Spoilers for season 1 of The Magicians (and if you know what happens later in the books…you know where this is headed).
The idea that certain people can tap into an incredible amount of power but at an incredible cost is interesting story material. You can play with motivations. What circumstances would push a person to take on that much power, knowing they will probably die?
TV Tropes calls it the Deadly Upgrade. In The Magicians, a deadly upgrade results in a niffin, a malicious spirit of magic.
Do you know what a niffin is? It’s when too much runs through you. It consumes you. Only the magic is left. But you’re not you anymore, you’re lost.
– 1×03 “Consequences of Advanced Spellcasting”
What if most magicians have something like a gag reflex when they get up to high levels of power? Some kind of hard-wired reaction that makes them back down so that they don’t turn into niffins. What if certain magicians can ignore that reflex and keep using a dangerous amount of power, even though it’s harmful to them?
Then the magicians most at risk for turning into niffins are ones who are already powerful and can ignore that reflex to back down.
Let’s say the Quinn family can ignore that reflex or maybe they’re born without it.
Charlie became a niffin because he lost control of a powerful spell when he was trying to protect a fellow student. When he is casting the spell, it seems like he knows what he is doing is dangerous. Even as he starts to lose control, he doesn’t stop. Protecting the student was more important to him than his own well-being.
What if Alice is predisposed in the same way? We see over and over again that she’s better than her peers at performing spells. In “Impractical Applications” (1×06), she admits to Quentin that she holds back because she’s afraid of what she’s capable of, so we know she has more power than she lets on.
The worst thing you can do to someone who is predisposed to becoming a niffin is give them access to a whole lot of power, like imbuing them with a god’s power. Alice can use that power boost to save her friends, regardless of her own safety in doing so. In the season finale when Quentin decided Alice should be the one to fight the Beast, he set up a scenario that can lead to her becoming a niffin. We’ll have to wait for season 2 to see what she decides to do.