The Magicians Playlist:
1) Nowhere Man- The Beatles (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfWEPu0w-7w)
He's a real Nowhere Man
Sitting in his Nowhere Land
Making all his nowhere plans for nobody
Doesn't have a point of view
Knows not where he's going to
Isn't he a bit like you and me?
Quentin is the “Nowhere Man.” His one big dream in life is to find Fillory. That is his “nowhere plan,” it has no basis in reality, just fantasy. The only time he has any sense of purpose is when Fillory is the prize. The majority of the novel, Quentin has no drive. He is just going through the motions of life, first at Brakebills and then after graduation. “Doesn’t have a point of view.. knows not where he’s going to,” Quentin never commits to anything. He’s scared, he’s the ultimate middle man. Even when Fillory is in his sights, when Penny provides him with a chance that it actually exists, Quentin is still in his “nowhere land,” unwilling to take the risk. “ ‘Look Penny.’ Now Quentin could play the reasonable one and he did it with maximum nastiness. ‘Slow down. You’ve gotten so far ahead of yourself, you can’t even see how you get there. You’ve seen an old city, and a bunch of pools and fountains, and you’ve got a button with some heavy duty enchantments on it, and you’re looking for some framework to fit them all together, and you’ve latched onto this Fillory thing. But you’re grasping at straws.’” (250).
2) Modern Man – Arcade Fire (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8GbxFjH7kc)
So I wait in line, I'm a modern man
And the people behind me, they can't understand
Makes me feel like
Something don't feel right
In my dream I was almost there
Then you pulled me aside and said you're going nowhere
I know we are the chosen few
But we're wasted
And that's why we're still waiting
In line for a number but you don't understand
Like a modern man
As Quentin spends more time at Brakebills and is less involved in the non- magical world, he loses touch with James and Julia, he feels disconnected from them because they are unable to understand the experiences he is going through and because they feel hurt that he left them so suddenly. “It hadn’t occurred to Quentin that they might not be completely glad to see him. He knew he’d left abruptly without explanation, but he had no idea how hurt and betrayed they would feel” (72). Quentin is also now a member of the Brakebills elite. He is one of the “chosen few.” However, after graduation, the enormous talents that Quentin and the students of Brakebills have and they themselves “are wasted” because they have no impetus to utilize their skills for anything more than their own pleasure.
3) Show Me What I’m Looking For- Carolina Liar (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IqCfxgKZd8)
Save me, I'm lost
Oh lord, I've been waiting for you
I'll pay any cost
Save me from being confused
Show me what I'm looking for
Show me what I'm looking for…oh lord
Don't let go
I've wanted this far too long
Quentin has spent his entire life looking for Fillory. When he arrives at Brakebills, his immediate conclusion is that he’s reached Fillory. Although this is not the case, Quentin has found something almost as good, he has found a place where he is special. He believes that the unhappiness and problems that have characterized his life will be over since he is now part of this magical new world and as a result, he clung to the escape Brakebill’s provided him, “He was worried that if he left Brakebills they’d never let him back in. He would never find his way back again – they would close some secret door to the garden behind him, and lock it, and it’s outline would be lost forever among the vines and the stonework” (70).
4) Back to Where I was- Eric Hutchinson (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfZK_PnmzSU)
New life decides to come through the front door
and makes us wish we'd shown respect before
though i don't have much of a choice
i resolve to regain my voice
if i only just begin to understand it that's because
every time i start to change my mind again
it gets me back to where i was
This song is representative of the cyclic nature of Quentin’s life. He is constantly depressed and unhappy because he feels as though life has not turned out the way it should and that all his dreams are just outside of his reach. However, with each new opportunity, Quentin believes all his dreams are finally being fulfilled and that he has finally found what he’s looking for. This is the case when he enters Brakebills, gets involved with Alice, finds Fillory. However, with each “new life,” Quentin ultimately ends up in the same situation, “back to where he was,” unhappy and unfulfilled.
5) Rabbit Heart – Florence & the Machine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nxO-yPQesA)
The looking glass, so shiny and new
How quickly the glamour fades
I start spinning, slipping out of time
You made a deal, and now it seems you have to offer up
But will it ever be enough? It’s not enough
This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Fillory is incredibly idealized in Quentin’s mind, however, this idyllic world does not parallel the reality of what Fillory has become. The “glamour” of being in Fillory quickly fades as Quentin and the others encounter the very real violence and conflicts permeating the land, especially in the form of the Beast. “He looked exactly the way Quentin remembered… the terror was so absolute, so all-encompassing that it was almost like calm; not a suspicion but an absolute certainty they were going to die” (352). What remains of Fillory, its faded glory, is “not enough” for Quentin. Also, he feels that he is treated as a “lamb” being led to slaughter by Jane Chatwin. She sets everything up so that Quentin will find his way to Brakebills, to Fillory, all so he will eventually kill the Beast, knowing the very possible risk of death. “This woman had used tem all like toys. And if some of the toys got broken, oh well. That had been the point of the story all along. She had manipulated him, sent him and the others into Fillory to find Martin” (379).
6) Rise- Azure Ray (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_W_t4UQbuU)
and look how low i've sunk
don't ask me to rise
i'll lose you when i'm high
hey, look how low i've sunk
don't ask me to rise
i'll only lose you when i'm
high.....
high.....
After his adventures or misadventures in Fillory, his near death experience with the Beast, the realization that the idyllic Martin Chatwin was the Beast, and Alice’s death, Quentin loses all faith in Fillory, in magic. He refuses to believe Jane Chatwin’s assertion that they won and that Quentin is a hero, “ ‘We won?’ He was incredulous. He couldn’t hold back anymore. All the grief and guilt he’d been salting away so carefully was coming back as anger… ‘We thought we were going on an adventure, and you sent us on a suicide mission, and now my friends are dead. Alice is dead’,” (380).
7) Swim Until You Can’t See Land- Frightened Rabbit (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SzjERZU3wbY)
We salute at the threshold of the North Sea
in my mind
And a nod to the boredom that drove me here
to face the tide and swim
(Whoaaaa) I swim (Whoaaa) oh swim (Whoaaa)
Dip the toe in the ocean. Oh how it hardens and it numbs.
And the rest of me is a version of man
built to collapse into crumbs
And if I hadn’t come down
To the coast to disappear
I may have died in a land-slide
Of the rocks, the hopes and fears.
So swim until you can’t see land.
After graduating from Brakebills, Quentin has absolutely no motivation or drive. He has incredible skills and power, yet no idea of how to use it productively and no inclination to do so. He has a limitless supply of money that the magical community has accumulated and as a result is able to spend all his time partying and drinking. However, despite living the high life in New York and being a fully-fledged magician, Quentin is still not happy. This song expresses how Quentin feels when Penny shows him the way to Fillory. He has just cheated on Alice with Janet and his life has hit rock bottom. All his life, he has viewed Fillory as this utopia, an idealized place where he can escape the unhappiness that has been his constant companion on life. Therefore, Quentin fully embraces the expedition into Fillory and galvanizes everyone into action, he’s “swimming until he can’t see land,” trying to leave all his problems and unhappiness behind. “He was in Fillory… This was the place. He would be picked up, cleaned off, and made to feel safe and happy and whole again” (288).
8) Boy With a Coin – Iron & Wine (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDfM1byYLyY)
A boy with a coin he found in the weeds
With bullets and pages of trade magazines
Close to a car that flipped on the turn
When God left the ground to circle the world
A boy with a coin he crammed in his jeans
Then making a wish he tossed in the sea
Walked to a town that all of us burn
When God left the ground to circle the world
When Penny finds the button or “coin” that takes them all to Fillory, Quentin is happier than he’s ever been. He is finally fulfilling his life’s dream and going to Fillory. However, when faced with the reality of what Fillory has become, a place corrupted by human nature, by Martin Chatwin’s manipulating its magic for selfish purposes, Fillory loses its magic. Quentin figuratively “tosses” his coin, his dream, into the sea. He turns his back on Fillory and magic and returns to the non-magic world, the “town that all of us burn.” He forces himself to live in the adult world, where dreams are not part of life. “Quentin felt superior to anybody who still messed around with magic. They could delude themselves if they liked, those self-indulgent magical mandarins, but he’d outgrown that stuff. He wasn’t a magician anymore, he was a man, and a man took responsibility for his actions. He was out here working in the hard flinty bedrock face of it all” (394).
