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shortcomings—a misguided faith in his own abilities, rashness, a lack of professional diligence, elaborate scheming and showmanship substituting for talent—are all evident in his greatest professional flop, the “Sword of Destiny” trick. Seeking to impress the more famous magician Tony Wonder, Gob plans an illusion in which he is to be stabbed in the belly with a sword. Showing his typical impulsiveness, he buys an ancient Chinese sword—the real deal, not a trick sword—from a shady storefront healer. Having been banned from the Magician’s Alliance, Gob persuades his brother Buster to pretend to be the head illusionist while Gob serves as his assistant. But Gob ends up slicing off his brother’s artificial hand, thrilling the audience and impressing Tony Wonder enough that he offers to have the pair on his next DVD. Though feebly protesting “It’s not the real illusion!” Gob concludes that appearing on the “DVD is the destiny the sword has chosen” for him, and in a meeting with Tony Wonder, Gob reveals that he, not Buster, is the real illusionist and will be performing the real “Sword of Destiny” trick in a subsequent performance. In the course of that performance, Gob’s own fingers are sliced, only to be reattached later in a purposely botched surgery.

Impulsive bravado, an unflappable belief that he is fated to greatness, the substitution of theatrics for careful preparation, an intense yearning to belong to a professional community, a nearly lethal level of carelessness: The “Sword of Destiny” is Gob’s magic career in a nutshell.

The Magical World of Gob

Aristotle’s account of professional excellence helps us pinpoint the source of Gob’s failed career. Gob appreciates the aims of his profession and holds those aims in high esteem. He clearly sees magic as his calling, but he’s the antithesis of the competent modern illusionist. Vain, lazy, gullible, and prone to foolish dreams, he stands in stark contrast to the modest, hardworking, skeptical, and self-critical illusionist. On one hand, a competent magician has a decidedly unmagical worldview. Gob, on the other hand, embodies the magical worldview, and it is this worldview that makes professional success so elusive for him. In Gob’s eyes, success in magic comes not from mastering a sophisticated scientifically informed craft but from an elusive, mystical quality of heart that he believes he has. In “Missing Kitty,” George Michael briefly serves as Gob’s assistant. He later dismisses George Michael, saying “You don’t have the magic in you,” pointing to George Michael’s heart. “You never did. You don’t have it here.”

But “having it in here” isn’t enough. In “Top Banana,” Gob’s brother Michael asks Gob to mail a letter so that Gob will feel important and included in the family business. In an “act of defiance,” Gob attempts to throw the letter into the ocean, only to have the wind repeatedly blow it back in his face. Could there be a more pathetic image of Gob as a failed illusionist, vainly but persistently trying to “take Mother Nature and turn it upside down?”

Of all of Gob’s “huge mistakes,” opting for a magic career may thus be the most ironic. As Aristotle helps us to see, Gob’s professional failings are ultimately failings of character. He fails not because of bad luck or external circumstances, but because of durable features of his personality—laziness, inattention to detail, lack of humility, and so on—that show up most markedly in his professional efforts. Gob simply does not have the traits or attitudes required for success as a magician—or, arguably, for any profession.

NOTES

1. Robin Leach, “David Copperfield Finds the Fountain of Youth,” Vegas Pop, posted February 21, 2007, http://www.vegaspopular.com/2007/02/21/david-copperfield-found-the-fountain-of-youth-photos-exclusive/.

2. James Randi, Conjuring (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1993), and Jim Steinmeyer, Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear (New York: Carroll and Graf, 2003).

3. Glory Road, (1963).

4. Nicomachean Ethics, Book