the magicians - up to current

Spoilers below cut re Margo and Josh.



You know, I've now moved onto the fence regarding Margo and Josh. The jury's out, but the last episode was some very good testimony on how this is workable.

Okay, wait: think about it. Josh has two proven qualities I think we can all agree aren't exactly common: he's loyal as fuck and he's a genuinely nice guy (not a Nice Guy) that would literally rather die horribly than have unprotected sex and pass on lycanthropy to anyone else unaware. I mean, yes, murder and rape were on the table too, but that one alone (consenting but unaware/unprotected) was enough to bring on the 'fuck no', which by no stretch of the imagination can be considered a low bar (the other two are 'basic decency bar' but not easy to resist under the circumstances; he cleared those without even trying). He doesn't just say that, either; he locks himself in a goddamn cage to avoid it with all "I WILL DIE HERE DAMMIT".

This puts him as highly acceptable partner material, and that doesn't include apparently a love of cooking which by the way, he's good at, so lets give him points there (like a lot). His worst character traits are some neediness and definitely some self-esteem issues, but in this crowd, that's baseline.

However, here's what makes him interesting: he has a high emotional IQ, possibly the highest in the entire group, and most important, Margo very much does not have that. She has many sterling qualities and some frightening ones, but warm and fuzzy she is not. Josh is ultra-supportive, another super-useful quality when you're king and have pretty much ruled everyone all your life before your crowning.

The biggest problem with the hot girl/not hot guy pairings in general is that we have no idea what the fuck makes the guy mentally or emotionally attractive because generally, he's a goddamn loser or mentally twelve years old. It never actually improves much from there.

Josh however, is smart--as smart as Margo, who knows, but beside the point, he's at least in her general range so won't bore the fuck out of her once the bed stops bouncing--he's a decent magician, he makes friends surprisingly easily, including gods, he can read a room like whoa, has feelings he's not afraid to show (like, all of them, all the time), he's honest (to a fault at times), kind, loyal, and as I said, his best quality here specifically for Margo is his excellent emotional IQ (excellent manipulation skills when utilized appropriately) and he's apparently willing to devote himself entirely to Margo's interests, which kind of for me is a winner when he has all the skills above to back that up.

Like, I think it would be nice for Margo to have someone that is literally All About Her. Hot guys come and go: cute ones smart enough to carry on a conversation, apparently really good in bed, think you're amazing, and want to be your help-meet do not.

OTOH, Margo would be goddamn amazing for Josh and not just ungodly hotness of herself; she's driven, focused, ambitious, which Josh--to put it kindly--is not. It wouldn't hurt for him to get a little more assertive, either, and Margo could teach him that. And let's face it: Josh needs a protector badly and Margo is kind of the epitome of that. I don't know why that works for me (oh, I know why that dynamic works for me), but God, you know he'd like cheer from the sidelines when she beat up someone who hurt his feelings and bring her ridiculously fancy desserts and give footrubs after, come on.

I am still pondering this, honestly due to Josh's excellent performance as Advising Cook (And Very Vulnerable), because that was really sweet. I'll have to see how this develops because it may not be as insane as I thought.

Comments

[greywash]

I disagree with absolutely nothing in this post! But... if I can provide a kind of... side argument? I'm never sure about the etiquette of doing this on Dreamwidth, but I desperately want to talk about The Magicians about 100% of the time, so if it's okay—

Right now, my biggest problem with the Josh/Margo storyline is that I just kind of don't think Margo wants a romantic partner; and that's—gonna be a problem. That's definitely book canon getting in my way to an extent, since (as I recall, it's been a while) it's explicit book canon that Janet doesn't want a boyfriend; but we've also literally never seen indications from Margo (until she kind of sort of indicates she might be open to it with Josh, but—I have some notes, below) that a romantic connection was a goal, or important to her. And, I mean—it's not, for everyone! We've actually seen plenty of indications, in fact, that that kind of connection is affirmatively unwanted, when it comes to Margo.

Margo doesn't get Eliot wanting a boyfriend; it doesn't make sense to her, and why would it? She's sure as hell never seemed to want one. And her jealousy of Eliot's partners is explicitly limited to ones where the relationship muscles in on their friendship: she's jealous of Mike, because Eliot wants to, like, date him, and she's jealous of Fen, because he's going to marry her, and he's never been married before: what's that going to mean for them? She's not jealous of Idri, and she's surprisingly okay with Quentin, if what we're talking about is what people think of when they hear the word "jealousy." But they have literal years of Eliot's whole Thing for Quentin not getting in the way of his and Margo's friendship: why should it bother her? I know that there's a sort of medium-popular "Margo is pining for Eliot" read, but—I think it's just both simpler and more complex than that. I think Margo is Eliot's best friend, occasionally somewhat sexily. She wants that to be the most important relationship in their lives—because it already is, for her. What's threatening to her is stuff that threatens the emotional and practical centrality of that friendship for Eliot. [As an aside: I'm really curious to know what Margo knows about the mosaic timeline, and how she'd feel if Eliot and Quentin actually did date, but—I digress.]

This is a little—tricky for me to talk about in a fandom context, because I am myself aromantic, and also shacked up life partners-style with my best friend, with whom I have an incredibly close and loving but not romantic relationship. Eliot and Margo's friendship feels really, really familiar to me, and yeah, this thing about how I don't think Margo wants a boyfriend does fit in against my personal experience, but I'm trying really hard to avoid the like—"I'm aromantic, so I want Margo to be aromantic because representation" fannish argument? Like, there's nothing wrong with that argument in the abstract, it's just not what I'm saying. I'm just saying: on a character level, on a narrative level, I think they've given us a lot of data suggesting that Margo doesn't want a boyfriend—and I think Josh, who absolutely under different circumstances could be her person, even conceivably her person the way my partner is my person, does want Margo to be his girlfriend. And it's going to be super, super painful for him every time something underscores that that's not what she wants from him.

Whomp whomp.

I like Josh a ton, and I even like him with Margo, but—I think Margo's grieving, and cripplingly lonely, and yeah, she can say she doesn't want a partner in crime, but I think that's an open (and like—agonizing) question for her to even look at head on right now. She found her person; she thinks he's dead. They were maybe not ever boyfriend and girlfriend but he was still her person—what does she do now?? And Josh is there, and he needs a friend, and he needs a friend with whom there can be some kind of complicated sexual dynamics, and that dynamic is a dynamic that I think Margo is going to find appealing, whether or not she's totally fucked up over Eliot, and whether or not she can really pull apart in the moment why this is a thing that she instinctively wants. But I don't think that right now she can like.... sit back and thoughtfully analyze what Josh is asking from her, to see if it's something she wants to give.

But if True Love isn't something she wants, then Josh wanting it with her is going to be A Problem. If they can get past that, then I'd be all over it, but if Josh is going to hanging around wanting things from Margo that Margo is just flat-out not interested in giving—conceivably things that she might not be able to give him, but—I kind of don't care about whether this is a choice or something in Margo's natural makeup? Like, consent is really important on the show, and it's obviously pretty central as a value to Josh, so if Josh wants a Relationship™ and Margo doesn't, especially if untangling her grief-loneliness-stillnotwantingaboyfriend feelings is difficult for her while Josh thinks they're getting something started, whether or not Margo is aromantic, or thinks of herself as aromantic, this seems like something that is going to be a major obstacle between them, and not something that either of them is going to particularly enjoy figuring out.

:/

[sadist!viewer!me: yaaaaas bring it on break EVERYONE'S HEARTS ~ ~]

[kore]

Yeah, Margo in this season is reminding me a LOT of the point in the books where Janet is left in charge while Eliot et al go off questing or whatever (and we never see it! Boo, Grossman). Janet's own big quest, with that amazing story she tells in the third book, has nothing to do really with ruling or being queen or romance, it's about her being let down and coming back fighting every time. In a way she's the one who's the most tied to Fillory (and who appoints herself as the Recording Angel witnessing its end) because she's cauterized herself everywhere else.

I agree that the show has given us the impression that Margo not only doesn't want a boyfriend, she's happier without one -- like you said, she thought she found her person, and it was Eliot, and she was fine having that deep emotional tie, along with a lot of great physical fun on the side that wasn't related to that central bond. Which is a storyline we see a LOT more with men than with women, and usually if a woman is given that plot, it's not a good thing. And that bond was very secure for Margo and Eliot because they know their relationship will never be wrecked by stuff like conventional monogamy or romantic jealousy (even as recently as the Eliot-in-a-bubble ep, a big self-admitted flaw was his seducing other peoples' boyfriends).

And Margo having lost that particular person in that particular relationship not only means she doesn't want a new partner in crime, because it's not even as simple as moving on from Boyfriend E to Boyfriend J, which would be painful and messy. She would have to move from what she and Eliot had to something much more conventional and, to her, dangerous, right at a time of pain and grief and mourning and stress and oh yeah GETTING SHIT DONE, and I do think the show is setting it up as "they want these incompatible things from each other," but Josh's side is going to be weighted because it's on the side of love and opening up and Feeling and you have to be fully vulnerable to be fully human and all that. Which isn't bad, but I am just personally tired of storylines where a Strong Woman has to be emotionally educated by a dude about what's really good for her. Maybe that's just a personal thing and other people are just fine with it. But if Josh could say something to her like, "I know what you and Eliot had was different, and I know we can't have that, but I want to be there for you however I can" (which is also MUCH MORE like what a woman in the genderflipped version would say) that would be a lot more palatable. It would be something offered to her, not a demand about how differently she should be.

[greywash]

And Margo having lost that particular person in that particular relationship not only means she doesn't want a new partner in crime, because it's not even as simple as moving on from Boyfriend E to Boyfriend J, which would be painful and messy. She would have to move from what she and Eliot had to something much more conventional and, to her, dangerous, right at a time of pain and grief and mourning and stress and oh yeah GETTING SHIT DONE

YES, THIS EXACTLY.

but Josh's side is going to be weighted because it's on the side of love and opening up and Feeling and you have to be fully vulnerable to be fully human and all that. Which isn't bad, but I am just personally tired of storylines where a Strong Woman has to be emotionally educated by a dude about what's really good for her

Yes, precisely this. And also, I mean—I feel like Margo is—for all she says she doesn't, you know, operate on the emotional plane, really, she absolutely does, she just doesn't do it in the way that, like, Society™ or whatever wants her to. She's always been able to be emotive and vulnerable with Eliot and, to a lesser extent, with like—the people she's tied to through Eliot (Quentin and Fen being the big two on that one).

But if Josh could say something to her like, "I know what you and Eliot had was different, and I know we can't have that, but I want to be there for you however I can" (which is also MUCH MORE like what a woman in the genderflipped version would say) that would be a lot more palatable. It would be something offered to her, not a demand about how differently she should be.

Yes, and I think—you know, if their job were to fix problems and not make them, because story, I think I actually have enough confidence in the writers' room to think they actually could pull that off, which is definitely not true of the writers' room for every show I've seen! I've been rewatching S1-3 with my partner (her first watch) and really admiring how good they are with a lot of really subtle interpersonal stuff, including subtle interpersonal stuff that's explicitly gendered—even when they not infrequently are dropping the ball on other parts of the plot.

IDK, I feel like this is definitely in a "we'll see" kind of a state, but yeah, I don't want Josh to sweep in and fix Margo's inability to experience and express intimacy; I don't think it's broken and I don't think that's his job even if it were. But I do think that Josh has the capacity to be an important and constructive person in her life, if he (and the writers) can avoid that trap, and if that's where they want to take him.

[kore]

I feel like Margo is—for all she says she doesn't, you know, operate on the emotional plane, really, she absolutely does, she just doesn't do it in the way that, like, Society™ or whatever wants her to. She's always been able to be emotive and vulnerable with Eliot and, to a lesser extent, with like—the people she's tied to through Eliot (Quentin and Fen being the big two on that one).

Oh, that's a really good point, yeah. Margo's not broken! (In a way, Janet's not broken in the books, either, she's just ARMOURED. I don't think Margo is there yet, but losing Eliot pushed her very close.)

I've been rewatching S1-3 with my partner (her first watch) and really admiring how good they are with a lot of really subtle interpersonal stuff, including subtle interpersonal stuff that's explicitly gendered—even when they not infrequently are dropping the ball on other parts of the plot.

I feel like they did some gendered things really well -- like Julia and the rape and the aftermath, and Penny and Kady, and Margo and Eliot -- and dropped the ball on some other gendered things amazingly, like Julia and the "nick," and then Penny and Kady got turned into starcrossed love and Margo and Eliot have been united and divided a couple of times. (And where the hell has Kady been anyway.) I don't think this show does so great at plot, but it's really good at ensemble work and characterization -- when we got to see Eliot again in the happy place, he just lit up the screen, and then the cross-cutting between him and Quentin in their emotional scene and the gang confronting the monster was tense and electrifying, even though the timing of those events together was pretty artificial. And I personally just don't think Josh's actor has ever been that good at the ensemble work. I feel like in S7 of Buffy when all of a sudden Andrew was this big part of the cast and I was required to watch him and apparently care about what happened, and I was just like, No. But that could entirely be due to my personal preferences. But at the same time it didn't help I felt like here was a male geek type in a very stereotypical pattern I've seen on a lot of shows that have male geek writers.

I don't want Josh to sweep in and fix Margo's inability to experience and express intimacy; I don't think it's broken and I don't think that's his job even if it were. But I do think that Josh has the capacity to be an important and constructive person in her life, if he (and the writers) can avoid that trap, and if that's where they want to take him.

I do hope that is maybe where it's going! I REALLY don't want to see Margo lectured just because she's being Margo, or because she's not being performatively emotional enough. That's just really not who she is. But the lines they gave her -- how dare Josh imply she could replace Eliot (that Eliot is replaceable), that she doesn't want him as a partner "in crime" and the final gratuitous crack about his personality -- seemed to really put her in the wrong.

[greywash]

Yeah, I agree with all of this, basically, especially the stuff about Julia, who I really thought they were not going to let down as hard as the books did, and then on that whole infuriating pregnancy plot they let her down harder—the "nick" practically made me throw my laptop across the room.

I just also think—they started explicitly setting up Eliot's mega-fail with Quentin in 3x1 (when he tells the Great Cock that the mosaic scenario sounds like something he'd really fuck up), and they did a lot of work in S3 to make that 4x5 "reveal" (I don't think it was actually that much of a reveal, but I'd also been over here writing about Eliot rejecting Quentin because fear and also internalized biphobia basically since I landed in the fandom, so you know *g*) have a lot of complexity and weight, because it's so anchored in the text, in multiple places, like that scene in 3x6 where Eliot and Quentin are talking about the boat quest. So that "this is my worst memory" thing is heavily contextualized, because they've, you know, let Eliot fail, and shown Eliot failing, at his relating-to-other-humans check many, many times, before they actually let us know "no, yes, he is failing, and he understands (at least in part) how he's failing." It's not a show that shies away from letting characters be dicks, and then holding them accountable for that in complicated ways that last, you know, across multiple episodes and even seasons.

I'm—perfectly okay with Margo being a dick to Josh, above and beyond, like—"I don't want to date you." Like, she can be a dick to him about not wanting to date him and also be totally valid in not wanting to date him—those aren't mutually exclusive in any context, and especially not when her best friend just died. And Margo is a dick to Josh! Like, I think she's a dick to Josh in a way that's totally believable for her being wracked with grief and trying to hold herself together, but she's still a dick. She hurts him intentionally. Even Josh can see that, and to at least some extent can see why she does it. But I actually don't think it's impossible for the writers to set this up in a way that doesn't let Margo off the hook for having been a dick to Josh, even while the show is still giving her some room to not want a like, media-typical romantic connection. I'm not saying they're necessarily going to pull that off, but—they do tend to make character arcs that go one for a long time and evolve in kind of complicated ways, so I'm willing to cut them some slack. Especially because I feel like they're using Margo (to Josh) and Quentin (to Alice) as mirrors, and setting up those particular sets of people to act as foils for each other is a really interesting narrative choice.

[reginagiraffe]

Honestly, if Margo was a man and Josh a woman, no one would be arguing that this is a bad relationship. He's doing all the emotional labor and she's the big bad protector.

[kore]

That's an interesting point, altho for me this taps right into a big cliche in a lot of genre stories -- the Strong Woman who has to be Taught How to Feel. Aeryn/John in Farscape and Buffy with Riley and Spike are two big examples of this for me. I don't think a male character being as proactive and protective as Margo is would be coded quite the same way.

[kore]

Those are all really good points, and yet I still don't really feel that happy with the pairing....

I think what I trip over is Josh is coded so hard as the Nice Schlubby Male Geek, and Margo is kind of like a Buffy character, all beautiful and fierce and at this point emotionally closed off and pushing people away, and that is shown as a Bad Thing. I agree with the interesting point that if the genders were reversed, it'd be a very typical supportive het relationship, but as it's presented, it still feels too much to me like "Really nice geeky guy with a heart tries to Break Through to a beautiful bitchy girl who needs love, who is too bitchy and cold to see his awesomeness." I am just tired of that paradigm. Josh was encouraging Margo to be more stereotypically "feminine," charming and diplomatic and dissembling, and Margo was like FUCK IT and was her awesome Margo self. And it's probably going to blow up in her face, and I don't like that either.

And it seems like what Josh can offer her is way too little in contrast to what she did for him -- besides the old Hot Girl Fucks the Nerd stereotype, she took on his curse and clearly in a kind of "well I don't expect to be alive that long anyway" mood. I just didn't see the buildup as to why she had to save Josh, other than she just thought she'd lost Eliot and was desperate not to lose someone else again.

he's a decent magician, he makes friends surprisingly easily, including gods, he can read a room like whoa, has feelings he's not afraid to show (like, all of them, all the time), he's honest (to a fault at times), kind, loyal, and as I said, his best quality here specifically for Margo is his excellent emotional IQ (excellent manipulation skills when utilized appropriately)

Hunh, I just don't think of Josh as having all those really good qualities (if I had to pick the dude with the highest emotional IQ it'd probably be Quentin, and that fucks him up a lot of the time). It's interesting how the show has been completely mum on Eliot/Quentin maybe disrupting the very strong Margo/Eliot bond, or how Margo and Eliot ruling leaves Quentin out, and they also really haven't done anything with Margo/Quentin. I would expect Margo to maybe hook up with Quentin more than Josh, because at least there's a connection there.


tl;dr, if they had somehow done this whole bit with Fen and Margo instead, it would make a lot more sense to me, because Fen and Margo already have a deep relationship, Margo's gone to the wall protecting her (after fucking things up) at least a couple of times, and Fen is deeply embedded in Fillory. And Fen knew and loved Eliot too. But instead they went for the comic thing with lying under bedclothes and tits out (and Fen, as the mourning woman, was shut down and made fun of, as contrasted with Margo's heroic stoicism "if I cry once I'll be useless forever"). (What ticked me off about THAT was, we ALREADY saw Margo cry for Eliot, after sex with Josh. It wasn't for long, but to me that was the point where she accepted and mourned and shut it off almost all instantaneously, because that's what she does.)