The Magicians

Alice is a student at Brakebills College and a friend of Quentin. She is “a small, sullen girl with straight dark hair” (51), who prefers to avoid being the center of attention, but gives the impression of someone “who expected the worst at all times” (51). Alice is “cripplingly shy” (57), whispers in “monosyllables” (57), is “almost pathologically unable to make eye contact” (57), and has “a way of hiding her face behind her hair that made it clear how agonizing it was for her to be the object of human attention” (57).

Alice is also a gifted student who falls in love with Quentin. Like Quentin, she becomes a member of the Physical Kids, dislikes her parents, and has read all of the Fillory books. Alice is also only one of two students to successfully undertake the Final Test at the South Pole. The other is Quentin. Alice has also experienced tragedy in her life: her brother died at Brakebills trying to save Emily Greenstreet. Alice was not originally invited to Brakebills, and had to force the school to let her take the Entrance Exam.

While her relationship with Quentin starts off well, it falls apart when Quentin sleeps with Janet. Angry at Quentin, she responds by sleeping with Penny and by mostly ignoring Quentin when they are preparing to go to Fillory and most of the time they are there. However, Alice still loves Quentin, and she shows this when she lets Quentin kiss her when they are still searching for Ember’s Tomb.

Eliot is the first student that Quentin meets at Brakebills, and the two eventually become friends. Eliot is gay, and prefers to spend most of his time—even during vacations—at Brakebills, so he doesn’t have to deal with the outside world. His parents think he is in “a special school for computer geeks and homosexuals” (46). Eliot is a brilliant student who stands out because he makes it look easy, and because of his “bizarre personal manner” (106).

Eliot is a year ahead of Quentin but identifies closely with him. After graduating, Eliot gets an apartment with Janet. Like Quentin, Eliot finds the outside world meaningless and is quick to turn to alcohol and drugs to escape the burden of reality. Eliot also sees Fillory as an opportunity to save himself from an early death. Eliot does not run when the going gets tough at Ember’s Tomb and when the Beast attacks them. In a note left for Quentin at the monastery, Eliot admits that he has finally found his family in Quentin. In the end, it’s Eliot, along with Janet and Julia, who rescue Quentin from his listless life in New York.

Penny is a student at Brakebills. William is his actual name, and he attends the same Entrance Exam as Quentin. Penny has a mohawk haircut and dresses like a punk. He is a loner, and tends not to interact well with the other students. When given the opportunity to jump ahead to Second Year with Alice and Quentin, he fails the test and gets into a fight with Quentin, blaming both of them for abandoning him. Eventually, Penny drops out of Brakebills at the end of Fourth Year. His Discipline is teleportation, and he’s the first one to travel to the Neitherlands. He also helps Quentin and Alice find their way home from the Neitherlands. Penny is also the one who finds the magic buttons that enable them to all go to Fillory.

Penny sleeps with Alice, which angers Quentin. Penny also saves Quentin’s life by catching the arrow shot by the praying mantis. Penny teaches everyone some battle magic, and tries to conjure up some battle magic against the Beast. However, the Beast eats his hands, preventing Penny from performing any more magic. Penny eventually retreats into one of the stone buildings filled with books that he discovered in the Neitherlands.

Janet is a member of the Physical Kids and is allegedly in love with Eliot. She is a year ahead of Alice and Quentin. Janet is “lean and animated, with a serious, somewhat anachronistic pageboy haircut” (101). Janet’s parents are lawyers and she grew up in Los Angeles. She has a “loud and brusque” (107) personality, and is known to have had an endless series of boyfriends” (107).

Janet pushes the Physical Kids to attend regular practices for Welters and has a tendency to be controlling. After graduation, she moves to Manhattan with Eliot, where she sleeps with Quentin, leading to tension between Alice and Quentin. Janet also travels to Fillory, and after overcoming her fear, uses the gun she brought from the real world to kill one of the creatures attacking them at Ember’s Tomb. She is with Eliot and Julia when they shatter Quentin’s New York office window and convince him to come back with them to Fillory.

Josh is a student at Brakebills and one of the Physical Kids. Josh’s school “jacket never quite fit his wide, round build” (107), and he “expected people not to take him seriously” (107). However, those who do meet Josh are often surprised by how acute an observer he is. Josh is often enthusiastic, but lacks the ability to control his magic, as is the case when he creates a black hole during a Welters’ practice. His grades tend to toward barely passing, and Quentin finds him trying to purchase a charm from Lovelady to help him get through to graduation. Josh meets Anais, and together they join the others in Fillory. Josh uses the black hole spell to suck in the giant that kills Fen.

Julia is a childhood friend of Quentin’s. She dates James, and early on in the novel, Quentin has a crush on her. Julia takes the Entrance Exam to Brakebills and fails. Professor Fogg tries to wipe her memory, but it doesn’t work. This changes Julia, who then starts smoking and tries to track down Quentin to get him to help her get into Brakebills. She later joins Janet and Eliot in coaxing Quentin to return to Fillory with them.

The Beast is the novel’s main antagonist. Known also as Martin Chatwin, he was the boy in the Fillory stories that everybody thought had vanished. Martin’s desire to stay in Fillory and to acquire the power to ensure that no one can send him back to Earth leads to his becoming the Beast. The Beast first arrives when Quentin plays a prank on Professor March. He enters the classroom and paralyzes everyone as he holds them for hours. He walks around with a leaf covering his face, and kills Brakebills student Amanda Orloff by eating her.

The Beast is the one who imprisons Ember and battles Quentin, Penny, and Alice to force them to hand over the magic buttons. He eats Penny’s hands, and badly injures Quentin’s shoulder, knee, and collarbone. He also engages in an all-out battle with Alice, who transforms herself into niffin in order to kill him.

Henry Fogg is the Dean of Brakebills School for Magical Pedagogy. Fogg is in charge of the Entrance Exam, and makes an effort to talk to every student. He deals fairly with each student, and goes out of his way to help protect them, as illustrated by Fogg casting a spell implanting demons in a tattoo on the back of each graduate. Fogg is also a powerful magician, though not as powerful as the Beast. After the first encounter with the Beast, he helps to strengthen the school’s defenses. When Quentin decides to turn his back on magic, Fogg helps him get a job on the accounting team at the magic firm PlaxCo.

Professor March is a “round, red-haired man” (48) that Quentin sees as a “hard-ass” (48). His lectures focus on teaching that “magic is a craft” (48), and hard work is needed to succeed in practicing it. Professor March often has students demonstrate physical manifestations of magic using various ordinary objects. When Quentin plays a prank on Professor March, it causes March’s spell to be corrupted, which draws the attention of the Beast. The attack by the Beast and the subsequent death of Amanda Orloff deeply affect Professor March, causing March take an indeterminate sabbatical shortly after helping shore up the school’s defenses.

Professor Mayakovsky is a professor at Brakebills South. He is also the professor who Emily Greenstreet fell in love with. Mayakovsky had a brief fling with Emily and then broke it off. This caused Emily to turn to magic to try and change her appearance in order to win him back. The magic goes horribly wrong and Mayakovsky must come to her aid in order to reverse the spell. As a result of the debacle, Emily leaves Brakebills and Mayakovsky is forced out of Brakebills for his transgression, which is why he teaches magic in Antarctica.