Thinking About A Duct Tape Wizard

Thinking about a duct tape wizard

As soon as I finished The Magnus Archives I immediately started back again from MAG001 because I knew there were so, so many details I just breezed past the first time that turned out to be significant or at least illuminating, which would shine out the second time through. I just reached MAG200 for the second time and I'm seriously tempted to turn right back around and go again. Anyone else a Old and remember watching VHS tapes so many times they wear out? I feel like I could do that with The Magnus Archives and the experience would become richer every single time. I would happily repeat it over and over like a favourite VHS even though it is fully two hundred episodes long. What an accomplishment. What a body of work. Good lord.

Is this how it happens?

Just started Harrow the Ninth (for the first time) and current feelings:

yesssss let's get weeeeeird with it

oh no this is going to slowly grind me through the emotional mangle

lou wilson....playing a bird character....who wears a green long coat.....and is a known scoundrel.......and said "I'm a different bird"........ interesting..............

What I think the Obi-Wan series did right for me, which a lot of similar fill-in-the-gaps stories don't, is it filled in an emotional gap and not a plot one. This wasn't "how did Boba Fett survive the sarlacc pit" or "how did Anakin's/Luke's lightsaber get from Bespin to Takodana" or even (the simplest form of fill-in-the-gap) "what was he doing between x event and y event" (even though the series does answer that question, it's not the question it's answering). It didn't set out to "fix" or "explain" a plot "hole". It just looked at Obi-Wan at the end of Revenge of the Sith (betrayed, confused, guilty) and the next time we see him, in Rebels: Twin Suns or A New Hope (centred, calm, decisive, able to face Vader with equanimity and a hint of a smirk), and asked: how does this person become this other version of himself? What must he go through to get there? What must he realise and/or decide, and what would push him to get there? I'd love this to become the key question that determines whether it's worthwhile to revisit a character and tell an untold part of their story: are we just looking to answer a plot question, or are we bridging an emotional gap?

Hey Skyjacks crew, I've lost track - are we in a Gable Gets Some arc now or no? Or has the pattern been broken at this point?