The magicians land chapter 5
#THE MAGICIANS LAND CHAPTER 5 FULL#
He'd been so full of fear and self-doubt that the only way he could think of to be strong was to attack the world around him.īut that wasn't real strength. When he was younger it seemed like the only time he wasn't afraid was when he was angry. The old Quentin might have done it, but he wasn't a creature of fear anymore, jumping at his own shadow, never knowing who he was or why. It took him a while to figure out that wasn't how it worked.Īll through the fight he'd kept expecting himself to panic, but the panic never came, and now he knew it wouldn't.
#THE MAGICIANS LAND CHAPTER 5 SERIES#
When he graduated he'd thought life was going to be like a novel, starring him on his own personal hero's journey, and that the world would provide him with an endless series of evils to triumph over and life lessons to learn. With no fanfare, he steps into the role of hero, so subtly that we might forget he was ever anything else - if Quentin himself weren't so determined to remind us. While this last novel contains world-ending catastrophes and world-saving triumphs, the meat of this story, the most affecting part, belongs to Quentin's unassuming odyssey into adulthood. The Magician's Land is a quietly beautiful end to the journey that begins with Quentin's and Julia's (and James' - remember him?) Princeton interview, an interview that is transformed, quickly, into something much bigger and stranger. This has never been a problem for me in a world - multiple worlds! - as richly developed as that of The Magicians', peopled with devastatingly complex characters including several brilliant, powerful women, who cares if the protagonist is a bit of a chump? But more than that, I always trusted that Grossman, a thoughtful, prescient writer, had a plan for Quentin, a path for that angry little boy who hurts and grabs and demands for the first two-thirds of this trilogy.
It's difficult to argue: Quentin Coldwater is selfish and short-sighted, petulant and often quite lazy. The most frequent complaint readers lodge against the first two books in Lev Grossman's fantasy trilogy - The Magicians and The Magician King - is that the main character is unlikable.