Magician (fantasy)

A magician, wizard, witch, or mage is someone who uses or practices magic derived from supernatural or occult sources. Magicians are common figures in works of fantasy, such as fantasy literature and role-playing games, and enjoy a rich history in mythology, legends, fiction, and folklore.

Character function

In medieval chivalric romance, the wizard often appears as a wise old man and acts as a mentor, with Merlin from the King Arthur stories representing a prime example. Other magicians can appear as villains who are hostile to the hero.

Both of these roles have been used in fantasy. Wizards such as Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings and Albus Dumbledore from the Harry Potter books are featured as mentors, and Merlin remains prominent as both an educative force and mentor in modern works of Arthuriana. Evil sorcerers, acting as villains, were so crucial to pulp fantasy that the genre in which they appeared was dubbed "sword and sorcery".

Ursula K. Le Guin's A Wizard of Earthsea explored the question of how wizards learned their art, introducing to modern fantasy the role of the wizard as protagonist. This theme has been further developed in modern fantasy, often leading to wizards as heroes on their own quests. A work with a wizard hero may give him a wizard mentor as well, as in Earthsea.

Fantasy

Fantasy is a genre of fiction that uses magic or other supernatural elements as a main plot element, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic and magical creatures are common. Fantasy is generally distinguished from the genres of science fiction and horror by the expectation that it steers clear of scientific and macabre themes, respectively, though there is a great deal of overlap between the three, all of which are subgenres of speculative fiction.

In popular culture, the fantasy genre is predominantly of the medievalist form. In its broadest sense, however, fantasy comprises works by many writers, artists, filmmakers, and musicians, from ancient myths and legends to many recent and popular works.

Fantasy is studied in a number of disciplines including English and other language studies, cultural studies, comparative literature, history, and medieval studies. Work in this area ranges widely, from the structuralist theory of Tzvetan Todorov, which emphasizes the fantastic as a liminal space, to work on the connections (political, historical, literary) between medievalism and popular culture.

Fantasy (1938 magazine)

Fantasy was a British pulp science fiction magazine which published three issues in 1938 and 1939. The editor was T. Stanhope Sprigg; when the war started, he enlisted in the RAF and the magazine was closed down. The publisher, George Newnes Ltd, paid respectable rates, and as a result Sprigg was able to obtain some good quality material, including stories by John Wyndham, Eric Frank Russell, and John Russell Fearn.

Publication history

The first U.S. science fiction (sf) magazine, Amazing Stories, was imported into the U.K. from its launch in 1926, and other magazines from the U.S. market were also available in the U.K. from an early date. However, no British sf magazine was launched until 1934, when Pearson's launched Scoops, a weekly in tabloid format aimed at the juvenile market. Soon Haydn Dimmock, Scoops' editor, began to receive more sophisticated stories, targeted at an adult audience; he tried to change the magazine's focus to include more mature fiction but within twenty issues falling sales led Pearson's to kill the magazine. The failure of Scoops gave British publishers the impression that Britain could not support a science fiction publication.

Fantasy (Aldo Nova song)

"Fantasy" is the debut single by Canadian rock musician Aldo Nova and is his most popular work to date. Released on his eponymous debut album in 1981, the song climbed to #3 on the Mainstream rock chart, and #23 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. The song was featured in a flashback sequence in the final episode of the popular television series Rob & Big. A cover version of the song, performed by Steel Panther, is the current theme song for the MTV show Rob Dyrdek's Fantasy Factory.

VH1 listed it at #78 on its countdown for the 100 Greatest One Hit Wonders of the 80s.

Music video

The video shows Aldo performing with his band at a concert. It is best remembered for its intro, which starts out with a man holding an electric guitar and two bodyguards holding machine guns, waiting for someone. Then comes a helicopter, landing from the sky, and Aldo comes out in a very contoured leopard-print suit, being escorted to the stage. When they encounter a locked door, which the bodyguards can't open, Aldo grabs his guitar and fires a laser into the door and it opens.

Magician (1967 film)

Magician (Russian: Фокусник) - a feature film director Pyotr Todorovsky, shot in 1967 on an experimental creative studio (Moscow). The first film of the studio.

Plot

The film is about an elderly magician - a good man, shy, but at the same honest and principled. He had realized that the biggest focus - to give people the best that you have.

References

External links

Magicians (2007 film)

Magicians is a 2007 British comedy film released on 18 May 2007. It stars comic duo Robert Webb and David Mitchell as stage magicians Karl and Harry. The two magicians compete together in a magic competition, despite their personal differences. Parts and ideas of the film have been taken to parody the 2006 film The Prestige by Christopher Nolan, though this had not been released when Magicians was filmed (though the original novel by Christopher Priest had been published in 1995). The film is directed by Andrew O'Connor and written by Jesse Armstrong and Sam Bain, who are also the writers of the Channel 4 sitcom Peep Show, which stars Mitchell and Webb. Other principal cast members include Jessica Hynes, Darren Boyd, Steve Edge, Peter Capaldi, and Andrea Riseborough.

Plot

Magician (horse)

Magician (foaled 24 April 2010) is an Irish Thoroughbred racehorse. After showing unremarkable form as a two-year-old in 2012, he established himself as a top-class performer in May 2013 with wins in the Dee Stakes and the Irish 2000 Guineas. After a long break, he returned in November to win the Breeders' Cup Turf and a month later was voted Cartier Champion Three-year-old Colt.

Background

Magician is a bay colt with a white star bred in Ireland by the Absolutelyfabulous Syndicate, an organisation associated with the Coolmore Stud. He was sired by Galileo the winner of the 2001 Derby who went on to become an outstanding breeding stallion, winning the title of champion sire on four occasions. Galileo's other progeny include Rip Van Winkle, Nathaniel, Cape Blanco, New Approach and Frankel. Magician's dam, Absolutelyfabulous was a successful sprinter who won the Listed Cork Stakes and finished second in the Ballyogan Stakes. Absolutelyfabulous is a great-granddaughter of Luv Luvin', an American broodmare whose other descendants include Henrythenavigator and the Irish 2000 Guineas winner Saffron Walden.