Fantasy with Friends is a weekly meme hosted by the good people over at Pages Unbound. Fantasy with Friends poses questions each Monday about fantasy, either as a genre as a whole or individual works.
This week’s prompt is:
Do you enjoy books about schools of magic, or do you think they are overdone? Do you have any favorite magical schools or magical school books?
On the one hand, I feel like I’ve read a million of these, but I’m having trouble coming up with actual names:
- There’s Hogwarts, of course, that’s going to be pretty much everyone’s first thought, right? (as much as many of us don’t want it to be, for variety of reasons)
- Of course, you’ve got Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy, which is both cooler, and freakier than that.
- I remember liking The Osthorne Academy of Young Mages from Sarah Gailey’s Magic for Liars, but don’t ask me anything about it.
- I’ve never gotten around to reading about Novik’s Scholomance (I don’t even know the full name), but I’ve heard a lot of good, bad, and meh about it. So I don’t know if I actually will get around to it.
- I’ve also never gotten around to reading Rowell’s books about the Watford School of Magicks (and I really only skimmed the bits from Fanboy about it, too).
- Annnd…that’s it. That’s all I can remember.
This suggests that I haven’t read as many as I think I have, or that my memory is garbage. I’m ready to believe either.
The Summer Program at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs kind of counts, but not really. Ditto for Camp Half-Blood or Camp Jupiter. Drew Hayes’ Trestlevend University comes close, too. But all of these are really for parahuman/supernatural beings, not quite magic schools.
So, do I think they’re overdone? Maybe, but I clearly haven’t over-read from them. But also, anything can be “overdone” until it’s not. It’s all about the execution, not the elements that make it up. Sure, many things could scream “Hogwarts Knockoff,” but it could be written in such a distinct, clever, and engrossing way that we’ll all start saying that “Hogwarts walked so [insert name] could run.” Any trope, theme, setting, or character type can be overdone, tired, or used enough to be a cliche. But if the right author comes along and deals with them in their own particular way, we just won’t care.
Do I enjoy these? Sure–if everything else is compelling. That’s kind of the core, really–I liked the silly escapism of Hogwarts, and the almost complete lack of silliness to Brakebills. I can’t tell you why I enjoyed Osthorne, but I think it was just a step or two away from a typical American High School depiction, just with that magic flair. It’s really not the school–it’s the depiction of it and the world it’s in.
Basically, if you throw a bunch of mages (or whatever you want to call them) of various skill levels in a building together, and insert some sort of outside complication or inside conflict, something entertaining is bound to happen. Kids with adults, rookie adults with experienced adults? Doctorates and grad students mixing together? Whatever. All of those can be a source of whimsy, comedy, horror, drama, trauma, adventure, and so many other things. So yeah, bring ’em on.
I’m sure some of the other posts in response to this prompt will be more thoughtful. I’m looking forward to reading them. Do you have responses to this? (either for the comment section below or from your own post)
Briana | Pages Unbound
I do think it’s a weird category where you think, “Well there are a million of these,” but then you can struggle to think of a million of them! Kind of like how first authors seemed to want to write more of them to capitalize on Hogwarts but then authors had to avoid writing them because it was “too Harry Potter,” so for a while there definitely seemed to be a dearth of new books with magic schools.
I also thought of the Scholomance series, which I personally enjoyed. “Magic school is directly trying to kill you” is certainly a twist on the theme. Hogwarts, I think, is actually more dangerous than it ever really FEELS like. Like kids are getting petrified left and right in book two?? But it all still seems funny and not that bad because it’s middle grade. Novik’s work definitelyramps it up for adult readers and feels really dangerous.
Krysta
I know I’ve read a lot of books with schools of magic, but I did have to think hard about it to come up with a list for my post. Partly because some of the stories were not memorable. But partly because I think many of these books inevitably have the characters leave the school eventually, so adventures and action can occur. I suppose it might be difficult to sustain, long-term, a series of crises at one’s school. It certainly would make the school admin look negligent, even if you try to spin it as magic folk are more accustomed to a bit of rogue magic and hence danger.
aquavenatus
Honestly, now that I think about it, I enjoyed more Dark Academia books over Magic School books. Before you comment about it keep in mind that I grew up during the “Harry Potter Phenomenon,” so my generation was reading that series in tandem with older Magic School books (i.e. “A Wizard of Earthsea” and other contemporary ones (i.e. “House of Night”). Then, we grew up and we read, “The Magicians” and “Vita Nostra,” and we realized that magic comes at a cost.