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Sophie
Sophie of Gavaldon
Portrayed by: Sophia Anne Caruso
A girl who comes from Gavaldon and becomes a Never at the School for Evil. She lost her mother at a young age and grew up in a broken home with an abusive stepmother. Her only salvation would be her best friend, Agatha, whom she met at her mother's grave, and her dreams of taking on an adventure beyond their small town. But after being whisked away to the school, she realizes she may be in for way more than she could ever bargain for…
- Act of True Love: She puts herself in front of a fatal attack to save Agatha. This destroys Never After and saves the world.
- Adaptation Distillation: In the book, Sophie imposes a Dance of Romance with Agatha in order to trick Tedros into thinking the latter had betrayed him. This plot point was removed in the film, but Sophie still pulls Agatha to her and requests a dance right before the Evers show up.
- Adaptational Nice Girl: In the book, she was much more self-centered and dismissive of others. Here, she's perfectly approachable despite having a selfish streak and quite a superficial outlook on life. As a result, the story largely takes the Break the Cutie route, though with some Break the Haughty moments still. Furthermore, her Character Development sticks, unlike in the books.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In the book, she only befriends Agatha because she sees it as an act of charity and a stepping stone towards becoming a princess, only coming to truly value her later on. In the movie, she's shown to genuinely care for their friendship from the start while still taking it for granted on some level in the present day, and even as a villain she never once tries to hurt Agatha.
- In the books, Sophie is distant from her family because she finds them too plain. Here, it's because they're neglectful at best and straight-up abusive at worst.
- Adaptational Sympathy: Again, her family wasn't as dysfunctional or abusive in the books.
- Ambition Is Evil: She seeks a better life away from her boring town and neglectful family. She winds up becoming a Wicked Witch.
- Apocalypse Maiden: Rafal spends the movie manipulating her thoughts and feelings and pushing her towards evil, molding her into an agent of chaos so he could use her to unlock Never After, a world where they reign supreme and the personnel of the school are all dead.
- Back from the Dead: After Sophie dies from being impaled by the Storian, Agatha plants a kiss on her lifeless body, the magic of True Love's Kiss resurrecting her and granting her a second chance at life.
- Batman Gambit: She goads the School for Good into attacking the School for Evil, but because the latter hadn't done anything to harm the former, this means that former is attacking first. This leads to the roles of good and evil swapping, giving the Nevers an advantage over the Evers.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: She always wanted to have a huge impact on the world growing up, which would lead her to try to get into the School for Good and evil. She gets exactly that and it's all downhill from there.
- Bee Afraid: During a fight with Hester, she calls for animal companions to aid her. A huge swarm of bees answers her by crashing through the window and attacking Hester's wyvern, which weakens the witch within an inch of her life, only stopping once Sophie processes everything that's happening and vocally tells them to quit.
- Being Evil Sucks: She starts to resent being the bad guy when she sees just how much damage she can cause and how her actions are getting the ones she holds dear killed. While dying, she tells Agatha that she doesn't want to be evil anymore.
- Berserk Button: She takes her hair very seriously. When Hester is about to cut it, she immediately flips and overpowers her.
- Blatant Lies: When Agatha asks her if malicious takeover was what she truly wanted, Sophie bluntly says "Yup." Given that she spent her whole life up to this point gunning for the exact opposite, it's no wonder Agatha refuses to believe her.
- Blood Magic: She soon starts using this, which further corrupts her. She stops using it after Never After is unlocked.
- Break the Cutie: She goes through a lifetime's worth of trauma and she's not even 18. She lost her mother at a young age, she grew up with an abusive family, and she gets bullied by almost everyone in Gavaldon. And it only gets worse after she gets to the School for Good and Evil. She gets attacked and pushed around by student, faculty, and staffer alike, her hair is forcibly cut short just for talking to her best friend, she almost kills someone out of self-defense, and her insistence that she's not an evil person is rebuffed at every turn. By the time she has the chance to show that she's good, her self-esteem is in such shambles that she freezes up.
- Broken Tears: After Lesso cuts her hair short and after she fails the Trial by Tale.
- But Now I Must Go: After Rafal’s defeat, she opts to return home. She offers to take care of Agatha's mother in her stead, but her friend decides she's going home too.
- Butt-Monkey: She gets subjected to be humiliated and mistreated by people throughout the film.
- Cassandra Truth: She constantly tries to tell everyone at the School for Evil that she's not evil and she doesn't belong there. The only one who does believe her is Hester, and that's only because she hates her and doesn't want her around at all.
- The Chew Toy: Everyone treats her like shit from the moment she first arrives at the school.
- Corrupt the Cutie: In spite of her lack of ill will towards anyone and her relatively harmless ambitions to do great things, everyone at the school insists that she's a bad guy waiting to happen, and the School for Evil is determined to make it happen. In addition, Rafal is bending her thoughts and feelings to his whim, grooming her to be his bride for destructive ends.
- Creepy Crows: She turns into a raven during the climax.
- Deadpan Snarker: She has her fair share of snide commentary throughout the film, which only get worse after she starts going insane at the School for Evil.
- Did Not Get The Guy: She sets her sights on Tedros, but he ultimately decides that she really is evil and pivots to Agatha instead.
- Died in Your Arms Tonight: She slowly dies of exsanguination as Agatha cradles her.
- Dying as Yourself: She's fully reverted to her original self upon her death at the hands of Rafal.
- Dying Declaration of Love: She tells Agatha that she loves her as she dies in her arms, apologizing for all the damage she's done just before the light flushes from her eyes.Sophie: I… I love you, Aggie. You'll always be… my best friend.
- Dying Moment of Awesome: While she's bleeding out on the floor, she uses the last of her strength to levitate Excalibur, disabling a dagger that was just about to impale Tedros and arming Agatha so she could land the final blow on Rafal.
- Easily Forgiven: Nobody seems to hold any of her actions against her as of the climax. Agatha never seems to hold her accountable for anything at any point. Granted, Sophie was just as much a pawn in Rafal's scheme as anyone else (if not more so), so not all of her misdeeds are entirely her fault, but she still made some bad choices of her own accord, yet no one seems to care after Rafal is gone. Of course, the fact that she gave her life to save not only Agatha but the world with no expecting to come back certainly helps a lot.
- Establishing Character Moment: We're introduced to her via a dream where she's an esteemed princess and has everything she wants before being woken up in a rundown hut by her vicious stepmother. We immediately know that she’s a poor and abused child with ambitions beyond her current life.
- Even Evil Can Be Loved: Even after a Face–Heel Turn, Agatha knows what Sophie isn't the monster she pretending to be and refuses to give up on her.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: "Evil" is pushing it, but in spite of their friendship becoming strained, for lack of a better word, she never truly attacks Agatha. During the Battle of the Never Ball, she uses her blood magic to hasten the morality swap between the Evers and Nevers, but specifically leaves Agatha out of the uglification. She speaks intent to defeat her, which apparently boils down to throwing her out of the room and locking the door, which actually saves her from the carnage of the war and provides her the chance to evacuate the school building before it collapses. Later, she starts breaking down when she thinks Agatha has died in the destruction. A few seconds later, she shields Agatha from impalement with her own body.
- Even Evil Has Standards: She seems to draw the line at murder. She never kills anyone during the battle of the Never Ball and she immediately freaks out when she learns that unlocking Never After would destroy the school and kill everyone inside. The only one she is willing to kill, however, is Rafal.Sophie: What have I done? Why does anyone have to die?
- Everyone Has Standards: She's speechless and horrified when she almost kills Hester, even though Hester was just trying to kill her.
- Evil Feels Good: She takes great delight in watching the war at the Never Ball. When Rafal asks her how she feels when she watches her enemies fall by her blood magic, she says she likes it (albeit with no confidence). She completely goes back on this later.
- Evil Is Hammy: While all the Nevers are rather over-the-top in their mannerisms, Sophie takes the cake once she embraces her dark side.
- Evil Makeover: She takes well to the School for Evil's gothic aesthetic during her Sanity Slippage. It comes to a head when she achieves stereotypical witch-like facial features, though these fade after she tricks the Evers into attacking her and the other Nevers. She also gets her long hair cut short by Lesso as part of a Break the Cutie moment.
- Expy: As a young blonde girl who lost a parent at a young age, grew up with an abusive stepmother, makes dresses, and dreams of a better life away from her home, Cinderella was clearly a major inspiration for her.
- Face–Heel Turn: She slowly becomes a villain during her time at the School for Evil, culminating in her turning the faculty into dolls and plunging the Evers and Nevers into an all-out war.
- Heel–Face Turn: Upon realizing that she's causing people she cares about to die, she quickly turns back to the side of good, Takingthe Bullet for Agatha and helping her defeat Rafal once and for all.
- Fatal Flaw: Her desire to be special is a major one. She tends to make decisions based on this, which can lead to her taking others for granted and driving them away.
- Her inability to believe in herself. She feels as though she's nothing without achieving something great and is willing to go to extremes to do so.
- Her obsession with superficiality. She's so focused on outward appearances that she tends to miss the bigger picture. This habit of prioritizing glamour over character likely plays into why she isn't seen as princess material.
- Fighting Back Is Wrong: When she defends herself against Hester, Dot and Anadil gleefully deem her evil. When Hester tries to kill her later on and Sophie turns the tables, she's called evil by Lesso and Rafal. This is odd, given the premise that evil attacks while good defends.
- Foreshadowing:
- We're introduced to her through a scene where she's a beloved princess who wants for nothing, which turns out to be a dream when she's rudely awakened by her stepmother. She'd go on to learn the hard way that what she thinks she wants/needs isn't really that.
- Early in the movie, Sophie leaves Agatha for a bit, suddenly coming back to save her from a shady man who was threatening her. She does something similar during the climax, though the results are far less comical and much bloodier.
- When Agatha and Sophie go to the master's tower, Sophie approaches the Storian, prompting it to threaten her with impalement. It even produces an Audible Sharpness to indicate that it's sharp enough to puncture flesh. Guess what happens to her later on?
- On the first night at the school, Hester immediately regrets threatening to cut off her hair, showing us that Sophie takes her hair very seriously. Lesso cuts it off herself later and it acts as her Start of Darkness.
- Magic activation involves Fingore that hurts like hell for Nevers while Evers feel nothing. Though Sophie is mid-corruption, she shows no signs that the activation hurts her. This indicates that while she is becoming Drunk on the Dark Side, she's not evil and will return to her senses in due time.
- Freudian Excuse: Her shallowness stems from desperation to escape her deadbeat town and abusive home.
- Frying Pan of Doom: When a drunkard threatens Agatha at knifepoint, Sophie sneaks up behind him and knocks him out with a frying pan.
- Green-Eyed Monster: As Agatha starts living the life at the School for Good that Sophie wanted, it's only natural that Sophie would feel a growing sense of jealousy, even if the former never wanted it.
- Heroic Sacrifice: She's speared through the heart when Rafal throws the Storian. This not only protects Agatha, but also undoes the evil magic that was amplified by Evil's kiss, restoring the School for Good and Evil and all the lives lost within.
- I Just Want to Be Special: Likely stemming from poor self-esteem, the core of her character is that she seeks to leave her life of mediocrity and go on to accomplish spectacular feats in life. This unfortunately leads her to make questionable decisions and even snub people, like Agatha, who genuinely care about her, and she tends to become extremely disappointed when events don't go the way she thinks they should, which leaves her wide open for corruptive influences.
- Ignored Epiphany: During her run as a Heel, there are a few moments when she starts second guessing the path she's on. A notable example is during the war between the Evers and Nevers when Agatha presses her to stop and think about what coming to the school has done to herself and their relationship, which prompts a look of uncertainty and regret. But the corruption by Rafal, blood magic, or both quickly snaps her back to villainy, making it clear that words alone won't be enough to sway her.
- Inferiority Superiority Complex: A large part of what makes her so susceptible to corruption is her need to feel worthy and good at something.Agatha: Why are you acting like this?Sophie: Because I'm tired of being pathetic little Sophie.
- Ironic Name: Sophie means "wise", but she's constantly blinded to the bigger picture and thus easily led.
- It's All About Me: Sophie's first concern is always getting what she wants. The more she embraces her darker side, the more she's willing to sacrifice others to make it happen.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Sophie is definitely selfish, vain, and generally immature. How much she cares deeply about others, especially Agatha, makes it clear that she does have a heart. We see what happens when that heart breaks.
- Jerkass Has a Point: While it was a dick move of her to promise Agatha that she'd stay in Gavaldon only to continue her efforts to go to the school anyway, it's rather selfish of Agatha to discourage her friend from pursuing her dreams and escaping a bad home life.
- Kick the Morality Pet: Agatha seems to be the only thing keeping Sophie from falling beyond the Moral Event Horizon, but Sophie still has moments where she abuses Agatha before the Final Battle.
- My God, What Have I Done?: She absolutely freaks out when she learns that Rafal tricked her into dooming the school to collapse and all of its personnel to die. It finally starts to hit her just how horribly she's been acting and how poor of a friend she's been to Agatha.
- Never My Fault: She has a habit of dodging accountability. After Tedros chides her for failing to save him from a reaper, she passes the blame onto Agatha, who did save him. She manages to overcome this by the end, apologizing to Agatha for everything she's done.
- No Ontological Inertia: After she's stabbed through the heart, Never After is undone in its entirety. It remains undone even after her resurrection.
- Nobody Touches the Hair: Playing into her vanity, she values her locks quite a bit. When Lesso cuts them short, she is left a broken mess for Rafal to swoop right in and take advantage of.
- Non-Indicative Name: "Sophie" is the type of name you'd expect from a girl who's unambiguously good and innocent. While Sophie aspired to be this, she's taken far in the other direction.
- Hester even pokes fun at this when they first meet, guessing that her name might be Belle or Anastasia or Sugar Plum.
- "Not So Different" Remark: She points out to Lesso that she was a Reader from Gavaldon who had high ambitions that were darker than she knew.
- Princess Classic: Subverted. She seeks to become this, but life has other plans. Or, at least, Rafal does.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Her half of the story shows a flawed but well-meaning individual being broken further and further until all that remains in an agent of chaos.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: She delivers a rather scathing taunt to Lesso about how she tried so hard to impress Rafal and earn his love, only to turn out to not be evil enough for him.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Blood magic makes her eyes glow a sinister red.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The impulsive and reckless red to Agatha's mature and more concentrated blue.
- Redemption Equals Death: It's when she selflessly intercepts a deadly attack that she proves herself to not be evil, undoing Never After. To make things better, her death doesn't stick.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: After she starts embracing darkness, she returns to taking better care of her looks. She even gets a whole montage where she indulges in gothic Lolita fashion.
- Slowly Slipping Into Evil: She had no malevolence at first, but as the School for Evil influences her, she begins making worse and worse decisions over time. The use of Blood Magic doesn’t help.
- Taking the Bullet: When Rafal levitates the Storian at Agatha with the intent to spear her through the heart, Sophie frantically intercepts it. Upon resurrection, Agatha tells her to never do it again.
- Talking Down the Suicidal: Subverted and Played for Laughs. When Agatha steps over the side of the bridge between the schools, Sophie frantically screams that "it’s not worth it", only for the school master's quarters and the staircase leading there to appear.
- Terms of Endangerment: Once she's embraced evil, she begins referring to Tedros with the condescending "Teddy".
- Then Let Me Be Evil: As the school continues to treat her like a villain, in conjunction with Rafal's manipulation, she comes to the conclusion that she has no control over her own fate and decides to ride the wave of darkness, much to Agatha's dismay.
- Tragic Villain: A girl with a kind heart and big dreams being beaten down and broken until she becomes the bad guy. Worse yet, she only redeems herself on her deathbed. She gets better afterwards, but still…
- Trauma Conga Line: Let's see, dead mother, abusive stepmother, mean townsfolk, neglectful school staff, vicious classmates, almost Accidental Murder, nonstop insistence of malevolence, Traumatic Haircut, Did Not Get The Guy… yeah, it's no wonder she snapped.
- Traumatic Haircut: Lesso considers Sophie's beauty to be a distraction and hacks off most of her hair with an axe. The poor girl takes it as a serious violation and it serves as her Start of Darkness.
- Unwitting Pawn: She starts seeing Rafal's "spirit" and he starts feeding her lies and manipulation in order to push her more towards evil. By the time she realizes that she's being used, she can hardly even bother to care until the it's shown to her just how far down the rabbit hole was going.
- White and Red and Eerie All Over: Becomes this in conjunction with her blood magic.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Her already deteriorating mental state gets even worse after she starts using blood magic.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: She goes through a lot in her short time. From losing her mother to growing up with an abusive stepmother, to being bullied by school staffers and students, to being told at every turn that she's destined for villainy, to being groomed by the embodiment of Evil itself. With her consistently being cut off from Agatha's influence, she'd come to the conclusion that she really is destined for Evil and it's best to embrace it.
- You Can't Fight Fate: She spends her time at the school trying to fight the notion that she was ever meant to be a villain, but everything shifts specifically to push her down a dark path until she decides that this notion is right. Subverted when it turns out Rafal has been pulling everyone's strings for over a thousand years and she manages to change her fate by the end.
- Your Mom: She finds herself insulting Hester's mother multiple times, which quickly earns the witch's scorn.
Agatha
Agatha of Gavaldon
Portrayed by: Sofia Wylie
A girl who comes from Gavaldon and becomes an Ever at the School for Good. She grew up with her mother and they're accused of witchcraft. She became best friends with Sophie at a young age shortly after Sophie's mother passed and has mutually looked out for her ever since. But after the School for Good and Evil comes into the equation, she gets a tough lesson in what it means to look out for the ones you love.
- Adaptational Personality Change: In the book, she's a total Nightmare Fetishist, dressing in gothic clothing and even carrying the headless bodies of the birds her cat has killed. She's also something of a Pyromaniac. In the movie, the most macabre thing about her is that she loves ghost stories and she lives near a graveyard. Oddly, her Sweet Tooth has been removed as well.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In the books, she's abrasive towards Sophie's vanity. Here, she hardly seems to mind unless it's actively endangering someone.
- Adaptation Distillation: In the book, when the master poses the question of what evil can never have that good can’t do without, the girls have to take some time to figure out that the answer is true love. The movie pokes fun at this by having Sophie toss out a few superficial guesses before Agatha simply says the real answer.
- Adapted Out: She doesn't send any princesses running with a fart in the film.
- All of the Other Reindeer: She suffers this even worse than Sophie, as it sometimes even gets her life threatened.
- Anguished Declaration of Love: In arguably the most heartrending scene, she tells Sophie that she loves her, crying her eyes out over her lifeless body.
- Arch-Enemy: Sophie grows to view her as this, but Agatha refuses this notion entirely.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Her most tangible reason for standing by Sophie is that while the rest of the town saw her as a witch and treated her poorly, Sophie did not.
- Blatant Lies: She tells Sophie that she's safe and that they'll always have each other… while she's dying from a stab wound. Justified in that she's trying to comfort her in her final moments. Neither of them is aware that Sophie won't be dead long.
- Big Damn Heroes: Pulls this on Tedros during the Trial by Tale and on Sophie after the school collapses.
- Bond One-Liner: Upon putting Rafal down for good.Agatha: The. End.
- Broken Tears: When Sophie dies.
- But Now I Must Go: After Rafal's defeat, she opts to return home with Sophie, even though this means leaving Tedros behind.
- Curse Cut Short: She sees the Groom Room and almost says "Holy shit" when Lady Dovey interrupts her.
- Dark Is Not Evil: She wears darker colors (when not being forced to wear the bright gowns at the school for good) and is ambiguously linked to a family line of witches, but she's the first true princess to ever grace the halls of the School for Good and Evil and her greatest weapon against the forces of evil is empathy.
- Deadpan Snarker: Her dry dialogue puts everyone in the School for Evil to shame.Kiko: What did he smell like?Agatha: Ego.
- Determinator: She gets bullied and threatened by her whole town for being a "witch", she gets pushed around at the School for Good, she watches a boy get agonizingly transformed and then murdered, she helplessly watches a full-on war break out among her fellow students, and her best friend takes her for granted multiple times before dying for her. And yet, she manages to stay true to herself through all the insanity and ultimately comes out on top.
- Disappeared Dad: Her father is never mentioned or seen throughout the film.
- Dope Slap: Gives a vicious one to Tedros after he kills Gregor.
- Doves Mean Peace: She can transform into a dove.
- Dude, Not Funny!: When Sophie makes a jab about Agatha's childhood hobby of making phlegm sculptures, Agatha gives her an offended look, which quickly stops her and the Nevers' laughter.
- Establishing Character Moment: She's introduced having a staring contest with her cat. She's evidently a bit of an oddball, but one who knows how to stay focused and tends to prefer the simple life. It also shows that she likes animals, a famous trait of fairy tale princesses.
- Foil: She and Sophie are both kind-hearted girls who are treated as undesirables by their hometown. However, while Sophie has her head in the clouds and is susceptible to being led astray, Agatha is more down-to-earth and focused on the bigger picture. While they both wind up placed in the wrong houses and are pulled in various directions with little say in the matter and a ton of questions that go unanswered, Agatha remains steadfast in her good nature while Sophie gets so wrapped up in the fantastical nature of it all that she's corrupted by the darkness.
- Foreshadowing: She makes Sophie promise not to leave Gavaldon (as well as her abusive family and deadbeat townsfolk) for the School of Good and Evil for no other reason than "I'd miss you," showing that even her boundless empathy can lapse. This sets up the moral of the story: even the most righteous can and will fall short.
- Freaky Fashion, Mild Mind: She looks close to something of a classical witch by her hair and her clothes, but she's easily the most down-to-earth character in the movie.
- Friend to All Living Things: She shows herself to be good with animals when she has a staring contest with her pet cat and when she tends to a lost goat.
- Go Through Me: In the climax, she declares that Rafal will never have Sophie so long as she [Agatha] is alive. She comes to regret these words when Rafal tries to spear her with the Storian and Sophie intercepts it.
- Humans Are Flawed: Her role is to show that people are far too complicated for morality to be so straightforward. She says a few times that nobody is 100% good or 100% evil and that everyone is capable of great virtue and vice.
- Hypocritical Humor: Just before the walk through the Blue Forest, she sarcastically Tedros asks if most princesses merely smile and bat their eyelashes at him. When he confirms that he finds it annoying, she smiles and bats her eyelashes at him awkwardly.
- I Just Want to Be Normal: She has no ambitions of leaving Gavaldon despite voicing early on that she hates it there just as much as Sophie does. All she really wants is a simple life in a small town with her mother, her best friend, and nice townsfolk. She grows even more impatient when she learns that all the fairy tales Sophie ever read about are real. She seems to enjoy having magic at her disposal after returning home, though.
- "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight: She begs Sophie to not lose herself to the dark influences.
- In-Series Nickname: Sophie calls her "Aggie" all the time, almost never speaking her full name.
- Intimate Healing: Resurrects Sophie with a kiss.
- Irony: While she's not wrong that nobody is purely evil or purely good, she's the closest thing to a purely good person the story has.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: She protects Tedros from a reaper and kills Rafal using Excalibur, both while wearing gowns.
- Meaningful Name: Agatha means "good", alluding to her good nature.
- Morality Chain: Sophie views Agatha as this, fearing submission to her darker nature if she were to ever lose her. When she says she'll always be human so long as she has her, Agatha promises her that they'll always have each other.
- Non-Indicative Name: Most would expect a girl with the name "Agatha" to be a Wicked Witch (in spite of what the name actually means), but what we have here is anything but.
- Not So Above It All: She's definitely the more mature one between her Sophie, but she's happy to use her magic to make birds poop on people who are heckling them.
- Only Sane Woman: She is the one who tries to remain grounded at the school, no matter what happens.
- Perky Goth: Downplayed in comparison to her book counterpart. She drops the perky part when she gets to the School for Good, but picks it back up when she returns home.
- Persona Non Grata: Gavaldon hates her because they think she's a witch. It doesn't help that she and her mother live near a graveyard.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: When Sophie decides to go to the School for Good and Evil, Agatha desperately gets her to promise not to leave her. She breaks the promise and they both wind up going.
- Please Wake Up: When the dying Sophie finally becomes unresponsive, Agatha tearfully begs her to come back.
- Poor Communication Kills: She really should've told Sophie that the School for Good wasn't even all that good and was just as bad an influence as the School for Evil. Had she done this, Sophie likely would've ceased her ambitions at the school and they could've searched for another way back to Gavaldon. Instead, she waited until after a war had broken out between the Evers and the Nevers and Sophie had fallen too far.
- The Power of Love: This is what raises Sophie from the dead.
- Race Lift: She's pale white in the books, but is played in the movies by Sofia Wylie, who's African-American and Korean as well as white.
- Refusing Paradise: Sophie offers to look after Agatha's mother so the girl can remain at the school with Tedros, but Agatha turns this down in order to return to a life with her family and her best friend.
- Save the Villain: She tries to warn Sophie (and, by extension, the Nevers) that the Evers are about to charge them and she attempts to keep the peace between the schools while focusing on the true enemy.
- Screw Destiny: She refuses the notion that one can't control their own fate many times throughout the film. Even when the Storian wrote that she was among the casualties of the schools crumbling, she dropped into the master's quarters a few seconds later.
- Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: She shows contempt for the rules and regulations of the schools repeatedly due to them either endangering others or simply making no sense. She even breaks the rules of the Trial by Tale because she cares too much about Tedros and especially Sophie.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: After being given fluffy gowns and makeovers at the School for Good, she starts turning heads.
- Surrounded by Idiots: Finds the personnel of the School for Good to be insufferably pompous and crass.
- Sympathy for the Devil: "Devil" might be pushing it, but she's seen what all Sophie has been through and knows what she's truly like.
- Tears of Joy: Upon Sophie's resurrection.
- True Love's Kiss: She plants one on the dead Sophie's lips after tearfully telling her that she loves her as well. This returns Sophie to life.
- Undying Loyalty: Sophie is the only one in all of Gavaldon who never treated her poorly in spite of any uncertainties about the whole "being a witch" thing, and even protects her from other townsfolk who threaten her. As a result, Agatha point-blank refuses to give up on her. Even after her Face–Heel Turn, even after Tedros tells her multiple times that she's not a good person and that their friendship is one-sided (which isn't exactly inaccurate), even after Sophie verbally denounces their friendship, Agatha sees the good in her and is determined to restore the girl she once knew. When she succeeds, she opts to leave the school and Tedros to return home with Sophie.Agatha (in her letter): You must know that no matter what, I'm on your side.
- The Un-Smile: In beauty class, she puts on an uneasy smile that earns her an instant F.
- What the Hell, Hero?: She has this attitude for pretty much everyone at the School for Good due to their destructive attitudes and questionable regulations, as well as Sophie for losing herself to the influences of their surroundings, but particular note goes to when she slaps Tedros for (albeit unknowingly) killing Gregor, who had been turned into a stymph.
- Wise Beyond Their Years: She understands that people are Black-and-White Morality is unrealistic and she's capable of staying focused on the bigger picture. This is especially clear when you place her alongside everyone else at the school.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: This is how she sees Sophie and she desperately tries to get her to understand. When a dying Sophie tells her she doesn't want to be evil, Agatha reassures her that she's not evil, just human. She also tries to do this with Gregor, but she's far less successful.
- You Monster!: She calls Rafal a monster as she swears to protect Sophie from him.
The School for Good and Evil
Tropes Relating to Both
- Adaptation Distillation: The Trial by Tale is a final exam every top student goes through in the books.
- Adults Are Useless: The staff and faculty at the school do a pisspoor job of looking after the children. A deadly fight breaks out between Sophie and Hester and Lesso merely stands back and watches.
- And I Must Scream: Students who fails their classes are turned into something else so they can be side characters in a graduate's fairy tale. It's made clear numerous times, most notably by a girl who was turned into a school of wish fish, that they're completely awake and aware of their fate.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: It's basically a rule of the school; they even have classes for "beautification" and "uglification". This becomes subverted when we learn that a bunch of the Evers are self-aggrandizing jerks and the ugliness of the Nevers is mostly self-inflicted.
- Black-and-White Morality: The school separates children by those it deems to be destined for villainy and those it deems destined for heroism. It sticks by these categorizations fervently, regardless of the student's history or desires or the fact that this reduces them down to arbitrary traits they may or may not actually exhibit and creates a breeding ground for elitism and meaningless animosity. Agatha fights this system tooth and nail and succeeds upon killing Rafal, allowing the schools to merge into one and finally achieve unity.
- Boarding School: The students don't live on campus so much as they're trapped there. Freshmen are escorted/kidnapped by the Stymphs and the only way out is to graduate.
- Chekhov's Classroom: The Blue Forest and its hazards are shown and described. It becomes the field for Sophie and Tedros' Trial by Tale.
- Uglification is introduced as Sophie's first class. She quickly starts taking on less savory facial features as she goes down the rabbit hole of evil. Not only this, but the professor mentions that caring less about one's looks allows for more use of brainpower. As Sophie's looks deteriorate, she manages to pull a rather impressive Batman Gambit on the Evers.
- During beautification, Kiko mentions that if a student fails thrice, they'll be transformed into something else. Then we meet Gregor, who's already failed once and would go on to fail twice more before disappearing and reappearing as a stymph.
- Dovey mentions that Evil Attacks, Good Defends. Sophie uses this to her advantage by goading the Ever into attacking the Nevers, switching the roles so the Nevers are good and the Evers are bad.
- Disproportionate Retribution: These schools' definition of expulsion is drastic, to say less than the least. If a student gets three failures at any time, they'll be transformed into something else, often as a slave to their respective school (like wish fish for the School for Good or wolf guards for the School for Evil). It's so horrid that Agatha becomes pissed when she watches it happen to Gregor.
- Don't Go in the Woods: The Blue Forest is fraught with dangers. They're meant to prepare students for any dangers they may face in the real world, but they can still spell the end for students within their trees. A Trial by Tale is done in this forest and death is a very real possibility for the participants, especially under the shroud of night when the reapers come to life to hack you to bits for sale.
- "Everybody Dies" Ending: Evil's kiss spawns Never After, the schools collapse, crushing everyone within. Sophie's sacrifice undoes this, however.
- Extranormal Institute: Supernatural creatures and even the odd normal human come here to become heroes and villains.
- Fingore: The magic unlocking ceremony involves being stabbed in the index finger with a special key. Those who are good feel nothing, but those who are evil are hurt.
- Forced Transformation: You really don't want to fail your classes around here.
- Heroic Lineage / Villainous Legacy: Most of the students are descendants of famous heroes or villains. Those who aren't are called "Readers".
- Light/Darkness Juxtaposition: The School for Evil is constantly blanketed by heavy shadows while the School for Good is always lit. The Evers wear bright colors while the Nevers wear black.
- Malevolent Architecture: The School for Good will manifest a Cupid statue to skewer any students who are on the roof.
- Status Quo Is God: They stick to the norm by any means necessary and rarely ever stray, regardless of the danger it poses to the students.
- The Unchosen One: Readers are students who want to come to the school not because they have any involvement in the fairy tales but because they merely read about them in books. These are an extremely rare bunch; the only Readers we ever see are Sophie, Agatha, and Lesso.
- Villains Act, Heroes React: As Dovey says, "Evil attacks and good defends". When the Evers attack the Nevers, the roles swap. It even shows in how both sides fight afterwards; the Nevers typically use defensive tactics (walls of fire, disarming attacks, etc.) and even fight fair while the Evers are actively trying to kill them.
The School for Good
General
- Hero Academy: No shit.
- Curb Stomp Cushion: During the Battle of the Never Ball, the Nevers have become the good guys and the Evers have become the bad guys, granting the Nevers a huge advantage. While the Evers do score some good hits, it's clear that the Nevers are winning.
- The Fair Folk: The fairies around here are vicious, rude, and rather grotesque-looking.
- Good Is Not Nice: Pretty much all the Evers are up their own asses to some degree. Standout examples are Beatrix, Tedros, and Lady Dovey.
- Light Is Good: They wear brighter colors.
- Nominal Hero: Most of the personnel are completely arrogant jerks who are even more superficial than Sophie. It's so bad that Dovey praises Agatha when she shows true empathy.
- Stepford Smiler: We learn that the faculty hate how shallow the material has become. Dovey and Anemone are the only ones who actually voice it, and even then it's only under stressful circumstances.
Lady Dovey
Lady Clarissa Dovey
Portrayed by: Kerry Washington
The dean at the School for Good.- Adapted Out: In a deleted scene, she revealed herself to be the fairy godmother from Cinderella and pretends to make Agatha beautiful, only to change nothing and teach her that she's always been beautiful.
- And I Must Scream: When Sophie turns her into a living doll.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Nominally.
- Lack of Empathy: Dovey may value empathy but she rarely exhibits it. She's thrilled when Agatha proves she genuinely cares for others unlike most students, but then gets annoyed when that care makes her question the school's high standards. Dovey tries to convince her that it's an honor to be a part of someone else's Happily Ever After if you can't succeed in your own story, even if that means a Forced Transformation with no hope of being human again.
- White and Gold are Divine: She wears gold gowns all the time and is the dean of the School for Good.
Tedros
Prince Tedros Pendragon of Camelot
Portrayed by: Jamie Flatters
An Ever at the School for Good. He's the son of King Arthur and the wielder of Excalibur.- Adaptational Nice Guy: I don't see him kicking any rabbits in the film.
- Adaptational Relationship Overhaul: In the books, he and Agatha started out as enemies before warming up to each other because he thought of her as a witch. In the movie, this assumption has been completely removed, so they start out on friendly terms and have a single fight after he kills Gregor.
- Badass in Distress: Twice. Once when he's at the mercy of a reaper during his Trial by Tale, and again when he's about to be run through by Rafal. He ends up saved by Agatha both times.
- Blue Blood: He's a prince, being the son of King Arthur.
- The Casanova: He tends to swap involvements between Sophie, Agatha, and Beatrix frequently and rather abruptly.
- Chick Magnet: He's had his share of princesses come up to him even before Sophie and Agatha showed up.
- Good Is Not Soft: He's proven himself willing to dismember and even kill in the heat of battle. During a fight with a cyclops student, he hacks off his arm. During the Never Ball he racks up quite the body count before being downed by Hort.
- Heroes Prefer Swords: His signature weapon is Excalibur.
- Malicious Misnaming: Hester and Sophie both call him "Teddy".
- Odd Name Out: He's one of the few characters to get a surname.
- Pinned to the Wall: Rafal uses magic to stick him to the tower door so he can kill him.
Beatrix
Beatrix of Jaunt Jolie
Portrayed by: Holly Sturton
An Ever at the School for Good.- Alpha Bitch: She is quick to become a thorn in Agatha's side.
- Bitch Alert: When Agatha first gets to the School for Good, she says that she's lost. Beatrix immediately agrees in a snide tone, calling her a witch. You immediately know you're not going to like her.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: She has her eyes on Tedros and warns Agatha to stay away from him.
- Good Is Not Nice: As mentioned above, all the Evers have some degree of this, but Beatrix is such a selfish bitch that you'd be forgiven for expecting her to become a legitimate bad guy by the end.
Gregor
Prince Gregor Charming
Portrayed by: Ally Cubb
An Ever at the School for Good. He’s the son of Cinderella and Prince Charming.- And I Must Scream: As a stymph, he can only silently plead for Agatha's help.
- Ascended Extra: The stymph was never given half as much focus in the books (also, it was a gargoyle), but here, we see what it was like before being transformed.
- Canon Foreigner: Downplayed. He's nowhere to be seen in the book, but he's given the role of the gargoyle that Tedros kills.
- Dies Differently In The Adaptation: Downplayed. In the book, he's a gargoyle who gets decapitated. In the movie, he's a stymph who gets stabbed through the chest.
- Failure Hero: By the time we meet him, he's already failed sword fighting. Then he fails steed riding. Finally, he fails a trek through the Blue Forest.
- Forced Transformation: While we don't see him actually transform into a stymph, we do see him appearing to disintegrate before he vanishes. You can guess by the screaming that it's not a fun experience.
- Foreshadowing: At the bookstore, Sophie says she prefers Cinderella over horror stories. Around the beginning of Act 2, Agatha meets Gregor.
- Humble Hero: He doesn't want to be a fighter or a prince, he wants to run a grocery store.
- Killed Off for Real: Stabbed through the heart by a blissfully unaware Tedros.
- Nice Guy: He's as sweet as a peach.
- Odd Name Out: He's one of the few characters to get a surname.
- Redheads Are Uncool: He's definitely the unlucky nerd type.
- Sacrificial Lamb: He only exists to show the consequences of failure and convey just how bat shit crazy the school is.
- Say My Name: He screams for Agatha as he's polymorphed and taken away.
Kiko
Kiko of Neverland
Portrayed by: Emma Lau
An Ever at the School for Good.- Asian Airhead: She's played by Emma Lau and she's quite a ditz.
- Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Kiko has already decided that, if she were to be turned into something, she wants to be a cat because the idea of sleeping under the stove at night sounds nice.
- Nice Girl: She stands out as the nicest Ever to get more than four lines.
Professor Anemone
Professor Emma Anemone
Portrayed by: Michelle Yeoh
The Beautification instructor at the School for Good.- And I Must Scream: When Sophie turns her into a living doll.
- Hidden Depths: She used to be the head of the Magical History Department. She is well aware of how shallow the school has become and has been unhappy with being stuck as a beautification professor. She also figures out just by hearing that Rafal is back that he intends to destroy both schools in order to keep all the world’s magic for himself.
- Precision F-Strike: She shuts Lesso up after the dean accuses her of not wanting Rafal to return to keep the status quo where Good always wins.Anemone: Do I look like I give a shit about smiling!?
- Stepford Smiler: She keeps up a professional façade throughout the movie, but later makes it clear that she hates her job. She knows her position and the material she teaches her students mean little and how annoyingly empty the school has become, merely acting otherwise because she needed the job.
The School for Evil
General
- Academy of Evil: Oh, really?
- Born Unlucky: They ultimately have no say in whether or not they get to be good. And given that evil never wins, they're basically lambs being raised for slaughter.
- Dark Is Evil: Their school attire is black and their darker traits are nurtured in order to mold them into villains.
- Double Standard: Lesso says that Nevers aren't to kill anyone until after graduation. She says this when Sophie is about to kill Hester, but not when Hester was about to kill her. It's unknown if this rule applies to all Nevers or just the Readers.
- Even Evil Has Standards: None of them seem to condone murder, even though some of them voice desire for it. During the Battle of the Never Ball, the Evers are more willing to kill than the Nevers.
- Cannabalism is also a taboo. When everyone is watching the romance between Sophie and Tedros disapprovingly, one Never suggests eating them. Dot, Hort, and another Never look at her with visible disgust.
- Evil Is Hammy: As to be expected of fairy tale antagonists.
- Evil Versus Oblivion: They're no safer from the rise of Never After than the Evers.
- Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: Pretty much all the students of evil wear a ton of black and sometimes red eyeliner and eyeshadow.
- Laughing Mad: The students have a knack for delving into this, sometimes out of nowhere.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: They're hardly worth being afraid of in comparison to Rafal. He even says so himself.
- Nominal Villain: Mean pranks and death threats? Big whoop. It's noteworthy that most Nevers treat Sophie far more nicely than a lot of the Evers treat Agatha. During the Never Ball fight, the Nevers are cackling with insanity while mostly using defensive spells.
- Savage Wolves: The guards at this school are anthropomorphic wolves. They're actually students under Forced Transformation.
Lady Lesso
Lady Leonora Lesso of Gavaldon
Portrayed by: Charlize Theron
The dean of the School for Evil.- Alliterative Name: Leonora Lesso.
- Always Someone Better: She sought to win Rafal's heart, but was never evil enough. Sophie taunts her about this.
- And I Must Scream: When Sophie turns her into a living doll.
- Boomerang Bigot: She speaks rather dismissively of Readers despite being one herself.
- Early-Bird Cameo: She's first seen in a flashback as a little Gavaldon girl who was whisked off to the School for Good and evil.
- Evil Redhead: She has a large and frizzy red hairdo and is the dean of the School for Evil.
- Evil Versus Oblivion: She wants evil to win for once, but not at the cost of her school or her students. When she learns that Rafal plans to use Sophie to destroy the school, she bands together with Dovey to find Sophie and keep her away from him.
- Foreshadowing: She knew Sophie's name ahead of introductions and refused to tell her how she knew. She was clearly in on some conspiracy that involved her.
- She could also tell at a glance that Sophie was a Reader from Gavaldon. It's because she could relate.
- Mad Love: She wants Rafal's favor even after he turned his back on her.
- Quit Your Whining: She treats Sophie's insistence that she's not a bad guy as immaturity. When Sophie tries to tell her that she doesn't want anything to do with Rafal, she straight-up yells at the poor hapless girl.
- The Reveal: While telling Sophie and Agatha about the School for Good and evil, the bookkeeper of Gavaldon mentions a child from that same town who was dragged off to the school and never heard from again. It turns out that girl has grown up to become Lesso.
Dot
Dot de Nainault of Nottingham
Portrayed by: Kaitlyn Akinpelumi
A Never at the School for Evil. She's the daughter of Robert de Rainault aka the Sheriff of Nottingham.- Adaptational Badass: In the books, she can turn literally anything into chocolate. Here, she can throw all kinds of magic around in addition to that.
- Affably Evil: She's pretty nice and welcoming to Sophie, even offering her to bunk next to her. She also chides Anadil and Hester for rudely laughing at Sophie's name.
- Even Evil Has Standards: While she finds it odd that a villain would have a name like Sophie, she doesn't laugh about it and gets on her friends for being so impolite.
- Food-Based Superpowers: She turns her desk into chocolate and creates flaming chocolate masses.
- Hypocrite: She finds it odd that a villain could be saddled with the name Sophie because it implies innocence and harmlessness. This is coming from a witch named Dot.
- Odd Name Out: She's one of the few characters who gets a surname.
- Playing with Fire: She casts flaming balls of chocolate during the Never Ball.
- Race Lift: Was white in the books, but is played by Kaitlyn Akinpelumi in the movie.
Hester
Hester of Ravenswood
Portrayed by: Freya Parks
A Never at the School for Evil. She's the daughter of the hag from Hansel & Gretel.- Animated Tattoo: She has a tattoo that she can manifest from her body into a flaming wyvern.
- Ax-Crazy: She seems to be the only Never who's not averse to homicide, given how she tries to kill Sophie twice.
- Berserk Button: Don't insult her mother. Just don't.
- Draconic Abomination: She can summon a demonic wyvern creature from a tattoo on her upper body.
- Even Evil Can Be Loved: Dot and Anadil care deeply about her and rush to her aid after she nearly dies in a fight with Sophie.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: She loved her mother a lot, so belittling her is a good way to get on her bad side, as Sophie would find out.
- Foil: To Sophie. Both girls lost their mothers at a young age and were devastated by it. They're also both arbitrarily stuck in the School for Evil. However, Hester embraces her darker nature and insanity far sooner.
- Kryptonite Factor: If her wyvern is harmed, she's similarly affected. When it's attacked by a swarm of bees, she's left a writhing mess on the floor crying and gasping for breath.
- Jerkass: She treats Sophie with disdain even before she insults her mother.Hester: Learn your history, cream puff.
- Pet the Dog: She steps up to defend Sophie from Beatrix. Alternatively, after everyone is resurrected, she kindly helps Beatrix to her feet.
- Shock and Awe: She can hock loogies that explode into electric sparks.
- Strong as They Need to Be: She's both weak enough to be held down by Sophie and strong enough to throw two guys at the same time.
- Tempting Fate: When Sophie fails to summon any woodland creatures to aid her during their fight, Hester taunts her by suggesting that the squirrels don't like her either. She finds herself eating her words seconds later.
- Wreathed in Flames: Her wyvern when it's active.
Anadil
Anadil of Bloodbrook
Portrayed by: Demi Isaac Oviawe
A Never at the School for Evil.- Affably Evil: Aside from laughing about Sophie's name, she never really treats her poorly despite not seeing her as belonging at the School for Evil. She also graciously delivers her a letter from Agatha and hopes Sophie feels better after her failed Trial by Tale.
- Ax-Crazy: She's rather excited about the idea of watching somebody go splat.
- I Shall Taunt You: After downing a trio of Evers with their own javelins, she gives them a condescending pouty face.
- Purple Is Powerful: The magic she uses during the Never Ball is portrayed with purple energy.
- Race Lift: Played by Demi Oviawe in the movie, but was a white girl with albino hair in the books.
Hort
Hort of Bloodbrook
Portrayed by: Earl Cave
A Never at the School for Evil. He's the son of Captain Hook.- Abhorrent Admirer: He sets his sights on Sophie the very moment they meet. She's not interested at all, but does eventually accept him as a yes-man.
- Dark and Troubled Past: Implied by this exchange.Hort: I'm Hort, by the way.Sophie: Hort? That sounds like something you cough up!Hort: That’s the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.
- The Resenter: He was never impressed by Tedros, and grows to hate him because Sophie is in love with him. When he manages to knock him out during the Battle of the Never Ball, he remarks that he's been wanting to do that all semester.
- Shirtless Scene: He's introduced without his shirt, his Stymph having apparently eaten it.
Other
Rafal (SPOILERS)
Portrayed by: Kit Young (youth)
The brother of Rhian and the embodiment of all evil in the world.- Attack on the Heart: Agatha kills him by slashing him through the chest, bisecting his heart.
- Ax-Crazy: He's fine with murdering two schools full of people, most of whom being kids, in order to prevent them from becoming potential threats to him. He also tries to kill Agatha even when she's hardly a threat to him by then.
- Badass Longcoat: A red one.
- Been There, Shaped History: Y'know how human morality is shown to be absolutely corrupt throughout the film, in part thanks to the fairy tales? Guess who's responsible for that?
- Big Bad: He's been pulling everyone's strings for over a thousand years in an attempt to unlock Never After and is the cause of all the problems in the story. It also makes sense that he be the ultimate villain, given that he's the soul of malevolence itself.
- Big "NO!": After accidentally impaling Sophie.
- Blood Magic: He began using this over a thousand years ago, corrupting him to the point where he had no qualms killing his own brother. He teaches Sophie how to use it as well.
- Cain and Abel: His relationship with his brother. It was always a clash, but it certainly got worse when he discovered blood magic.
- The Chessmaster: He's been conducting famous fairy tales for hundreds of years to mess up humanity's sense of morality.
- Dies Differently In The Adaptation: He originally dies in a fight with the ghost of Rhian. Here, he's slashed through the heart by Agatha.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The way he manipulates everything around Sophie to fall apart and turns people against her and pushes her to drive away everyone she loves just so he can have her all to himself and leave her with nowhere to go should she ever want out is hauntingly similar to an abusive lover. To make things even more screwed up, he's an ancient moral concept given flesh (in other words, he's old as hell) while she's a 14-year-old girl.
- The Dreaded: He's spoken about by good and evil alike as the most fearsome force in all of creation. The schools even feel they have to band together to even have a chance against him.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: He dismisses Agatha's speech about how evil can never have true love because it only loves itself as beautiful but meaningless. Sophie shows him just how fragile Evil's kiss was when she gives her life to save Agatha and the world, also showing him just how much she loves Agatha.
- Evil Counterpart: To Rhian, his brother and the embodiment of good.
- Excessive Evil Eyeshadow: He wears black eyeliner over red eyeshadow.
- Faux Affably Evil: He speaks in a very dignified tone and with polite vocabulary, but is perfectly willing to murder anyone he wants even after getting what he wants.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: He tries to spear Agatha through the heart with the Storian but unintentionally kills Sophie when she intercepts it. After all his centuries of planning, Never After is undone by this. He also manipulated Sophie into becoming a powerful witch, who uses her magic to help put him down once and for all afterwards.
- In the Back: He fakes his death by falling off a cliff before appearing behind Rhian and stabbing him in the back with a dagger.
- It's All About Me: His interest in Sophie is motivated purely for how she can benefit him. "You think this tale is about your true love? No! It's about ''mine."
- Kill and Replace: He murdered Rhian a thousand years prior and has been impersonating him to make it seem as though Rhian had killed him.
- Knight of Cerebus: He may come off as a Generic Doomsday Villain, but he puts all the other villains in the story to shame. Notice how he's never once played for laughs and he manages to manipulate everyone and everything from the shadows for over a thousand years. The only levity that doesn't run for the hills when he takes the stage is his hammy demeanor. He succeeds in creating a playground for evil, causing the destruction of both schools and the deaths of many people, most of whom being children. Even when it's undone, he's still more than powerful enough to easily mop the floor with anyone who comes at him. It says a lot that someone had to give up their life in order to clean up the damage.
- Manipulative Editing: After Sophie fails the Trial by Tale, he uses magic to show a conversation where Dovey asks if Agatha truly believes Sophie to be true good and Agatha denies. He leaves out the parts where Agatha had been defending her and pointing out that nobody is purely good or purely evil in order to manipulate Sophie into abandoning their friendship.
- Near-Villain Victory: He comes this close to winning. He corrupts Sophie to the point where he succeeds in isolating her from her loved ones and unlocking Never After and attaining supreme magical power. What he fails to account for is that Sophie would want to back out of this and that Agatha would save her.
- Necessarily Evil: He is needed to maintain the balance between good and evil. At least, he was before he murdered his other half.
- No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Gives one to Rhian in the prologue and poor Tedros in the climax.
- Pride Before a Fall: He's so certain of his victory that he fails to consider that his narcissism would render Evil's kiss too fragile to last if something were to happen to his pawn, hence why Sophie committing a Heroic Sacrifice for Agatha was enough to immediately undo Never After. He's also so high on his own power that he fails to consider the potential children have against him, hence why he focuses more on torturing Tedros than killing him, Agatha, and Sophie or getting rid of Excalibur.
- Red and Black and Evil All Over: Wears a red longcoat with a black suit.
- Scary Black Man: Evil incarnate, as portrayed by Kit Young.
- Sibling Murder: He reveals to Sophie that it was actually him that killed Rhian instead of the other way around.
- The Sociopath: He manipulates everyone around him and then tosses them away when they're no longer useful, the most notable example being Lesso. The only time we see him in relation to empathy is when he's using others' misfortunes to his own advantage. After he accidentally impales Sophie, his only concern is that Never After would be undone.
- Stealth Hi/Bye: He constantly shows up via Behind the Black and Emerging from the Shadows when impersonating Rhian.
- This Cannot Be!: He says this as he's forced to watch Never After dissolve.
- To Create a Playground for Evil: He seeks an heiress to help him unlock Never After, a Crapsack World where evil runs wild and free while he and said heiress rule on top while anyone with any magic is dead.
- Villain Has a Point: He tells Sophie that she's been kind and honest and patient, but the schools refuse to see the good in her no matter how hard she tries. While he's saying this to manipulate her at arguably her lowest point in the story so far, he's not wrong about how she never meant any harm and yet all of them treat her like trash and ignore her pleas (except for Agatha).
- He tells her during the climax that he was never meant for good. While he is in charge of his own choices, he is ultimately the embodiment of malevolence, a circumstance of birth he had absolutely no say in, so he's right that he was never going to get to be a good guy.
- Villainous Breakdown: After he accidentally spears Sophie and undoes Never After, he loses his composure, trembling with rage and beating the crap out of Tedros.
- Walking Spoiler: Downplayed. His spirit is definitely there from time to time, but he's projecting from his physical body, which looks like Rhian.
- Would Hurt a Child: Given he's the embodiment of ill will, this should come as no surprise. He happily causes the deaths of countless Evers and Nevers and tries to kill both Agatha and Tedros.
Rhian
Portrayed by: Kit Young (youth) / Laurence Fishburne (old age)
Rafal's brother and the master of the School for Good and Evil. He's the embodiment of all good in the world.
- Adapted Out: In the books, he returns as a ghost to kill Rafal. Here, he stays gone forever.
- Badass Longcoat: A blue one.
- Blue Is Heroic: Wears a blue longcoat.
- Dead All Along: Rafal killed him in the past and has been using his face for over a thousand years.
- Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: The responsible to Rafal's foolish.
- My God, What Have I Done?: He kills his brother in the beginning. At least, he appears to.
- Oh, Crap!: When he sees that Rafal has been using blood magic.
- Smart People Wear Glasses: He wears glasses and is clearly the more sensible of the two.
