I love nerdy girls. Granted, I love female characters at all times, but a good, bookish girl just makes my nerd heart so happy!
When I was a toddler, I latched onto Belle from Beauty and the Beast. In primary school, I thought I WAS Hermione Granger and/or Luna Lovegood (depending on the day). By the time I hit puberty, Rory Gilmore was all I wanted from life. All these women had the brains and initiative to conquer their situations (let's just pretend A Year in the Life never happened, shall we?).
And now, university-student-me has Alice Quinn of The Magicians
There are so many reasons to love her, and these only add to the ever-growing list of reasons to love the show! The Magicians as a whole is absolutely stellar in it's treatment of diverse characters. It captures the struggles of adulting without using magic as a cure-all. The sass and pop culture references are just the cherry on top.
Alice Quinn, one of the lead characters, is a gift to television and here are five reasons why:
1. Alice is brilliant
This one is obvious. In the first episode, we learn she was never even invited to take the entrance exam at Brakebills University. Epic magic school that it is, their magician-find-o-matic somehow missed her. She FOUND it instead. Yeah. Alice just decided she needed to go, for reasons I won't spoil, and figured out how to break through the wards.
Imagine, if Harry Potter just never got that famous Hogwarts letter. So instead, he climbed the walls of Hogwarts and broke past the magic defenses. The same magic defenses that held of Dementors. This is the level of dedication and brilliance we have in Alice Quinn.
2. Alice doesn't put up with anyone's sh*t
We learn this from the beginning, but she is incredibly sassy. Alice calls out BS without hesitation. She's not rude or mean, just blunt. She knows she's brilliant and won't let anyone treat her otherwise. Nobody walks over this girl.
3. She's not immune to emotion
So many female characters are criticized for being overly simplified or flawless, take for example the debates on Rey from Star Wars Episode VII. Arguments are that "strong" female characters are often classified by their intelligence or physical power, that this all too often defines their character.
Lev Grossman, the mastermind behind the Magicians book series, laughs at this trope. The female characters in The Magicians are genuinely strong characters. They are flawed yet talented, emotional yet intelligent, kind but also kick-ass. Most of all, none of these characters are defined by their gender. They each have independent personalities. Alice shows weakness, having a childlike love for horses and genuine fear of dying alone eaten by cats. But, she also rises to the occasion to fight for herself and her friends. In short, she's a realistic human and that makes me way happier than it should.
4. She doesn't look like a cookie-cutter cover model
I won't spend much time on this (media aesthetic is too large a topic for now). But I love seeing all kinds of different looking women on film and love it when the cast of a show isn't entirely made of models. Olivia Taylor Dudley is an absolutely beautiful actress, but this isn't a central part of Alice's character. She's curvy but prefers Peter Pan collars to low-cut tops. She doesn't buy into the girl-removes-glasses-and-suddenly-becomes-attractive trope. Not that the sexy bookworm is an all-around bad trope, it's just refreshing to see it mixed up a little bit.
(And if I'm honest, I do love seeing women who have the same body type and taste in fashion that I do. It's just so exciting!)
5. She's ready to tackle anything
As previously mentioned, Alice is tough. But when I say she's ready for anything, I don't just mean dishing out sass. When problems come up she's ready to make the necessary sacrifices to solve them. Whether that means giving up some dignity to supercharge her magic or forgiving people who have done her wrong in the name of the greater good. Part of this "tackle anything" attitude includes her understanding towards things unfamiliar to her. Quentin's mental illness is something she handles with finesse. She is both supportive, understanding, and nonchalant at the same time. This trifecta makes her a perfect drama-free ally and just adds to the list of what makes her fabulous.
Alice Quinn is a gift to us all, and I'm sure her greatness carries through the book series as well. She is relatable, real, and strong. If only all women on film were this great.
The Magicians is a TV series based on the trilogy by Lev Grossman of the same name. It first aired in December 2015 on Syfy and just began its second season January 25th, 2017.
