Television as the New God

This is a reaseach paper written for my English 102 class based on the television adaptation of The Magicians trilogy originally written by Lev Grossman. I love the televesion show... a lot, but have never finished the book series. However, I have done enough research to be confident in my claims. It is somewhat of a philosophical discussion on the relationship between spirituality in relation to mythology. I hope you enjoy it!

Throughout time, humanity has used stories to make sense of a seemingly random world, to pass down our heritage, and to act as a moral guide. Stories are the basis of our culture, and what build us up as individuals. We all have stories that are important to us – that have built our personal values and moral codes. I believe morals and values are the surface traits of spirituality; They are also the most defining. Growing up in a Mormon household, I have become extremely familiar with the relationship between religion, spirituality, and stories. In my more recent personal history, I have become convinced of the fact that stories capable of “convey[ing] an essence of spirituality” (Kelso) have the capacity to be as personally defining as formal religion.

Both Ursula K. Le Guin and Caroline Humphrey present the idea that metaphor and fantasy are the language of the subconscious, being that the human subconscious is an ineffable construct. That “the great fantasies, myths, and tales are indeed like dreams: they speak from the unconscious to the unconscious, in the language of the unconscious - symbol and archetype” (Le Guin). Following this line of thought, it is easy to see why stories are so important to us. From ancient Greek mythologies to modern Christianity, moral lessons and ideals are passed through stories or parables because that is the form that our subconscious is most receptive to. By approaching matters of spirituality, morality, and identity in this way, each individual is able to take the pieces of said fable or metaphor that appeal most to them and apply it to themselves; I believe this is the most authentic way to build one’s personal beliefs. Philosopher James K.A. Smith put it best when he stated that “"[o]ur identity is shaped by what we ultimately love or what we love as ultimate—what, at the end of the day, gives us a sense of meaning, purpose, understanding, and orientation to our being-in-the-world” (qtd. in Kramer) But what if we were to apply this theory to more stories than those that have already been deemed spiritual sources (i.e. the Bible or Quran)?

In the 21st century, the general spiritual theme has largely been “God is dead.” There are of course groups that reject this idea to the greatest degree, however, with the world filled with such suffering, it is no wonder that a large portion of the population feels that the gods have abandoned us, or, if they are there, they just don’t care about humanity. In an era of spiritual distress, we might follow the words of philosopher Charles Taylor, that “the status quo and ancient regime having been displaced, we now realize that if anything is going to fill the void, we need to come up with it—we will need to 'mobilize' new rituals, practices, institutions, and so forth” (qtd. in Kramer). After all, our current beliefs and rituals (arguably) began in the same fashion. Humanity has always searched for some greater meaning to this life – and perhaps that is all the proof we need that there is one. But without conclusive divine direction, we are left to our own imaginings and constructs. We are responsible for the ideas put into the world and the effects of those ideas; the result of this being metaphor and fantasy – the only way we can fathom something so utterly incomprehensible: the meaning of life. If we are to assume than any and all systems of belief have been corrupted or influenced by humanity, then we can consider all of them “working mythologies” (Kramer).

In the majority of modern mythology, the “treatment[] of religion [can] range from dismissive or cosmetic to overtly hostile” (Kelso), meaning that in most cases where the impossible is present, the idea of god(s) is merely something to support the existence of the impossible, rather than something that affects the characters of the story directly. The most popular and crucial fantastical fiction of our day is The Lord of the Rings, considered to be “the core text of modern fantasy” by many (Kelso). There is no formal religion, no deities, just imaginary creatures on an epic adventure through an unknown land. The omission of things that are commonly seen as spiritual allowed Tolkien to reach a larger audience – to invite more people to Middle Earth, and to create something that can be seen as spiritual in its’ own right without relying on established religion. Authors like C.S. Lewis (The Chronicles of Narnia), who did include depictions of deities, are still extremely well known and influential, but will most likely never be viewed as a “core” text in the fantasy genre.

The Magicians is a more modern fantasy story, originally written by Lev Grossman, and turned into a television program by Sera Gamble and John McNamara. I will be focusing specifically on the television adaptation. One of the largest differences between the books and the show is the books have a “classic case of White Male Protagonism” (The Magicians S.4 E.7), while the television adaptation directly addresses this antiquated way of thinking. Though the core messages of the story, like that “magic is not as easy, delightful, or unstoppable as many other works of fantasy would suggest” (Kramer), remain intact, Gamble and McNamara manipulate the story in such a way that the message becomes real and powerful, even though we don’t have magic in our physical reality. The series deals directly with the idea of escapism, through fantasy, drugs, alcohol, and literal other worlds. It also addresses several “taboo” subjects that modern audiences want to have conversations about, but rarely openly approach: race, sexual orientation, mental illness, sexual assault, and many more.

While many fantasy stories confine the use of magic to a new, secondary world, The Magicians does something different – it explores the consequences of magic in the mundane world as well as the secondary world(s). Not only does it blend magic with reality, it references gods directly. So directly that they are characters in the story itself, with seemingly human flaws. They experience anger and grief. Not only are the gods given human qualities, but they interact with the main characters regularly. The mythology the story follows is based in ancient Greek myths, bringing several well-known deities into the story (Persephone and Hades being the more recognizable names). Through this humanization of gods, the story gives us reason to believe that they are truly no better than us, no matter how much they think they are. We watch as Julia becomes a goddess, and learn that several major gods (Bachus, Iris, Hekka, etc.) all started as mere human magicians who found their way to extreme power. This is a direct realization of constructing our own ceremonies and breathing life into them (Kramer).

Not only does this story deal with the ideas of religion and spirituality, but it also plays off the classic hero’s journey and transforms it for our modern times. From the beginning, we are meant to see Quentin as the main protagonist, but as things progress, we discover that this story isn’t what we originally thought. Quentin is a man who is constantly running away, trying to become a person he doesn’t hate. When he discovers that magic is real, something he has been wishing for his whole life, he expects it to “fix” him. To make him happy. To cure his diagnosed depression. When a new world is not the cure he expected, he falters. Quentin is a much more human hero than is typically portrayed in fantasy stories, which makes him more relatable. More real to the audience. Our culture wants deeper storylines that address not only physical challenges, but emotional and spiritual ones too. A large portion of people today don’t face as many physical trials as they do emotional, and we want our heroes to show us how to survive in our modern world.

The series has five televised seasons, and at the end of season four, our “main hero” dies, and the story continues without him. This is a stark difference between the classic hero’s journey and the modern interpretation. Not only does Quentin not return home, but we find that home (in the modern sense) is not so much a place as a metaphor for where you feel safe, and who you feel safe with. It also gives us the opportunity to expand our point of view, to recognize that “the most important characters aren’t who you’d expect” (The Magicians S.4 E.7). In the end, there is no one main character, a topic the show establishes well. Through discussion of “side characters” we see how detrimental that classification is, and how everyone needs their story to be about themselves in order to be whole.

Most modern formal religions proclaim that they are the answer to true joy and light, but rarely address the darker sides of humanity. Caroline Humphrey argues that there can be no true and whole spirituality without addressing the duality of the human consciousness. We must see and accept our shadow selves in order to overcome it. This is an ideology that is strongly presented throughout The Magicians series. The story includes what it calls “shades”, which are the representation of the pure human soul – everything that is good. What is left without the shade could easily be classified as a “shadow self” – one full of desire without bounds. Emotion with no regulation. Something that is incapable of understanding the effects of their actions on others, or maybe just doesn’t care. It is a being without guilt. In the show, there are several characters who lose their shade and become villainous monsters. However, one idea that The Magicians presents is that a shade is recoverable. You may be a monster, but that doesn’t mean you are incapable of change.

Julia’s story of losing her shade is profound because, even without it, she has the desire to be a decent human. After Julia regains her shade, she goes through a painful transition period. During her time as a “shadow”, she made morally questionable decisions. She hurt and killed, and she didn’t care. All empathy was removed, and when her shade returned, she had to face the consequences of her actions. Namely, the emotional consequences. There is a scene of Julia, curled up on a couch sobbing and chain-smoking cigarettes. Eliot, another main character, comes to her for help, but in seeing her so broken, helps her first. He says, “the way you’re relating to that couch is not unknown to me” (The Magicians S.2 E.13) That whole scene sticks out in my mind. It says, “All humans must know this feeling.” It’s both comforting, and disconcerting. It means we are not alone in our pain, but also, in order to grow we must feel these pains. In order to conquer the shadow, one must also learn to live with grief and guilt and sorrow.

The questions come when a character whose shade remains intact makes decisions of the shadow. In this story, there is a man named Christopher Plover – the author of a Narnia-esque fantasy series that introduces the secondary world for our characters to explore and save. However, he is more than an obscure author; he is the most realistic depiction of when we allow our shadow selves to take over. Plover is a man of means and authority in his time period, and a well-respected author for generations after. Until it is revealed that Plover is a child predator, he seems to be unimportant. His transgressions directly result in the creation of a Beast so powerful he conquers and terrorizes whole worlds and murders countless numbers of people and creatures. The questions then become: What is The Beast truly responsible for?” and “Are there things which we cannot be redeemed from?”

The idea of penance is something that makes an appearance in the show. When Julia feels she has made so many mistakes she must “repent” for her sins, she is forced to make a terrible choice. She is given the choice to either kill someone out of mercy, or to allow them to live in sort of limbo for the rest of their lives. When she asks “What am I supposed to do?”, she is given the answer “Whatever’s hardest.” The goal of redemption is to “burn[] the tumors off your soul” – you can’t simply “be nice” or “donate shoes to Africa” (The Magicians S.1 E.9). The point is that you must do hard things to find real joy. No person or god can give it to you, it must be earned.

If “…this [story] can be said to have an ideological core, it is the rejection of an easy way to find happiness” (Kramer). The idea behind magic is that it “comes from pain” (The Magicians S.1 E.2), and that to be a genuinely great Magician, you must be intimately familiar with the agony of surviving in this world. That is not to say that you cannot find happiness, but that you must learn to “recogniz[e] and remedy[] darkness encountered along the spiritual path” in order to do so (Humphrey).

Not all shadow-esque qualities are simply good or evil. “Recognizing and remedying” our shadows is not a black and white subject. Humans are fallible – it is, in my opinion, unrealistic to expect oneself to fully “master” (Le Guin) the shadow, however learning to live in balance with it is much more attainable. This specifically applies to mental illness, which is openly discussed in The Magicians. The majority of our main characters suffer from some form of mental illness, most notably Quentin Coldwater. Throughout the history of its’ visual representation, mental illness has been treated in a mostly hostile light, displaying those afflicted as dangerous to society in an attempt to “control mental illness and protect the boundaries of a presumed normality” (Eisenhauer). For the most part, the way The Magicians deals with mental illness is much more sensitive and realistic.

Quentin is the most notable, mostly because we are able to see his mental health journey in a very real way. The series starts out by showing him in a mental institution for his severe depression. After some time in his newfound world of magic, he is exposed to a key that creates what is referred to as a “depression monster” by “taking the darkest parts of you” and combining them (The Magicians S.3 E.6). Through the personification of his mental illness, we see how mental illness becomes a grey area when referencing the shadow. The Depression Monster is all of the guilt, all of the pain, all of the despair that Quentin is faced with. Is this the shadow? It is certainly all the things we don’t want to feel. These are feelings we must learn to work through, conquer, and live in balance with, which is remarkably close to the shadow. The difference, and therefore the grey area, is that while these feelings must eventually be overcome to be a functioning part of society, they are useful to us. Having a conscience was never supposed to be easy – it’s supposed to help us learn to be better.

The Magicians is unique in the way it approaches is audience. It gives us main characters with problems that we face in our personal lives, not superheroes. They reference modern media in ways that bring them into our universe, suggesting that we live in the same world. By allowing us to watch our heroes experience “ugly” emotions, we become more connected to them. We relate more easily and empathize more readily with their plight. The show “perfectly captures the dissatisfaction and ennui of a particular generation, unable to reconcile their beliefs with their love of fantasy”, and through that becomes a powerful way of provoking thought into what we believe (Kramer).

Because “mythologies refer to the same topics and ideas as religions”, they offer “offer both cultures and individuals a way to explore humanity's deepest emotional and ethical questions” (Beichler). The Magicians combines ancient and modern mythology in order to give us a new perspective on religion – that perhaps the gods have abandoned us, but only because we abandoned them first. And that they are not gone but waiting for humanity to realize their need for the divine. Or perhaps the message isn’t so meta – perhaps it is that we need to grow through our pain in order to reach our full potential. Perhaps we are magic for our pain, not in spite of it.

Using the shadow, the hero’s journey, and myth (both ancient and modern), I have found this television show to have a prevailing “essence of spirituality”, that has sort of turned into a manual for my own life: that “the brave thing is to be you and accept the consequences” (The Magicians S.3 E.8). And that, because the shadow must be made peace with, we must and can do the hardest things. There is magic in our resilience.

Works Cited

Beichler, James E. “Muggles, Matrix and Silmaril: The Pride of Modern Mythology.” Journal of

Spirituality & Paranormal Studies, vol. 30, no. 3, July 2007, p. 127. EBSCOhost, search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.tmcc.edu:2048/login.aspx?direct=true&db=mfi&AN=25737996&site=ehost-live&scope=site. Accessed 10 May. 2021.

Eisenhauer, Jennifer. “A Visual Culture of Stigma: Critically Examining Representations

of Mental Illness.” Art Education, vol. 61, no. 5, 2008, pp. 13–18. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/20694752. Accessed 25 Apr. 2021.

Humphrey, Caroline. “Shadows Along the Spiritual Pathway.” Journal of Religion and Health,

vol. 54, no. 6, 2015, pp. 2376–2388., www.jstor.org/stable/24735970. Accessed 25 Apr. 2021.

Kelso, Sylvia. “The God in the Pentagram: Religion and Spirituality in Modern Fantasy.”

Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts, vol. 18, no. 1 (69), 2007, pp. 61–82. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/24351027. Accessed 25 Apr. 2021.

Kramer, Kelly. “A Common Language of Desire: ‘The Magicians’, Narnia, and Contemporary

Fantasy.” Mythlore, vol. 35, no. 2 (130), 2017, pp. 153–169. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26816090. Accessed 18 Apr. 2021.

Le Guin, Ursula K. “The Child and the Shadow.” The Quarterly Journal of the Library of

Congress, vol. 32, no. 2, 1975, pp. 139–148. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/29781619. Accessed 25 Apr. 2021.

Gamble, Sera and McNamara, John, creators. The Magicians. NBC Universal Television Distribution and Syfy, 2015-2020. Netflix.