The Confidence-Man The Supernatural Quotes

What's in a title? A lot, actually. Chapter 31 gives us a nod to that great epic poem about gods, heroes, the origin of the world, and—most importantly—transformation. Ovid's Metamorphoses is a text that gets a lot of play whenever there's a need to evaluate appearance versus reality, or the intersection of the natural and supernatural. Anyway, the big shift in this chapter occurs when a major character turns out to be a major butt. Although it's not like we didn't see it coming.

This title highlights two things that are connected, but not the same. The age of magic might refer to a time when humans believed magic and witchcraft were a thing. We're talking about the time of the Salem witch trials, for example, and even earlier, when religion and folklore had a complicated relationship. Magicians? Now, that's a little trickier. Magicians are in the realm of tricks, jokes, sleights-of-hand, and illusion. So what's going on in this chapter? Are we dealing with real magic, or just magic tricks?

Well, lookie here, we've got a genuine allusion to a specific story in Ovid's Metamorphoses about Cadmus, the hero who founds Thebes but ends up a bit serpentine. To complete this moment, we've got a hissing sound effect describing Charlie's messed-up response to Frank's request for money.