A World Without Princes

Through certain associations, green eyes become synonymous with evil, and, through others, they acquire much more positive connotations. For this reason, they are a motif that highlights The Confluence of Heroism and Villainy. Both Sophie and Evelyn Sader have green eyes, and both are potential villains of the story, though neither turns out to be once the School Master is revived. On the night Agatha goes to see Tedros, she looks up at Sophie, who is looking down on her from their window, and “Sophie’s emerald eyes glared down at her through its shadows, glowing like tainted stars” (173). Sophie’s eyes are described as the color of gems, things of great value and beauty, but the simile compares them to “tainted stars,” like something beautiful that’s become corrupted. They “glare,” an action that has a menacing connotation, but they also “glow,” which sounds much more positive. On the same night, as Sader watches Agatha sneak into the boys’ school, her “green eyes pierced the fog” (187). Her eyes are described as sharp or cutting, capable of doing damage. While Filip and Tedros are in the Trial, Tedros notes “Filip’s big emerald eyes, sometimes ice-cold, sometimes deep and vulnerable, as if flickering between Good and Evil” (325). Thus, Tedros specifically associates Sophie’s green eyes with her combination of qualities associated with heroism and villainy.

When Sophie lands on the boys’ side, she finds herself “surrounded by snakeskins […]. Through darkness, she saw their makers rise from the mulch. Acid-green eyes glowed under misshapen, flattened black heads” (181). The spiricks that wound her and Agatha possess green eyes as well, and these snake-like creatures are incredibly ominous and threatening, covered in needles that prick and scratch as they wrap themselves around their victims. That the boys, who now reside in the former School for Evil and who have been painted as Evil by the princesses and witches who now reject their authority, chose snakes as their symbol, further adding to the frightening nature of green eyes. Likewise, when Sophie changes into Filip, her “emerald eyes cut into [Tedros’s]” (292), again combining the ideas of their beauty and value with the notion that green eyes can wound. Because of their associations with both Good and Evil, green eyes are a motif that helps to develop The Confluence of Heroism and Villainy.

Phallic symbols such as snakes, towers, the Storian, and swords constitute a motif that highlights The Fluidity of Gender and the way patriarchal societies consolidate power and masculinity. The School for Boys, for example, chooses the snake as its avatar, and due to their shape and power, snakes are common phallic symbols, so this association with boys makes sense. Likewise, spiricks—snake-like creatures covered in needles—guard the boys’ school, piercing the skin of any girls who sneak in; this penetration of the female body is not unlike the way the phallus performs. Moreover, Agatha is attacked by snakes when she attempts to rescue Sophie from the Elders, and these snakes spit “Gobs of mucus [that] pinned Agatha to the tree” (49). This is another way in which these snakes replicate actions associated with the phallus, rendering Agatha powerless as the “barbs pricked her throat” (49) again penetrating her skin.

Further, the Storian and the School Master’s tower, which moves wherever the Storian does, also represent the power associated with masculinity. The Storian, a pen and another type of phallus, authors the characters’ tales, maintaining the ultimate authority over their lives. Moreover, whoever controls the Storian enjoys the power it confers, and if the boys lose it to the girls, they’ll all become “slaves.” This strengthens the Storian’s association with power, and its link to the School Master’s tower—another phallus—does the same.

Finally, the boys’ swords are phallic symbols associated with their authority. The boys’ teachers instruct them to “Aim [their] sword at a girl’s heart, and she will drop her flag of surrender immediately” (296). They are literally supposed to use their swords, and their superior skill with those swords, to force girls to “surrender” to them. When Tedros is deposed as the boys’ leader, his former friends keep him from using his sword, the symbol of his male power. During one challenge, “Tedros tried to grab his sword, but Chaddick kicked it away” (297). Moreover, In the girls’ school, female students learn “Sword Shrinking […] to magically whittle down a boy’s blade” (305). Just as the snakes, the Storian, towers, and swords can represent the consolidation of male power, the reality that they can be bested, stolen, taken away or made smaller shows how tenuous that power’s association with masculinity is. Only boys are taught to use swords, so swords become synonymous with masculine authority, but if girls were also privy to this education, then swordfighting would no longer remain a masculine province. Tedros fears Sader’s acquisition of the Storian just as the boys want to keep it out of the girls’ hands so as not to lose their cultural authority. If this authority were inherent or innate, they would not need to retain these phallic symbols to retain their power.

The color blue serves as a motif that highlights The Fluidity of Gender and the shifting power dynamics in the novel. Traditionally associated with masculinity, blue is reclaimed by the girls after Agatha and Sophie’s fairy tale disrupts the established gender order. The former School for Good, which once had pink and blue towers representing gendered fairy-tale roles, is now exclusively royal blue, signifying the erasure of boys and male authority from the school. The students believe this change is liberating, as they now control their own narratives without relying on princes. However, Agatha notes that while she once despised the “prissy princess pink” (59), seeing everything turned blue unsettles her. This unease foreshadows the realization that replacing one rigid gendered ideology with another does not actually create equality—it simply inverts the hierarchy.

Blue also appears as the color of Evelyn Sader’s butterflies, which play a dual role as guides and spies, reinforcing The Confluence of Heroism and Villainy. These butterflies help Agatha and Sophie escape danger early in the novel, but later, they are weaponized by Sader, tearing away Agatha’s invisibility cloak and eavesdropping on private conversations. Their blue hue, associated with both masculinity and authority, suggests that Sader is not liberating the girls but rather asserting a new form of control—one that mirrors the male-dominated system she claims to oppose.

Further, Tedros himself identifies with the color blue, a reflection of his belief that masculinity is under siege. His humiliation at losing Agatha to Sophie is amplified by the fact that his own symbolic color has been stolen by the girls. When Dot explains that blue represents strength and calm but was historically “taken” by boys, this underscores the arbitrary nature of gendered symbolism and reinforces the novel’s exploration of The Fluidity of Gender. The use of blue throughout the text ultimately reveals that power is not inherently tied to gender but is assigned and redefined by social structures.