People often have nicknames to describe details about themselves. Nicknames are not created by oneself but given to the person by friends or even comrades. In “Into The Lake Of The Woods” by Tim O'Brian, this is the case of John Wade, a former soldier nicknamed “Sorcerer”. John Wade is named a Wizard due to his use of magic in his youth and the fact that the men on his team would feel protected due to his magical powers. Since Sorcerer is Wade's alter ego, it seems like this will cost him dearly later in life. Wade eventually became governor of Minnesota and tried to run for the U.S. Senate. He loses in a landslide victory to his opponent as evidence of the My Lai incident is uncovered. His actions as a wizard begin to make his life worse. We later see that Wade's wife, Kathy, is missing and Wade soon comes under suspicion as he remains quiet and is not involved with the search party. O'Brien doesn't specify how Kathy's disappearance occurs, but it's clear what's happening. The wizard returns to John Wade as he performs one final magic trick: making Kathy disappear...forever. John Wade is a strange character in this novel as he goes through dramatic changes in his life. Before the discovery of My Lai, John was considered a respectable man. He was physically attractive, had a “beautiful woman” (21 years old) for a wife and he was polite. Behind all this, there was something disturbing to say the least. John “sometimes woke up in the middle of the night screaming” (29). This indicated that there were problems he was facing, and he was. John's depressing childhood and the horrors of the My Lai incident eventually consumed him. John's childhood was difficult because he had an abusive father who obviously distanced himself from relationships to focus on the horrible reality of war. As a wizard, he was capable of killing without question and carrying out orders. He was considered the team's magical protector as he also performed magic tricks during the war. The wizard managed to keep himself and others safe and survive the Vietnam War. In the book, John Wade and the wizard are one and the same. These are qualities of a person that ultimately characterize them. It seems that as the book goes on, Sorcerer takes over more and more until the end, when Wade goes looking for Kathy. It seems that Wade is able to overcome his loneliness and deteriorating mental state to once again become the respectable and handsome man that people considered him to be. We may never know what happened to Kathy and if the evidence chapter is truly true in determining her fate, but we see John Wade let go of the wizard and become his old self again..