#also your magic is more powerful the more intense your suffering/ the sorrow you've known...too real

[ooc-miqojak]

I saw someone in the comments asking for other, similar media to replace this with - and I've got you. You want a story about wizarding school and the trials and travails of being a young adult suddenly sucked into a world of magic? Look no further than Lev Grossman's The Magicians. Thankfully, its for adults/YA in its material and presentation, and isn't focused on middle school British kids. Now, I'll say something I don't think I've ever said about a book... but the show is infinitely better. The way characters are portrayed is more interesting, and complex - I think most of my enjoyment of the books came from seeing how different the characters were, even.

I love the magic system! I love the queer characters! I love that there's non-white people! I love the nuance, the grittiness, the quirkiness of this harry potter style magic college (with houses you're sorted into based on something logical: your magic type) paired with a sort of Narnia-but-far-more-horrifying sub-plot that quickly becomes the main plot.

You want a horrifying, faceless villain who lurks at the corners of everyone's minds and haunts them after his very first, early on appearance? Yeah, he's scarier than a fantasy wizard nazi with no nose. Far scarier - his face is a cloud of moths, after all.

I love how this series isn't just focused on how quirky and charming the wizarding world is - it highlights that, but it's gritty and real. It shows how cutting certain people out of the magic world breeds an underground market for whatever magic people can get their hands on... if they can still remember magic exists once kicked out of the official magical world (you know, bc you're not very good at magic, or... because you're evil). It shows how a world that is stopped to remind the audience of Narnia... isn't just a cute place to visit, but it is a very real place with dangerous flora and fauna, and a kingdom full of people with their own lives. It shows how the 'colonization' of Earthlings showing up to be their kings and queens - before disappearing suddenly again - destabilizes a kingdom that was doing well. It shows how these college students have no idea how to be a monarch, or help these people with issues they - and the Big Bad - both cause.

The characters are flawed people, and I love them for it. Elliott is a young, queer man from the midwest trying to overcome things his father said to him, and how he was treated, growing up. His best friend is a selfish diva, Margo, and we don't really see them meet for the first time, so much as we are thrust into their friendship/relationship dynamic alongside Quentin, the protag - they're something of a 'power couple'... but whether they're truly in some kind of relationship... is left vague. They trust each other most, they've had sex - but Elliott gets around. He sleeps around, he masks his pain with partying with drugs. (Quentin and Elliott have a timeline blip in which they fall in love, which remains a favorite arc of mine).

These are real feeling people with nuance, and flaws - inside a magic system that is extremely precise and offers little room for failure that isn't deadly. The magic college suffers from the same things real colleges do. The characters grow, and face real character-defining challenges... and ask with a baseline of tongue-in-cheek humor.

I can't say enough about how good this modern "HP replacement" show is... though I've made myself want another re-watch!

These comments say it well -

This is an excellent look at the show, but obviously has spoilers - you can listen for the first few minutes as he talks about the first episode, but if you're invested in seeing more? Come back for the rest later!

remember when jkr went full mask off and started acting evil and hp fans were like "ok we need to think carefully about the stuff we consume, how can we justify enjoying this series, how can we love it without supporting the author? should we try to separate art from artist or should we leave it be? isn't showing solidarity to trans folks more important? if we remain openly fans of this series will it show trans people we aren't safe or trustworthy?"

and then they decided that none of those questions really mattered and they continued to uncritically consume their stupid badly written children's books, and jkr has only gotten more nasty and hateful, and people only hate trans folks more, and now the answer to the last question is invariably YES. I don't trust any goddamn person who still loves Harry Potter in 2024 bc you've decided your nostalgia about a mediocre story written by a bigot is more valuable than the safety and wellbeing of trans people 🫶🖕