The Wizarding World of Harry Potter has captured the imaginations of generations, and for good reason. The orphan boy who lived under the stairs appealed to the world because of his underdog status. Ostracized for being different, Harry was pleasantly surprised to learn he came from a family of magic wielders and was invited to a school for witchcraft and wizardry. There, he met people he could identify with, as well as learned spells, potions, and magical creatures.

Harry Potter has immense rewatch – and reread – value, but for those looking for a more mature take on the children’s series, there is another fantasy book collection that was adapted for live-action. The Magicians was written by Lev Grossman in 2009 and similarly followed a male protagonist who learned he could do magic. Invited to a magical college instead of high school, The Magicians took the concept of a ragtag group of young witches and wizards and spun it for a more mature audience.

In 2015, Syfy adapted Lev Grossman’s fantasy series for television. The network that brought classics such as Battlestar Galactica struck gold again with a series that was as humorous as it was dangerous. While in the book, Quentin attended undergrad for magic, his live-action counterpart, played by Jason Ralph, attended Brakebills University for Magical Pedagogy as a graduate student. Quentin was the focal point that brought the audience into the world just like Harry, only if Harry was never told why he always felt like an outsider.

The Magicians introduced Quentin right off the bat as needing support for mental illness. His disillusionment and feelings of otherness made him so depressed that he sought treatment. Only upon interviewing for grad school was Quentin introduced to the idea that it wasn’t a mental illness that made him feel like an outsider.

Quentin had previously undiscovered magical abilities, and entering a school for the young and the gifted brought him closer to who he was meant to be. But unlike the Harry Potter books, The Magicians made it clear from the beginning that this would be a different story. Also incorporated into the series is the in-world fantasy book series called "Fillory and Further." The series was a clear response to C.S. Lewis’ The Chronicles of Narnia as these fictional children also found a door to a magical world. But the prologue to the series made it apparent that the books and therefore, The Magicians weren’t for the faint of heart.

“This venture is no mere children’s tale,” Quentin read in the book's pages. The protagonist’s depression and later trials of grief and rejection of Fillory demonstrated that this is a world for adults. Even so, many aspects would appeal to Harry Potter fans, especially those who have reached adulthood.

Just as important as Quentin are the rest of his cohorts at Brakebills. When Quentin first entered the halls of the school, he quickly met a class of magic users with their own respective skills. Quentin’s roommate, Penny, was a telepath and later discovered a traveler who could teleport between worlds. Margo and Eliot were a package deal, upperclassmen with an aptitude for snark and magic. Then there was Alice.

Alice Quinn appeared first as a magical prodigy, not dissimilar to Hermione Granger. Instead of being born to a family of non-magic users, Alice was instead the legacy of a powerful magician family. But even so, Alice never got any special treatment. While her parents were Magicians, they were cruel and unempathetic. Everything Alice got was through her own tenacity and studious nature. Both she and Hermione were so good at their craft that they were met with jealousy and sometimes outright hostility.

Even when they were the best, they somehow still ended up alone. Their social awkwardness made them even more of an outsider until they met their found family. For Hermione, it was Harry and Ron. For Alice, meeting Quentin allowed her to lower the walls she had built up.

Just as Quentin was a more traumatized version of Harry, Alice had more complex feelings about magic than Hermione. Harry Potter delved into the wonder of magic, but The Magicians veered into more morally gray areas. Alice was very practiced at magic, but not for the love of it.

Alice had ulterior motives for attending Brakebills. She cultivated her magical abilities for one purpose. In the first episode, she did not hesitate around the idea of Necromancy. The real reason that Alice wanted to go to Brakebills was to find out what happened to her brother, Charlie, who died mysteriously at the institution five years previous. The Magicians was less about magic tutelage and more about the dangers that magic possesses. This concept is repeated throughout the series in various ways.

The pilot of The Magicians wasted no time raising the stakes of the typical magical school world. Quentin was immediately introduced as someone who struggles with his mental health. Living in a constant state of feeling out of place, he became relieved when he entered Brakebills. But Brakebills wasn’t the haven that Hogwarts was.

During Quentin’s first semester, his entire class was met with gruesome violence. After Quentin and Alice performed an illegal spell, a powerful magic user known as The Beast broke through Brakebill’s security. His intent was unclear, but he left a trail of carnage in his wake.

Quentin accepted responsibility readily and became the Chosen One archetype to defeat the villain. He amassed a coven of equally motivated classmates on his quest. Quentin was pure of intent, just as Harry was. Neither person does it for fame or glory but because there is no one else.

The Magicians used the concept of this overarching villain to tell more horrifying stories. Voldemort had no real reason for being an ethnic cleanser. His childhood informed him as a person, but at the end of the day, he was only power-hungry. The Beast was equally violent, but the entire first season explored exactly how such a fiend could exist. The series meditated on the concept of evil and how, ultimately, it was born of human nature. The Magicians cleverly wove this into the Narnia adjacent storyline that was prevalent throughout the series.

Quentin’s entire magical journey and tenure at Brakebills was ultimately a red herring. While Hogwarts opened up an entirely new world of Harry full of wonder, Quentin instead found horror. At first, he felt more at home at Brakebills, but he was also more in danger than ever before.

Learning what real magic was actually like was a shock for Quentin. The new world he was introduced to was full of people doing horrible things for power, starting with his beloved world of Fillory. In addition to Harry Potter, The Chronicles of Narnia played a big role in the show.'

Quentin grew up loving the world in the pages of the children’s book and was surprised to learn that it was real. But the real Fillory was nothing like what was presented in the books. Quentin was later devastated to meet all the characters he thought he knew were dark versions of sanitized book characters.

Season 1 culminated in the realization that The Beast was actually Martin Chatwin, one of the children who found the world of Fillory and traveled there in the books. Martin became twisted and vengeful after being subjected to sexual abuse at the hands of the writer of the books. He decided to tie himself to Fillory forever to escape his pain but became a monster in the process.

Martin needed to become powerful because his worst moments meant that he had been weak. But his control over Fillory was evil, and his sister devised a plan to use the students of Brakebills to destroy him. This took many different time loops to eventually complete, but by the time it was done, the mystique of Quentin’s magical education disappeared.

Quentin had obtained magic but at a terrible cost. He lost many people in the process and ruined his relationship with Alice before she lost her life. Harry Potter was a hero’s journey, but The Magicians was the classic tale of the realities of adulthood turning people into the darkest versions of themselves. Both have merit as stories and in some ways, The Magicians is what happens when Harry Potter grows up.

Even at the end of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the titular character learned that not everything is as it seems. The person that he trusted most in the world had raised him to be a sacrifice. While for the greater good, Dumbledore was not just the kindly wizard he portrayed himself as. Harry Potter and Quentin Coldwater could very well exist in the same universe except in the American magic system, where magic users are not handcuffed by the need for wands.