People often have nicknames to describe details about themselves. Nicknames are not created by the user but are given to the person by friends or even companions. 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 called the Warlock due to his use of magic in his youth and how the men on his team would feel protected thanks to his magical powers. Since Sorcerer is Wade's alter ego, it seems like this will cost him dearly later in his life. Wade ultimately ends up becoming governor of Minnesota and tries to run for the U.S. Senate. He loses in a landslide victory to his opponent when evidence of the My Lai incident is discovered. His actions as a sorcerer begin to make his life worse. Wade's wife Kathy is later seen to be missing and Wade soon comes under suspicion as he remains calm and uninvolved in the search party. O'Brien does not clarify how Kathy's disappearance occurs but it is clear what happens. The sorcerer returns in John Wade as he performs one last magic trick: to make Kathy disappear….forever. John Wade is a strange character in this novel as he goes through dramatic changes in his life. Before My Lai's discovery, John was seen as a respectable guy. He was physically attractive, had a “beautiful woman” (21) as a wife, and was refined. Behind all this, however, there was something disturbing to say the least. John “sometimes woke up in the middle of the night screaming” (29). This was an indication that there were issues he was dealing with, and there he was. John's depressing childhood and the horrors of the My Lai incident eventually consumed him. John's childhood was tough because he had an abusive father who evidently distanced himself from relationships to focus on the horrible reality of war. As a Warlock, he was able to kill without question and follow orders. He was seen as the magical protector of the team as he also performed magic tricks in war. The sorcerer managed to keep him and the others safe and survive the Vietnam War. In the book, John Wade and the sorcerer are one. It is the qualities of a person that ultimately make them. It seems that as the book progresses, the Sorcerer gets more and more of the upper hand until, towards the end, Wade goes looking for Kathy. It seems that Wade is able to overcome his loneliness and deteriorating mental state to return as the respectable, good-looking man that people saw him as. We may never know what happened to Kathy and whether the chapter of trials is truly true in understanding her fate, but we see John Wade let go of the Sorcerer and become himself again..