The Magicians

While I’m sure it doesn’t hold a candle to the novel, I went on a binge of the Syfy Channels series The Magicians. I adored the first season. The pitch that it is Harry Potter-esc with all the glamour of the American university experience is a perfect way to sum up this series. Similar to the Harry Potter series, complex moral issues and spiritual challenges are tackled in ways that are supposed to resonate with the reader. The TV adaptation of The Magicians aged the characters up a bit, which I think affects how I connected with the work more than expected. Had they been teenagers, the wisdom that Q and Alice among other characters seem to have. There’s a juvenile quality (quality is used loosely here, there's nothing “quality” about angsty teenagers) that I feel the issues they take on would take better to, at the age they are in the TV show the characters just seem dim. Exploring concepts that young people struggle with by basing them in these elaborate world’s give the viewer (or reader) the ability to make these connections and come to their own conclusions. The plot subliminal guides the viewer's through these complex moral issues and spiritual challenges by being the perfect balance of wildly fantastical and unassumingly realistic.

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