Saturday, July 10, 2010

THE MAGISTER REGISTRY




Those are scenes from 'True Blood' and 'Lost', both featuring the actor Zeljko Ivanek. Don't think they're connected? Then you've never read an Inner Toob Theory of Relateeveety before!

In less than three seasons, ‘True Blood’ has provided a rich registry of secondary characters populating the town of Bon Temps, Louisiana. It even goes deeper with the tertiary characters, those who only appear on a recurring basis.


One of these, and the focus of this post, is The Magister.

According to a ‘True Blood’ wiki, The Magister was born in 1462 and was turned into a vampire against his will in 1525. It’s now his mission in “life” to act as the judge in matters involving the laws and codes of vampiric life.Supposedly The Magister’s name was Magnus, and he claimed to have been active in the Inquisition. That ‘True Blood’ wiki did some research for me on that subject:

Historically, the only Inquisition going on during his human life was the Spanish Inquisition which started in 1478 and ended in 1834. This Inquisition was under the control of the Spanish monarchy who used Spanish clergy to carry it out. Logically it follows that Magnus would have had to [have] been a member of the Spanish clergy then, specifically a member of the Catholic priesthood.

His name doesn’t have to be actually Magnus; he may have changed it over the centuries. To me, it just smacks of a Germanic background and not exactly the kind of name to be borne by a Spanish priest. But he could have been from a Bavarian order, whose expertise in the ways of torture were sought by his Spanish brethren in the Church.

Although there are vows of celibacy laid upon the clergy, we know even in modern times that those vows aren't strictly upheld. (Boy! Do we know about that!) It's pozz'ble, just pozz'ble, that Magnus sired at least one child before he was embraced into the kindred of vampires.

And from that child, a lineage could have been established which down through the centuries spread the branches of Magnus' family tree far and wide. And if we were to assume that Magnus had "agarnistic" DNA - that is, capable of creating multiple copies of an exact strand, then we have seen several of his descendants since the mid-1990's.

Among those with a large presence in Toobword who might be part of the Magnus family tree:
Blake Sterling - 'The Event'
We don't know anything officially about him yet, - he's an adviser to the President in some way - as 'The Event' will be one of the Fall offerings on NBC. (And by "officially", I mean what's been broadcast, not what is written up by the Peacock promo people.) But we do know this - with Blair Underwood playing the President, this is in some other TV dimension.

Ray Fiske - 'Damages'
A lawyer who worked closely with Patty Hewes. Even if the show hadn't been canceled, we wouldn't have seen much of him anymore anyway.....


JJ Percy Walker - 'Big Love'
Head of the polygamous cult in Kansas with a secret plan to revive the eugenics threat of the late 1990's (as seen in 'Star Trek'). Don't worry - one of his wives made sure that wasn't going to happen.


Emile Danko - 'Heroes'
AKA "The Hunter" Although 'Heroes' was in its own dimension by the end of the series' run, it started off in Earth Prime-Time. So there must have been a Danko in the main Toobworld, and there may still be one......
ASA Ed Danvers - 'Homicide: Life On The Street' & 'Law & Order' & "Homicide: The Movie"
A future member of the TV Crossover Hall of Fame!

Governor James Devlin - 'Oz'
I don't think we ever learned the governor's home state, but it could be he and Ed Danvers were related. (BTW - that's not my mistake in the picture......)


Sammy Wheaton - 'Edge of Night'
Another character who's no longer around - he was found murdered in 1982.


And then there are the recurring and one-shot roles:

Elliott Dasher - 'Shark'


Edmund Burke - 'Lost'
"House M.D." .... Jason

"The Mentalist" .... Dr. Linus Wagner

"Numb3rs" .... William Fraley

"Queens Supreme" .... Carl Sipple

"Cold Case" .... John Doe

"Bones" .... Carl Decker

"Law & Order: Special Victims Unit" .... Everett Drake
"The Inside" .... Teddy Bunch

"CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" .... Andrew Melton

"NYPD Blue" .... Justin Deroos

"Law & Order"
- Gov Love (2004) TV episode .... Richard Kaplan
- American Dream (1993) TV episode .... Phillip Swann
(No idea why somebody didn't recognize these two men as looking like Ed Danvers.)


"The Jury" .... Mason Garvey

"Touching Evil" .... Ronald Hinks

"The West Wing" .... Steve Atwood NO!

"The Practice" .... D.A. Mark McGovern

"The Twilight Zone" .... ER Chief

"24" .... Andre Drazen NO!

"Crossing Jordan" .... Dr. Elliot McCafferty

"The Job" .... Peter

"ER" .... Bruce Resnick

"Trinity" .... Tim Holloway

"Players" .... Eduard Micah

"Ally McBeal" .... Judge Marshal Pink

"C-16: FBI" .... Loren Bitts

"Total Security" .... Ronald Ducote

"Millennium" .... Dr. Daniel 'Danny' Miller

"Frasier" .... Dr. Arnold Shaw

"Chicago Hope" .... Eugene Ramsey

"Murder, She Wrote" .... Eddie Saunders

"If Not for You" .... Elliot Gordon

"The X-Files" .... Dr. Arthur Grable & Roland

"L.A. Law" .... Joel Lassen

"St. Elsewhere" .... Mark Dolson

What all these characters have in common in the real world is that they were all played by Zeljko Ivanek.
After so many centuries, the Magnus bloodline would be so diffuse that none of these characters could really claim to be related to each other - save for the evidence of how strong that DNA chain was, as demonstrated by their similar physical features.

I decided to eliminate from consideration all of the TV movies, as well as the historical characters. Even though fictional characters have been related to real people in the past, using historical figures like John Dickinson, Eddie Jacobsen, and Bobby Kennedy (pictured) just leaves this theory open to the pozz'bility of Zonks. As for the TV movies, the same tendency towards Zonks could happen, but they're still a vital part of the Toobworld mosaic. In some cases, they could also be transferred over to Earth Prime-Time/MOTW, in which their line of succession for the American presidency can all be found in the movies of the week.

Besides Blake Sterling of the upcoming 'The Event', two other characters were eliminated for consideration to be descended from Magnus: Andre Drazen of '24' and Steve Atwood of 'The West Wing'. Both of those shows take place in their own TV dimensions and don'tnecessarily share all of the same characters. 'Heroes' also took place in another TV dimension, but not until Future Hiro went back in Time to warn Peter on the subway. After that, the series followed a different timeline in a new dimension, which ultimately had a different President of the United States than to be found in Toobworld and the real world.

Several of these men, the "children" of Magnus, are no longer with us - JJ Percy Walker, Ray Fiske, and Edmund Burke come to mind; and several others have gained either prominence in the press or notoriety in law enforcement circles. Sooner or later, some of them must have noticed that they had "twins" elsewhere in the world. This works to the advantage of The Magister, who can freely operate in a society that would attribute his rare appearances in public to one of the many humans in his family tree.

Finally, here's a little musical tribute to the many characters played by Zeljko Ivanek.....



BCnU!

This is going out to my buddy, Mark, a big fan of the Magister......

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