4 Times Quentin Describes Women's Boobs in "The Magicians"

And two times he doesn't. But is still a really shitty person. If he were a real person and not an avatar for the male author.

L'Olseau (The Bird)

Lev Grossman's The Magicians is the first in the Magicians Trilogy. The series is a New York Times' bestseller and has been turned into a Syfy television series. And no, its success and literary acclaim does not stop us from hating it for its gross portrayal of women! In fact, any success of any man should heighten any True Feminist's impulse to squash and defame them!! So let us begin.

Levman after this article goes viral and the police arrest him or whatever

1. While Chatting With a Nurse

[Quentin] wanted to scan her chest for name tag but didn't want to get caught looking at her breasts.

Ah yes, very reasonable I suppose! Do not ever look at a women for fear she will realize you are sexualizing her. Actually, it's not a bad idea. Please don't look at me, Quentin.

The comical part is that he actually had good reason to look at her chest, but the language here - "get caught" - implies that he was not actually looking for that reason. Or, Grossman is just really bad at writing with a maintained logic. Well, if Quentin had actually looked at that name tag, the book would be 2/3 shorter. Check that!

2. While His Classmate Consorts With a Demon

"And then she just looked puzzled, twisting to look over her shoulder forgetting for a second and letting everyone see her slight, pale-nippled breasts."

For context, this is a scene in which every man and woman is naked in the room. Yet, only the woman's nipples are not just described, but colored as well! This quote is especially voyeuristic which means, especially gross, man.

Can I also add that "pale-nippled" is the most awkward adjective? Was it so necessary it had to added in with the Critics Agree Most Sloppily Way with a hyphen? Not mention, the colorism?

Levman's Internal Family System chatting while writing his own book

3. While Taking a Depression Nap

 "Alice would stir sleepily in the sheets and sit up, the white sheet slipping down off her heavy breasts." 

One again, we have women's bodies and sexuality being juxtaposed with whiteness/paleness. "Heavy breasts" sounds suspiciously like a male fantasy. Very rarely do I hear a woman describing her breasts with the word "heavy," and even rarer is a woman using the word "breasts" and not like... "boobs"...

Read about fantasy's feminist roots here.

4. After Coming Across a Frozen Body in a Lake

"Gradually the woman rose up dripping out of the water. She was whole, thank God, and naked - her body was slim, her breasts slight and girlish. Her nails and nipples were pale purple. She looked frozen"

This is hands down the most disturbing passage for me. This woman is described as apparently dead and no older than teenage. Yet, we must know the color of her nipples!  The syntax even lowkey suggests that her "body" is a different entity than her "breasts."

Oh, and, yes, don't forget that she is pale! As a woman can only be.

Read about a book we actually like here.

BONUS! Two more crappy passages!

"Alice looked lovely and gaunt and lost."

Alice is the object of the narrator's affections. Therefore, she is the prettiest, smartest, most gaunt pixie girl imaginable. OH! But wait, she's actually smart and levelheaded and dies for her cheating boyfriend. I guess Levman was being subversive when he made her up to par with every beauty standard including thin, pretty, blonde, mysterious, broken except manic, Wow. a revolutionary

"Unpretty women were so much easier to deal with in some ways - you didn't have to face the pain of their probable unattainability. But she was not unpretty. She was pale and thin and unreasonably lovely, with a broad, ridiculously sexy mouth." 

The fuck? Why was the passage even typed out? I refuse to even break this one down. I don't even know what it means. Anyway, here's 2ne1