The Magicians - SyFy [SHOW SPOILERS ONLY]

[Fragile Bird]

2 hours ago, SpaceChampion said:

Well, Quentin mainly only thinks about himself first...

Now that I think about it a bit more, I guess it really relates to that specific conversation between the Dean and Quentin, so, 39. 

[Astromech]

On ‎4‎/‎5‎/‎2016 at 11:50 PM, Fragile Bird said:

I gather the books aren't so great.  The series has it's ups and downs, but I feel compelled to watch.  Tonight's episode was one of the stronger ones so far.

 

My opinion, basically, minus the compelling part. I have enjoyed the episodes more since they traveled to the author's house.

I was happy for the Q and Julia reunion and that they're traveling to Fillory together. Julia is the only character in the show who has the right to be miserable, the rest are just emo, especially Elliott. I was cursing Margo for saving him.

Is the actress playing the librarian the same as played the female guard in OITNB? She looks familiar.

I'm hoping the goddess storyline wasn't just abandoned. It was rather intriguing.

As a non-book reader, I'm assuming there have been a number of references to the novels that have been completely lost on me. Oh well.

[Fragile Bird]

So tonight is the last show of the season.

[Fragile Bird]

On ‎22‎/‎03‎/‎2016 at 1:56 AM, Fragile Bird said:

So....

At least, so far, the Julia line of plot isn't all about sex.

Anyone want to bet where that plotline will end up?

Hidden Content

 

And I haven't even read the books...

[RedEyedGhost]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

And I haven't even read the books...

But it wasn't the Beast...

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, RedEyedGhost said:

But it wasn't the Beast...

Well....close enough if it wasn't "the" Beast.  He tells Julia he is to be addressed as Reynard the Fox.  And at the end the Beast and Julia are familiar with each other and have that conversation about a deal, and she tells him to wait while the flashback to the phone call occurs.

Have you read the books and you know this is someone else?

In any event, I was suspicious....

[RedEyedGhost]

I have not read the books as I feel I've made evident so many times in this thread.  The deal she was trying to make with the Beast was obviously to get back at Reynard for killing her friends and raping her (because in this loop she cares more about them than the Brakebills group, excluding Quentin, but he had yet to be harmed by the Beast when she proposed a deal with him).  The Beast was familiar with all of them because he is powerful enough to remember all previous 39 times that they failed to kill him.

[Fragile Bird]

8 hours ago, RedEyedGhost said:

I have not read the books as I feel I've made evident so many times in this thread.  The deal she was trying to make with the Beast was obviously to get back at Reynard for killing her friends and raping her (because in this loop she cares more about them than the Brakebills group, excluding Quentin, but he had yet to be harmed by the Beast when she proposed a deal with him).  The Beast was familiar with all of them because he is powerful enough to remember all previous 39 times that they failed to kill him.

But this is the first time Julia's mind block has been lifted.  Remember, Ember says to them, oh, usually by this point in time you've killed Julia.  I wondered why Quentin would have killed Julia.

The Beast shows himself one way to the folks at Brakebills, I think he just showed himself another way to the hedge witch group.  After all, wasn't Julia at Brakebills  the previous 39 times?  Quentin asked the Dean what had changed in the time loop this time, and wasn't it Julia failing the entry exam to Brakebills?  Presumably the Beast still wanted to track her down and, instead of killing her, making her pregnant???

Sorry, didn't look back in the thread to see who has or hasn't read the books.   

What does everybody else think?

[Knight of Ashes]

On Saturday, April 09, 2016 at 10:45 AM, Arkash said:

Naaah, I dont think that's entirely true. I think he's really sincere and genuine in his love for Alice... but would he think about her before himself, that remains to be seen !

He just did.

Either that or Q really didn't want to quaff Ember's semen.

Anyway, other than Martin being the Beast and Penny getting his hands cut off, the confrontation with Beastie was quite a surprise. I had a problem with the timing of Julia's revelation until it tied in with the ending/cliffhanger so never mind.

Also, since Jane Chatwin now knows she's going to die, I wonder if this means she's gonna be able to prevent that somehow (which she maybe could if only Q had told her the circumstances  of her death).

Anyway, I've come to love this show; though, like their book versions, the main characters can be difficult to like, but they do grow on one.

 

 

[Fragile Bird]

Ok, if you want some answers, I've linked a good interview with one of the showrunners, full of spoilers if you haven't seen until the end.

I was wondering what the hell happened to the "where's my brother" storyline of Alice's.  I thought at one point he was the Beast.  I guess it completely went over my head in the episode when they showed Alice's brother appear to her.  Turns out he screwed up a spell and became a niffin, a being of pure magical energy.  Anyone else catch that?

Ok, ok, I was wrong but I was right.  The hedge witches did not call up the Beast after all.  I thought he just showed up in a different form, but it was an actual god.  I did think, however, they were doing something dangerous that would turn out badly, and the big hint came with the warning from the acolyte who said 'you can't unring a bell'.  Turns out the gods really don't give a fuck about human beings.  I always thought this golden glowing vision they had of gods was stupid, when you think of the stories told by the Greeks and the Romans and the Vikings.  They're a vicious bunch who think humans are pretty stupid, toys to play games with.

I assume the last few minutes of the show will be reversed somehow, probably by Jane, not Julia.  Could be wrong, though, it might be Julia.

Oh...funny story about the dog they have a drink with...

http://www.vox.com/2016/4/12/11411132/the-magicians-finale-recap-review-interview-season-1

 

ETA:  Another interview with the showrunners  http://www.ew.com/article/2016/04/11/magicians-bosses-season-1-finale-cliffhanger

[SpaceChampion]

12 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

But this is the first time Julia's mind block has been lifted. 

This loop would also be the first time that mind block was even put on her.

[Fragile Bird]

16 minutes ago, SpaceChampion said:

This loop would also be the first time that mind block was even put on her, so I don't know what your point is.

Lol, you don't have to take it so personally.

REG makes the point Julia cares much more for the hedge witch group than for the Brakebills group.  Why?  This bugs me.

This is the first time she went through this loop, the first time she had the mind block removed so she could actually remember what happened.  I am wondering about this based on what seems to be de rigueur on the 'time loop' idea - you may or may not remember the whole story, but you remember the stuff you've learned.   Julia's already died 39 times with the Brakebills crowd, why would she be more loyal to the hedge witch folk?  Bloody hell, she's died 39 times with Quentin, Penny, Alice, Margot and Eliot, why didn't she just slit the Beast's throat?  Penny mentions a couple of times (and didn't Alice as well?) that he doesn't want to be killed again.  I think he said that after one of their probability magic attempts, but looking back at it he does seem to have remembered dying over and over. 

And I go back again to what Ember said - usually by this point you've already killed Julia (I don't think he said the Beast already killed her).  Why would Quentin kill Julia?  Is there something evil about her?  Is that why Reynard chose her?  She tells Quentin she's done something terrible, and he tries to soothe her by saying at least she helped Kady escape.  From what I've seen of Quentin throughout the series, he misinterprets everything, hell, he's as bad as Harry Potter that way.

I don't know, I just feel like there's something about Julia.  Jane took her out of the group for a reason, surely?

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

4 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Lol, you don't have to take it so personally.

REG makes the point Julia cares much more for the hedge witch group than for the Brakebills group.  Why?  This bugs me.

This is the first time she went through this loop, the first time she had the mind block removed so she could actually remember what happened.  I am wondering about this based on what seems to be de rigueur on the 'time loop' idea - you may or may not remember the whole story, but you remember the stuff you've learned.   Julia's already died 39 times with the Brakebills crowd, why would she be more loyal to the hedge witch folk?  Bloody hell, she's died 39 times with Quentin, Penny, Alice, Margot and Eliot, why didn't she just slit the Beast's throat?  Penny mentions a couple of times (and didn't Alice as well?) that he doesn't want to be killed again.  I think he said that after one of their probability magic attempts, but looking back at it he does seem to have remembered dying over and over. 

And I go back again to what Ember said - usually by this point you've already killed Julia (I don't think he said the Beast already killed her).  Why would Quentin kill Julia?  Is there something evil about her?  Is that why Reynard chose her?  She tells Quentin she's done something terrible, and he tries to soothe her by saying at least she helped Kady escape.  From what I've seen of Quentin throughout the series, he misinterprets everything, hell, he's as bad as Harry Potter that way.

I don't know, I just feel like there's something about Julia.  Jane took her out of the group for a reason, surely?

FB,

You must be an... interesting person to watch television shows with. 

Quentin, Julia, Penny Alice, Margot and Eliot don't remember their 39 previous deaths. They know OF the time loop because Quentin informed them, after he truth serumed it out of the Dean, but they don't have any personal memory of it. The comments made by the Brakebills students about it being unpleasant to die were the result of them experiencing their own deaths via the "probability magic" they cast - not because they were remembering their prior time loops. Based on what we've seen in the show, only beings of great magical power can actually remember the past time loops - The Beast seems to remember the prior loops, as does Ember. The Dean seems to have some remembrance of the prior loops as well, judging by his reference to the number of times that Quentin has slipped him truth serum (you'd think he would be a little more cautious at this point). 

In the prior timelines, Julia got into Brakebills. There's no reason to believe that she joined the hedges in summoning Reynard in the prior timelines, because her not getting into Brakebills was the whole reason she went down the hedge path and tried to summon a goddess. To the best of the information we have, she never had a mind block put into place on her, because she never summoned Reynard in the prior timelines because she had always gotten into Brakebills. 

There is no indication that any of the Brakebills students or Julia have any retained memories of the prior time loops. In fact, there's plenty of evidence otherwise - Quentin and Julia end up having to re-learn magic all over again each time, and they start out as total beginners.  

I admit - nobody knows exactly why Ember said that usually Quentin had killed Julia by this point. He might mean that he personally killed her. He might mean that he had gotten Julia killed. I admit that it's a mystery. But other than that one concession, I think you are misreading the show  pretty significantly. 

 

[Fragile Bird]

<blows raspberry at Nestor>

Maybe I'm misreading this last episode, maybe not, but the whole series to date?  Blruurrrrtttthhhhh at you again!  I did not even remotely suggest Julia was involved with hedge witches before this timeline, I specifically said it was the first time she went through this timeline, and died 39 times previously with the group.  And I was still right to be suspicious about the goddess storyline, even if it was a god and not the Beast.

But think about Groundhog Day, which Quentin does, much to the annoyance of the Dean.  Now there's the convention that you both remember the previous loop and what you learned.  And then there's Edge of Tomorrow, where Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt don't remember everything but they remember what they learned.  And there are others as well, going far back.  There was a famous short story by Bradbury or Heinlein about an astronaut who was doing a loop...

They are getting better every time they go through a loop, even if they die every time.  The Beast mentions it, so they are probably retaining some memory.  I mean, that's the purpose of a loop, isn't it?  To get better the next time?

I am still very very suspicious about Julia.  We'll see, next season.   

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

From my recollection, Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow operates exactly like Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day - which is to say, they each remember everything that happened in their prior days, but everyone else "reset" with no knowledge. The only way that Emily Blunt's character learned anything about what happened is because Tom Cruise's character told her. 

I don't think there's any indication that Julia or Quentin or any of the Brakebills kids have any recollection or retained anything they learned from the prior loops. Basically, they're pawns in a giant puzzle the only thing that's really changing is Jane Chatwin rearranging them at the beginning to try to prod them in different directions. 

[Fragile Bird]

3 minutes ago, NestorMakhnosLovechild said:

From my recollection, Tom Cruise in Edge of Tomorrow operates exactly like Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day - which is to say, they each remember everything that happened in their prior days, but everyone else "reset" with no knowledge. The only way that Emily Blunt's character learned anything about what happened is because Tom Cruise's character told her. 

I don't think there's any indication that Julia or Quentin or any of the Brakebills kids have any recollection or retained anything they learned from the prior loops. Basically, they're pawns in a giant puzzle the only thing that's really changing is Jane Chatwin rearranging them at the beginning to try to prod them in different directions. 

Have you read the books?  Is that Grossman's approach, that they are mere chess pieces?  If so, that's very disappointing.  Why would they get better at doing the stuff they do if they have no secret or hidden memory of what they've learned?  Like I said, the whole idea of a loop is to learn something.

I haven't see Edge from start to finish, I always find it on tv after it's started, and wasn't sure if he remembered everything.  At the very end, though, it seems to suggest she does have a memory of him, doesn't it?

This has been done by Star Trek too, hasn't it? 

[NestorMakhnosLovechild]

2 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Have you read the books?  Is that Grossman's approach, that they are mere chess pieces?  If so, that's very disappointing.  Why would they get better at doing the stuff they do if they have no secret or hidden memory of what they've learned?  Like I said, the whole idea of a loop is to learn something.

I haven't see Edge from start to finish, I always find it on tv after it's started, and wasn't sure if he remembered everything.  At the very end, though, it seems to suggest she does have a memory of him, doesn't it?

This has been done by Star Trek too, hasn't it? 

I have not read the books, but my understanding from reading the Wiki is that the loops works basically the same way. SOMEONE is learning something from the loops - it's just not the main characters. Specifically, Jane Chatwin is fiddling with the group to see whether any of the changes put them in a better position to stop The Beast. As I understand it, both the books and the show have picked up this theme of deconstructing the "chosen one" narrative, which is part of why Quentin comes to realize this episode that he is actually not the person in a best position to kill The Beast. The revelation that Quentin and his friends have much less agency than we thought, and are in fact pawns in a larger game, actually works on the same level of subversion. 

[RedEyedGhost]

12 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

But think about Groundhog Day, which Quentin does, much to the annoyance of the Dean.  Now there's the convention that you both remember the previous loop and what you learned.  And then there's Edge of Tomorrow, where Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt don't remember everything but they remember what they learned.  And there are others as well, going far back.  There was a famous short story by Bradbury or Heinlein about an astronaut who was doing a loop...

There's two classes of people in timeloops: those that remember and those that don't.  In Groundhog Day Bill Murray was the only person in the former, everybody else in the world was in the latter.  In Edge of Tomorrow Tom Cruise was the only one who remembered (that particular loop, Emily Blunt had lived in another previous loop, she doesn't remember this loop because she doesn't have the blood this time), and he remembered everything from every life he lived, that's how he learned and got better it wasn't some instinct or muscle memory, he actively remembered it.

In The Magicians Quentin and his peers do not remember anything from the previous 39 loops, nothing.  They're starting fresh every time; they're like the townspeople in Punxsutawney - oblivious to what's going on around them.  The real difference in the show relative to the movies is that there is more than one person that can remember, and that's determined by how much magical ability they have.  So all of the extremely powerful magicians are aware of the loop (Jane, the Beast, the Dean) as well as the gods (Ember and Umber, and likely Reynard, etc.).  And it looks like it's their power level at the start of the loop that determines whether they will remember or not, because otherwise whoever drank the magic spunk would remember when the loop reset.

 

24 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

They are getting better every time they go through a loop, even if they die every time.  The Beast mentions it, so they are probably retaining some memory.  I mean, that's the purpose of a loop, isn't it?  To get better the next time?

They are doing better this loop because of Jane's actions.  I'm sure there were loops that went worse than the one before.  She's just making slight modifications each time to see if it will improve the actions of the group (like swapping Janet for Margot, removing Julia from Brakebills, etc.).  She's tweaking the probability of their success with small changes - the butterfly effect. 

And as I was typing this it looks like Nestor replied again, so hopefully one of our slightly different explanations will make sense.  But, yes, they are all just Jane's pawns in her war against her brother.

[Fragile Bird]

I dunno, there seems to be a bit of having your cake and eating it too going on in the show.  From one of the articles I linked I learned that the loop stuff goes on in the books but you don't find out about it until the end. 

I wondered from Episode 1 why Julia scarred her arm when she heard she had flunked and her memory would be wiped.  Remember, she kept insisting she was supposed to be there.  She really is brighter than Quentin.

Why was it the first time we saw the Beast (was it episode 1 or 2?) he stopped to look at Quentin?  Why didn't he just kill him?  The Beast remembers the loops, why wait for the group to show up, 3 of them were there, weren't they?  Other than the fact you'd have no series, of course. 

Anyway, this comes from being an analytical, right?  I'll just watch the re-runs and enjoy them the next time around.   

[The Mother of The Others]

It was weird!   

that covers most of what I wanted to say.

also, the author guy's voice-over technique that seemed dippy at the start was much more acceptable to me now that major events are happening left and right to overshadow it.

As a long time fan of time loops, it's refreshing to see this show not taking itself super-seriously.   This helps the viewer to relax and not be tempted to get out a fine-toothed comb to examine the temporal mechanics which nobody understands anyways.  That blind guy wi-ZARD made me laugh. 

The gods are pervs!

I like the term Neitherlands.  It's engenders fascination and almost makes me wish I'd watched the middle episodes inbetween the premiere and finale.