#anyway w/e Good At Magic John is valid in the sense of
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Note
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 donāt have a life) Iāve come to what shouldāve been a really obvious conclusion: itās because if heās 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 itās a team put together by someone else (i mean it would have to be ā Johnās 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 heās like, incompetent.
And I donāt think John is reallyĀ incompetent, i just think the point of John in hellblazer is, heās selfish and self interested and as good as he needs to be but no more. Hellblazer usually just handwaves it as āi did a thing and it worked kindaā, bc Hellblazer is my kind of magic universe that gives no fucks. But heās 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 itās going to ruin his relationships).Ā
But thatās the sort of personal exploration/commentary that makes sense for a book thatās 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 whoās shit at it, it wouldnāt make any sense, so instead, heās Good At Magic But A Jerk (who just needs A Team to fix him). And like he is, but as a trope (Competent Man Whoās A Jerk) itās 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, thatās a more accessible and traditional narrative. They make him have like actual goals (saving his soul, seeing his mom again, etc) when that wasnāt 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 āa reason for John to wallow in how shit he is (and consider leaving Magic behind)ā and notĀ āa motive for John to go out into the world and try to take care of supernatural threats.āĀ
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, iām 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 āhereās 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 āoh 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 Johnās relationship with magic was the bit with Papa Midnite where he was likeĀ āyou 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 Johnās magic, but even that seemed to have few if any consequences for john, so :/
#willthewon#anyway w/e Good At Magic John is valid in the sense of#some canons support it#but also it's boring AF don't at me#anyway the point is Hellblazer comics made me care about a mediocre white man#but oNLY bc he was mediocre and the narrative supported that#and didn't pretend otherwise#he was always kind of half ass about it and really is better at the conman aspect than the magic#i respect that -- gotta love a good con#esp bc they were usually directed at rich jerks or literal demons#matt ryan seems like he could have been really good at that part too#it's a shame he's never really had a chance to play that part of john
5 notes
Ā·
View notes