A Lesson in Mastery and Heartbreak
“Thank you” seems wholly inadequate for what this show means to me. For what this cast and crew and fandom have done for me. I’ve said already that there aren’t words for this, but I’ve long believed that words hold a special, powerful magic, so I’ll try. Because conjuring the most powerful magic I can seems to be the only tribute that might do The Magicians justice.
The Magicians has never been perfect — and that is exactly what made it what I needed. The way it unabashedly dove into the gray spaces of life — those beautiful, messy, emotionally war-torn spaces where so many of us live daily — was a not-so-gentle reminder that our most powerful parts are often the ones we spend too many years running from or trying to hide. That perfection isn’t required to change — or save — the world.
But even beyond the glorious, morally ambiguous, and golden-hearted band of stubborn, beautiful idiots at the heart of this story, even beyond the relentless string of impending apocalypses that these scrappy motherfuckers refused to give up in the face of, beyond Fillory and the quests and the talking rabbits and the royal sloths and the moth-covered faces and the whales protecting the world from the Kraken and the 39 timelines, this show has changed me.
Fandom is not new to me. Far from it. I grew up loving Smallville and Supernatural, wondering where the Sorting Hat would place me and staying up into the early hours of the morning before a 12-hour road trip for a shot at becoming one of the Magic Million. I’ve known the power of finding that faux leather jacket with just the right amount of “Driver picks the music, shotgun shuts his cakehole,” vibes. I’ve played my favorite musician’s piano and proudly called myself a “sinner.” I’ve refreshed websites obsessively waiting for new merch to drop. I’ve marveled at cosplays and tried my hand at a few myself. I’ve woven tales with characters I loved and hungrily read the beautiful arcs other creators shared. I’ve been in fandoms for most of my life, but none of them have transformed me as tangibly and as incredibly as this one has.
The Magicians fandom has brought me conversations with brilliant writers and unforgettable interactions with compassionate, wildly talented cast members whose spirits and personal lights shine with a brightness the world needs so, so much more of. If it weren’t for this show and the little world it created — a little world where people could be the most complex and fullest versions of themselves — I wouldn’t have people in my life now that I couldn’t possibly imagine my world without.
I wouldn’t have my co-author and soulmate with whom I am (slowly) crafting a series of messy, beautiful, heartbreaking, and life-affirming queer stories that I believe in with my entire heart. I wouldn’t have my chosen family — the people I’m lucky enough to rejoice with, cry with, struggle with, and share with daily. I wouldn’t have these soul siblings that I share a love of all things woo and witchcraft and spiritualism with. Without this fandom and without this show I wouldn’t have the support system that gave me the confidence to embrace my sexuality fully or face pieces of myself I’d been running from for too long.
Watching these characters take on the worst, darkest, hardest things the world could throw at them, and choose to keep going anyway has inspired me to keep going, too. The stories told in these little 43-minute chapters has helped me pull through when trauma I’d shoved into a dark, quiet corner of a double-padlocked room in my mind broke loose and demanded to be seen. It helped me uncover my creativity again, the brought-to-TV-life versions of Eliot, Margo, Josh, Alice, Q, Kady, Penny, Margo, Fen, Julia, Marina, Fogg, Todd, Lipson, and so many others bursting with so much personality, so much history in the smallest expressions and lilts of tone that I couldn’t help but want to tell more of their stories. Couldn’t help but want to help someone else learn from these artfully crafted characters in the way I learned from them. After all, they taught me so much.
Quentin taught me the incredible power of embracing your inner “fool.”
Alice taught me that your brain can get you through a lot, but it’s no good if you don’t also follow your heart from time to time.
Kady taught me that there is bravery in the boldness required to break the rules and lead those who would rather be leaderless.
Penny taught me that sometimes the most reluctant heroes are the ones we need the most, the ones who care the most, and that you shouldn’t listen to all the voices in your head.
Julia taught me that even when it feels like you have no choice, you have to create one for yourself.
Fen taught me that kindness is an asset, that softness doesn’t undermine strength — it encourages it.
Fogg taught me that authority figures are not without flaws or the heavy burden of responsibility.
Todd taught me, well, I’m never quite sure what Todd’s teaching me, but God love him anyway.
And then there’s these two. Margo and Eliot.
Summer and Hale have, I hope, some vague sense of what they have brought to these characters and how their performances have changed so many — including myself.
Margo, who is so much more than her unbeatable wit and wildly clever combination-swears. Margo, who is loyal and layered and unwilling to give up regardless of the odds. Margo who is, and forever will be, a goddamn king. All that hard, glossy armor has never been her real strength. No, her strength is the deep, quiet, unending love she has for her people. It’s her firm refusal to be anyone but who she is and her unmatched ability to hold those around her up when they’d much rather fall apart (Eliot, honey, I’m looking at you.) Margo Hanson’s growth over the last five years has been one of the most beautifully human progressions I have ever witnessed. None of that would be as nuanced and touching and stunning without Summer’s exceptional commitment, and watching Margo hold tight to her chosen family now, in the final hours of the show, continues to move me to my core.
And Eliot. Eliot Waugh. Fuckin’ hell, where do I start? How could I possibly end?
My champagne king. My soft-hearted, over-confident-because-it-hides-the-pain, terrified, worthy-of-so-much-more-than-he’s-willing-to-offer-himself man. I’ll admit that when I started watching this show, I didn’t expect Eliot to mean so much to me. I resonated with him, I always do with the fabulous and broken ones. But with every peek behind the well-dressed curtains, I fell more and more in love with a character who broke my heart, who exposed the cracks in my own soul, who challenged me to accept love differently and to believe that I deserved it.
It’s laughable, in a morose sort of way that I’m sure The Magicians team would appreciate, the way something that happened when you were too young to even fully comprehend it can leave pesky little wounds that fester and reopen and refuse to fully heal well into adulthood. Seeing Eliot brush away the blood that trickled out when his wounds reopened, refusing to acknowledge them, refusing to recall all the times he was told he was “not enough” and simultaneously “too much” was uncomfortably familiar.
Watching him keep people he cared about deeply at an arm’s length for the fear that if they saw him wholly, truly, really, in all of his darkness and with all of the pieces that he was so certain were fractured beyond repair, they would run away hit me so intensely because I understood it. It reminded me of the time I’d run home from my neighbor’s house fighting back tears because I refused to let them see me cry after the fifth time of being forced to be the “bad guy” in whatever childhood imagine-this game my “friends” and I were playing. It reminded me of the time I asked my grandparents to pick me up outside of the comic store because the friends I’d come with left without me. It reminded me of the pain that I’d felt over the years after letting someone be incredibly important to me and finding out that I didn’t mean nearly as much to them. I saw in Eliot that same heart that wants nothing more than to love, to belong, all the while scared of what he was opening himself up to if he allowed himself to be loved, if he allowed himself to belong.
But the most beautiful part of watching Eliot over the last five seasons? The thing that made me feel so deeply connected with this character? He kept opening himself up anyway. Not perfectly. Not every time. Sometimes, when he needed to most, he couldn’t. But he kept opening himself up. In little moments with every character who had managed to slip past his not-so-well-shored walls. In allowing a moment of honesty where he wouldn’t have a season prior. In reaching out even after pulling away. In bringing a gun to a monster fight. In fighting with all he has. The things I’ve learned and faced and understood about myself because of Eliot and Hale’s remarkable performance are innumerable.
The gratitude I have for everyone who has touched this show over the last five years is immeasurable. The love poured into this by every artist involved — cast, crew, showrunners, writers, producers — is so evident. The Magicians has never been interested in happy endings because that’s not the point. Life isn’t about a happy ending. It’s about finding ways to grasp happiness in the midst of the chaos. It’s about happy beginnings and happy middles and all the shit that happens in between. It’s about perseverance and the people who make the shit feel a little less shitty.
It’s about showcasing life’s complexities in their truest form. And in that, it was masterful.
Thank you, Magicians, for making the shit a lot less shitty these past five years. I’d gladly take five more.