Signal Boost: The Magicians S4 Finale Aired Five Days Ago And I'm Still Mad As Hell

cleolinda posted: The Magicians S4 Finale Aired Five Days Ago And I'm Still Mad As Hell

There is still so much I want to say about all of it, but my thoughts won't organize themselves sufficiently. Read cleolinda; lots of commentary and links.

I do, however, want to comment eventually on the less-loaded topic of bad storytelling, which was also a factor here.

But there's also this: any hack on earth can write tragedy. Devastating your audience is the easiest thing in the world.

You know what's hard? Blowing their minds with sheer joy. Shock them by giving them what they didn't even know they could want. I think I can count the times on one hand where a show managed that. To get it, you have to work for it.

I don't get--I'll never get--why anyone on earth would do the second--would manage the fucking impossible--but in the end, only care about, only take pride in, only value doing the first.

Comments

[scy]

I am boggled that they chose to take AWAY hope. In a world where we need that, instead of going with joy, they thought 'yeah, this will make people mad enough to write papers about it' - wtaf.

[bonibaru]

Earlier today I heard someone say that unfortunately a fictional character can never behave beyond the brilliance or imagination of its writer, and that summed it up nicely.

[kickair8p]

Yep, most writers are writers, and pain is a cheap'n'easy way to force emotional engagement. Seriously ticked off that they pulled this.

~

[kitewithfish]

We could have had peaches and plums, motherfuckers.

[silverflight8]

Agree. Misery is cheap, easily sourced, and plentiful. It's like mining for quartz.

[stultiloquentia]

You know what's hard? Blowing their minds with sheer joy. Shock them by giving them what they didn't even know they could want. I think I can count the times on one hand where a show managed that. To get it, you have to work for it.

I love the way you phrased this. It's so fucking true, and it's always been my own goal as a writer. I would love to read that shortlist of show moments that achieved joy, if you care to type it up. Or book or fic moments, too.

[kore]

I can personally think of a few, but alas a lot are spoilery!

I think "Everybody lives, just this once!" on Dr Who is a big modern example.

[stultiloquentia]

Eep, good point! Dr Who is a good example, though.

[kore]

The Magicians actuallly managed some great moments, like the Under Pressure musical number and THE PEACHES AND PLUMS RECOLLECTION. Argh, show.

-- I swear, the fucken bad writing seperis mentions is so horrible too. Fandom: "These two characters just fell in love and lived an actual lifetime together in a pocket dimension, and now they both remember it! And now one of the characters reveals one of the most important moments in his life is about that! And there's the setup for a big reunion when they both finally are able to deal with it together -- " Showrunner: "Nah that's artificial and we can't think of anything else to do." Like, DAMN, BRO, YOUR SHOW HAS TALKING BEARS AND THE ENTIRE CAST GOT TURNED INTO GEESE, and now, NOW, you have a COMPLETE failure of imagination?!"

But of course....Wow how coincidental. Funny how that failure JUST HAPPENED to coincide with the queer love story.

[stultiloquentia]

...I never got into the show, but I think I might need a Magicians fic rec list.

[kore]

ME TOO, man (I actually haven't been reading much fic while watching the show!).

[seperis]

I'm going through my mental list and most are 'fuck yeah!' but this might illustrate my point.

Buffy, last ep of season seven, when all the girls around the world became slayers. Perfectly framed, perfectly shot, blew my fucking mind, and its still the standard. There were so many missteps in season seven, but the writers did the impossible of both completely shocking the audience and and building toward it for a full season.

Not surprisingly, season five's "The Gift" is still my favorite death ever. I cried myself sick online with friends watching it, and I still watch it every so often because it hurts exactly how its supposed to. It broke my heart, yeah, but again, the groundwork over an entire season showed; that is how you kill a character, shock an audience, break their heart, and make them love it.

I've been thinking about this, because 4.13 had many if not most of the same elements as "The Gift" and yet failed spectacularly. And I think the essential problem began in the writer's room.

I doubt it happened like this, but here's a thought exercise: the writers of Buffy planning season five said "We are going to plan a storyline that culminates Buffy Summers having to sacrifice herself to save her sister and the world. Therefore, the plot--all of it--must set up how Buffy got on that crane at that moment to do that thing both in terms of action and in terms of emotion so the audience understands how and why it happened. We have twenty-five episodes to do it, so what happens?"

The writers of the Magicians planning season four said: "we are going to do something shocking and kill a character! The main white male protagonist. It's gonna be shocking!!!!!!!!!!! And subversive! AND SHOCKING! Okay, now what do we do with the first twelve episodes? Any ideas?"

The writers's goal wasn't subverting a goddamn trope; they were playing into the oldest and most tired fictional trope 'unexpectedly kill a character and shock the audience'. The only reason they went for 'white male protagonist' was that one would have the biggest shock.

[stultiloquentia]

The comparison to The Gift is so interesting. So many similarities! Buffy even gets that scene earlier in the season with Spike where he tells her (arguably projecting like hell), "Part of you wants it."

But where Q seemed to conclude, "My life was worthwhile because of my death," Buffy's fierce belief, right from episode one, was, "My life is worthwhile because of my life." She's the girl who was supposed to be the self-sacrificing lone wolf who "has no life," who instead insisted on having friends and lovers and normal girl problems, and those loving bonds saved her over and over.

Slings and Arrows worked hard and gave me a big moment of joy.

Miyazaki movies.

Check Please! is currently labouring under a couple rookie author problems and a draggy winter hiatus, but I first fell for it when it delivered a huge moment of joy exactly where I'd been conditioned to expect a big fat serving of clichéd gay angst. Knocked my socks off, like, "You can do that? I get to have that??" "Bitty wins" has been an explicit promise from the beginning.

Thank you for talking about The Gift

[jesse_the_k]

...because I experienced Buffy on my own, and have been trying to scry out the similarities and differences.

I think Call of the Wild on due South brought joy.

Re: Thank you for talking about The Gift

[stultiloquentia]

Aw yeah, that's a good one. :)

[kore]

Amen to that, especially in these times.

[vicki_rae]

Never watched Magicians but reading the WTF dumpster fire posts all over my DWlist has been mindboggling. It's massively reinforced my decision (after BtVS) to never again watch a show until after the canon closes.

Not a fan of showrunners who tend to think of characters as furniture for Whut Really Matters IS Just The Plot.

Some writers get that characters matter to viewers. Other writers live by "hey wouldn't it be cool if we ...". Plot driven instead of character driven. And this time, at best, it's really sloppy plotting since they had to make this death different from any other death because Reasons.

And unbelievably, it seems this time "what would be cool" was suicide solves all of a characters problems and everyone is all, well that was sad but it all worked out for the best. And he gets a chance to see everyone is fine without him so yes, indeed, (insert glyph of showrunners dislocating joints while patting themselves on the back) they're really quite sure it really was the right thing to do.

We have to kill characters because who does or doesn't die is all that keeps viewers watching! Or something. And those stupid fans just aren't getting it because death isn't final in this universe so we'll rewrite the rules to make it a permanent death.

And lying to the entire rest of the cast for an entire season. And rubbing their hands together in glee as the cast talked to fans all season long. Isolating one actor who can't discuss any of this with cast mates because they don't know.

There's a really good reblog chain on tumblr with multiple contributors discussing the premise that fanfic as a whole is a distinct genre.

https://earlgreytea68.tumblr.com/post/159093823061/on-fanfic-emotional-continuity

The Magicians clusterfuck is a perfect example of why I don't watch genre TV anymore, and why fanfic is more than 95% of the fiction I read nowadays.

Sorry, rant over.

[dar_vidder]

I've been stewing about the finale for days. What's interesting to me is that I actually think they killed off Q because he wasn't the conventional white straight male hero.

I think it's all subconscious though. Like, I think the showrunners have fooled themselves into believing Q ticks all the boxes of privilege and that therefore killing him really was this revolutionary twist. But at the core of it, I can't help but feel as Q ventured further and further away from the conventional hero mold, they became increasingly uncomfortable with him as well as apathetic (how else could they possibly say that after 3 seasons they honestly couldn't think of another storyline to write for him?).

I remember arguing with another fan when they were hating on Julia during the first 1.5 seasons then Alice for the next 1.5, and I'd said that I thought it was rather subversive that the show allowed for the two main female characters to have opinions/goals that were at odds with Quentin's.

In most other shows the female characters just naturally align with their male counterparts...and it's done in such a slick way that the audience is never really meant to notice how even the 'strongest' of female characters has to have male validation and support to prevail.

Anyway, this same fan loved Margo (and I obviously did and still do, too), but I said that it was easy to love Margo because the writers don't really take risks with her character. She's always a natural ally to Eliot/Quentin. Her goals are never diametrically opposed to theirs, or at least not in a way that will put them at odds for very long.

So yeah, I always appreciated that Julia and Alice (and Kady to a lesser extent) got to have POVs that didn't always jive with the males and that they had their own agendas that were separate from the group's mission.

All of this is to say that now though seeing what they did to Quentin, I can't help but feel that the showrunners (again subconsciously) considered Q expendable because he wasn't dominating the narrative as any 'strong hero' should. Deep down I think they became resentful of him and thought he needed to be punished for that 'weakness' of allowing the female characters to buck his authority repeatedly.

Obviously the showrunners were the ones making all the decisions for how Q was written and what he would do in any given situation, so it seems crazy to think they could write their lead a certain way and then end up despising him for the decisions they themselves made for him. But I can see how early on the writers thought they were being daring and bold when they de-centered Q, but cumulatively over time, they lost interest in him BECAUSE THEY'D DE-CENTERED HIM.

As an aside, I don't dislike Josh, but I do feel like he's risen in prominence on the show because he is more of the classic fanboy insert who's white and hetero and doesn't struggle with depression/anxiety. I have a feeling he'll still be alive and kicking when the final frames of the series finale roll.

[nyctanthes]

Dropping in via network, and several days late, but just wanted to +1 this brilliant comment, esp. what you have to say to about Alice and Julia vs Margo.

[olanthanide]

You know what's hard? Blowing their minds with sheer joy. Shock them by giving them what they didn't even know they could want. I think I can count the times on one hand where a show managed that. To get it, you have to work for it.

IKR?? I feel like I can count on one hand the number of mainstream media I've consumed that made me gasp out loud in sheer delight. In our dystopic world and the never ending edgelord contest of darker and grimmer -- these, these rare, shining stories, are the ones you REMEMBER.

[templemarker]

It is a clusterfuck and grows more as a clusterfuck-dumpster fire with every passing day.

I read Jason Rothberg's response to fans of The 100 from 2016, and it really just -- hammers it home hard how fucking terrible The Magicians showrunners and SyFy are being around this.

[nic]

You know what's hard? Blowing their minds with sheer joy.

It was only 8-9 weeks ago that I was literally dancing around my apartment at 1am after the "Peaches and Plums MF" scene. I had not experienced sheer joy over something fictional in a long, long time.

And of course, now I feel like a fool for trusting and daring to get so invested, because 8 weeks later you have the complete inverse of that emotion. Devastation and betrayal. It's heightened because I cared so much.


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