#why those quotes and where did gob bluth go

[loosethreadsofyoursoul]

i just spent my morning learning the 9-1-1 magnet theory lore and now i can’t see straight

[king-azaz-the-unabridged]

WARNING: Obviously there are spoilers about The Magician King. Just talking about the plot of The Magician King gives heavy spoilers for The Magicians. Don’t read this if you haven’t read that and want to.  

I can’t remember the last trilogy that I’ve enjoyed as much as I’m enjoying this one. I heard some negative opinions about The Magician King prior to starting it, which made me wonder if I should read it in the first place. I read the Darth Bane trilogy a year or two ago and really wish I would have skipped the second and third books, they kind of ruined an amazing first book. After reading TMK I can kind of understand considering why people did not like it as much as The Magicians (the first book of the trilogy) because how different the two are. That’s the problem with judging sequels and series, do you rate it by itself or should you compare it to its prior work considering they’re part of one big story? I thought it was great, both by itself and as part of a series.

When I was reading TM I got a little annoyed, thinking it was The Chronicles of Narnia fan fiction. (Having only seen the first movie, the Fillory stories clearly mirrored them. Climbing through a clock into another world? To quote GOB Bluth, “COME ONE!”) By the end of that book and throughout TMK those annoyances vanished. The “we’re on a quest, we follow the rules and we’ll be alright” aspects played well and were not annoying, even though they could have been. I kind of liked how it was the characters acting out a story, where they were never really in danger as long as they did what characters in a story did. It’s predicable, but that’s the point of Fillory. It’s a storybook world. Most things worked out in the Harry Potter stories, but the characters had to work hard for them to work out. Funny that HP was written for a younger audience than TM and TMK were.

I wonder if I enjoyed TMK more than TM. It might just be recency bias, or the fact that I knew the characters already so could dive right into the plot. When Quentin and Julia go back to Brakebills I had the same thoughts as Quentin, I felt like I didn’t want to go back there again with a strange distaste for Dean Fogg. Was that because Quentin felt that way, or was it because I didn’t enjoy those parts as much as I thought I did? I think and hope it’s the former. I won’t know without a rereading, which might be a long way off.

TMK handled bringing back characters from the first book well. Sometimes that can seem like fan service but this didn’t seem like that at all. Everyone that came back had a reason to. I am glad Alice did not make an appearance. Quentin mentions her when he is in the underworld but he doesn’t find her. I’m assuming we’ll see her again but I’m glad it wasn’t as a cameo like Jollibee. Hopefully they keep that up in the third book. I liked Bingle but hope for the story’s sake we’ve seen the last of him, unless his reappearance is warranted.  I was annoyed by the end of the Harry Potter series when every minor character came to Hogwarts for the climactic battle. (I remember thinking, “what the fuck?” when Neville’s grandmother showed up.) I was kind of glad to see a lot less Janet in this book. I don’t remember disliking her in TM but the show kind of ruined the character for me.

The only problem I had with TMK was my fault and not the book’s. After I finished the first book I watched season one of the TV series that began airing last year. That was a mistake, because the show included the subplot of the second book since it takes place at the same time as the events of the first book. I could tell early on that I knew how the subplot was going to end, but the show changed so much from the books that it was still somewhat new and worthwhile. I thought the plot and the subplot wove together well, with only a few things about Julia and Our Lady Underground not really explained. I’m hoping those are discussed in the third book and aren’t just plot holes.

Speaking of the TV series, I can’t decide how much I liked it. I liked that they took the idea of the books and changed a lot of it around. Some of the changes were really good but others I did not like. Brakebills really didn’t seem magical in the show, but that might be because my only interpretation of a magical school is Hogwarts. I also didn’t like how aspergersy Quentin was in it. He was way more social in the books. Alice also had her neurotic tendencies cranked up to 11. The only character I liked more in the show was Penny, which I’m wondering if that was done on purpose by the show runners since he was such a twat in the book.  I wish I had known that the season involved books one and two. I am starting the third book now and will be done before season 2 begins airing January 25th so I shouldn’t run into any other problems.

One other weird spoilery thing about the books is how much information is given on the back. I didn’t read the back of the first book until after I was done and I noticed it discusses that Fillory is real, which isn’t revealed until ~2/3 of the way through. I hate when books do that. I avoided reading the back of the second book until after it was done too and they discuss Quentin and Julia getting sent back to Earth, which also happens a good amount through the book. I know books have to advertise and get people to buy them, but I’m finding more and more that going in fresh without getting any info is the best way to go. Luckily enough people had recommended the series that I didn’t need to know much before reading it. One of the things that piqued my interest in the book was the show’s trailer, which fortunately didn’t have any spoilers in it as well. I’m wondering if the lack of spoilers is because they knew they could get an audience by only saying, “Harry Potter with sex and drugs.”

I am starting the third book (The Magicians Land) now and am so h*cking excited for it. TMK took me less than two weeks to read and at 400 pages already put me 13% of my way towards my goal for the year.

POST SCRIPT: The quote I posted early is fucking amazing. It relates to me so well, and describes why I suck at doing the new things I want to do. It got me to actually practice yoyo tricks instead of sticking the thing on my dresser to be forgotten like all my other impulse purchases. I’m going to use that as inspiration to do the things I say I’m going to do in the future.

1/6/17