<em>The Magicians </em>Is Your Next Great Escape
This story contains mild spoilers for Syfy’s The Magicians.
When the first novel in Lev Grossman’s popular Magicians trilogy was published in 2009, it introduced Quentin Coldwater, a white, whiny, Ivy League–bound Brooklynite. His trajectory as a protagonist sounded familiar: Quentin, who’d always felt like a misfit, found out that he was actually a magician and wound up at Brakebills University, a training ground for posh mages. It was Hogwarts, U.S.A; he was Harry Potter with a sex life. Together with his school friends, Quentin later discovered that Fillory, a Narnia-esque world he loved from childhood books, was real.
When the trilogy was adapted for Syfy, the show could’ve doubled down on treating Quentin like an archetypal hero in the vein of Luke Skywalker or King Arthur. Instead, made Quentin a mere entry point into a series of ensemble-driven battles to save the magic of Earth andquickly earned praise as one of the you .
