issue 2 // volume 44

Back to school, fantasy style

> College life and academia in fantasy literature

Caroline Ho
Arts Editor

 

Wront dragging yourself to class

in the morning be much more
appealing with a dash of magic?

Sadly, Douglas College doesn’t offer
Transfiguration, Advanced Spellcasting,
or anything nearly so fantastic. But if
you can’t attend a school for magic, the
next best thing is finding a good novel
or series that takes on the premise.

Magic school can be a great way for
an author to introduce the mechanics
of their world. Education built into a
storyline is a natural way to teach both
reader and character how the world
operates without tacking on long-winded
expositions or appendices. However, the
trope runs the risk of being too convenient
a setup for character progression, which
can come across as lazy writing if an
author relies too heavily on the school
setting to drive plot and character growth.

Luckily, fantasy literature has plenty
of well-handled magical academies, and
despite what Harry Potter might have you
think, they aren't all inherently targeted
to kids or young adult audiences. The start
of the school year is the perfect time to
pull out a school-based novel for the long
commute, such as one of the following.

The Magicians Trilogy,
by Lev Grossman

Probably the quintessential series about
magical college. I’ve heard the first
book, The Magicians (2009), described

in passing as an adult version of Harry

Potter with booze and sex, but it’s so

much more. Like Harry Potter, Lev

Grossman's trilogy features a secret

world of magicians who live alongside

ordinary folk on Earth, and a school these

magicians are unexpectedly invited to,

but that’s the extent of the similarities.

The first novel introduces us to the

prestigious Brakebills College for Magical

Pedagogy, where brilliant students

learn magic that requires incredibly

complex mathematical understanding.
The Magicians Trilogy deals with

some very relatable issues of depression,

college partying life hedonism, and

the usefulness of academic pursuits,

as well as diving profoundly into the

idea of escapism in fantasy. The story

is at times sardonic, adventurous,

horrifying, humorous, heartbreaking,

and uncomfortably sympathetic.

The series has also been adapted

into a fairly well-received TV show

on Syfy, with two seasons so far and

a third one set to air next year.

Lightbringer Series, by Brent Weeks

Minor spoilers because this series gets
more into the actual academy-based
schooling in later books, although we do
find out how magic works early in the
first volume (2010's The Black Prism).

In the Lightbringer series, Brent Weeks
employs a hard-magic system: Magic that
follows clearly-defined rules and laws.
Chromaturgy is used by magicians known
as Drafters who are able to turn light

into a physical substance called Luxin,

with different colours of Luxin having
different properties such as elasticity
and durability. The practice of magic
and the general governance of the world
are controlled by a ruling body called
the Chromeria, which also functions as
the only official school for Drafters.

Lightbringer presents a fantastic spin

on the legitimacy of having one central
organization in charge of all education.
In addition, the series contains political
intrigue and dissent by those against

the Chromeria’s regime, complex family
dynamics, realistically awkward romance

between believably flawed characters, and

a lot of badass magical combat. This five-
book series has four volumes out so far,
and the final book, The Burning White,
is expected to be published in 2018.

Jonathan Strange & Mr.
Norrell, by Susanna Clarke

This standalone novel doesn't exactly
involve a school, but it does involve
magical scholarships and magic as an
academic profession. Jonathan Strange
& Mr. Norrell (2004) takes place in an
alternate version of Napoleonic Era
England where magic has basically
become a thing of the past, studied
and theorized by elite and exclusive
academics but never practiced, until
the titular characters come along.
The magical education in this book
primarily consists of book learning and a
compelling master-student relationship
between Strange and Norrell.

Author Susanna Clarke masterfully
transposes the best and the worst

‘Get in the lion, paladin!’ and
other growing pains

> ‘Voltron: Legendary Defender Season 3’ review

Rebecca Peterson
Assistant Editor

 

key

W: are halfway through the brief

two-month period between the
airing of season 3 in early August and the
release of season 4 on Netflix in October,
and I’m still trying to parse out how
exactly | feel about the latest instalment
of Voltron: Legendary Defender.

On one hand, the part of me that
loves Voltron for its world-building,
character development, fast-paced plot,
and sheer interstellar fun absolutely
adored season 3. The shortened season
gave us a new villain (a fan favourite
from the original ’80s series, no less),
more backstory on the history of
Voltron and the original paladins, more
humour delicately balanced with heart
as the paladins are forced to adapt
and change in the face of challenging
and often painful circumstances, and
enough fodder to spawn a million fan
theories to keep everyone occupied
until the next season airs. However,

with the limited time allotted to each
story thread this season, I couldn't help
but feel as though the overall arc was
muddied and left a little incomplete.
With this in mind, let’s delve once

again into the wonderful world of Voltron:

Legendary Defender (spoilers ahead).

Last season ended on the unsettling
cliff-hanger of an empty black lion and
the disappearance of Voltron’s leader,
Shiro (Josh Keaton). The emotional
weight of this loss is generously given
several episodes’ worth of focus as the
team struggles to move forward without
him—especially Keith (Steven Yeun),
who Shiro named as his successor in the
previous season. This results in a bit of
musical chairs (or lions) as Lance (Jeremy
Shada) takes up Keith’s previous role of
second-in-command in the red lion, and
Princess Allura (Kimberly Brooks) takes
on the role of the blue lion’s paladin.

It isn’t just Team Voltron facing
changes, however. With Emperor Zarkon
(Neil Kaplan) down for the count, his
son Prince Lotor (A.J. LoCascio) steps
up to become the new head of the Galra
Empire. With his personal guard of half-
Galra assassins, he quickly becomes a

very real threat to Voltron, especially
as they struggle to find their legs as a
team under a very different captain.

The pros from this season come
from the incredible voice talents of the
main cast and the stellar animation
by the studio, the former providing
several moments of real emotion to tie
the incredibly drawn action together.
However, I truly believe this season
was hampered by time constraints.
Mentions of previous story threads, such
as Pidge’s (Bex Taylor-Klaus) search for
her missing father and brother, did not
delve deeply enough to move the plot
forward in any significant way. In some
places, the character development felt
oddly circular—while Keith, Lance,
and Allura took certain strides forward
this season, other characters either
faded into the background or, in the
case of one character who shall remain
nameless for the sake of major spoilers,
wound up right back at the start of their
narrative arc. We lost some of that sense
of gravitas that last season imparted
in us. There were, again, mentions of
the intergalactic alliance against the
Galra Empire, and mentions of how this

arts // no. 7

Image via Amazon.ca

 

aspects of academia into a magical
context: The reliance on established
research by name-dropped authorities;
theoretical debates and publishing
rivalries between academics; the
passion for the subject of those within
the discipline, and the inscrutability

to those on the outside. The novel also
adds a lot of flavour through footnotes,
which are written and formatted exactly
like an academic paper, including
properly formatted citation, though
with considerably more mention of
Faeries than your average peer-reviewed
article. The novel was also adapted

into a BBC miniseries in 2015.

alliance is somewhat imperilled by the
prejudice against the Galra-led resistance,
“The Blade of Marmora,” but none of
this was addressed in any great detail.
Personally, I would have loved to see
more of a reaction from this alliance to
the news of Keith leading Voltron, given
that he is half-Galra himself. | would
have loved to see Allura balancing her
duties as princess with her new position
as part of Voltron. I would have loved
to see any kind of significant progress
in the development of Pidge and Hunk
(Tyler Labine) as teens becoming adults
in an incredibly stressful environment. |
don’t think these oversights are entirely
the fault of the creative directors of
Voltron—I honestly believe it was just
a matter of time, and the lack thereof.
Ultimately, this season felt like
exactly what it really was: Half a season,
with half a plot arc. I’m extremely excited
for the fourth season to air this October,
and for it to hopefully pick up some of
the plot threads that got lost in the frantic
shuffle of this shortened season. I still love
these characters, this story, and this series,
so it isn’t very hard to stay optimistic
for an incredible season to come.