I thoroughly enjoyed The Order on Netflix. When I went to share my joy on twitter though, I was surprised to see so many negative comments about it. When I started the series the negative comments massively outnumbered the positive ones.
The Order has plenty of flaws, for instance several of the characters are flat or downright unlikable until late in the series. “Killith” is a prime example, until plot happens she is a very flat and annoying character. There are also plenty of WTF moments and decisions that characters make which simply don’t make sense.
From what I’ve seen, most of the complaints seem to be from people expecting a dark Harry Potter, people comparing it with the Magicians, or people raging about the ending.
Let’s start by addressing the werewolf in the room, the ending. Going into the series, we all knew there would be hints of a cliffhanger. This is a Netflix original, so of course they are going to leave a path to season two. That’s fine, no one complained about that. The problem is the rage-worthy memory wipe.
I’m going to keep deliberately vague here, as its possible someone who hasn’t seen the series will stumble across this post, and I don’t want to bias their experience. There are very few reasons for The Order to justify the memory wipe and it will inevitably cause trouble in season two.
If you are upset by the ending, I feel you. You are completely justified in your anger.
Moving on from the obvious, a lot of the early watchers were comparing it with Harry Potter or The Magicians. If you were expecting more than cursory similarities with either of those I wouldn’t blame you for being disappointed.
Both Harry Potter and The Magicians are stories about going to a magic school. The Order, on the other hand, is about joining a secret magical society at an Ivy League university. That’s a big difference. In The Order, the learning magic side of things takes second seat to the adventure. Magic is simply a means to an end. For Harry Potter a lot of the focus was on how magic can save the day. I have only watched up through episode 10 of the Magician so far, but like Harry Potter that also seemed to have a lot of focus on their experiences learning magic.
That being said, all three series still address the common, or better said mandatory, issue of power corrupting and the addictive nature of magic.
If you are looking to compare its magical environment to another series, I’d choose the college seasons of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. You have a secret magical group, they do stuff, and plot happens.
Another major difference between The Magicians and The Order is the conflict. From what I saw of the Magicians, it’s about saving the world. Something is wrong with Fillory and they have to fix it. The Order doesn’t attempt anything so noble, it’s a person vs person plot, with the main character seeking to stop the villain. Saving the world is incidental.
You could argue that this is a similarity with Harry Potter, in that they are battling an evil villain, but their approaches to the villain are significantly different as well. Voldemort is evil. He’s actively seeking to conquer the world. His fear of death drives him to actively hunt Harry. The Grand Magus on the other hand is blindly seeking power. He isn’t doing it for some evil agenda, he’s more or less completely amoral. He is seeking power for power itself.
While updating this post, I saw that people’s reaction on twitter had generally turned more positive since I finished watching. This is a series which starts a bit rough, but I found to be ultimately worth the ride. Leave your preconceptions at the door, don’t let its obvious flaws drive you off, and give it a chance to prove itself. I look forward to hearing your thoughts!
Originally published at https://www.narrative.org on April 2, 2019.
