Like everyone here, I’ve been struggling to make sense of the finale and my feelings regarding it. Sometimes it’s hard to tell (for me at least) if I’m angry because I’m sad or hurt because I lost a character who was important to me or because the writing itself created implications that I have issue with. When you’re this emotionally invested, it can be difficult.

I had a gut feeling by the beginning of the finale that Quentin was going to die, but I never imagined that it would be permanent. So it was difficult to accept and make sense of. But, after a night’s reflection, I think I have an answer of what I’ve been having trouble with in the finale.

In 4x12 The Secret Sea, we finally get to see the outpouring of Quentin’s emotions that have been bottled all season. While the whole monologue is important for so many reasons, my qualms with the finale stem from one particular line:

“I was supposed to mean something here.”

Quentin has struggled his whole life to find meaning and we can see that from the get-go. When describing his mental health history to Eliot in 1x02 he says,

“Before I got here, I was in the hospital. I have–or I had–I don’t know, this thing that I couldn’t shake where I felt like because nothing was ever not gonna be pointless and empty, then why go on?”

Quentin’s desire for meaning, for purpose has always been both one of his greatest drives and one of his greatest sources of pain. It’s the struggle we all face in our lives, but his ate at him like the cancer that killed his father.

That need pushes him to do anything to save Eliot - because with Eliot Quentin felt like he had meaning. Their life together in Fillory Past was meaningful because it was a life: full of love and compassion and grief and every other emotion life can throw at you. He even got confirmation from the universe that that life had meaning - it got them the key after all. So when he loses Eliot, Quentin’s entire drive is to get his best friend, the love of his life, his partner in finding meaning in this horribly random existence back.

I’m not saying that Eliot was the be-all, end-all for Quentin but the few times Quentin is unabashedly happy tend to be with Eliot, or with Alice, or indeed anyone and everyone he holds dear. And it’s obvious to anyone who meets him. Even the Monster, as limited as his social acuity is, notices:

“You care about all of them. So you’re last.”



Quentin finds joy in family, in community, in social bonds. He’s the social glue of the group, keeping everyone together. He wants to be a dad one day. Quentin finds joy in minor mendings, in fixing what he can. In some ways, he embodies the Jewish concept of tikkun olam, in making the world better than the way you found it.

And yet, the narrative doesn’t let him find meaning in that. Not really. Not in the end.

Instead, Quentin is forced to find meaning through his death. Over the course of the series, he volunteers time and time again to put himself into danger for those he loves - oftentimes with terrible consequences. His value to the group and his love of them, like Penny 40′s, is measured in part by his ability to throw himself in the way of danger. Eliot’s memory of Quentin is a very accurate representation of the real Quentin when he says,

“You sacrifice for the people you love.”

But the finale really hits this message home. Penny 40 puts the final nail in the coffin, when he and Quentin are looking at their mourning friends, by saying:

“The story for them, it’s just starting but it won’t be the same story because of you. You didn’t just save their lives, you changed their lives as much as they changed yours.”

The narrative highlights that Quentin’s meaning to others was only manifest through his death. The life he lived was only valuable in its loss. The only change he affected was by giving up his own joy - throwing away childish things like belief, compassion, and love. While Alice tries to counter that narrative in The Secret Sea–

“Being an adult doesn’t mean that you have to throw away what you used to love.”

–it’s hard to keep that mentality when that’s exactly what Quentin ends up doing. He does the “adult” thing: puts the needs of the many before himself. He does what many would find heroic.

But at the end of the day, how does that differ from finding an escape? From finally killing himself for the sake of meaning, for the sake of others?

And you could argue that Quentin didn’t intend to die, but he told Penny to take Alice and run. He knew what doing magic in the Mirror World would do. He walked into his death with open eyes.

And because of that it’s hard, it’s nearly impossible to say that he didn’t do it, at least in part, because he was “too tired to care anymore” about his own safety. Quentin even asks the question himself:

“Did I do something brave to save my friends or did I finally find a way to kill myself?”

Although Penny 40 tries to use their friends as justification for Quentin’s actions, their grief says nothing of Quentin’s state of mind. And the fact that Quentin has these doubts reinforces the likelihood that that was, in part, his motivation.

Of course he doesn’t want to leave his friends, his found family, behind. Of course, he would rather be with them. But being an adult means - as far as society, the narrative, and Quentin’s brain are concerned - putting aside what you want for your purpose, for the meaning you can make in the world. Quentin can stop Everett - can fulfill some cosmic purpose - if he dies, and so of course, of course, Quentin does.

Instead of Quentin being able to grow, being able to find purpose and meaning through the struggle of living, he takes the route he always feared he would and chooses death for the sake of meaning. As a queer, mentally ill person myself, it is unacceptable to me that that is how Quentin’s story ends. That his suicide is validated, rewarded even, by the narrative.

The Magicians has always been a show that never guaranteed a happy ending and I made my peace with that a long time ago. The problem is that you can’t slap a suicide hotline number on the screen after glorifying Quentin’s suicide for the past 50 minutes. Because his death and his friends’ response was beautiful. It was heartfelt and gorgeous and amazingly acted. The narrative tried to give a beautiful meaning to what was a suicide, more or less. One phone number doesn’t make up for that.

That number doesn’t make up for the fact that they - in essence - destroyed the growth Quentin had, particularly in seasons 3 and 4, in his ability to find meaning and purpose and joy in his own life and his own choices, for the first time in his life. And since that’s the end of his arc for good - as least as far as we’re aware - he will never get to return to his previous growth.

The work of growing and changing and finding meaning in life is as difficult and arduous as it is necessary. To borrow from Buffy: The hardest thing to do in this world is live in it. Making the choice to live, especially when it feels impossible or pointless, and try to make sense and meaning out of it, is a true act of heroism.

But the finale decides that it’s far easier just to sacrifice yourself. To die. Instead of putting in that work. It sends a poor message to everyone, queer and straight, mentally ill or neurotypical.

tldr: Quentin, as a suicidal person, should not be asked to find meaning in and be glorified for his own death.