Harry Potter might've been the story to make this idea popular, but The Magicians took the idea and threw it on its head. The Magicians clearly has its inspirations from Harry Potter as well as the Narnia books. It merges ideas from both together into something new and with a lot more realism to it. I know some people who have read The Magicians for another class and more of them didn't enjoy the story as much as I did. A big criticism I heard revolved around the main character never being anything more than whiny and never appreciating what he has for long enough. That part of his personality is what I found made the whole thing a bit more believable. All of the magic, it was real and Quentin's attitude of the real thing not being as mystical as he expected grounded the whole idea a bit more in reality.
If you look at the overall scope of the Harry Potter books and compare it to the events in The Magicians it'll seem a bit silly how often horribly catastrophic stuff happened to Harry each year while Quentin went through all of his magical schooling without too much conflict during it. Danger didn't just stumble into Quentin's life. He had to go and adventure with a group of friends to end up in danger. The situation is more relatable and because so many things that happened in The Magicians were a result of Quentin's actions the whole story poses more interesting questions and themes.
No comments:
Post a Comment