The Magicians
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50 free The Magicians trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
The Magicians ran for five seasons on Syfy, following Quentin Coldwater from a secret entrance exam at Brakebills University to the far side of Fillory, the storybook realm he grew up reading about. It is a fantasy series for grown-ups: funny, bruising and unafraid to let its heroes fail. This quiz covers the whole run. Expect questions on Quentin, Julia, Alice, Eliot, Margo and Penny, the disciplines that sort Brakebills students, the gods and monsters they cross, the best-loved episodes, the cast and creators, and the novels that started it all. It is written for fans who have finished the series, and it does include spoilers through the finale. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so a wrong guess still teaches you something new about Fillory.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In The Magicians, Brakebills first-years who pass the trials are turned into which birds?
Geese
Geese is the form each first-year takes on passing the trials, which the third-years devise. The whole flock then flies off to a remote second campus.
Q 02In The Magicians, the Beast's face is usually hidden behind a magical swarm of which insects?
Moths
Moths swarm around the Beast's head, hiding who he is until the first season's finale. He is also marked out by having six fingers on a hand.
Q 03In season four of The Magicians, which legendary figure does Alice talk to inside the Library's prison?
Santa Claus
Santa Claus shares the Library prison with Alice and later slips away through a chimney. He returns in the final season, lending his sled for a getaway.
Q 04In season five of The Magicians, what do two rival spells accidentally split in half?
The moon
The moon breaks apart when Eliot and a rival caster pull it in opposite directions. Its fragments then threaten to rain down and destroy the Earth within 12 hours.
Q 05In The Magicians, Quentin suspects author Christopher Plover, but who is really the Beast?
Martin Chatwin
Martin Chatwin, a child hero of the Fillory books who became its High King, turns out to be the Beast. The prisoners he kept reveal his identity in the first season's finale.
Q 06Which rock anthem do the mind-linked friends of The Magicians sing to break a demon's illusion?
Under Pressure
Under Pressure, the Queen and David Bowie duet, is the song that shatters the endless party. An enchanted artefact had linked all eight friends' minds, so they could sing together across worlds.
Q 07Which former Time magazine book critic wrote the novels behind the TV series The Magicians?
Lev Grossman
Lev Grossman published the first novel in 2009 and finished the trilogy in 2014. He has said the plot began as a dream about a beast invading a magical classroom.
Q 08In The Magicians, what are self-taught magic users like Julia, who learn outside Brakebills, called?
Hedge witches
Hedge witches are largely self-taught and swap what spells they can find in hidden safe houses. Julia is drawn in by a recruiter named Pete.
Q 09In The Magicians, where is Brakebills South, the bleak campus run by the exiled Professor Mayakovsky?
Antarctica
Antarctica hosts Brakebills South, where Mayakovsky was banished after an affair with a student. He drills the first-years through a run of harsh challenges.
Q 10Charles Shaughnessy, Fillory author Christopher Plover in The Magicians, played Maxwell Sheffield in which sitcom?
The Nanny
The Nanny ran on CBS from 1993 to 1999, with Shaughnessy opposite Fran Drescher. In The Magicians he plays a reclusive author who was a childhood hero of Quentin's.
Q 11Which actor played Quentin Coldwater in the first four seasons of The Magicians?
Jason Ralph
Jason Ralph came to the role from the stage, having appeared on Broadway in Peter and the Starcatcher. He starred as Quentin from 2015 to 2019.
Q 12In The Magicians, Penny is wrongly placed in the psychic discipline before discovering he is really what?
A Traveler
A Traveler can teleport anywhere, even between worlds, which makes Penny the friends' way into other realms. The gift also lets the Beast torment him with voices.
Q 13In season three of The Magicians, the Great Cock sends the friends on a quest for seven golden what?
Keys
Keys, seven of them, each carry a different power: one reveals hidden truths and another links its holders' minds. The quest begins with a book of tales that Quentin finds.
Q 21In The Magicians, what does a magician consumed by their own magic become, as Alice's brother did?
A niffin
A niffin is what Charlie became five years before the story starts, and he attacks Alice when she finds him. She leaves Brakebills for a time in grief.
Q 22In The Magicians, what must Eliot agree to do in Fillory to collect the weapon forged to kill the Beast?
Marry its maker's daughter
Marry its maker's daughter is the price, so Eliot weds a Fillorian named Fen. He is revealed to be Fillory's High King in the same episode.
Q 23In The Magicians, Julia is left reckless and emotionally detached after an exorcism strips away her what?
Shade
Q 14What happens across every world in The Magicians after Quentin kills the god Ember in the season two finale?
Magic is shut off
Magic is shut off by the Old Gods in answer to the killing. Julia alone is mysteriously left with a faint spark of power.
Q 15How does Quentin Coldwater's story end in the season four finale of the Syfy series The Magicians?
He sacrifices himself
He sacrifices himself in the Mirror World to save his friends and stop Everett, a Library leader hoarding power. A grieving Alice later builds a golem from a grain of his soul.
Q 16In season one of The Magicians, which first-year secretly steals from Brakebills to settle a debt tied to her mother?
Kady
Kady owes the debt to a ruthless magician outside the school, and admits the thefts to Penny during the first-year trials. She had been using him to steal from Brakebills.
Q 17In The Magicians, Fillory's twin gods Ember and Umber have the heads of which animal?
Rams
Rams' heads mark out both gods, with Ember personifying chaos and Umber order. Ember spends the early story hiding from the Beast, while his brother is presumed dead.
Q 18Esmé Bianco, the mysterious Eliza in The Magicians, played Ros in which HBO fantasy series?
Game of Thrones
Game of Thrones cast Bianco as Ros from its very first episode. In The Magicians her Eliza has a secret identity, and a hand in starting Quentin's journey into real magic.
Q 19The Fillory books in The Magicians, about English siblings in a magical realm, echo which real series?
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Chronicles of Narnia is the clear model, and the author wanted a closer link still. A Narnia setting he meant to borrow outright was vetoed by his publisher's lawyers.
Q 20Sera Gamble, co-creator of The Magicians, earlier succeeded Eric Kripke as showrunner of which CW series?
Supernatural
Supernatural had Gamble on its writing team for its first seven seasons, the last two as showrunner. She later co-created You, adapted from Caroline Kepnes's novel.
Shade is the story's word for something like the soul, and losing it leaves Julia amoral. The Shades of the lost turn out to dwell in the Underworld.
Q 24In The Magicians, which Fillory landmark does the Beast drain to feed his own power?
The Wellspring
The Wellspring matters beyond Fillory: once it is polluted, magic begins to fail on Earth too. The friends first go there to ambush the Beast.
Q 25Olivia Taylor Dudley replaced which actress, who played Alice in the pilot of The Magicians?
Sosie Bacon
Sosie Bacon played Alice when the pilot was shot in New Orleans in late 2014. The recasting was announced as full production began the following August.
Q 26The Magicians pilot was filmed in New Orleans, but which Canadian city hosted the series itself?
Vancouver
Vancouver became the home of The Magicians when series production began there in August 2015. The pilot had wrapped in Louisiana the previous December.
Q 27In The Magicians, the goddess Julia's circle calls Our Lady Underground is better known as whom?
Persephone
Persephone answers to Our Lady Underground in The Magicians, where Garcelle Beauvais plays her. Her husband Hades is later found on Earth, grieving her loss.
Q 28In The Magicians, which trickster god answers when Julia's circle tries to summon a kinder goddess?
Reynard
Reynard the Fox had seized the body of the circle's own leader, Richard, who died attempting the summoning. Mackenzie Astin played both parts.
Q 29In season four of The Magicians, the Monster hunts down four gods to recover the scattered parts of whom?
His sister
His sister had been sliced into four parts by librarians, who used the pieces to make themselves gods. The same four had locked the Monster away in Castle Blackspire.
Q 30In The Magicians, which creatures, known as the Ancient Ones, act as gateways to the Underworld?
Dragons
Dragons are the Ancient Ones, and Julia is the one who works it out. Another later bargains with Quentin and Julia over a treasure in her hoard.