u/Kindly_Implement65

This is a follow up to my last post about Chaddick. I don't believe that Chaddick was able to uncover the Snake's plot by himself. Yes, I'm doubting Chaddick's intellectual abilities. But also, I think Japeth deliberately left clues to lure Chaddick to Avalon. >!Japeth needed to kill Chaddick so he could take his blood and trick the Lady of the Lake and Rhian. Rhian, however, doesn't know anything about this because he believes he is Arthur's son. He probably just thinks killing Chaddick is a good idea so he could take his place as Arthur's knight!<. So Japeth is tricking both of them here.

Something about QFG that makes me laugh is that Chaddick's death is presented as a tragic murder that deeply affects everyone for about 1 chapter and then everyone moves on. Literally, Tedros says Chaddick was a good knight and friend but also says he needs someone like Rhian, who can properly support him. Tedros sounding like a really fake friend right now.

But to be honest, I never really cared for Chaddick in the first place. Every time he's mentioned, he annoys me. 1st book: he and Nicholas rate the portraits of the girls. 2nd book: he leads the Everboys in their ridiculous masculine superiority chant. He's mean to Hort and doesn't let him sit next to Filip. There's also a very niche moment in the Ever Never Handbook where he says something's deep and important when it absolutely isn't. He just seems like an idiot.

He also rarely acts like Tedros' friend and liege. He's usually by Tedros' side in the first book but he's mostly the one making fun of Agatha too so he's not really the best company. In the second book, Tedros relies more on Tristan and Aric while Chaddick is fully involved in bullying Tedros. Then Chaddick pretty much never interacts with Tedros again. Can they really call themselves friends?

RIP Chaddick, gone and forgotten. Never liked you anyway. Good riddance.

During the Evers' first Wish Fish lesson, Princess Uma gathers all the wish fish and they become a suitcase. This is supposed to be her ultimate wish but is it ever explained? I tried linking it to her own story but I don't have much to say other than that suitcases give her freedom of mobility and independence, which she didn't have when she was locked up and waiting for her prince. I feel like this might be a stretch though.

I recently rewatched The School for Good and Evil film and, while I’m still dissatisfied with its poor writing, I found the idea of blood magic to be quite intriguing. Now, I don’t mean that Rafal giving his magic to Sophie is a good addition since it invalidates her own power and character development. However, I think the presence of blood magic makes explicit the complexities of blood in the whole series, and I wanted to share my thoughts. (I’m going to preface this by saying I haven’t read Rise or Fall in ages and although blood magic plays a role in these books, I’m not going to talk about them).

Blood in SGE has a variety of significances, as it does in the real world. It indicates one’s attachment to a kin group, one’s lineage, status, and rightful claim to power, and so it forms part of a person’s destiny in a biologically determining way. Yet, it can also signify the opposite. Shedding someone’s blood disconnects them from a shared existence with their family, removes them from life. This consequently eradicates the dead person’s power and transfers it to the killer. There is also the physical significance of blood; to possess a vial of someone’s blood, for example, is to own their DNA, their identity, which once again grants a person power over another.

Encapsulating all of this is the concept of blood magic. Let’s go to the start, shall we? Rafal and Rhian are twin brothers, identical, two halves of one whole. They share each other’s blood. Both of them guard the Storian and govern the School in perfect balance, with Good winning their fairytales half the time, and Evil winning the other half. But soon, Rafal grows bored, he wants to claim the power all for himself. What does he do? Well, according to the (non-canonical) film, he searches for blood magic for years, and as soon as he finds it, he kills Rhian. The Original Sin. This suggests that Rafal’s search and use of blood are for the deliberate purpose of betraying and usurping his brother, his own blood. His blood manifests in two ways: the magic with which he attacks Rhian, and Rhian’s spilt blood. But this is blood that Rafal shares. By killing Rhian, Rafal spills his own blood, pretty much dooming himself to a cursed existence. Indeed, when Rhian discovers that Rafal is using blood magic, he tells him, ‘It will consume you. You can’t control it.’ In general, attempts to kill one’s own blood is an irrevocable act of evil that always backfires against the killer: Rafal kills his brother, Aric kills Lady Lesso, Japeth kills Rhian, and all three of them end up dead. It seems that blood has its own restorative power, refusing to be governed by those who subvert it. No one can wield the power of blood because it is biologically set in stone and will always direct itself to a natural balance.

And now the books. The idea of blood magic isn’t explicitly present in the series, but the whole mystery surrounding the School Master’s identity revolves around the betrayal of blood that I’ve outlined above. I think if the film had been better written, it could have applied a blood element to Agatha and Sophie’s kiss. This is somewhat latent in the book, and can only be spotted retroactively after the third book, but I believe that the kiss of true love between sisters heals the initial rift between the School Masters.

Speaking of The Last Ever After, Rafal’s plan culminates in another act of blood betrayal when he pushes Sophie to kill her own father. There are two pretty dubious arguments for this plan. Rafal says that Sophie would be ‘Sacrificing her own father’s blood for love.’ Meanwhile, Agatha thinks that Stefan’s murder ‘could undo the School Master’s slaying of his own brother.’ Can it? This suggests that a patricide, if committed for love, is enough to redeem the Original Sin. Going against the love necessitated by blood for the love Sophie has chosen. How romantic! Except it isn’t. Sophie doesn’t love Rafal; she’s just so desperate for love that she forces herself to believe that his manipulation is love. She would be killing Stefan to feel a sense of worthiness and power, not love, which only reinforces Rafal’s Original Sin. And so, love is the antithesis of shedding blood, as it’s Sophie’s love for Agatha that stays her hand and preserves Stefan’s life, maintaining the bonds of blood between all three of them and restoring the balance.

Now let’s turn to The Camelot Years. In Quests for Glory, the Lady of the Lake’s reason for choosing Japeth over Chaddick is that ‘He has Arthur’s blood.’ A strange reason since both of them technically have Arthur’s blood, but it does make sense. Chaddick is a knight of Camelot who is wounded and dying, seeking protection from the Lady, but he offers her nothing. Japeth, on the other hand, is strong, confident, handsome; he’s defeated Chaddick, he promises the Lady true love, which she’s yearned for all her eternal life, and in the Lady’s mind, he’s equally an heir to Camelot. Her decision comes at a moment of selfishness and weakness, but it is justified.

Merlin later speculates about the Lady’s reason. ‘He has Arthur’s blood’ can mean that the Snake:

·       is Arthur’s relative

·       is physically in possession of Arthur’s blood

·       holds Arthur responsible for a murder

·       has Arthur’s blood on his hands.

Three of these interpretations are true. Japeth does shed Arthur’s blood by slaying Chaddick, his firstborn son, and he keeps this blood in his possession, tricking the Lady into mistaking him for Arthur’s son. All these events at Avalon prove one thing: by taking action, Japeth is able to simulate the natural right, authority, and destiny of blood, exemplifying the essential tension between fate and free will in the second trilogy.

A Crystal of Time is where blood is the most mysterious and powerful. In the chapter Bonds of Blood, Rhian uses Sophie’s blood to heal Japeth’s wounds, which draws on the restorative effect of blood that I’ve mentioned before. Sophie’s blood sustains Japeth (and Rhian, although they don’t know it yet) just as she fuelled Rafal’s blood magic. As his sons, Japeth and Rhian inherit Rafal’s blood affinity for Sophie. By the end of the book, they lose this. In a repeat of Rafal’s Original Sin, Japeth murders his brother, steals his identity, and attempts to become king himself. However, Sophie’s blood can no longer heal him. This is because Japeth has broken the bond of blood with his brother, stripping blood of its restorative qualities. Unlike Rafal, Japeth claims his motives are to restore his love, but this is just the end goal. He kills Rhian for the power to revive Aric, not just for love, and so he taints the restorative blood with the desire for power that Rafal exhibited too. No one can achieve love at the expense of blood.

Blood plays an important role in another scene in ACOT. When Agatha and Sophie enter Dovey’s crystal ball, they see visual projections of the lives of the characters currently in the ball. But they also see one scarlet crystal that transports them physically into Rhian’s room, where he is just oozing with blood. The blood crystal manifests because Rhian and Japeth are August Sader’s nephews, and Sader created the ball, but this doesn’t explain how the ball recognises them in the first place. Maybe Sophie’s dress is stained with some of Rhian’s blood. What’s even stranger about this is that Sophie and Agatha are actually in Rhian’s room, exceeding the temporal power of the ball by travelling through space. This is a very unusual moment of blood magic that I don’t think has been explained, but I would like to investigate further.

Finally, One True King, where blood and character are reconciled. During the final test, Tedros makes his only wise speech, admitting his faults and proving his worth as a king. He expresses his early belief about kingship:

'Even the mightiest and worthiest cannot ascend the throne without the blood of his predecessor. Blood is the magic of how kings are made. Only blood.'

This indicates his staunch belief in his pre-determined right to be a king. Because of his experiences, however, he understands why Arthur set him these tests. Tedros recognises that Arthur realised

'blood wasn’t enough to make him a king. What made him a king were the tests of leadership he faced over and over. Tests that made him a king in more than blood.'

What Tedros now comprehends is that kingship is a gradual process, not an instantaneous right, a role he must grow into by his active responses to problems. ‘It’s not who we are, it’s what we do.’ (Lady Lesso). Whereas Japeth tries to break the balance between blood and action, Tedros reconciles destiny (blood) with free will (action), overcoming blood magic by proving himself worthy of the blood he has.

To conclude, blood in SGE anchors characters to their families, roles, and power, providing a balance to the world, but it’s also easily violated, and in turn, it will rebound against those who try to manipulate it for their own gains. In this way, it is associated with fate, but it’s the characters’ actions that allow their blood destiny to be fulfilled.

I hope you enjoyed my very short academic inquiry. If anyone's interested, I might write some more analyses about SGE since I'm in my annual SGE obsession phase.