Thanks, I hate it - The Magicians S4 Finale

[lierdumoa]

So the thing that makes me ABSOLUTELY INCANDESCENT WITH RAGE is this line from Hollywood Reporter’s interview with the magicians creative team [x]:

“And from a dramaturgical point of view, it’s kind of great that at last, the white male lead on a show is no longer safe.”

It’s so transparently disingenuous.

I mean first of all, when fans complain about shows fridging “everybody except the white guys” it’s because we want shows to STOP fridging women & POC. It’s not because we want shows to START fridging white guys IN ADDITION to women & POC.

And secondly, if they sincerely wanted to make a statement about the unimportance of privileged white men, they would have fridged Josh, instead of spending two seasons setting him up as Quentin’s more heterosexual, more neurotypical REPLACEMENT.

Josh is the textbook white straight cis neurotypical male self-insert Gary Stu. He’s a mediocre white man who requires constant validation.

Every single Josh scene goes something like this:

Josh: I know I’m not important or special .

Core Castmember: You’re wrong, Josh. You’re actually very important and special. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner, and give you the validation you deserve.

The show constantly rewards him for his mediocrity. He gets a giant werewolf penis, and then he gets to angst about his giant werewolf penis. He gets a hero’s journey. The show even hands him naked!Margo on a silver fucking platter like she’s some kind of fucking participation trophy.

Oh yeah, don’t get me started on Josh/Margo. The straight male gaze is so glaringly obvious in how that romance was written.

Their relationship literally starts with her servicing him sexually out of pity after he gives a big speech about how he doesn’t want to be a rapist. So many of his scenes in the last season serve no purpose except to 1) demonstrate to the audience how “chivalrous” Josh is and then 2) immediately reward Josh’s so-called chivalry with pussy.

And the show pulls the exact same patriarchal bullshit with Penny23/Julia. Penny23 knows Julia’s not sexually or romantically interested in him, but he keeps putting niceness coins into his Julia vending machine until eventually sex comes out.

Both of these relationships reinforce the message that the love of a beautiful woman is a reward mediocre straight men earn for being Nice Guys™.

Margo having a romance with Fen would have made a million times more sense. Fen was supposed to be a lesbian in the books anyway, and Margo’s canonically expressed sexual interest towards both men and women.

Oh and I could write a whole other post about how Eliot spent 50 more years with Quentin than Alice yet somehow the show gave Alice’s grief higher priority, further demonstrating their continued commitment to prioritizing patriarchal heteronormativity ahead of queer representation.

Just.

The sheer unmitigated gall of these showrunners.

To write the most grossly patriarchal narrative possible, ending with them fridging a queer, mentally ill character, then still have the audacity to award themselves progressiveness points.

Comments

[killabeez]

There's just so much to be angry about. And thank you—I was super confused when Margo/Fen kept not happening.

but he keeps putting niceness coins into his Julia vending machine until eventually sex comes out

Uggggh, yes.

[nymphaea1]

Yeah, it's some serious bullshit. I left fandom for years because after writing an actual gay character in AI8, I just couldn't do the winking queerbaiting SPN-style subtext anymore. And I had two kids and had massive, crippling post-partum depression with the second one. He's about to turn four, and after years of hard work, I've managed to find ways to manage the oppressive anxiety and the return of suicidal ideation I had as a teenager.

With the kids getting older and my mental health issues getting to a manageable place, I decided to dip my toe back into fandom. Lots of people were pimping this great show about magical queer graduate students figuring out life is more challenging than the fantasy we're sold. So I gave it a shot. And Quentin Coldwater was me in ways, I've never, ever had before. Hell, I was a graduate student for over a decade. All of them were me in ways no other characters have been.

I figured out early in season four that they'd kill him. There was just too much foreshadowing. I did not think they could possibly be so pig-stupid to do it this way, though. The god-damned gall of them to bask in all of the press for 4X05 knowing the whole damned time that it wouldn't amount to anything. It's "too artificial" to have a reunion between Eliot and Quentin? You're a show that does a musical episode once a year and has talking bears. Get the fuck over yourself.

And I'm sorry it's too damned hard to figure out what to do with the depressed bisexual for another year other than having him commit suicide and then watch how his life mattered after all because everyone he loves has the sads for five minutes. I guess writing people like me getting up and finding happiness and fulfillment is too boring. So sorry about that.

They are just so pleased with themselves for killing off their main character, like they are time travelers from, like, 1972 and no one's ever done that before. Even without the other, many, terrible issues with Quentin's death, it's not even new. I teach high school now, and pretty much every third story I read of theirs has them killing some character for the shock value. So, congratulations, Gamble and Co., your shocking twist is shared by fifteen year olds. It was just sooo badly written.

The big scary monster and his even scarier sister? Really not so scary. Didn't do anything. They were just there to torture Quentin for an entire season, violate Julia once again and then disappear. Margo drags herself through the desert for Eliot, but, hey when werewolf dick is on offer, she'll just forget all that. Sure, that violates everything we've ever established about her character. After all, who can resist schlubby white-dude with entitlement issues?

Seriously, fuck them.

here from network

[kore]

And secondly, if they sincerely wanted to make a statement about the unimportance of privileged white men, they would have fridged Josh, instead of spending two seasons setting him up as Quentin’s more heterosexual, more neurotypical REPLACEMENT.

Josh is the textbook white straight cis neurotypical male self-insert Gary Stu. He’s a mediocre white man who requires constant validation.

Every single Josh scene goes something like this:

Josh: I know I’m not important or special .

Core Castmember: You’re wrong, Josh. You’re actually very important and special. I’m sorry I didn’t realize it sooner, and give you the validation you deserve.
The show constantly rewards him for his mediocrity. He gets a giant werewolf penis, and then he gets to angst about his giant werewolf penis. He gets a hero’s journey. The show even hands him naked!Margo on a silver fucking platter like she’s some kind of fucking participation trophy.

OH MY GOD
SO MUCH THIS

My partner and I LOATHED Josh, and we were just fucking baffled why he beame a regular this season and WTF is he doing being pulled into the middle of this established group! -- Oh. It's because Quentin has been killed off permanently. THAT'S why. It's totally the whole Xander/Buffy dynamic all over again -- the schlubby white guy who seemingly has nothing to contribute is really the Heart and Soul of the group (why), because he Truly Loves the Strong Female (or at least wants to fuck her), so he gets rewarded with her love after she realizes that no, she is not actually worthy of his devotion. But at least Buffy never actually AWARDED her to Xander. (Altho then they went on to pull much the same shit with Spike, but I digress.) And I REALLY don't like them replacing Penny 40, the acerbic character who tried to hide his heart so hard and fell for Kady, with Penny 23, who is obsessed with Julia on frankly a creepy level and just gets more and more fucking obsessed. And then they made Penny 40 some kind of milquetoast spirit guide as well! WTF, show, WHAT?