How to explain what the eff in ineffable means without going to Latin

The word ineffable is, at first glance, very simple.  Prefix-Root-Suffix.

"In[blank]able" means, "unable to be [blanked]".  Simple enough.

In the most recent Edith and Ben I had Ben use this knowledge to back-form the word "evited" from "inevitable".

The trouble with doing things like this is that no one knows what the fuck "evit" means unless they're starting with "inevitable" in mind.  Similarly "kempt" is a word (turns/turned 85 sometime this year) that you only understand if you know "unkempt".

But what about when you don't know the original word?  How do you explain "ineffable" to someone who doesn't already know what it means?

Well the basics are already there.  "ineffable" means "unable to be effed".  All one needs to do is explain what "eff" means and you're done.  For those of us with our minds not in the gutter, though, there's a problem.

"Eff" is not now, nor has it ever been, an English word.  "Effable" is, even if my spell checker doesn't recognize it, but that just means, "able to be effed."

Now is the time when we could go to the Latin, point out that the "eff" here comes from "effor" which is "ex"+"for" and thus originally meant "to speak out".  BUT, and yes this deserves an all caps "but" at the beginning of a sentence thus breaking all rules of grammar and tact, we would then need to explain that given a couple thousand years the meanings of words can change, a lot.

We'd have to talk about how it originally meant that but the meaning became more metaphorical and in fact deeper and more encompassing than anything involving mere speech.

That's a lot of work to deal with a three letter root.  Isn't there an English word that means the same thing "eff" means now?

Well, yes.  There is.  But there's a catch: it's not an Earth word.  The word is "grok".

Something is ineffable if it is not able to be grokked.
Something is effable if is is able to be grokked.

Thank the Martians, they've given us a simple way to explain what ineffable means:

-What does it mean when something is ineffable?
-It means that you can't grok it.

The entire idea of ineffability is that some things can't be grokked by our human brains.  Perhaps not by any brains.  You can study it, you can go for a deeper understanding, you can approach the problem from every angle, but you will never, ever grok it.

And that's what the "eff" in ineffable means.  It means "grok".  In real etymology "eff" started as speaking out.  In fictional etymology "grok" started as drinking, but in both they arrived at the same place.  Understanding in fullness.

If something is truly ineffable you might be able to get parts of it, you might have some understanding of details around the edges, but you will never truly get it.  Partial understanding, maybe.  Grokking, no.

Edith and Ben: Touchdown in the land of the constant rains

[First published here and now, just trying to gradually fill in some gaps.]

It takes about three hours to get from Phoenix to Seattle, not counting airport security, the fact that half the time your bags have been mailed to Hawaii by mistake (didn't happen, thank all gods non-fictional and otherwise), and everything else that goes wrong.

Forks is, of course, on the corner of “no” and “where”.   That's why you don't fly to it directly.   You don't even fly to it indirectly.  From Seattle you take a smaller plane, called a “puddle jumper” thus finally allowing me to get the joke in Stargate: Atlantis, to a smaller airport at Port Angeles, which is still not Forks.

Port Angeles bills itself as “The Authentic Northwest,” sorry rest of the Northwest, you're knock-offs, apparently.  Then again, Forks bills itself as “The Logging Capital Of The World,” when I'm pretty sure it's not the capital of anything anywhere.   So you can't judge things based on what they say about themselves.

More important is probably Port Angeles' official motto: The Center of it All on the Olympic Peninsula.   The peninsula is mostly national park, which doesn't give a lot of opportunity to hit an airport and probably explains why “The Center of it All” happens to be located on the north shore.   The point here being that “The Logging Capital” was located about an hour down 101 West from “The Center of it All”.

And that's how you get to Forks: take a big plane to a small plane; take a small plane to an hour long drive.   Give or take.   It depends on traffic conditions.

Three hours on one plane, another hour on a second one, that didn't bother me so much.  An hour trapped in a car with my mother, Charlize, was another matter.   I'd had no idea what to expect.

I'd only talked to her about this over the phone and via email.   She'd been nice enough, even seemed genuinely pleased that I was going to be staying with her on a permanent basis for, basically, the first time in my life.   But there had also been a lack of questions.  Not a word wondering why I was leaving my entire life behind.  No concern that my father's new girlfriend might be somehow abusive or otherwise bad for me.

There didn't seem to be any of the drama that should accompany such a major change in my life.  A part of me was grateful.  I didn't want the drama.  I didn't want to be forced to offer explanations.  But at the same time, part of me was wondering why it wasn't happening.  Shouldn't Charlize, my mother, care enough that the drama would be inevitable and unavoidable?  What did it mean that it apparently had been evited and avoided?

When we touched down in Port Angeles and I stepped out into the rain, I reminded myself that, while I might not be sure where she stood emotionally, Charlize had already started to help on the practical side of matters.  She'd gotten me registered for high school and smoothed out the details involved in transferring schools in the middle of a term so that I wouldn't have to.  She'd set up a bedroom for me in her house.  She'd even promised to help me find a car.

That didn't stop my nagging feeling that things were going to suck, though.

Charlize was well aware that, like my father before me, I hated Forks.  She had to be confused by my decision to come.  She'd yet to bring that up.  Not bringing it up at all would confuse me.  If she brought it up inside the car that would be worse.  The last thing I wanted was to be trapped in an awkward conversation because I was trapped inside a speeding car.

Not that Charlize was likely to be speeding, not too much at least.  As the head cop in Forks she was outranked only by the mayor and even off duty and in her own car she tried to set a good, law abiding example.

My point is that as a passenger in a car I am always acutely aware of the fact that I'm trapped in an oddly shaped metal box that I cannot escape no matter how much the driver's actions or words might make me want to.  An hour of going through that can be Hell.

On the other hand, car rides can be not-bad as well.  Several hours of driving can be just fine.

* * *

The back and forth thinking ended when Charlize gave me an awkward, uncertain, one armed hug as I stumbled out into the rain.

“It's good to see you, Ben,” she said.  She didn't mention it but I could feel her subtly adjusting the touch to keep me steady.  Wet ground and I are not friends.  She helped me with luggage and asked, “How's Ren?”

“Dad's fine,” I said.  With Charlize I didn't have to lie, but I'm still not into long explanations and I'm not sure how much Charlize wanted to know about my dad's new girlfriend.  “It's good to see you too, mom.”

I never could get into the whole thinking of people as “mom” and “dad”.  Add a “my” to it so it becomes clear which mom or dad you're talking about and I'm there, but without a qualifier it always struck me as impersonal and odd.  And whenever I tried to explain to anyone I struck them as odd.  Such is life I suppose.

That said, if Charlize liked me to call her “mom” rather than her name, I was capable of that.  Thinking about her as mom, on the other hand, not so much.

Everything I had fit into the trunk of her car. I travel light.

-

[Previously][Edith and Ben Index][Next]

Malcolm Reynolds, Jesus, Forgiveness, and Sin

Jayne: What are you taking this so personal for? It ain't like I ratted you out to the feds!

Mal: Oh, but you did. You turn on any of my crew, you turn on me! But since that's a concept you can't seem to wrap your head around then you got no place here! You did it to me, Jayne, and that's a fact.

The above is an important scene in the context of understanding what I would argue to be one of the most important scenes in Christianity.  Mind you I would make this argument as a non-Christian so results may vary.

There's a whole thing about how no one comes to the father except through Jesus but that's never really elaborated on.  There is a bit about those who obey the teachings (17 verses later), but not much beyond that.  Obey which teachings?  The ones that say sell all of your possessions and give the proceeds to the poor?  I hope not because then we're all screwed.  Plus, wouldn't it be sort of pointless for poor people to do that?  Surely there was a reason that that particular teaching was directed at someone who was well off.  What can one take from the teachings that is simple to understand, applicable to all of us, and so forth?

Well there's another passage about who can come and who must go in another gospel.  We've been working out of John here but if we turn to Matthew we get a part where Jesus says that he will tell some people to come and others to go.  Come on down to the father, or don't, depending on what you did.

It also explains how we, you and I and everyone else who did not live in a certain area of first century Palestine during a very specific time and at very specific places, can "meet" Jesus.

Those who come say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?"

Firefly translation, "When did we help you out?"

And Jesus will reply, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

Firefly translation, "You help any of my crew, you help me! [..] You did it to me, [name], and that's a fact.

Those who are told to leave will say, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?"

Firefly translation, "What are you taking this so personal for? It ain't like I ratted you out to the feds!"

And Jesus will respond, "Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me."

Firefly translation, "Oh, but you did. You turn on any of my crew, you turn on me! [...] You did it to me, [name], and that's a fact."

Jesus' crew just happens to include the whole of humanity.  And none of us signed up for it.  And he's sort of an absentee pilot (which might explain why the planet is just drifting in a gravitationally defined orbit.)

Of course Jesus also has some significant upsides when compared to Mal.  Mal takes things done to others personally, but he takes them so personally that he's often more concerned about making himself feel better than helping the others.

This comes out best in Shindig.  Slavery comes up in front of Mal twice in the episode.  The first time it comes up his response isn't, "Hey, why don't we go free those slaves?" it's more of, "If I pick that slaver's pocket I'll feel better."  The second time it becomes painfully apparent that Inara's client doesn't view what's going on as a business translation, he sees Inara as his slave for the duration of the contract.  Does Mal do something to make things better on Inara?  No.  He punches the guy in the face so he can feel better.

Mal is more about punishing victimizers than comforting victims.  Jesus is all about the victims.  His standard for getting in isn't based on not victimizing people, it's based on actively helping the victims.  His standard for staying out includes not just those who victimize but those who stand by and do nothing.

The teaching espoused isn't, "Punish the wicked," (though he does take a whip to the money changers) but instead, "Help those less fortunate."  And he's got a sliding scale.  If you don't have much to give, he doesn't expect you to give much.  If you've got a lot, you'd better give a lot.  (See the thing with the poor woman and the rich men. Mark 12:41-44)

But, anyway, there's the "least of these" passage, which seems pretty important.

-

But then we come to forgiveness.  Mal can forgive Jayne for, "You did it to me, Jayne, and that's a fact," but he can't forgive Jayne on behalf of Simon and River.

Only Simon and River can forgive Jayne for what he did to them.

Jesus, similarly, can't claim to forgive on others behalf.  Instead he can only ask that others forgive and claim that sins will be forgiven in turn.

Because when you hurt someone multiple people are harmed, multiple people need to forgive for you to be completely forgiven.  And they won't always do so.

Consider the two part episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation with Spock in it.  Before a certain war Spock and his father were on different sides of the debate, and publicly went after each other.  Sarek, Spock's father, either wasn't hurt by this or forgave Spock.  Sarek's wife, Perrin, was hurt by the attacks Spock made on her husband and never forgave him.

Only one person directly attacked, but two people harmed.  Two people harmed that we know of.  For Spock to be completely forgiven everyone harmed has to forgive him.  That never happens.

If you believe Jesus' "whatever you did/did not do for one of the least of these, you did/did not do for me," stance then Jesus is only one of the aggrieved parties.  Offences against Jesus are sins.  Jesus can forgive sins.  But even if your sins are forgiven, that doesn't mean that Bob, the member of the least of these you hurt, forgives you.  Maybe Bob is still pissed off.  And Jesus doesn't claim the power to make Bob not be pissed off.

The best Jesus can do is in Matthew 6 (right after the Lord's Prayer) where he says that if you forgive others you'll be forgiven by the divine.  Sort of a bribe, sort of a, "I know you're hurt, but it hurt me when you did X, Y, and Z, so maybe we can recognize no one is perfect and move on," but not, and this is important, a threat of Hellfire.

If Bob is good with the least of these, if Bobs fed them when they were hungry, gave them something to drink when they were thirsty, invited them in when they were a stranger, clothed them when they needed it, and/or visited them when they were sick/in prison then Bob gets to come in.  Not a word about sin in that passage.

Not a word about being denied the kingdom of Heaven if the Father does not forgive your sins in bit that has you ask God to forgive your trespasses as you forgive those who trespass against you, and warns that you won't have your sins forgiven if you don't forgive others.

-

When you harm, or even fail to help, others you sin.  You've hurt Jesus' crew and when you hurt Jesus' crew you hurt him.  God can forgive the sin.  But what god can't forgive is the harm to the person.  Only the person can do that.  When you help others you get in the good graces of God.  You help any member of Jesus' crew, you help Jesus.  You did it to Jesus, reader, and that's a fact.  (If you're a Christian of a certain flavor, actual results may vary, void where prohibited, etc.)

But in the end it comes down to this:

If you hurt Suzy then you've hurt Suzy and, since Suzy is a member of Jesus' crew, Jesus.

Jesus can forgive you for the hurting of him.  That might make you ok with God, but if you want to be ok in the eyes of Suzy then you're going to need Suzy to forgive you.  Honest forgiveness.

Honest forgiveness can come from persuasion (Jesus says, "Come on Suzy, it's not like you've never hurt anyone.  We all fuck up sometimes,") but not coercion (Turbo-Jesus says, "Suzy, if you do not forgive then BAD THINGS will happen to you.")

-

Or something like that.

On movies vs. miniseries vs. series

I noticed that twice, three times if you count two different treatments of Tron: Legacy, I've said that I think movies could be better in a TV series format.  This is not some thing where I think a TV series automatically works better, if anything it's an artifact of me watching movies more often than TV series.

Tron: Legacy would be a good candidate for a series because what it needed was more depth, but not just because it needed more depth.  It needed more depth in a certain way.  The problem wasn't a lack of interesting things, but a lack of delving into those things.  It scratched the surface of a world full of depths waiting to be explored and ended up as shallow as that depth.  While a decent story could be told in feature length set in that world, the world itself never could be properly explored in such a short time.  The movie was much more about the world than anything else.  Hence it could have used the additional time that would be offered by a series, instead of scratching the surface of multiple interesting ideas but exploring none of them, it could have explored the ideas at leisure because there would be no rush to finish off everything in a mere two hours.

When I said that I'd have preferred that Now You See Me be followed up with a series it was for entirely different reasons.

With now you see me I see the potential for a show like The A-Team, Leverage, or any others of that ilk.  Someone is fighting for those who have no where else to go.  The little people who get crushed by those who are above our outside the law.  Now this team can deal with them.

With Leverage they focused on thieving.  Nate, who had been catching thieves for ages, made the plans because he (by virtue of having been on the other side) could see not just the plans that incorporated the others skills, but also where those plans would go wrong.  Elliot's skills were in the "beat people up to steal stuff" arena, Parker's in the just plain steal stuff and don't deal with people at all, Hardison's in using computers for theft, and Sophie in pulling a con.

With The A-Team their background was military but they still had a diverse skill set.  Hannibal made the plans, Face did the cons, BA was the muscle, Murdock was the pilot.

With Now You See Me one can imagine a team made out of freaking magicians.  All are good at slight of hand, one can pick pockets and locks, two are good at the standard misdirection that lets you apparently disappear from plain sight and appear somewhere else, the forth is so good at cold reading he makes it look like real magic, the fifth can pull of a fake persona like nobody's business, and they've got two non-magical contacts: one in the FBI, one in Interpol.

Oh, and after the first movie they're supposed to get access to actual magic.

I want to see this team helping people.  And that's best served by an episodic format.  Note that the reasons for thinking Tron: Legacy would do well as a series had nothing to do with episodic format and everything to do with the greater ability to delve and dwell that the length of a series gives one.

-

But the flipside is definitely true too.  With all of the complexity of Middle Earth it might have been better served by being a 20 hour miniseries, but the only actual 20 hour mini-series I've seen (Sci-Fi's Taken) was mostly plodding through padding to the point I'm not even sure if it could have reasonably filled a trilogy.  It might have been better as a single made for TV movie.

I'm not going to mention it by name since I didn't see the whole season and thus shouldn't pass judgement on it, but I watched the second season of a TV series where it felt like the thing would have done much better as  two hour movie.

I was unable to make it through more than two episodes of Charlie Jade, and then only because they were run back to back, because it didn't have enough content for its format.  The first episode could have been told, with no loss of worthwhile content, in about two minutes.  The second admittedly did have more content, but not enough for me to watch a third.

The point here is that because I watch more movies than I do series I'm going to more often comment that a given movie would be good a series than the other way around BUT the other way around is likely true just as often.

If something merely scratches the surface because it doesn't have time to delve into the interesting things it presents, it would be better served by a format with more time.  If something plods through padding it would be better served by a format with less time.

If something would benefit from an episodic format, then obviously a TV series is right for it.  If something is best told with a tight focus on one thing then it should be a movie, miniseries, trilogy, or something of that nature.  Trying to stretch it out into a series just won't work.  (What can work is making that the background while having the bulk of the series devoted to something more episodic.)

Reasons that movies would work better as series are the exact same reasons that some series would work better as movies.  They just have reversed directions.

Being more than a Simulacrum (a Kim Possible fan fiction) (part 1)

When she woke up, her eyes stayed closed. It was a practiced skill; it had taken forever to perfect. Originally her eyes had always snapped open. When pretending you're still unconscious could make the difference that saved the world, it was best to keep your eyes closed on waking.

She wasn't in her bed. That was easy enough to feel. The noises would have alerted her anyway. They, combined with the smell, told her she was in a hospital or infirmary.

She subtly tested her limbs. They weren't bound. Probably meant she was amoung friendlies. Even so, when she opened her eyes it started with just a hopefully unnoticeable cracking open of her left eye. Just in case she judged wrong and she'd been captured by the enemy.

What she saw confirmed what she already knew: some kind of medical facility.

To get more information from her surroundings she was going to have to reveal she was awake, but there were other sources of information. What was the last thing she remembered. Her mind was hazy, but she thought she put things into the right order. If she had, then that would mean the last thing she remembered was fighting Shego. She must have been knocked unconscious, but that didn't tell her who brought her to here. Friend or foe?

To find out she would have to tip her hand, so she opened her eyes then tried to sit up.

A hand firmly, but gently, forced her back down.

“I wouldn't do that in your current state.”

She recognized the voice: Shego. She was amoung enemies. That clarified nothing. If Shego had control of her then why wasn't she dead? Why wasn't she locked into the hospital bed? Why did Shego's voice lack animosity and taunting?

She decided to play along, “What is my current state?” she asked as politely as she could.

“You're a recently created clone,” Shego said in an infuriatingly matter of fact manner.

Her eyes opened wide in panic. If she was a clone then that meant there would be no rescue, there would be no one to stop whatever it was that Shego planned to do to her.

“What are you going to do to me?” she asked, trying to keep the fear from her voice.

“Nothing. You can go to your family if you like. They'll accept you like a long lost daughter and never think any less of you for being a clone. You know that.”

“But...” she let the word hang when she realized she didn't have a sentence to follow it with.

“You're unrestrained, you know your way out. If you want to, you can leave. I've instructed the henchmen: no one will try to stop you.”

“I, uh, actually don't know my way out,” she admitted.

“Oh.” Shego sounded somewhat surprised. “Out that door,” she pointed, “take a left, go passed the training area, take a right after the living quarters, and continue to the end of the hall.” Shego looked away as if she were finished, but then she added, “But wait twelve to fifteen minutes for your body to adjust to being … made.”

The girl on the infirmary bed was trying to take this all in.

If she was a clone then there were so many questions. How would she distinguish herself from the original? Were her memories, feelings, and personality less real because they belonged to someone else? Why did she have those things, which DNA surely wouldn't carry, in the first place? Why had she been cloned? How would she explain to other people, “Oh, I'm not Kim, I'm just her clone”? What would she do with her life? Did she need to live in fear of carbonated beverages? Was the process that created her stable? While she was sure Kim's family would accept her if she asked them, could she convince everyone else that she wasn't Kim's evil clone? All of these things and more came to her mind, some came and went so fast she couldn't hold onto the thoughts long enough to remember them.

And, on the other hand, if she wasn't a clone, then what sort of mind game was being played here?

“Why did you make me if you don't plan to do anything to me?”

Shego sighed. “This may surprise you, Princess, but there aren't any experts on clone psychology out there. We weren't even sure if telling you you were a clone would cause a breakdown. We made up an elaborate lie just to spare you from that possibility but in the end I decided to tell you the truth, hope for the best, and have a therapist on standby.”

The girl said, “Two things.”

“The first?”

“If there's a therapist on standby where is he?”

“She is in the next room.”

The girl nodded. “Second: How does that relate to my question?”

“It relates to your question because we also don't know what telling you why you were created would do to you. One theory is that you'll latch onto it as your purpose in life. Another is that you'll rebel against it. A third is that it will have no effect upon you at all.” Shego paused. “Regardless, to be on the safe side, I'm not telling.

“You're going to have to work things out for yourself.”

“So you created me, and now you're just going to let me go?”

“If that's what you want.”

“What do you want?”

“I want you to decide, of your own free will, to stay around here for a while and get a better idea of what it's like than you would racing in, blowing stuff up, and racing out again.”

The clone was puzzled, “Why would I do that?”

“Why not?” Shego asked.

The girl gave a look that indicated it wasn't a good enough answer.

“Curiosity?” Shego asked.

The girl thought that was a tempting reason, she'd never had access to one of the bases. She saw them mostly through ventilation systems and the lab that housed whatever the latest “super” weapon happened to be. Beyond that she knew almost, but not quite, nothing about them.

On the other hand, she was either Kim Possible, the nemesis of the people who worked here, or a clone of the same. That didn't seem like it would result in pleasant relations with the people there.

She decided to show no reaction to Shego.

“Ok, how about this: you're probably ready to sit up now.”

The girl tried to sit up. She succeeded with no ill effects.

“And you'll be ready to walk out of here soon. However, you're not exactly in fighting trim. There are any number of people who would do all sorts of things to get themselves the vaunted Kim Possible,” for the first time Shego spoke with sarcasm and animosity, but it evaporated with her next words, “or a copy thereof.

“I'm sure you'd be completely safe with your family, but if you want to go off on your own you'll probably have to wait until you've trained yourself up to Kim's level anyway, so why not do the training here? You'll not only be sure that you'll be safe when you do go out, you'll also make sure that we're not doing anything evil by being in our midst the entire time.

“Necessary practice, keeping us from being evil, no one loses.”

The girl asked, “Where's the exit again?”

Shego sighed, the girl thought that she could see a sadness in Shego's eyes but wasn't sure. Regardless, Shego answered, “Out the door, left down the hall, right after the living quarters, exit is at the end of that hall.”

“And if I go no one will stop me?” the girl asked.

“No one,” Shego said, this time looking away.

The girl weighed various possibilities in her mind. Letting her go could be a bluff but she, or Kim, or whatever, had gotten pretty good at reading Shego and it didn't seem like one. If it wasn't a bluff then she had no idea what was going on. Why create a clone just to let it go? If it was a bluff then not calling it arguably put her in a better position than calling it. Better she be seen as playing along than be in open defiance.

She didn't think it was a bluff. She thought that if she wanted to she could leave. And that made her decide to stay. She was curious, and, while she'd never stay if she were forced, if she could come and go as she pleased then she saw no downside to staying around for a bit.

Finally she said, “What was the lie?”

“Huh?” Shego seemed surprised. She seemed to think the conversation had ended and also seemed to have forgotten mention of a lie.

“You made up an 'elaborate lie' because you weren't sure if it was a good idea to let me know I was a clone. What was the lie?”

“It was elaborate, but it didn't take a lot of effort to make it up. It was just my story but with the pronouns changed to sound like it was your story.”

“What is your story?”

“Personal.”

“You were considering telling me anyway.”

“Yeah, but...” Shego sighed. She didn't like all of the sighing she'd been doing. She'd known this was a bad idea from the beginning, yet she had insisted on doing it anyway. She'd been desperate and hadn't seen another way. Now she was going to have to … on the other hand, maybe it was a good sign. It showed interest. “Whatever,” she said, trying to sound annoyed. “Make yourself comfortable.”

The girl adjusted herself so she was sitting cross legged on the bed, facing Shego. She rested her chin on her hands.

[Being more than a Simulacrum Index][Part 2]
[Kim Possible Index]

A hypothetical "Now You See Me" series

So, first off, spoilers for Now You See Me.

Warning over, the movie is going to have a sequel scheduled to begin filming this movie.  I have nothing against that per se, but I think that the set up of the movie would be better followed up with an episodic series.

The movie would serve as the origin story, and the rest would proceed like Leverage or The A-Team.  "If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the Horsemen."

Magicians protect normal people when the law fails to help.  The premise of Leverage but with "thieves" replaced with "magicians".

Part of it is that fighting the bad guys with magic is just awesome as a concept.  Another part is that while in the real world it seems like someone big enough can get away with anything, one of the things they did in Now You See Me is give a bunch of ordinary people the money they were owed by stealing it from the CEO who OKed loopholing them out of of what they were due post disaster.  Granted he was going down no matter what because the plot was revenge not justice (though two out of four of the targets were definitely dirty with strong indications that a third was a problem too.)

But another part is who you've got.

After the movie ends you've got seven characters who are likely to stick around.  Five "horsemen" and three law enforcement personnel.  I'm guessing that the character in the overlap of that Venn diagram is probably going to go straight horseman and quit law enforcement, though it's not actually necessary.

Being a movie from Hollywood it's skewed WAY male.

Anyway, non magicians first:

The one in the FBI appears to be genderqueer or at least likes role playing being female with his wife at least once a week.  He (for that is the gender he presents as) was very embarrassed, nervous, and perhaps even frightened when it was clear it was going to come out and when it did come out and one of the assholes was an asshole about it at that point BUT beyond that moment there was no, "Let's make fun of the non-conforming character," vibe.  He was loyal, smart, and capable and presented as such with no implication that he was somehow worse as a result of not being gender conforming.

The one with interpol was smart and capable too, but she was also someone who could see the wonder in the world and managed to, in a relatively short time, get someone whose entire life revolved around revenge to take joy in life.  And she did it without offering to make him the next Dread Pirate Roberts.  She was the only on in any police force who could keep up with the game.  The FBI was always several steps behind, Interpol didn't send anyone other than her, and for the brief period that they were involved the NYPD was in so far over their head that the depth couldn't even be sounded.

For the magicians:

The Fifth Horsman is the best actor of the bunch, managing to spend most of his life in a false persona without anyone ever guessing that he was faking while surrounded by people whose job it is to be perceptive.  He apparently designed the tricks that the other four were astounded by the mere blueprints of (and then implemented), he can see the long game, and ... stuff.

Stage magician male is very good at what he does, talks a great game, and happens to be an asshole.  Probably not going to deal with that last problem in the span of a movie, but it does set up the potential for a character arc.  (His opening act was extortion.)

Stage magician female seems to be equally good, is much less of a loudmouth, and is underdeveloped as a character in the movie.  We really don't learn enough about her.

Mentalist is very good at what he does and an asshole.  Same thing about potential character arc.

Street magican/pickpocket/lock picker is not an asshole.  Given that the fifth horsman wasn't openly being magician during the movie he was seriously the only non-asshole male magician shown and kind of a breath of fresh air, but he also got less development than would be ideal.  While not being an asshole, he a thief. The movie has them all become thieves, but he started out as one.  Somehow I doubt he did a thorough job of profiling those he robbed to make sure they deserved it, but, anyway, this is character arc again.  He's working with one of his heroes, the other three were above him (fifth was unknown), only by the end of the movie did he prove himself as an equal, so it's probably going to be interesting to see what comes of that.

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Neither of the female main characters got to interact with another woman in the movie.  That's a damn shame.  There's no excuse.  There's a decent reason they didn't interact with each other*, there really isn't one for why neither ever interacted with another woman.  Will that be dealt with in the next movie?  No idea.  It would almost** have to be in a series just because
1 They'd be on the same side at this point and thus talk to each other
2 Every episode you've got new non-main characters and some of them would presumably be women.

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Mostly, though, I just like the idea of magicians being the Robin Hood/We help the helpless team in an ongoing series.

The fact that they'd presumably bring with them a gender-queer FBI agent is just a random plus.

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* Well semi-decent.  There's only one time that they could have and it would have been across an interrogation table.  But why don't we get to see her interrogation?  There are four magicians being held for interrogation.  Two are assholes, three are males.  Why do we only get to see the male assholes being interrogated?

** Never underestimate the power of ingrained misogyny.  Nothing is impossible

How Harry Potter should have ended

Slytherin was always under thought out.  Their guiding virtue was ambition but none of them seemed to have more than a base understanding of it.  I wanted to see the genuinely nice and honest Slytherin character because she was smart enough to know that friends would advance her ambitions more than enemies and the truth was easier to keep straight than lies.  I wanted to see them networking and alliance building.  I wanted to see the character who stepped in to stop bullies because they knew that might earn them favors.  But we didn't really get that.

What we did get was the never-ending blood feud between Gryffindor.  The shortsighted ambitious house and the hot headed charge off into battle house.

Which leaves, comfortably below the radar, the "Learn things so that we can actually be competent and form decent plans" house and the "We don't care about innate abilities, we work hard and get results based on our own merits," house.

The thinkers and the doers.  Teamed up they should be unstoppable.  And why shouldn't they team up?  When Harry Potter starts it's been ten years since the last time anyone heard of wizard-Hitler.  Potentially rocks fell and he died.  But potentially he's been in hiding and plotting his comeback for ten years.  People who were know supporters were about to use political leverage to get out of punishment and be falsely declared innocent.  His entire power structure is intact, was welcomed back into the world of lawful magic users, and has infiltrated it like whoa.  Gryffindor doesn't have anyone to charge into battle against.  Slytherin doesn't have any clear path for their ambitions.  But if you're Ravinclaw then this is a mystery that needs to be studied.  If you're Hufflepuff there's work left to be done.

Which really means that, when you think about it, the ending should have been:
Ravenclaw spokesstudent: We made a plan.
Hufflepuff spokesstudent: And we implemented it.
*The world is saved*
All of the main characters: Huh?