ELIOT WAUGH

The Magicians’ pissed-up posh boy is Lord Byron meets Dr Strange

eliot Waugh has had to grow up fast on The Magicians. Which is not unusual in a fantasy coming-of-age tale. Except that Eliot is not some kid; he’s in his mid-twenties! The thing is, he’s still in education – a student at Brakebills University for magicians (think Hogwarts, but with more sex and swearing) – and he shows every sign of happily being “the eternal student”; constantly pissed or high, a member of the high church of hedonism and practitioner of the barbed bon mot.

You can bet he has posters of Lord Byron on his dorm room wall, and he turns bisexuality into performance art. There’s no self-conscious PC badge-wearing here; Eliot just casually works through partners of either sex, with none of his friends raising an eyebrow.

He’s a member of the university’s Physical Kids – a house devoted to the

physical magical arts. So when the main character, the loveably inept Quentin Coldwater, joins that house, Eliot takes him under his wing. It’s a bit like having Oliver Reed as your acting mentor. But somehow, despite the chemical highs, Eliot becomes a trusted, if not always reliable, ally to Quentin as he searches for the kingdom of Fillory in order to defeat the Beast who’s threatening our world.

In fact, Eliot pulls his act together so well that he finds himself, somewhat bizarrely, the High King of Fillory. Unable to return to our world and forced into an arranged marriage, he remains remarkably sanguine about his situation. The fact that he’s known as King Eliot the Spectacular probably helps keep his ego inflated. Although he does seems a bit miffed that his new role doesn’t mean he can command orgies on a whim... Dave Golder