#anyway w/e Good At Magic John is valid in the sense of
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morethanonepage Ā· 6 years ago
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Hey so I think about John Constantine a lot because who doesn't, but lately I've just been thinking about how like, he's often portrayed as like, really competent when it come to magic and I'm just over here like No!! hes a dumbass! he doesn't know what hes doing! sure hes smart at times and he has studied, but typically hes not just doing intricate rituals and casting spells, instead hes relying on other people and his wits, not magic. anyways i have feelings
Honestly and after much thought and soul searching (I donā€™t have a life) Iā€™ve come to what shouldā€™ve been a really obvious conclusion: itā€™s because if heā€™s on a team he has to serve a narrative function. Like if you put John on a team he has to be adding something to it, and esp if itā€™s a team put together by someone else (i mean it would have to be ā€“ Johnā€™s not going around looking to be involved in anything where he has to be around reliably and do things for other people) it looks bad for the team-maker to have picked john if heā€™s like, incompetent.
And I donā€™t think John is reallyĀ incompetent, i just think the point of John in hellblazer is, heā€™s selfish and self interested and as good as he needs to be but no more. Hellblazer usually just handwaves it as ā€˜i did a thing and it worked kindaā€™, bc Hellblazer is my kind of magic universe that gives no fucks. But heā€™s good enough at survival and sometimes that means saving the world (seeing as he lives in it) and everything else is just, him bumbling along and bumping into spooky shit (and also never being fully willing to remove himself from the spooky shit life, even when he knows itā€™s going to ruin his relationships).Ā 
But thatā€™s the sort of personal exploration/commentary that makes sense for a book thatā€™s just about John & his mess. LoT/JLD care less about that -- they just need A Magic User -- and it looks weird if they pick a magic user whoā€™s shit at it, it wouldnā€™t make any sense, so instead, heā€™s Good At Magic But A Jerk (who just needs A Team to fix him). And like he is, but as a trope (Competent Man Whoā€™s A Jerk) itā€™s a little less interesting to me.Ā 
Of course now a lot of the media that should be just John focused (more recent John Constantine-central comics, even the show to a degree) have kind of bought into the idea of him being like, good at stuff and an activeĀ character, bc again, thatā€™s a more accessible and traditional narrative. They make him have like actual goals (saving his soul, seeing his mom again, etc) when that wasnā€™t as much of a thing in Hellblazer. Like the guiltĀ over Astra and even his mother wasĀ a thing, but a thing in the way ofĀ ā€˜a reason for John to wallow in how shit he is (and consider leaving Magic behind)ā€™ and notĀ ā€˜a motive for John to go out into the world and try to take care of supernatural threats.ā€™Ā 
I mean at least in the show it took some pushing -- having Chas be part of that push, bc he isĀ more goal oriented [and in the comics too, btw: not so much about the magic stuff but about, iā€™m going to get a job and a wife and a child and be as different as possible from my motherĀ kind of way] was a choice I liked, but in general I always had some trouble with the Manny stuff in terms ofĀ ā€˜hereā€™s your chance to redeem yourself for Astraā€™ being a goal post John was theoretically working towards. Like he fought against it with some regularity at least, but idk, it was one of my problems with the whole concept of ConstantineĀ (2014), which was aggressively network American TV in its framing, with too much focus onĀ ā€˜oh but look we showed him smoking!!! and being a dick!!!!ā€™ instead of like, thought about why stuff like the smoking and the dickishness and the bisexuality matteredĀ in the comics.
Like the closest the show got to understanding Johnā€™s relationship with magic was the bit with Papa Midnite where he was likeĀ ā€˜you use bits and pieces of a million magical traditions with no respect or understandingĀ for them,ā€™ which really highlighted the weird colonial/appropriative nature of Johnā€™s magic, but even that seemed to have few if any consequences for john, so :/
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