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.