#nothing ever “happened” from this but it moreso represents zero just... feeling something for the first time

[fluffydeoxys]

...and I felt love in that single moment for the very first time.

[jemandrr]

Personal, Useless Thoughts on The Magicians

I watched just 8 of the 26 episodes, for reference.  Spoilers, possibly beyond those episodes since I read spoilers when I’m bored with a series.  Also its very late at night.

And...I was pretty bored.  At the very least, it isn’t for me.  

In general, I state that the most basic tenet of my favor is whether or not a work feels earnest.  (Which isn’t to say I like everything made honestly.  I have my own tastes and opinions and worldviews, of course.  And, in addition, there’s a connotation of....innocence or hopefulness to being earnest.  I know there are also aspects of seriousness and importance, but those aren’t part of it in my mind.  Reducing complex things to one word always comes with its flaws.)

And, hm.  I didn’t get a read on that in 8 episodes, honestly.  That isn’t to say I believe that it was made by people who are dead inside or selling out.  Honestly, intellectually, that doesn’t especially seem to be the case moreso than most shows.  But I don’t feel a heart in it at all.  Which isn’t something I can intellectually argue about.  

Now, some branches of that which other people can probably concretely feel different about.  It felt cliche and dead in a lot of places, where things happened exactly as expected in the dullest and most unintriguing way possible; not even the fun cliches, but the ones that might never have been good in the first place.  

The series also doesn’t foster a healthy sense of interesting mystery.  It feels more like it wants to hold you hostage with suspense, which in general comes across to me as a sign of not loving the world you’ve crafted.  The world additionally felt like it bubbled up around the protagonists.  Like there isn’t and was never a fully-functioning and stable world outside.  Honestly, as far as I can tell, stuff just kind of shows up in the story and you’re supposed to accept it because, sure, why not, we never said it wasn’t a thing.  And then half the time it blows up in everyone’s face and someone dies because hey it was introduced by people who were underinformed.

On that note, there’s no one who brims with experience in this show.  Well, there’s the one dude who pushes the random obligatory heteromance to the brink in the weirdest way possible.  And part of it is all about how the world is so dangerous that no makes it.  But it makes the world feel small and uncertain.  There’s no one out there and no one knows a goddamn thing about the world they’re in and they don’t care to discover it.  Rather, they’d be another casualty if they did.  And there might be a message there, but it makes the world absurd, meaningless.  There’s nothing firm, consequences are impossible to derive outside of reading the story cliches, and everyone just drinks and dies in reaction to that.  

And then there’s some weird chosen-one-but-we-explicitly-deny-it thing.  And I know it’s subverted later.  But...not that much, and that doesn’t excuse how long it was fully in effect in such a boring way.  

The protagonist is one of the most boring of the modern cliche’d white male characters.  Somewhere along the lines, when perfect protagonists went out of style and people were starting to realize certain flaws aren’t REAL (enough) flaws, there was this thing.  Where people merged the protag-who-only-serves-to-highlight-the-cooler-people-and-world-around-them with the brooding outsider asshole with a heart of gold and zero emotional/social tact.  A character we get little internal access to because they don’t even know where they stand and the struggle isn’t worth directly tracking.  A character who rarely does anything (a hand-me-down from the highlight-others aspect) but is still entitled to the screentime and glory (mainly due to being the chosen one).  A character who commits all sorts of bs and never gets truly called out on it by the narrator.  

And, to be honest, a lot of the characters are interesting and I actually really like a couple  (Reading the spoilers, I end up not liking anyone really).  But....even ignoring that I have distaste for the worldbuilding, I don’t feel like the characters redeem the protag-who-just-highlights-cooler-people.  Especially since he’s kind of an unstable prick who always finds arms to guide him anyway.  It’s....probably telling that his greatest fear seems to play on having literally no one.  And yet, before and after that, he takes it for granted.  

I’ve seen a handful of people empathize with him and relate to him.  And...I have qualms.  And I have no interest of comparing the mental problems of any two real people (In general, I think everyone has valid feelings regardless of privilege.  Oddly enough, controversial in all political realms).  But...he’s a character, so: he rubs me the wrong way.  I won’t try to tell anyone that they’re not right to feel like he represents them accurately.  For all my complaints, I’m not trying to convince anyone not to enjoy this show.  It’s my useless personal review of a thing I consumed.   That said, I still won’t really go through it.  Someone might be living that life and still have that level of suffering and inability.  Suffice it to say, my end opinion of him is: annoying, unnecessary, uninteresting, uninspired, cliche, and actively boring.

It feels grimdark for the sake of it.  Like, as if it needs to explicitly put darkness in the gaps left by Fillonarnia.  

Weird hetero stuff.  Feels obligatory.  Especially the part with the token romance has just one motivation and, when its snuffed out, they lose their purpose and have to rediscover their motivation with...lust?  And then they question it but it doesn’t amount to anything and doesn’t bring them back to listlessness.  

No wonder, no love, no heart, no hope.

So what does it have?  

A strong, diverse supporting cast.  Insufficient, small, and tempered by the world and its whimsy.  But there’s immense potential in the supporting cast and there are some strong dynamics.  Change the fundamental dynamics of the world and its plot, and I might become interested in exploring them.

Often times, characters, even minor ones, can keep me going through a series that is otherwise unremarkable.  But, as I said, this show actively bores me, spoilers indicate a world I don’t wish to see, and it’s still not the most interesting cast ever, partly because of how limited it feels and how many of them die.