The Magicians: A Bold Deconstruction of Fantasy 

Here is a fun game for you - take a shot every time I say "magic" [and its variations if you feel daring today] Oh and also, #JusticeForFen

People do not talk about this show enough. It was beautiful. The episode called “A life in the Day” where Q and Elliot raised a family made my jaw drop. It changed my entire perception of how I live my life - that hasn’t happened to me since I watched The Good Place on NBC. The show is not perfect and veers away from the books in many ways but the world building is so enthralling. I met Lev Grossman once when he came to visit my university back in 2014. He was so chill and told me all about the different ideas he had used versus those he had dropped for the book. His process of creating a consistent magic system is top tier. Also this convo in the show will NEVER not be hilarious: “Why are you locked up?” “Because I killed all their trees.” “That’s it?” “They were magical talking trees.” “Wait, Fillory has talking trees?!” “Not anymore.” 🤣🤣🤣

My pitch for most people who I think would actually enjoy the series is "Imagine if those desperate childhood yearnings of yours were true, magic was real and you were one of the special chosen few...but it didn't fix you. You were still you, and you were still miserable, and you still had to find your way through it." It might sound like a miserable way to recommend something, but when I was a teenager it was honestly comforting to have a book say "It's turtles all the way down, kid. People with magic would just have magic problems. You just deal with the hand you're dealt and take care of the people you can take care of." Also in the same line I actually like the show better than the book series, I like the direction they took with it.

“I am the hero of this goddamned story, Ember! Remember? And the hero gets the reward!” “No, Quentin,” the Ram said. “The hero pays the price.” -The Magician King

This show was everything for me, I hated how it ended 😔 but I'm still grateful for it. It mixed magic and school and relationships and fantasy in a way that i haven't seen ever, thank you for this.

Lets face it Margot and Elliot absolutely steals the whole show they are the best comic reliefs turned main characters that i have ever seen

i was so pissed at the end of s4 when it aired that it took me like 3 years to get over it and finish the show. with distance, i wasn't as pissed at the death of quentin, although it still hurts

The 3rd season of this show is genuinely one of the best seasons of TV I have ever watched and it will always hurt to know that the show couldn't manage to maintain that quality going forward.

I feel like you are assuming that Jane Chatwin was omnipotent, implying that she knew exactly what would happen to Julia and essentially had control over each loop when that is pretty explicitly not the case. Also younger Jane did know that her brother needed help and she was seeking answers and ways to help him for many years unsuccessfully and eventually was forced to choose prioritizing the world over him.

OMG someone finally someone talking about this show

I always felt that mounting the tension for a big epic reveal who turn out as very mundane and anticlimatic was perfectly in tune with the story, it break the mystic of magic, the old god, the librarian, showing them as dysfunctonal and whimsical as the human side.

I don't think the auidence is supposed to laugh at Fen or this different culture. It's to show that the characters never consider Fillory and it's people as real. To them it is a story. Even when they are living in it it's not real to them, not fully. It's to show how they aren't really good people / self centered.

Wow, you're so right about Fen. I didn't notice just how much she's gone through because I kept seeing it from the leads' perspective. Really makes you think

This is one of my favorite series of all time and it’s such a shame not many have seen it. Very grateful it went on for as many seasons as it did just with the smaller fan base. Bring it back!!

You're being way too hard on Jane. Remember, this is a time loop. She tried ALL of it, she confronted the Beast, she had Quentin not join Brakebills, she gave them all the informations at the start... all of it. She's also working against an opponent that knows what she's doing, and at this point it's a game of cat and mouse. She's trowing anything at the wall in the hope something sticks, and you gotta assume the Beast just kills everyone if she interferes too much - but if she only makes minor changes, it's entertaining enough for the Beast to witness what's changed this time that he plays along, and this is Jane's best chance to defeat him. She hurries the plot along just enough to not bore him, and makes just enough changes each time to keep him entertained.

It was referenced that Quentin was Jane's focus and she did leave him out of the school and he still some how ended up in Fillory

36:30 "This isn't the first time The Magicians has thrown out ideas that could have been good." That's the perfect summary of the "The Magicians" viewing experience. I am told by other TV shows that Sera Gamble writes for does exactly this: lays a bunch of small threads that she has no intention of picking up in the future, but wants them there just in case she comes up with some idea for them later. It's maddening for anyone who is a close reader/viewer and looking for trace evidence of what's to come. This form of writing makes so much of how these seasons resolve feel like an ass-pull.

Magician's content?? In 2024?? Yes please???

i found these books in middle school and was so grateful to face some harsh topics that i needed to see people work through at that time in my life. this show i learned to love as a separate entity from the books, and im so glad people are talking about it! i find that the show is like someone read the three books then ran with the idea. i could rant about this world and concept for hours ahhhh. would love to see a conversation about the books vs show and about the subverted tropes, like how que tin is kind of an inverse chosen one concept where he’s just kind of mid or bad at everything while all his friends are highly skilled in something

Reading the comments, it would seem I'm in the minority, but I actually liked Quentin's death. I had not seen anything about the writers' interviews and I don't much care what they said in them. I liked that the character who knew they were maybe the least competent magician of his group, yet who was once told he was chosen and had been proven wrong, was given the chance to choose to be a hero, and he made that difficult choice even as the love he had lost with Alice had just come back. And I enjoyed that it came not from a grand magical feat but from the humble "minor mending" specialty that had once punctuated just how out of his depth he was. In a way, they are almost subverting the earlier subversion of the "chosen one" not being the actual driver of the plot or the savior/warrior, for whatever importance there is to discussing the subversion angle of things. I don't disagree with some of the other takes, but I just don't see how this death was bad for the show; it felt appropriate and meaningful to me.

Damn, Eliot Waugh is in my top 3 of all time favourite tv characters. Shame that i cannot go back to the show since I'm still super bitter about how things ended up with it.

Okay you’ve forced my hand, I’ll watch The Magicians again.

What are the odds that I literally just picked up the book series because I couldn't stop thinking about this show. I just re-watched the whole series and I needed more the fact that this is crossing my feed one day later is wild

One other thing that i love about the show is that the show is not an adaptation of the books but a different time line

A Magicians video! A proper Magicians video! Oh wow!! I'm saving this to watch once I wake up tomorrow. Damn! Yesssss!

If anyone can chose for Julia either to become human or a goddess. It should’ve been Quentin because Quentin is her best/childhood friend. He knows her and he would know that she wanted magic and he would chose to her to become a goddess again

This show is kind of my life, it somehow was a huge influence in my life’s Quentin was definitely someone who resonated with me. As did Elliot, this series was really bold and out there, but it’s an actual ‘adult’ in a modern fantasy series and the dark realities that comes with the whimsical and how the two can either co exist or we see the seams fray

I got really excited seeing this video cuz I never hear anyone talk about this show! The Magicians was really important to me in high school & going into college, cuz there are tons of stories with heroic or otherwise virtuous heroes, but Quentin Coldwater was one of the few main characters I could relate to on grounds of his introverted nature. I also just loved their approach to magic, gods & other fantasy things! Such a great show!

The Order is another that was surprisingly good, largely because of the cast having a great balance of individual charisma and chemistry with literally everyone else (much like The Magicians). Not the same magical vibe though, think ceremonial magick but extra bloody

I think the ability for us to bond with the characters and be hurt by any character(s) is a form of testament to the world building and character writing. I feel like I really understood the characters motivations and feelings.

This is an excellent video and I think you're right on with your analysis. The only thing you missed was how Julia had to earn magic where Quentin was just given access because misogyny. That wasn't it at all. The reason why Julia was given the boot and Quinton was allowed to enroll is because Julia was so ridiculously strong and so ridiculously good at Magic that Quintin ended up leaning on her as a crutch and never developed because she just acted as his sword and shield and brain and brawn. She was a genius, so much so that everyone leaned on her for a crutch and became stagnant. By denying Julia access to brake bills she was put in a situation that actually challenged her where she had to overcome adversity and things didn't come to her so easily and Quinton had to learn magic without his genius best friend carrying him on her back the entire time so it was her excellence not her gender that resulted in the circumstances she found herself in during the first season

Though I think you missed the mark on some things, ultimately missing the unintentional genius of certain parts, I get where you're coming from. Happy to see this show getting discussed more.

I dont hate the quentin thing , but it was unnessesary. , and it potentially having his depression and unaliving question, is the real , not great. And in season one he had straight to his face accepted that he isnt the main character its around, hell his discipline and him trusting alice is all about that. Also it had to be julia, because as much creative liberty there is, they still take from the books as source, and julia is there, even if its doing itzs own thingsa .

It felt like a show that was written like fan fiction: serialized and constantly changing to fit the audience and not always the plot (I did still like it though, of course)

I finished the show when i it came to Netflix and I have been waiting for this show to be talked about! Im 27 now and really want to do a rewatch

Quinton was never the main character. He was the perspective character. Killing him off to subvert the straight white male lead was so misplaced. Q was never the most important character nor the main character, he was just the audiences point of perspective into this world. The writers took that away and the show suffered greatly for it.

Not sure when, but i got to the point of loathing their "mentors" for constantly withholding vital information.

the first scene of the beast gets me everytime, its absolutely horrifying

Ok, when it comes to Quentin getting accepted and Julia getting rejected have more to do with what happens in the books. Julia becomes obsessed with magic to the point where it ruins her life but she trucks through it joins every hedge wizard organization across the USA and becomes one of the most powerful and most well versed magicians. She then joins an organization seeking higher power tries to get it through this French God. However the group is deceived accidentally summons a jackal God instead. The jackal God grants her request for higher power by raping her taking her soul as a human and putting his seed in her so that she will become a dryad. Then over years she slowly loses more and more for humanity until she transforms. She actually had nothing to do with fighting the beast in the book series. In the books Alice sacrifices herself to kill the beast. Janet Chatwin explains to Quintin about her time travel powers and how she's not very skilled with them. Quintin begs her to use her power bring back Alice but she says she doesn't want to risk it because she doesn't know if they could be the beast again. What does this have to do with Julia? Absolutely nothing which is what makes what happened to her such a tragedy. That was a bit of an underlying theme throughout the books, what good is all this power if there's no meeting to your life.

this was such an amazing video!! it's so nice to see this show talked about again after so long

Magic is pain..... But magic as you watch the series can be bitterly sweet and beautiful. Though Quentin death broke me in never understood how people used the phrase to show and characters till this death happened. And its sincerely an understatement. Also julia into arc will break anyone whose been sa though she doesn't get the amount of spotlight as the others.

omg i've been waiting for a good Magicians video analysis! thank you for this

when i first read the books, i wanted it to be a movie. then years later talks of it being a series came up and i was so hyped. and although the budget from syfy isnt that big, it did bring the book justice.

at the time s4 aired my partner (who reminded me a lot of Quentin) had recently died by suicide so it was an extra blow to see one of my favorite characters die in such a hollow way. The show basically sent the message that suicide is the answer to feeling lost and purposeless and that self sacrifice is the ultimate conclusion to mental health struggles. A super messed up message to send. I used to love the Magicians but I think the show runners misunderstood their own show/ story. Yes it’s subversive and a story of struggle but it felt like trauma p*rn at times and virtue signaling at others. It was “wink wink, nudge nudge” but not in a way that, retrospectively, was fully enjoyable, warranted, or made narrative sense. Subversive media like the 1st Scream movie works because while it subverts expectations, it’s not just going for shock value- there’s narrative purpose. I wanted to keep my love for the Magicians alive but s4 tainted all the positives for me. It did many things right and interesting but it also did many questionable things that send harmful messages. Despite trying to subvert tropes the show runners fell into traps they tried to avoid and then went: look were progressive because we have a diverse cast/ female characters aren’t 100% pure, etc. But it was hollow and often came across as misogynistic or at the expense of a character’s identity or personal struggles which is arguably not progressive at all. Thank you for making this video. I’m glad to know others feel similarly all this time later

I think the 50 odd previous timelines had been about Jane trying to promote the more talented other kids but regardless of circumstance she always ended up with a Quentin, so after 50 fails she give Quentin a try and then died, so she couldn’t try a new combo. If she’d tried centering Q 50 times and failed every time I think the idea of misogynist Jane would hold more water.

Before I even watch I wanna thank you for making a video on my favorite show, not many know of it and make videos on it. Thank you.

I read these as they were coming out and was so excited for the show. Then I watched a few episodes and couldn't stand it. It wasn’t until a friend told me things got better in season 2 that i suffered through it. And season 2 was good, not great. Season 3 actually had me wanting to watch more, but there wasn’t any yet. I honestly thought it got cancelled or something lol. If anything, thanks for the reminder to watch the rest.

The praise "have you seen my bambi" still gives me goosebumps

very thankful for the video essay and how amazingly put together this is, I do disagree with your opinion on Quentin's death though. I believe it was a necessity in order to show light to other characters in depth. One of my personal favorite scene's are when Alice and Eliot hike up to The Mountain of Ghosts to grieve and say "goodbye" to Quentin, we get a huge emotional moment between the two as Eliot reveals that him and Q were more than friends, or how other cast members to go to extreme lengths or just the vast, out of place character choices that take place due to the grief put on them from Q's death. I watched this whole thing it was amazing! Great work!

Omg!!! A long magicians video essay. My dreams have come true!!!

This was a very World of Darkness RPG show. Got so many Mage the Ascension and Changeling the Dreaming vibes.

Can you please cover The Librarians series next

Seen the show twice, read the books, and visual novel. Finally a 2 hour long video essay drops

This show was and absolute gem, until the seond last season, when... oh well.

Finally! This commentary is not for the faint of spirit! Thank you for tackling this, you-Brave You. 🍿

ive been looking for a good deep dive into this show and youve delivered! I fell in love with the show during the pandemic and was going trying to cope with how season 5 ended.

been waiting for this one!

Such great timing! I literally just finish re-reading the first book so that I can start the second and have slowly started re-binging the series. I never finished the final season (for the same reason as many other people), but I’m going to push through this time.

I feel like the biggest mistake was making their fantasy world so absurd and annoying. They seemed to forget that if it was really underwhelming and foolish it would seem weird for two adults to be obsessed with the book series.

I loved this show when I first discovered it. It provided a completely detached escapist fantasy that initially worked for me. What really captivated me was the portrayal of a lifestyle I desired: living in a major walkable city, having a large apartment, being part of a great group of friends, attending parties, and feeling attractive. I was emotionally invested in the story because Julia mirrored my life. Like her, I work hard, have talent, and often find myself unable to break into those "elite" circles, forcing me to take the less desirable path to achieve my goals. The escapism was powerful because it felt real enough to be inspiring, and the outcomes were realistic yet comforting. However, the "woke" elements introduced at the very end were jarring for me. By "woke," I don’t mean liberal, progressive, or egalitarian themes. I mean the insertion of girl boss feminist slogans stated deadpan. It felt out of place, especially when the main character isn't Quentin, despite his perspective being the dominant one for the first few seasons. Julia and Quentin were always going to be seen as the main characters because they were the primary viewpoints for the audience. Moreover, having to directly state any values statement, particularly at the end of a work, felt forced and unnecessary. As a general rule, I believe a show should convey its messages naturally. Every work "says something," but doing a good job means those messages don't need to be explicitly stated. I would highly recommend the show and Ill probably be rewatching it (for a third time) now that Ive been reminded

I LOVE THIS ENTIRE VIDEO PLEASE DO MORE

This is a really good video essay on The Magicians! Thanks for sharing your thoughts and perception on all it, you really hit on the head what bothered me about how the show treated Fen.

This is exactly what i needed thank you.

Stopped once when Alice died. Then stopped again when Q died. Tried again and just started to hate if after a while. Cool to see something about it cause I knew I'd never finish.

this series has a really special place in my heart, to watch this video essay was a great reminder why I love it so much

love this show. awesome video!

What a long well done video. Thanks

I am so excited to watch this!! Also pissed you beat me to making a video documentary on this show

Attacking while defending. Great essay!

Time for a rewatch binge! I liked how the magic was built in this show, it had a lot of structure and intention.

The essay was absoloutly brilliant!

I really enjoyed these books I had no idea there was a series.

I absolutely LOVED this show! I remember seeing the trailer and wondered if it was tied to a book I had read before. I think it was I don't remember. Anyway, the characters, the situations they were in, the clothes, the sets. Oh man. I think I'll do a rewatch. I was sad to see it go. I didn't like that they offed my guy. And you know what else? I only know 3 other people that watched this show.

Love your reviews, pats galore

I think the fall down in season 4 is where they too the biggest step away from the books, and it seems like they fumbled it. Im guessing without having it plotted out as well things fell off the rails.

So you want Jane to be chuck from supernatural? Or to at least have a similar “how dare you play with our lives” type Moment?

After years I have finally come across a Magicians analysis video

My boyfriend said this is one of his favorite shows, sucked me into it & won't watch the last 2 episodes with me. 😢 I'm scared & will fall asleep before any spoilers in this video.

This show was a huge part of why I became a writer. It really isn't a perfect show, and this review makes it even more painfully obvious. But it is always nice to go back to those fond memories of a show like this with a critical lens, in order to build something better and worthwhile for the future generation.

been waiting for someone to truly WAKE IT when it comes to this show

that's really funny cause i was just talking to someone about how much I loved this show and boom this pops up

I beg anyone who liked the show but was dissappinted to read the books. Q lives in the books.

the scope of the magicians would be better ina hbo show id say because of the whole gods and outergods and timelines stuff could be done better by them i think

Amazing video

Penny is so underrated! ❤Margo is Waifu~ are used to be such a loser and like Photoshop myself and the pictures next to her lol I loved Margo❤ When Q… At the end of the season before the Final … That hit me so hard. Not because he was a main character, but because he still died suicidaI and I remember my heartbreaking. Not wanting to feel empty in that way whenever I passed. He accomplished so much and he still saw him himself as someone unworthy of living broke my heart.… Depression is a bitch. I just moved into my own apartment when I started binging it. Because I was kicked out of my parents house for jumping from the balcony with a rope. If you know what I mean, so I was very much in that mindset, and it was really real to see how they depicted his character as not cured by the end… Because not everybody is fortunate enough to reach that. It is such a good show. I’d recommend it 1000%. All the characters are so flawed and real and they mess up just like anybody else, they have to work through their guilt , emotions, trauma, broken and fractured relationship, etc., etc. the way that they do work through… Or not work through, the way they agree the way their characters shaped from certain events… is so real. It’s so adult and it’s so human and flawed. I couldn’t give this show enough praise, they go through very human things.. and handle it in human ways. If there’s anything someone has an experience before, this is the show that I would say to specific tragedies and how people handle them, beyond most others that’s one of the things about Julius character. A lot of people chose to say that they really dislike her, the thing is is like that and Katie‘s character… Yes, magic is included. Those are the emotions you feel when you are violated in the way that they were. You just want to destroy the world and imagine people that actually have the ability to do so, of course they’re going to take things too far. There’s just so many so many good examples exactly like that.

I'm with you on almost everything, but when you start getting into the idea of the timelines, and pushing Julia out and such, you act like pushing her out, and what she goes through, is known or forced, but the entire point was that other things HAD been tried, this hadn't (pushing her away), and it was what amounted to a last ditch effort. She had already tried the obvious stuff, and she didn't know exactly what would happen to Julia. You ask what would happen if it was Quintin pushed out, but, that was most likely another timeline. He died 39 times along those timelines, and most likely everyone, or almost everyone from his little group along with him. No one ever gained enough power, enough foresight, enough gusto, to take out the beast, they just die. I also assumed she had tried to interfere when he was younger, if/when she was able, but they make it clear she doesn't just have full and utter control over time, or the timeline. She's not a god, but a person working within timelines to shift them. Jane's explanation does make sense, she isn't omniscient, she is trying to calculate the butterfly effect of her actions through literal time, to see the defeat of someone far stronger than herself, without dying herself. I thought they even mentioned how amazing Julia was in the other loops, which is why pushing her away wasn't done earlier. They don't "consider" her "creating" these situations, because as Fogg says (with truth serum), they keep getting involved. She isn't CAUSING the situation, she isn't orchestrating their involvement, she's editing it, out of desperation to fix things. In the original timeline, they die, and even with edits, they've died 39 times more, so it doesn't make much sense to somehow blame or target Jane as CREATING these situations any more than they do. You don't really target the only reason you're alive and go "how dare you mess with my fate of losing and dying a horrible death!" In my mind the characters all try to accept that this was the only time they won, and as horrible as some things had been, the alternative was losing it all. Her dying also means we don't get to know (of course, for the story to take place, it had to be this way) what she might have tried to fix, alter, correct, if she was alive. Maybe she was willing to keep editing down the timeline as much as she could once they found a way, to have the cleanest nicest timeline possible, but she can't do that now. Again, the book and show would have just not worked if she could keep going, so for the narrative, she has to die. I'm not saying it wouldn't have been nice to hear her explain that the obvious routes made him stronger, or didn't work for x y z, or have her explain more limitations of her abilities or something, but I also feel like we were given more than enough to understand that she couldn't just walk up to him and say "hey, don't do that, bad" and he would magically be a good person, and that all of the main characters die in nice timelines. In the end someone had to be pushed well past reasonable, and that someone turned out to be Julia. Also nothing you said about misogyny or white male protagonist is reasonable given what we see/hear. It's like you want to see it that way when it's anything but. You just didn't understand the time loops, how long she had been doing this, and the obvious idea that telling them didn't work. Then about Fen, you see it as joking AT her, or treating her poorly, when it's more played as the absurdity of it all. This is all crazy, crappy, shitty, no one is where they WANT to be, and you seem to think characters like Margo are seen in a good light, they're not. Margo's redemption over time is in SPITE of her ways. She's thrust into trying/doing, when she doesn't want to or want to care, and when she finally starts to take things into her own hands and get things done, she's finally not being selfish.... Do you really not see that?

I put this in my watch later playlist so the AB testing was throwing me off so much everytime it showed in my feed lol

I really enjoyed watching The Magicians during 2020. I think seasons 1 and 2 were interesting in setting up the world and connections but couldn't really get into how dark it was, but I stayed watching because of how much I enjoyed the margo and elliot hijinks in fillory. S3 was a lot more fun to watch and s4 was like a gut punch but in a 'sad but beautiful' sort of way. I also enjoyed both the s3 and s4 in how they felt more structured and character driven, the increased introduction of fillory which allowed for a lighter vibe to contrast the human world, as well as their respective musical episodes. I'm glad to see somebody do such an in-depth review of this series that I greatly enjoy (⁠ﾉ⁠◕⁠ヮ⁠◕⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠*⁠.⁠✧

Love the video. Just one thing. You forgot the volunteer tomato conversation. It kind of explains a lot of the stuff you said didnt make sense about Jane Chatwin 'choosing' Quentin (and the fact that she did try to handle her brother herself, and couldnt do it.)

Damn, this show hasn’t been on my mind since I shared the last episode with my since divorced wife. Brings back so many good and bad memories. Thanks for this video❤. I won’t watch it because it hurts, but thank you for making it ❤

Hi, is the series finish? has it been cancel? What is its status? Your intro was captivating, and i watn to know if it has an end before starting it

1:45:17 the way i never noticed the candle of spike lmao

I loved The Magicians, it really was something special. I was sad when it ended but the series finale was bittersweet

1:08 bear with me, I hope this makes sense. I've never liked Jane so I'm not defending her but I think it's like a bell that can't be unrung. In the first timeline, Martin is abused so Martin becomes the beast. She creates the second timeline and best case scenario she figures out how to stop the abuse in timeline 2 - beast martin is already strong enough to remember the other timeline, so even if she stops the abuse, the trauma that led him to want to be strong enough to never be abused again is still there, so he still pursues the beast path. The fact that she's strong enough to create new timelines happens because he's already strong enough to remember discarded timelines. Like a snake eating its tail

i love you for this

Unfortunately, the whole power transfer via sex fluid is not unheard of across mythology. So in keeping with taking the fictional and giving it a darker lense, it actually made a lot of sense to me.

This is my all time favorite show. I cant wait to watch this

One of my favorite shows ever.

I follow the show at the end of s1 & got hooked till the end. Love the show.❤

I loved this show so much when it was coming out, as a young queer then suicidal person Quention meant the world to me. He was the template of the happiness I could achieve, living out his life someone he loves. When they killed him off, I had a mentall breakdown. It may seem stupid but he meant so much to me and to my young fragile mind seeing someone like me ultimately taking their own life was.... Heartbreaking. They may think they were being subversive, but ultimately they just did "Bury your Gays" in the most vile possible way. I never forgot them for it and stopped watching immediatly.