A World Without Princes

Early on, when Agatha thinks about her best friend, the novel’s deuteragonist, she thinks of her as “charming, maniacal, ludicrous Sophie” (52). Sophie seems like a stereotypical fairy-tale princess: beautiful, blonde, and pink-obsessed. However, she is really a witch, and she must work hard to keep the Evil part of her nature locked away inside her; she credits Agatha with helping her to embrace and retain her Goodness. Sophie is charming, or at least she can be when she wants to be, though she begins the novel somewhat embittered by the decline in attention she receives from the community and angry at her father because of his upcoming wedding. She is somewhat manic in that she can be very excitable and frenzied in her pursuit of the things she wants. She is “ludicrous” in that she can seem rather comical and foolish, dramatic and even ridiculous at times. Her insistence, for example, on wearing “glass slippers,” like the quintessential princess, Cinderella, seems preposterous.

Sophie is Agatha’s foil, as they both begin as unenchanted folk in Gavaldon. When they are kidnapped by the School Master to become students at the School for Good and Evil, Sophie assumes she will attend the School for Good and train to become a princess who falls in love with her prince and lives happily ever after. She never accepts the part of herself that feels jealousy or rage, and she actively tries to quash these feelings rather than understand or work through them. When Sophie lies to Agatha, for example, such as when she follows her friend to the boys’ school and prevents Agatha’s wish from coming true, she initially questions her own selfish intentions but ultimately justifies her actions as “Good” because they benefit her and make her happy. Sophie can behave in cowardly ways—such as suggesting that she and Tedros hide under the bridge during the Trial—but she can also be very brave, such as when she accepts her selection as the girl who will become a boy to infiltrate the boys’ school and locate the Storian. However, she cannot accept that she is an individual comprised of both Good and Evil, who makes both heroic and villainous choices, and her character highlights The Confluence of Heroism and Villainy.

Sophie’s arc is defined by her inability to reconcile her conflicting desires: to be Good, to be loved, and to be powerful. From the beginning, she believes that as long as Agatha remains by her side, she can suppress the darkness within her, but her choices throughout the novel betray her deep selfishness and insecurity. She constantly justifies her own questionable actions—whether preventing Agatha’s wish, deceiving Tedros, or ultimately siding with the School Master—as necessary for her survival or happiness. Yet, when the School Master finally chooses her, Sophie realizes too late that she does not feel triumphant but rather trapped by her own decisions. Her arc highlights The Confluence of Heroism and Villainy; she is neither wholly Good nor wholly Evil but rather someone who continually seeks validation in others instead of defining herself. By the novel’s end, Sophie’s inability to embrace true self-awareness leaves her in a precarious, unresolved position, setting the stage for further development in the series.

Tedros is the romantic love interest in the novel, both of Agatha and Sophie. He is a static character who does not change fundamentally from the beginning of the text to the end. He loves Agatha and, when he hears her wish for a different ever after, he believes they are still meant to be together. In the time between the first text in the series and this one, Tedros took control of the Storian to prevent it from writing “The End” in their storybook after Agatha kissed Sophie and brought her back to life. Tedros also becomes the de facto leader of male students from the former School for Good and Evil and the displaced princes from all over the country. Although Tedros is quite proud, and he allows his pride to overwhelm his judgment and intuition—especially where Agatha is concerned—he is also capable of a vulnerability and emotional sensitivity that isn’t encouraged or expected in boys. He tells his peers, for example, “What I had with Agatha was the deepest love I’d ever had […]. But Filip showed me something even deeper [….]. I’ve never felt as loyal to someone, boy or girl, as I feel about him” (372). The shock experienced by his fellow students and even the male teachers is evident in the silence that follows his admission.

Though Tedros is confused about the nature of his feelings for Filip—namely whether they are platonic or romantic—he longs to figure them out, and he is unafraid to admit to his emotions rather than trying to bottle them up or ignore them. He possesses emotional intelligence and a significant capacity for love that makes him seem well-suited to Agatha, who also combines the qualities of witch and princess, as well as those traditionally associated with both masculinity and femininity. An unconscious Agatha dreams of Tedros, recalling when he asked what she saw in him to make her love him. She describes the “heartbreak [she saw] in [his] face” when Sophie abandoned him last year, how him showing that he is “as vulnerable as he is strong” is what made her fall in love him (376, 377). Though he grumbles that she makes him sound like “a girl” when she describes him this way, his character demonstrates The Fluidity of Gender, showing that boys can be both soft and strong, vulnerable and powerful at the same time.