Magicians_Obsessed

The team does a timeline reset where everyone remembers everything that happened and Eliot wakes up in the moment he first met Quentin

He goes like "Q-Quentin!?" And Q does that uh-huh he did the first time

When Eliot finally understands the situation he walks in front of Q and says almost crying "I'm Eliot"

So, I’ve been trying to find the words to explain what is upsetting me most about the way the Q story is being handled in s5. I won’t lie, there are some things that hitting the right notes for me (I’m easy person to win over. I won’t lie. My standards do not exist.), but at the same time, I keep coming back to how quickly this has been wrapped up. Julia was sad for about 5 minutes and Margo acts like she doesn’t know who this Q person was. I heard there had actually been a touching scene where Kady showed some grief, but it was cut, which is a shame –I always thought the Kady/Q almost friendship was interesting (I loathed that the only thing she could think of to bring to the finale fire was the autographed book that had been one of the final straws for breaking Q’s spirit. Anyway not the point, but boy I would love to do a whole write up about that), and with how detached Kady’s story is from EVERYTHING ELSE, it would have been a good way to incorporate her into this bigger story of mourning and grief (though it also just goes to show how much of the glue that Q was to these characters).

The only characters who actually seem affected by what happened are Alice and Eliot, which while not surprising, it kind of hurts a lot to see the memory of Quentin Coldwater reduced down to his two major romantic partners. And after the newest episode, it hurts more to see how these two have officially given up on him now too. These two that he fought so hard to save. I mean, you can even compare the s2 arc of saving Alice to the s4 arc of saving Eliot, and they’re almost beat for beat the same–the initial denial and hope that something can be done (going to the flying forest, helping the monster in hopes he’ll release El), some outside force assuring him that it can not be done as they’re dead dead (the questing beast and the monster), he believes it for about a half second before something happens (ghost|niffin!Alice haunting him, El breaking free from the monster for a moment) and then he gives every ounce of energy he has to saving them– some of them silly (interpretive dances and talking to mummies), some of them painful (niffin!alice doing everything she can to emotionally hurt him, the monster constantly touching him and using Eliot’s body as a tool to keep Q in line), hell, he even visits Mayakovsky for help during each of these arcs. All of this to say, there’s no one who could deny that Q did not give up on Alice and El, never, and definitely not so easily or quickly. 

So to see these two people, the two that at different points of his life, he gave everything to bring back from death, it hurts. And that’s what it was, Niffin!Alice was not just another version of Alice. Our Alice died that day. Q brought her back, but she died the day she became a niffin. Now because she was a niffin, it was a whole different life, kind of like Fred becoming Ilyria on Angel. Niffin!Alice ended up having her own set of experiences (good and bad) and her own life, and the question of whether it was right for Q to strip that away from her to bring back our Alice was the entirety of their s3 story, but at the end of the day, the answer settled on yes, it was right to bring her back because no matter what she experienced as a niffin, the power she had, it only happened because a 23 year old girl was tragically killed. 

El was a little different, but at the same time, as time went on, we saw the Monster developing his own views and thoughts. For the first time since his creation, he was able to act on his own accord and he discovered he liked churros and television and touching and Starbucks and Quentin and those quiet moments in the forest under an old tree. I mean, that last moment of the monster, sitting under that tree, demonstrated that to get Eliot back, they had to eliminate this new existence. Again, this isn’t the same as niffin!Alice because even post-rehumaning of her, there was a part of her that enjoyed that other existence (but it was still the right thing to do) while Eliot was invaded and did not like it. But in the end, the similarities of what Q did, what Q gave up, and what Q destroyed to bring back the people he loved are present and strong. 

So, it brings me to this thing I’m really struggling with– every one keeps saying that the reason they can’t/shouldn’t bring Q back is because it was his choice. But it was also Alice’s choice to go niffin that day. She admitted it; she let herself burn so she could destroy the beast. Eliot might not have known he’d get possessed, but he knew he was putting his life in danger when he pulled that trigger, but he did so he could try to protect Q. Just like Q doing what he did to defeat Everett (which there is so much stuff to support that this was NOT THE ONLY OPTION but that’s not the point here), Alice sacrificed herself to defeat the beast and save her friends and Eliot was willing to sacrifice himself to kill the monster and save Q. 

So why is Quentin’s choice the only one that sticks? Why his “sacrificial choice” more concrete than theirs? Why does it need to be respected? All three of them would sacrifice themselves to save the people they love. The question at the end of the day is though, would they like to save their friends and also be alive themselves? Alice and El (except for Q) both got to answer that question (and from what we know about this season, Eliot will become more sure on this part, much like Alice over s3 and 4): though it’s rough, though it’s painful and messy and dirty, life is worth something. But for Q, this isn’t a question that’s being asked. The idea that they can’t change time because it has to have happened for them to be alive now doesn’t hold weight when Q brought back Alice and Q saved Eliot. 

And this gets to the crux of my issue: If you ask that question, and the answer is yes, saving your friends is important but so is being alive, then everyone giving up on him and not reciprocating what he would do for them, is terrible and heartbreaking and basically an affirmation of his every negative thought–disposable, useless, unnecessary, unlovable, he breaks things. But if the answer is yeah saving my friends is important but my own life is not, then it’s canon confirmation that his death was a suicide, and then the question of choice becomes void, and they should be doing everything they can to save him a la What Dreams May Come. 

Stories in the most traditional sense are about crossing from one state to another -- they are primarily descriptions of how a person or people get from one state of being to a different one. They're driven by conflict, because we understand that the characters could *fuck up* this transformation -- they could end up dead, or bereaved, or otherwise worse off than they were before, and the audience is like, oh, noes, I sure hope THAT doesn't happen, looks pretty dicey!

Grief, fundamentally -- doesn't work like that. Loss is a transformation, yeah, but it's not a contested process of transformation that you can succeed or fail at. It happens instantly (more or less), and you are now who it made you, forevermore. Your input isn't really required.

So the thing about Alice and Eliot is that their grief requires no *story.* Yes, something happened, yes, they transformed. But it happened at the Seam, not anywhere in season 5. They were people who wanted to be with Quentin, and now they're people who never will. That's *over.* It wasn't a story, it was a single event over which they had no control.

So for future stories in the series, the writers have two choices, and in Yr Spider's humble opinion, one choice is good and one is not good.

The better choice would be to tell, I dunno, any fucking story, whatever the hell you want, but let your writing be informed by the fact that these people now altered profoundly. For example, the back half of Buffy's s6 is not *about* Joyce's death, but every second of it is informed by the fact that Buffy has been instantly and unwillingly transformed into an adult caretaker. The strain of her unreadiness for that role and the wildly irrational panic she feels over the prospect of failing at it and losing more family is palpable, and it drives the plot. It's good, that's good writing.

Your other option is to make the story itself revolve around a death-related goal the characters can attempt to achieve, and succeed or fail at. That's -- okay if your story is, "Hey, gang, let's harrow the Underworld until they give us our friend back!" -- but that's not "a story about grief."

To make *grief itself* the story, you have to make it obey story-rules -- your characters who begin as mourners have to do things, experience things, and they have to end up somewhere different. I understand the impulse to say, well, we'll make it a Healing Journey, we'll get them from Devastated to At Peace, with story beats and catharsis and tough choices or whatever, it'll be great!

Why that's *not* great actually is, to paraphrase Patton Oswalt, grief ain't a Healing Journey, it's a Numb Slog. Living your life as a bereaved person isn't a challenge you can succeed or fail at -- you *will* do it, you have no choice.

So the story inevitably becomes, how do we the audience think these characters are doing at living their bereaved lived? 100%? C- ? Are they on whatever timetable we imagine they ought to be? Are they just as healthy -- even healthier, maybe, from all they've learned! -- as the previous versions of themselves were? A "story about grief" can't end with the characters un-bereaved, so we're left trying to navigate it qualitatively -- does this feel like a good transformation? Is this how a person *should* be, one day, one month, ten years after a loss like this?

And once you're inviting an audience to weigh in on the qualitative success or failure of someone else's grief in order to figure out how this story is going -- you're telling a story about grief all right, but a fundamentally terrible one. At best it's distancing, voyeuristic Misery Porn. At worst it teaches people that the quality of their grieving is subject to external review from some kind of "objective" perspective of Healthiness or Letting Go or Moving On.