Olivia & Pat: Two of My Very Blonde Obsessions
Olivia Taylor Dudley, The Magicians’ Alice Quinn
It’s all about Alice Quinn of SyFy’s The Magicians.
Olivia Taylor Dudley is an American actress. She is known for her horror film roles such as Chernobyl Diaries, The Vatican Tapes and Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, for her television roles such as Alice Quinn in the Syfy fantasy series The Magicians, and for her work in the internet sketch group 5-Second Films.
Olivia Taylor Dudley (Alice Quinn) discusses SyFy’s The Magicians @ SDCC ’18
Olivia Taylor Dudley discusses how things will be different for Alice now that she’s in Library Jail for season 4, how Alice wants to save her friends, and why what Alice did was completely justified.
A Tale of Two Magicians: How SyFy’s TV Adaptation Left Alice Quinn Behind
by Molly Booth (The Mary Sue) | August 31st, 2016
Content warning: mentions of physical violence and rape; spoiler warning for The Magicians book and TV series.
All right, so I’m a little obsessed with The Magicians. One of my siblings told me to watch the SyFy show, and I did, finishing season 1 in maybe 3 days. (Now the wait for season 2 begins.) I liked and sympathized with the main character, Quentin Coldwater (Jason Ralph), but found myself falling head over heels for one of the female leads, Alice Quinn (played by Olivia Taylor Dudley). When I read the first installment of the series, I dug book Alice even more — and realized that TV show Alice didn’t get the ending she deserved. And it’s hard to pinpoint why.
Both the show and the book introduce Alice Quinn as a quiet, talented student in the same class as Quentin at the school for magicians, Brakebills. She quickly evolves into a central character, for obvious reasons: Alice is smarter than everyone, and by far the most talented of the magicians. She’s also kind, impulsive, and ambitious as all hell. Her family life is complicated — her parents are out of control, and her brother died doing magic and became a niffin (a being made of pure magical energy, no longer the person they were before). Despite her natural abilities, Alice had to fight her way into Brakebills. Once she gets there, doesn’t sit back and rely on her talents; she works harder than anyone else, and becomes a formidable magician. She also stands up for herself and dumps her boyfriend when he cheats on her. Yes, yes, yes. I love her.
When I first finished the TV show, I checked out The Magicians subreddit, and found a complaint that the finale didn’t do Alice justice. Weird! I thought. Alice was my favorite character in the show, and I thought she’d had a pretty great arc in season 1. In the final episode, Quentin realizes that he’s not the chosen one, it’s her! Though he and the others have failed, Alice can wield the blade that could actually kill the Beast. When they do actually confront the Beast though, everything goes wrong immediately — the Beast begins to choke Quentin, and Alice goes to stab the monster, but realizes her sword has disappeared. The Beast casts some type of horrible spell on her, blood starts gushing out of her nose, and she collapses, presumably dead. So not a great ending for her. But in terms of women’s character arcs in TV fantasy, I’d seen way, way worse than Alice’s, and I was only mildly upset about it. (Ugh, which kind of shows how I have learned to keep my standards low.) But that was before I read the book.
The novel The Magicians, the first in the trilogy, is, of course, different from the show’s first season in a lot of ways. But Alice’s trajectory is actually very similar — she begins as a fellow student in Quentin’s class, ends as a central character, and undoubtedly is the hero of the story. But while the TV show promises us that Alice is the chosen one but doesn’t deliver (yet), the book follows through.
In the book, the final battle starts out similar to the show. Our heroes are trapped with the Beast, and people get badly injured. Then the Beast actually bites into Quentin’s collar bone with huge jaws, rendering him probably mortally wounded and immediately out of action. But here’s where it gets a lot better: Alice grabs Janet’s gun and shoots the Beast. Four times. When she’s out of bullets, the Beast turns to face her, and what follows is maybe one of the most epic showdowns I’ve ever read in a fantasy novel.
We watch through injured Quentin’s eyes as Alice spars with the Beast. She uses battle magic to speed her movement. She slams him to the ground, suffocates him with sand, and throws fireballs at him. She becomes more confident with every passing moment, taunting her opponent, and Quentin watches, waning and absolutely stunned:
He was a magician, but she was something else, a true adept. He had no idea she was so far beyond him.
The other magicians pitch in, offering back-up with lightning and hails of rocks. But it’s only Alice who can truly fight this monster, as she transforms into a white lioness, and then a white dragon who screams blue fire. Umm, YES.
But her opponent is extremely powerful, and the Beast lands a punch on Dragon!Alice so hard she changes back into her human self. Injured Quentin buys her a little time by releasing a special, graduation demon out of his back (IDK, you gotta read the books), and when the Beast is finished eating the demon, Alice is ready for her final confrontation.
“So,” she said. “So you think you’re the biggest monster in the room?”
To end the battle, Alice deliberately performs a spell so huge that she dies and transmutes into a niffin like her brother. She’s not really herself anymore, but the electric ghost Alice still has her mission. Niffin!Alice descends upon the Beast, he tries to bolt, but she grabs his hair and rips his head off. And that is the end of the human Alice Quinn.
Dumbfounded, I put down my book. How, how, did we get from this ending, to the season 1 finale of the SyFy show?
By comparison, in TV Fillory, Julia (played by Stella Maeve) steps in with the blade Alice was supposed to wield. She makes a deal with the Beast, motivated by her quest for vengeance against the fox God who raped her and killed her friends. The Beast agrees, and the two disappear.
Julia’s storyline is originally told in book 2, so I understand that since Syfy moved her up to season 1 of the show, they had to incorporate her into the end. But watching it again, I saw more clearly how much of that finale was devoted to Julia’s rape and the violence she was subjected to. I realized I had finished that episode feeling shaken — not only did we see the flashback of Julia being assaulted, but Alice was taken out (possibly permanently) and the Beast, a monstrous man, was still at large. I think it would’ve felt very different to come away from a finale that had included Alice’s epic slaying of the Beast. Maybe slaying him with Julia’s help?
Don’t get me wrong — moving up Julia’s plot to season 1 made for an intertwining story that felt like a positive change. It created a clearer contrast: instead of staying in the Quentin bubble, we got to follow Julia and her brave, terrifying struggle to find her way into the privilege world Quentin was living in. I think that was a great narrative choice. But I’m getting the sinking feeling that her story arc came at the expense of Alice’s. Why couldn’t we have both?
There’s speculation that SyFy isn’t ready to kill off Alice. She wasn’t burned into energy in front of our eyes, so it’s possible, though she looks dead, that she survives that horrible bleeding-out spell. Olivia Taylor Dudley is brilliant, and Alice not dying and being around as her human self would be awesome. But who says Alice’s battle had to end in her becoming a niffin? Can’t she go all out, risking her life, kill the Beast, but live to kick ass another day?
I just want to see her kicking ass. I want it so much.
Grossman created a kind, fascinating character, and her book 1 story ended showing us exactly who she is: beyond powerful, beyond kind. The TV show set Alice up to be that same person, but didn’t let her shine the way she was supposed to. SyFy threw all of it out the window, and in doing so, they took away the culmination of what makes Alice Alice. I hope they find a way to give her what she deserves.
Image via SyFy
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Molly Booth is a freelance writer and author of the YA debut, Saving Hamlet, coming from Disney-Hyperion publishing house in 2016. She writes books about Shakespeare and feelings. She was homeschooled through high school, which means she gained her Geek/Nerd/Dork Certificate at an early age. She lives in Portland, ME and has almost too many pets. Almost. Follow her on twitter and tumblr for more nerding.
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THE MAGICIANS | Character Spotlight: Alice Quinn | SYFY
Learn all about the character of Alice from Olivia Taylor Dudley, the actor who plays her in SYFY’s series, The Magicians.
» Subscribe To SYFY: https://po.st/A8uSSN
Based upon Lev Grossman’s best-selling books, The Magicians stars Jason Ralph (A Most Violent Year, Aquarius) as Quentin Coldwater, a brilliant grad student who enrolls in Brakebills College for Magical Pedagogy, a secret upstate New York university specializing in magic. He and his 20-something friends soon discover that the magical fantasy world they read about as children is all too real — and poses grave danger to humanity. Stella Maeve (Chicago P.D.), Hale Appleman (Teeth), Arjun Gupta (Nurse Jackie) and Summer Bishil (Towelhead, Lucky 7) also star in this one hour drama.
Groundswell Productions’ Michael London and Janice Williams (Milk) will executive produce. John McNamara (Aquarius) and Sera Gamble (Supernatural), writers of the pilot, will serve as executive producers.
Lev Grossman’s Magicians trilogy is an international sensation, published and widely praised in more than twenty countries. The epic conclusion to the series, The Magician’s Land, opened at #1 last summer on The New York Times Hardcover Best Seller’s list, and was widely acclaimed as one of the best books of the year.
More About SYFY: SYFY brings you bolder science fiction, stronger drama, faster action, bigger adventure, deeper mystery, louder laughs and, well, you get the idea.
Olivia Dudley, blonde sexpot, re-imagined as a Noom Danish actress
Olivia Taylor Dudley is a Danish actress. She is known for her horror film roles such as Chernobyl Diaries, The Vatican Tapes, and Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension, and for her television roles such as the Syfy fantasy series The Magicians (as Alice Quinn) and for her work in the internet sketch group 5-Second Films. Wikipedia
Born: November 4, 1985 (age 33 years), Copenhagen, Denmark
Height: 5′ 9″
Cup size: double-D
Species: Homo Resurrectus Niffinitus (metaphysically, a Niffin trapped in a human body) — the same semi-supernatural “human” species as her character Alice Quinn. These so-called half-Niffin are colloquially known as Noom. Also, like her character Alice, Olivia was made not born a Niffin. Noom can perform magic at an extremely high level, just not at the Niffin level of course, but magic cannot be used against them.
Nationality: Danish
Full name: Olivia Taylor Dudley
Parents: Saundra Dudley, Jim Dudley (both human)
Maker: Ms. Barbara “Babs” Elizabeth Covett (Nosferatu), the conjurer she was the Familiar of while she was a Niffin. Babs, a Nosferatu of indeterminate age (maybe a God?), is a sexual predator and a serial rapist, and she is a bulldyke who prefers submissives that are buxom blondes of Olivia’s Nordic type. Babs raped a then human Olivia and then metaphysically violated her forcing her to become Niffin against her will. A double taking that twisted Olivia sexually and otherwise.
Olivia is one of the stars of the Syfy fantasy series The Magicians, and Olivia’s character Alice is the only reason that I watch the show. The show should revolve entirely around her. In my version she would despair about no longer being a full-blown Niffin; going on drunken drug-fueled binges with bulldyke Witches during which she degenerates into a crazed ravaged-looking drunken junkie whore who is no longer the least bit pretty, craves to be used any way imaginable, is sadomasochistic, a clinical dominant-submissive, obsessive compulsive, suffers from full-blown-BDD, and has psychopathic tendencies with dominatrix overtones. In other words, a depraved, evil-ass bitch, who is really fucked up. After the binge is over, her Noom metabolism would restore her back to her normal beautiful appearance. Her character’s disdain and loathing for humans and being human would be palatable; an intense hatred craved in her hard, pretty face. I would additionally, make this Alice a Neo-Nazi and a distant relative of Adolf Hitler, giving an entirely new meaning to the term White Nationalist.
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD) is a mental disorder usually characterized by an obsessive preoccupation that some aspect of one’s own appearance is severely flawed and warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix it. During a binge, Alice sees her entire appearance as being flawed. And, she will make the pretty girls pay for being so pretty while she’s been cursed with being “ugly.” Alice would forget that she too is beautiful when she’s not binging. Even when she’s undressed, and looking at herself in the mirror, the binging girl sees herself as a frumpy cunt instead of the looker-hiding-in-plain-sight with a killer body that she is.
Olivia Taylor Dudley Fans
Pat Priest, The Munsters
Patricia Ann Priest is an American actress known for portraying the second Marilyn Munster on the television show The Munsters after the original actress, Beverley Owen, left after 13 episodes.
If the horror tinged surf song that opened every episode of The Munsters isn’t playing through your head right now then you missed out on one of the most fun shows of the ‘60s. The series, a family sitcom about monsters living in a “normal” neighborhood was as far from scary as you can imagine, in fact, it was downright wholesome. The reason it was so heartwarming is because the show was created by the same team who made Leave It To Beaver. Joe Connelly and Bob Mosher wanted the show to be essentially the same as Beaver, but with the Universal monsters. The show was a hit, and it’s gone on to inspire a cult following across the globe.
This sweet, wholesome, porcelain-skinned beauty was your typical bouffant blonde of the early-to-mid 60s. She was picture perfect whether romping along the coast of Malibu Beach in a bikini or peering over a white picket fence as the girl-next-door. Pat Priest was born in 1936 in Utah. Her mother, Ivy Baker Priest (1905-1975), was a renown government official and served as United States Treasurer under the Eisenhower administration from 1953-1961. She also was California’s Treasurer while Ronald Reagan was Governor from 1966-1974. Living a glamorous débutante’s life in Washington D.C. during her mother’s 1950s term, she won attention as a beauty contest winner in the area. Stagestruck, she moved to Los Angeles and pursued commercials, modeling and community theater work. She happened to be in the San Francisco Bay area in 1964 when she got the call from Hollywood as a possible replacement for lookalike actress Beverley Owen, the “original” Marilyn Munster, who was suddenly leaving “The Munsters” (1964) series for marriage. Most viewers never caught on that there was a cast change. The decorative sitcom role did wonders for Pat as the prettiest resident of 1313 Mockingbird Lane, making her a minor household name. On the down side, she was given very little to do but to serve as a pretty and innocent foil for the weird and funny characters around her. Her one-joke premise revolved around her feeling “abnormal” amid her ghoulish relatives. The show ran another two seasons with Pat, then she went on to what would become a less-than-enviable post-Munsters career. Other than a few guest parts in such shows as “Bewitched,” “Perry Mason,” “The Virginian” and “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” the pickings grew scarce. Deemed too old to play Marilyn after the series was canceled (she was 30), she was replaced by red-headed Debbie (TV’s “Tammy”) Watson for the feature film Munster, Go Home! (1966), which included the rest of her TV cast. She did dally around with “Elvis Presley” in Easy Come, Easy Go (1967) one of his lesser vehicles, and also appeared in the sub-par cult horror flick The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971), which co-starred Bruce Dern and Casey Kasem,but film roles were almost non-existent after that. Pat finally retired from acting in the 80s but still attends many of the nostalgic conventions and “Munster” revivals around the country. At last report, she was restoring and selling homes in the Idaho area. Married twice, she has two sons.
