he couldn't have done all that amazing stuff on his own, but he was the guy who conceived of doing it in the first place, and then he convinced others to give him the help that he needed to get it done.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2016 20:40

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

WarLocke posted:

I'm not trying to say Quentin was Gandalf or anything, but I felt that he had really grown as a character by the end of the books.

Exactly. In my mind that's what the books are about. Quentin grows from an insecure, angry, and depressed teenager into a man who is comfortable with himself and with others, and who is far more interested in solving problems than in getting the benefits of having done so.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2016 20:56

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

Zaggitz posted:

Hi, is this show good? All I know about it is my favorite tv director works on it.

It's entertaining, and I'm enjoying it more as it goes on. I don't like the changes to the protagonist but, as a non-book reader, those won't matter to you.

# ¿ Feb 26, 2016 21:57

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

Well, that was pleasantly surprising - they finally managed to match the tone of the books.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 03:30

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

Oasx posted:

...there is a good solid story there, it doesn't need ghosts or torture dungeons, just tell it like it is.

Along those lines, revealing the pedophilia would have been horrific enough, without the addition of the abusive aunt, etc... But I'm still happy to see that they're starting to take the source material more seriously. This last episode was dark, and not in an angsty-teen way.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2016 18:46

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

Alhazred posted:

How is that not selfish?

Quentin accidentally set in motion a chain of events that caused magic to be turned off throughout the multiverse, which screwed over an untold number of innocent people.

Quentin has very good reason to believe that correcting this mistake will harm someone he loves dearly. He's resolved to do the right thing* despite that, ergo, he's not being selfish.

*assumption: the world is better off with magic in it. This is trivially easy to prove in the case of Fillory, and is presumably also true in the case of Earth.

Ersatz fucked around with this message at 16:32 on Apr 2, 2018

# ¿ Apr 2, 2018 16:15

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

HUGE SPACEKABLOOIE posted:

Hela cells are the craziest thing in the world

Yeah... that was a far more entertaining explanation than I expected when I started reading that post. "Cancer is you, so magic can't distinguish" always made sense, but I have the sudden urge to pick up a book on cell biology.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2018 15:02

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

Alhazred posted:

Yes, because they wanted people to know that scientists used her cells without her consent.

And of course that has nothing whatsoever to do with the family's well documented campaign for monetary compensation.

# ¿ Apr 21, 2018 18:42

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

*suicide hotline psa*

# ¿ Feb 14, 2019 05:42

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

Rhyno posted:

I dont think there is anything else like this show.

Not on TV, at least.

# ¿ Mar 9, 2019 18:24

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# ¿ May 8, 2024 13:59

Ersatz: Sep 17, 2005

apatheticman posted:

To be fair the "Did I do something brave to save my friends? Or did I finally find a way to kill myself?" was a real twist the knife line.

It was, and I think that they brilliantly handled the issue with the next sequence. Q's mental health issues were always going to be difficult to deal with in this format, and I think that the show did a great job in presenting his struggles in an honest way.

Depression and suicidal ideation/actions are really difficult topics to handle respectfully, and I think the treatment here was about the best that could have been hoped for. If this was too upsetting and difficult for people, the alternative would be to just not address topics like this in pop culture, which to me sounds like a really bad idea for a variety of reasons.

And yeah, I totally cried at the end.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2019 18:28

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > The Magicians: "They just slapped each other over and over, for hours"