Literature / Wizarding School Mysteries

Not your average Ragtag Bunch of Misfits in this world of magic and wizardry. From left to right(and top to bottom): Fafgander, Margot, Gertrude, Ivan, James, Charlotte, Rodrigo, Polybeus, and Serena

Wizarding School Mysteries is a series of books written by William David Cope, the same author of The Atomic Time of Monsters. It can best be described as the answer to the question, "What if Harry Potter was both not written by a TERF, had a way more diverse main cast, and that cast was made up of a group of meddling kids out to solve the mysteries of their school?"

Well, now that kind of story exists. It begins in the realm of Midgaheim, with a young wizard named James Chaucer running away from home to find belonging elsewhere. He sets off for the Academy of Applied Arcana and Magic, the first and only wizard school on the continent. Along the way, he is told by a mysterious fortune teller that if he is to claim his destiny, he must meet seven other people whom pertain to the tarot cards of the Major Arcana (with him representing the Fool). Sure enough, he does, and ends up forming a very unusual friendship circle as a result.

But AAAM is not all that it seems. There are secrets everywhere, and some threaten the very lives of everybody. And when not even the faculty can figure out a solution, it falls upon James and his newfound companions to get on the case and fix things, even if it's way over their heads.

The first book was The Meddlesome Youths (2022), in which James meets his friends, and they attempt to solve the mystery of disappearing kids. The next part is Tournament of Death (2023), involving the gang investigating fatal foul play in the Ultimate Wizard Battle tournament. "Wicked Witchcraft" is the next book to be released. As a whole, eight books are planned.

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Tropes:

• Absurdly Divided School: Not only is the student body separated into four domitories based on whatever magical specialty they have, but the teachers are constantly butting heads over how to teach things. The dean doesn't seem to care that much.
• Academy of Adventure: The AAAM.
• Adults Are Useless: Zig-Zagged. Most of the faculty in the AAAM is very unhelpful when it comes to the bigger issues the school has. However, ones like Oomlowt, Juno, Maxeral, and Childe are more than willing to offer their help.
• Aerith and Bob: You'll have characters with names like James and Ivan and whatnot, while at the same time have ones like Oomlowt and Dhenregirr. Somewhat justified in that the more fantastical characters have equally odd names most of the time.
• Alien Catnip: Tea is to ettercaps what overly-sugarly food is to humans. Charlotte has some that's a bit strong, and goes on a complete high as a result.
• Alliterative Name: Dermberder loves alliteration, and has therefore named a few parts of the AAAM to follow it (including the academy itself). In particular, he notes Sorcery Studies and Conjuration Conventions.
• All-Loving Hero:
  • James is unendingly forgiving and kind to just about every being he encounters. It helps him make lots of friends, make nice with several monsters, and even causes some beings to turn on their masters.
  • Likewise, Charlotte is outright considered to be one of the most harmless creatures ever as far as everyone's concerned.
• Almighty Janitor: Fafgander is the massive dragon that lives near the campus and tends to the forests surrounding it, effectively making him a big groundskeeper. He's also the original ruler of the land the AAAM is built on, and it only stands because he allows it. Not to mention, he's more than capable of decimating an entire army of elves and kelpies.
• Always Chaotic Evil: Averted with the Unseelie, or dark, fairies. Yes, they can be dangerous and monstrous, but it's made abundantly clear that they have their positive quirks. Mr. Mackers being an especially deadly creature yet also a kindhearted chap is a fine case in point.
  • Implied to be the case with demons.
• Amazon Chaser: There is a TON of Ship Tease regarding James and the much taller and more muscular Margot, which inevitably gives way to romance.
• Anger Born of Worry: Margot only ever gets mad at James when he puts himself in major danger.
• Arc Words: "Claim the world", stated by Helseng to be James' ultimate goal. It's actually more flexible than it sounds, as "world" basically means "fulfillment".
• Aristocrats Are Evil: The Big Bad of The Meddlesome Youths is the Summer Prince, a royal high elf bent on staging a coup through kidnapping students.
• Ascended Meme:
  • A pixie's reaction to Gretchen and Serena meeting as roommates is "Oh my gods, they were roommates!", a reference to a very famous joke Vine.
  • In Tournament of Death, after Dermberder claims the balloons made in his office as part of a prank are orbs, he decides to ponder every single one of them, a reference to the "pondering my orb" joke which became popular in 2021.
• Badass Teacher: Every faculty member of the AAAM is this to an extent, being practitioners of magic.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: The hobgoblin that has annoyed the gang earlier gleefully allows James to find the Summer Prince's throne room to thank him for not killing her every time he had reason to.
• Beware the Nice Ones: The youths are good people who believe in what's just...and they'll absolutely wreck you if you mess with them or those they care about, especially the otherwise very charitable Margot and Serena.
  • Mr Mackers is a very polite and patient nuckelavee...but then, he's still one of the most dangerous Unseelies around. The Summer Prince's elf soldiers learn this the hard way.
• Big Bad: For The Meddlesome Youths, the Summer Prince, a high elf seeking to court the Queen of Night by stealing students.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: For Tournament of Death, Richard Rainsford and Miguel Esmerejon. One wants to claim glory from slaying his fellow wizards while the other just wants to win the tournament.
• Big Bad Wannabe: Lord Dhenregirr.
• Big Damn Heroes: Margot saves James from two goblins and a boggart when they attempt to kidnap him. Doubles as Rescue Romance, as this this the point where James starts to have quite a few feelings for her.
  • Fafgander rains fire upon the elf general and his minions when they menace our heroes. Even better, the living flying carpet from before is right beside him.
• Big Damn Kiss: A twofur in Tournament of Death, first between Ivan and Rodrigo, and then at the very end with James and Margot.
• Bittersweet Ending: The Meddlesome Youths has the kids rescue everyone that was kidnapped during the Samhein Festival and end the Summer Prince's schemes through a deal that only costs James the name and identity he didn't even want in the first place. However, they couldn't rescue every student, as they've been sent all across Fairyland. But even then, Rodrigo and Ivan found their records, so finding them all is a possibility. And on top of everything else, James has finally found a place of belonging, even if his adventures are just beginning. Overall, far more sweet than bitter.
  • Tournament Of Death ends with the saboteurs foiled, Margot winning the UWB tournament, and James and Margot becoming an item after Ivan and Rodrigo did the same partway through. The bitter part is that multiple participants in the tournament were murdered in front of a live audience, and everyone involved (Polybeus especially) has been emotionally affected as a result and will have to live with the aftermath of the whole experience.
• Black-Tie Infiltration: In order to gain info on the student kidnapping mastermind in The Meddlesome Youths, the gang goes to the Samhain festival decked out in fancy outfits tailored by Rodrigo to ask questions to the Seelie/Unseelie royals. Ironically, they don't end up in danger until after they've figured out the culprit; The Summer Prince.
• Boarding School of Horrors: The AAAM advertises itself as a bastion for the magically gifted, and while it has many factors that back this up, it also happens to be ground zero for dubious fair folk activity, has an insane/ignorant dean, and is full of teachers that for the most part have at least one majorly negative quirk.
• Body Horror: Lichrot, the end result of too much unstable magic experimentation, can cause you to have all sorts of deformities. Some are almost unnoticeable like increased size and pointy ears, but then there are things like green skin, talons for fingers, gnarled arms, huge teeth, overgrown eyes, among many others. Thankfully, most are not all that bad.
• Bookworm: All wizards are this to some extent, seeking knowledge the same way one seeks food and water. In fact, the library of the AAAM is considered to be the equivalent of a dragon's horde for most of them.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: James mockingly says "wot wot" at the end of one of his retorts to the Summer Prince, as the latter is apt to do.
• Both Sides Have a Point: How Dermberder frames the conflict between Evelina and Oomlowt over how mistreated Margot is by the former. Oomlowt's right about her abuse not being okay, but Margot's usage of a gauntlet runs counter to how sorcery is usually done. Thus, she gets to keep her gauntlet, but she gets a ten-percent grade deduction. Almost everyone else agrees that this borders on Stupid Neutral.
• Brick Joke: At separate points during Tournament of Death, Margot uses catchphrases mentioned by Rodrigo and Serena respectively during a gag in the last book. Namely, You Talk Too Much!, and "that spell is called fisticuffs".
• Brilliant, but Lazy: Dean Dermberder is one of the most powerful wizards, but he chooses mostly to just let problems solve themselves and occupy himself with obsessing over Lord Dhenregirr.
• Broken Ace: Richard Rainsford is the four-time champion of the UWB tournament, but the constant victory and the inability to impress his father has made it all hollow behind his cheery exterior. It motivates him to start picking off wizards until he can find a Worthy Opponent.
• Bully Turned Buddy: Polybeus starts off pompous and disregarding of any sort of friendship, and is mostly concerned with dueling James. After the events of the first book, he embraces his role as one of his friends, and just gets better from there.
• Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Dean Gernderf Dermberder is a rather kooky wizard who mostly just bores his students with long irrelevant diatribes about his life, but he's still the most powerful sorcerer of his time, and has been able to run the AAAM for four years...
  • Pointy-Haired Boss: ...On the other hand, he's blissfully unaware and/or uncaring of most of the students' problems, destroys everyone's love of the Basics of Magic class with his overly long monologues, and either didn't have the foresight or care to realize that the fairies he made a deal with might use loopholes to get their own way in the school. Also, he's obssessed with Lord Dhenregirr, whom no one but himself takes seriously.
• Butt-Monkey: Lord Dhenregirr. NOTHING goes right for this evil sorcerer, and every one of his appearances ends with him getting beaten up. He does have his moments, though.
• Call to Adventure: It starts with James being made aware of the AAAM by a talking crow, followed by Helseng telling him that he must seek out seven friends in order to avert ruin and "claim the world".
• Calling Your Attacks: Serena does this all the time, in keeping with her Magical Girl motif.
  • In Tournament of Death, it's apparently an unspoken rule that wizards don't announce their attacks in battle, especially via a long, rhyming incantation. Of course, Lord Dherrengir in his one appearance in the book summons his army of skeleton warriors with exactly that.
• Cannot Tell a Lie: All fair folk must stay true to whatever words they give to people, lest any lies end up becoming fact thanks to how fairy magic works. However, they can bend the meanings of these words through Loophole Abuse, so lies of omission and varying interpretations are in their arsenal.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
  • The dorms have two dominant colors each. Yellow and orange for Choleric, blue and white for Phlegmatic, green and black for Melancholic, and red and grey for Sanguine.
  • Likewise, the high elven princes have colors pertaining to their seasonal courts, such as bright yellow for the summer one.
• Cool Car: Margot's custom Chariot lent to her by her uncle functions like this. It can drive itself, and is embroidered with a scary-looking face.
• Cool Teacher: Professor Oomlowt Schwaa is the only teacher any of the cast truly have any respect for, mainly because he's a kind and supportive figure, as well as the Only Sane Man amongst a bunch of mostly self-centered and cripplingly overspecialized teachers.
  • Tournament of Death introduces Juno Panopte, the high-spirited illusion teacher who encourages creativity and experimentation in her class.
• The Corruption: Lichrot. Those who experiment with magic too much end up having their bodies altered in a number of ways, often crossing into Body Horror. However, it's mostly benign, and doesn't seem to bother most wizards that much.
• Changeling Fantasy: It is brought up that The Fair Folk often spirit away children due to their obsession with humans while leaving a fairy child of their own in its place (as a sort of twisted compromise). Most of the time though, it's actually consensual. However, the youths strike this down as a theory for the kidnapped students. James bitterly muses to Oomlowt about how his parents thought he was a case of this.
• Chekhov's Classroom: The fair folk studies class ends up giving the gang a ton of useful info on how to survive/interact with the various fairies they encounter, as well as navigating Fairyland.
  • Later, legerdemain class proves crucial to foiling the saboteur and his associates in Tournament of Death.
• Chekhov's Gag:
  • Ivan ends up summoning a Flying Carpet that happens to be a vicious predator. Later, while the gang is running away from the elven army, he creates his own army of man-eating carpets after finding many in the tapestry room of the school.
  • The Sillylusions Ivan can make foil the imp hired to do the bad guys' dirty work in Tournament of Death.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Zebul Blaa, a student briefly mentioned in Chapter 2 during the sorting ceremony is revealed in Chapter 13 to be the small, maggot-like fairy repeatedly appearing throughout the book in the background, and having been tricked into serving as The Mole for the Summer Prince.
• Chekhov's Gun: The concept of The Fair Folk treating names as another's property comes in handy when James must offer a part of himself to the Prince in order to foil his plans. He offers his old name, and by extension, his old identity.
• Combination Attack: Serena and Polybeus have one known as the Thunder Prism Strike, with Serena summoning a ring of crystals for Polybeus to reflect lightning on, striking tons of flying fairies out of the sky. She later does it again in Tournament of Death thanks to absorbing Miguel's power.
  • Later James, Gretchen, Polybeus, Serena, and Margot using their powers to send Lord Dhenregirr flying into the distance.
• Commonality Connection: Part of the reason the youths become friends is because when you get down to it, they're all kids who didn't quite fit into the mold designated for them, and they didn't have any friends before as a result.
• Conditioned to Accept Horror: Wizards meeting sudden, unpleasant deaths are so commonplace that James initially struggles making his friends see that there's something off about the mysterious vanishings during the first book. Much later, a background student spontaneously explodes into confetti and nobody is really concerned about it, including James.
• Corrupted Character Copy:
  • Dean Dermberder is one to Albus Dumbledore, as if the name wasn't an indicator enough. Unlike the kindly headmaster wizard, the dean is extremely unhelpful, and completely disregards James' friends while grooming him to be The Chosen One for his own goals. Also, unlike Dumbledore with Voldemort, he has no good reason to be Lord Dhenregirr's enemy other than "he's evil". Then again, we don't know the whole story.
  • Alys Evelina is one for Severus Snape. Both are strict and knowledgeable teachers who bear a grudge towards one of the main characters, but Snape had a lot of aspects that painted him in a sympathetic, if incredibly troubled, light. Evelina has none of that, instead basing her hatred of Margot off of sheer petty spite and loathing of anything that doesn't line up with her way of thinking.
  • Ivan's flying carpet is a more humorous example. It's a lot like the one from Aladdin, being fully sapient and intricately-detailed, but it's instead a feral monster that drains one's life force in order to eat. It's still a good guy, though.
• Creation Myth: According to Professor Tlancheb, the universe was once just darkness and that which was called Kaos before the Gods slew it with light. What remained of the still-alive Kaos became magic, and wizards have used it to defy the natural order ever since.
• Creepy Good: Many of the characters are fearsome to behold, particularly those afflicted with lichrot and Mr. Mackers the nuckelavee, but they're all good guys for the most part.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass:
  • Dean Dermberder appears to be a crazy old wizard at first, but he's more than capable of putting others in his place with his presence and sheer power.
  • Polybeus turns out to not just be a total blowhard when push comes to shove, as he can wield a sword and lightning magic at the same time.
• Cursed with Awesome: Lichrot can potentially make you unrecognizable as a human being, but it won't kill your or destroy your mind (most of the time), and most come out of it with newfound magical prowess.
• Cute Monster Girl: Charlotte, an ettercap (spider-person).
• Dark Is Not Evil: Many of the creatures and monsters here are not all that bad. There are wizards cursed with litchrot and huge hulking monstrosities, but most are quite benign. The most prominent examples in the first book are the large dragon Fafgander and the utterly horrifying nuckelavee Mr. Mackers.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • Four years ago, Dermberder made a deal with The Fair Folk to build the AAAM in their turf. A mostly sound deal, except that the Summer Prince found a loophole so that he could spirit away students to Fairyland without anyone raising a fuss via the main archway acting as a portal.
  • Near the end of the first book, James must offer a part of himself to the Prince in exchange for his plans coming to a stop. He works around it by offering his dead name.
• Deconstructed Character Archetype: Gernderf Dermberder is one for the "wise old wizard" trope that the characters he's named after embody, as he is far too eccentric and self-centered to be helpful most of the time. However, one could also see it as a bit of a reconstruction when you consider how Merlin, the famous wizard of Arthurian myth, was wise yet often ignorant to the nature of man, ensuring Camelot's downfall.
• Deconstructive Parody: To, what else, J.K. Rowling's star book series. Both James and Harry come from abusive households, but James' abuse is of the subtler and more realistic variety, instead being merely alluded to. Furthermore, the AAAM is shown to be just as dangerous as Hogwarts can be, except that this is seen as a legitimate failure of the management with its array of eccentric/unhelpful teachers and the malevolent magical beings lurking around it. And the sorting of students from the original series is called out as giving rise to an Absurdly Divided School as well. In short, this is a book series where the academic problems of Hogwarts are completely addressed.
• Dishing Out Dirt: What earth magic is mostly about, though Serena has perfected it to the point where she uses crystals instead.
• Dynamic Entry:
  • Fafgander appears before all of the new students while performing a display full of fire in the sky. The rest of the wizard faculty follow suite with their own, capped off with Dermberder's. Presumably, they all do this for every new student gathering.
  • Lord Dhenregirr is prone to this as well.
• Eldritch Location: Fairyland. It's where most magical creatures come from, for one thing. But what puts it into this trope is how it operates. For example, it's full of strange floating structures, time and space bend at random, it's made up entirely of magic instead of any real matter (the matter that does exist comes from our world instead), and it doesn't have a sun, instead settling for a shifting Alien Sky full of bright lights. Also, fairies are stronger there due to the latent magic.
• Enigmatic Empowering Entity: Helseng is a mysterious Fortune Teller who constantly appears before James to help guide him on the path to a good future. Why she's doing it is unknown, but she is very supportive of him.
• Everyone Can See It: There isn't a single person in the AAAM who doesn't notice the obvious attraction between James and Margot.
• Exact Words: How fairies interpret any and all requests, for better or worse. It's also how they find loopholes to abuse.
• The Fair Folk: A major part of this series' lore and plot is the concept of the Fair Folk. Here, they all hail from an Eldritch Location known as Fairlyland, and come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. They are generally divided into the Seelies (fairies of light and the spring/summer) and Unseelies (faries of darkness and the autumn/winter), though this does not necessarily mean a division between good and evil (see Grey-and-Gray Morality below). Fae swear fealty to one of these courts when they come of age. The fair folk also stay true to their real-life roots, as they follow Blue-and-Orange Morality most of the time, and therefore can be both helpful and hostile to humans on a whim. Their politics follow a sort of mirror of Midgaheim's different kingdoms, though aside from having kings and queens and princes, the rules they follow are just as inconsistent as they themselves are. A few notable examples of fair folk in the cast include Charlotte, Oomlowt, Mr. Mackers, and the elven subjects of the King of Day and Queen of Night.
• Fantastic Caste System:
  • Wizards are generally categorized into two different titles based on their latent gifts. There's sorcerers, who can do spells out of thin air, and then there are conjurors, who require special ingredients and alchemy-based methods to produce magical potions and powders. Naturally, there is some conflict between these two factions, as conjurors are sometimes looked down upon by sorcerers as being mere magicians, which are just wizards only capable of a few parlor tricks.
  • The Fair Folk, meanwhile, are divided into Seelies (fairies of light) and Unseelies (fairies of dark). The Seelies are ruled by a King of Day while the Unseelies get a Queen of Night. The Princes of Spring and Summer and Autumn and Winter serve the Seelies and Unseelies respectively. As of now, all of the royals are high elves. There are lesser royals below them, but then we'd be here forever. To give at least one example, the Summer Prince rules the yellow court divided between the King of Coins and the King of Cups. There are many royals below that too.
• Fantastic Racism: Relationships between humans and The Fair Folk are rather tense, especially in Bretonce and Francane. This is mainly due to the latter's Blue-and-Orange Morality, as well as humans dying at their hands. However, neither side is depicted as being truly in the wrong.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The different major lands in the realm of Midgaheim tend to correlate with real-life locations, as well as different mythologies. To name a few, Breton and Francane/Francobreton is Great Briton and France (complete with parallels to the odd relationship the two countries had), Ruslovak is Russia/Slavic mythology, Germanor is Germany/Norse mythology, Castalan is Spain, Celpict is the Netherlands/Celtic mythology, Yamatsuna is Japan, and Mediterra is Greece/Greco-Roman mythology, with its repeated attempts at conquering the other lands bringing the Roman empire to mind.
• The Fashionista: Rodrigo ends up designing outfits for the Samhain ball out of passion. Serena isn't too far behind in that regard.
• Fisher King: Named outright by James when describing how The Fair Folk often cause the environment to shift due to their inherent magic leaking into everything. It would explain why the woods surrounding the AAAM are mostly wyrmwood.
• Foe Romantic Subtext: Discussed by Margot in regards to Polybeus' obsession with James, believing that a rivalry is just a confused crush. She goes on a long diatribe about how rivalries are just people not knowing how to act on their feelings, and therefore resort to fighting. She admits that she gets her knowledge from romance ballads. James shoots it all down instantly, stating that Polybeus just isn't his type.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In The Meddlesome Youths, Serena points out various details about what Gretchen is studying in the library, helping her focus on what's important for the investigation (that she doesn't know about yet). This hints at her Hidden Depths regarding her intellect, which comes into play later when she figures the gang all out on the subject of their goal, earning her a spot in their ranks.
  • Rodrigo deduces that one of the seasonal princes is behind the kidnappings, as they have all been trying to court the Queen of Night after her husband passed. This is definitely the Summer Prince's agenda.
  • During Tournament of Death, Margot declares that she'll show the saboteur that she doesn't need to cheat to win a fight, putting both Richard and Miguel on edge. Sure enough, they're both sabotaging the tournament.
• Four-Temperament Ensemble: The dormitories/areas of magical expertise are named in accordance to this. Choleric (represented by a salamandral) is fire magic, Phlegmatic (represented by an undine mermaid) is water magic, melancholic (represented by a gnome) is earth magic, and sanguine (represented by a sylph) is wind magic.
• Friendless Background: Most of the youths didn't have very big social circles. In fact, ones like James and Ivan and Gretchen had none at all. It's part of the reason they bond.
• Freshman Fears: The Meddlesome Youths is the first semester for all protagonists, and they go through quite a few of the typical grievances, such as classes not meeting expectations and mean teachers. Then the kidnapping plot shows up. The next semester is hardly any better, with a tournament being rigged to kill contestants.
• Full-Boar Action: The orcs are described as anthropomorphic boars, and are quite pugnacious. At the same time though, they operate by a strict code of honor (well, most of them anyway).
• Gemstone Assault: Serena mainly utilizes crystal magic to vanquish her foes.
• Gender-Separated Ensemble Episode: Tournament of Death has a chapter appropriately titled "A Needlessly Gendered Night Out", in which Polybeus and Serena respectively lead the boys and girls on a night out in Calampen to out-do each other in having fun. It ends with the two of them conceding that it would have been better if they did it together, but fun (and romance on the part of Ivan and Rodrigo) was had regardless.
• Genki Girl: Serena.
• Glamour: James' Highly Refined Transformation Spell worked for him as basically a way to painlessly transition from girl to boy in an instant. His deal with the Summer Prince makes it permanent.
• Go Mad from the Revelation: Charlotte notes in the second book that this is what happens to ettercaps, or anyone for that matter, who spend too much time looking through the threads of fate. Because all paths lead to death, one can be paralyzed by all the different threads that lead to an untimely end.
• Great Offscreen War: The Goblin Wars, the third of which created the Treadscar Path that James walks on at the beginning...and the war that offed Margot's parents.
• Grey-and-Gray Morality: The Seelie and Unseelie courts of The Fair Folk are not just good and evil. Seelies are more pleasant most of the time, but their love of humanity borders on obsession, and if the Summer Prince is anything to go by, they can come off as Holier Than Thou. The Unseelies meanwhile are full of dangerous and monstrous creatures, but they can be cordial to people, have little interest in spiriting humans away, and even provide good blessings if they like. Mr. Mackers is a good case in point.
• Grouped for Your Convenience: The students are sorted based on their elemental magic specialty, in accordance to the Four-Temperament Ensemble detailed above. James and company agree that this can only result in an Absurdly Divided School, especially when he himself is chosen by ALL FOUR (prompting an abritrary placement in the phlegmatic dorm for him).
• The Guards Must Be Crazy:
  • The guards of the Summer Prince's castle, or at least the elven ones, are quite bad at their jobs, as most of the spells they know are not designed for combat, and they're really bad negotiators. The rest of the creatures guarding the castle, on the other hand, are much better at fighting, but the orcs stop when Margot gains their respect.
  • Averted with the gargoyles who function as the AAAM's security, especially their leader Maxeral.
• Harmless Villain: How everyone except Dermberder sees Lord Dhenregirr. Though considering what he does in Tournament of Death, there is merit to some of the dean's claims.
• Heal It with Water: One of the main draws of water magic is that it can be used to heal injuries and cure disease. On the flipside, however, true masters of water magic can also manipulate disease.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen:
  • Fafgander is a minor example. Once, he was the ruler of where the AAAM stands. Now, he's just the groundskeeper living on the outskirts. He doesn't seem to mind, all things considered.
  • Alys Evelina loses all of her haughtiness and reputation after getting beaten spectacularly by Margot in a one-on-one with her.
• Humans Are Special: As Charlotte muses, we humans are not bound by destiny and fate, unlike most of the fairies who have to operate by very specific rules. See Intrigued by Humanity for more.
• I Just Want to Be Special: The real reason Polybeus wants to go down in history as a great hero. His culture values traditional heroes just like the ones in Greek mythology, so he feels constant pressure to be just like them. Anything less sends him into despair. He gets better in Tournament of Death.
• Intrigued by Humanity: Most if not all fairies are fascinated by the things mankind is capable of, to the point of forming political systems sort of like our own. In particular, Oomlowt loves the concept of elevators to the point where he forgoes his teleportation powers just for the sake of using what he considers to be a masterclass in craftsmanship. The Queen of Night meanwhile is so enamored with us that she goes to the Samhain festival just to find a suitable bachelor. The more ordinary the human, the better. Unfortunately, this obsession with humanity gives the Summer Prince incentive to kidnap students for her affections.
• Jack of All Stats: During the sorting ceremony, all four elemental spirits choose James, something that has apparently never happened before. Dermberder puts him in the Plegmatic dorm on a whim, but acknowledges how the boy is destined for great things behind the scenes, secretly seeking to put in in all four areas of elemental study.
• Large Ham: Gernderf Dermberder in spades. He lampshades this near the beginning, stating that it is incremental for wizards to be witty and quirky at all times. Though most of the time, everyone's just annoyed.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Childe unleashes the fury of the entire kitchen onto the elf army when they attack the youths. Later, Ivan conjures up a whole army of killer flying carpets.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!: Frequently played straight, but at the same time put under scrutiny, as the gang is far more vulnerable alone than together. Hence, everyone rarely splits up by themselves.
• Lonely Rich Kid: Rodrigo comes from a line of Castalan noblemen, but longs for the smaller things in life, such as actual friends.
• Loophole Abuse: How the fair folk can get their way while staying true to their word in a literal sense. The Summer Prince abused the terms of his contract with Dermberder by using the AAAM's archway to steal students while still letting the dean keep his school.
• Love at First Sight: Ivan is positively FLOORED by Rodrigo's beauty upon first meeting him, and he dedicates a lot of his time trying to impress him at various points.
• Love Makes You Evil: The Summer Prince is kidnapping students in order to impress the Queen of Night and become the King of Day. However, it's debatable as to whether he genuinely loves her or just wants the throne.
• Magic Carpet:
  • Ivan tries making one in order to secretly impress Rodrigo. He succeeds...but ends up creating a sapient cloth-made predator that at first doesn't take well to having others ride on it. It returns to Ivan's side rather quickly though, teaming up with Fafgander to get food easier as well. He decides to name it Rugg for future reference.
  • Ivan uses this logic to create a whole army of man-eating flying carpets to attack the elves, though they end up causing a bit of an unseen problem due to attacking people indiscriminately.
• Magical Girl: Serena is a big walking Shout-Out to this entire archetype, being of Eastern descent, calling her attacks, and even having a big Transformation Sequence during her first fight.
• Making a Splash: Due to being put into Phlegmatic studies first, James masters water magic in the first book. Said magic also has inherent healing properties that he has yet to display.
• Malicious Misnaming: Dermberder never once gets the names of James' friends right, sometimes not remembering them at all. His reasoning is that they're not as important as James is to him.
• Master of Illusion: The point of Legerdemain class, which goes into how an illusion doesn't necessarily have to be realistic so much as it does need to capture one's mind and distract them from how fake it is. This class, taught by the talented Juno Panopte, proves to be quite crucial across the board in Tournament of Death.
• Meaningful Name: The Samhain festival, named after the original Gaelic holiday that inspired Halloween.
• Meaningless Villain Victory:
  • The Summer Prince's plan to spirit away a ton of students ultimately comes to pass for the most part, and James is forced to give up his old identity so that he'll be persuaded to stop any more. But the real victor is James, as he intentionally let the Prince take his old self so that he could be free from it once and for all. Also, the records of the lost students are found, prompting a mass rescue mission from the higher-ups.
  • Richard Rainsford in Tournament of Death finally finds his Worthy Opponent, but he's had to kill/horribly injure other fellow youths beforehand, and he's too insane to realize that everyone hates him for being a lowly murderer. As a result, he gets imprisoned alongside Miguel by a furious Dermbeder.
• The Mole: Zebul Blaa, a Recurring Extra fairy student, was tricked by the Summer Prince to aid in the kidnapping of his fellow students under the promise of being made neutral and thus free from pledging to any of the fairy courts.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Elevators are considered to be technological marvels by the students and especially the magical creatures at the AAAM. Plus, they render the hassle of going up tons of flights of stairs moot.
• My Master, Right or Wrong: No matter how stupid or cruel the ones they make oaths with are, fair folk are compelled to follow their orders. However, they're only bound by the words, so loopholes can be found.
• Never Bareheaded: No matter the outfit, Gretchen is always seen with her scarf concealing most of her face.
• Noodle Incident: Francane's Great Mime Incursion.
• No Social Skills: Gretchen HATES social gatherings, considering talking to strangers a Fate Worse than Death. She has to anyway for the Samhain ball.
• Nuckelavee: Mr. Mackers is a major character in The Meddlesome Youths, being an unusually nice example of this monster. He's still a very dangerous creature capable of manipulating disease, and even tears into the elven general with his teeth when he menaces him and the youths.
• Oh, My Gods!: Comes up several times from different characters. For example, "By the Gods of Olympus" from Polybeus, and "By the rotten fangs of Nidhoggr" from Gretchen. It really depends on the culture.
• Omniglot: Thanks to a special magic pill James just so happened to have, he can understand foreign languages like that of Ivan's perfectly. It only lasts an hour, so he has others.
• Opposites Attract: Try as she might, Gretchen cannot shrug off her feelings for the far more social and bubbly Serena, despite her initial disgust.
• Our Monsters Are Different:
  • Our Demons Are Different: Unlike the rest of the Fair Folk, demons come from the Underworld, and are considered to be many times deadlier and devious. They can shapeshift, but there's always a part of the disguise that is irregular, mostly cloven hooves. So far, the only demons shown are the lowly imps.
  • Our Elves Are Different: They are among the most powerful of fairies, and look a lot like the typical LOTR pointy-eared descriptions. Most run the Seelie court, though there are dark elves too. In their society, they have a King of Day and a Queen of Night for the Seelie and Unseelie courts respectively, with princes according to the four seasons (though some of these princes are female, as "princess" just sounds undignified to them), and even more royals below them.
  • Our Fairies Are Different: Aside from the fact that "fairies" make up the entirety of The Fair Folk, ones like pixies and sylphs look like the standard depictions at first. However, they are far more insectoid in nature than most generic descriptions, such as having chitinous skin and compound eyes.
  • Our Gargoyles Rock: Gargoyles function at the AAAM as sapient guards and bouncers. They are described as looking a lot like their common European depictions, and are typically made from powdered dragon bone, clay, and other things. They are among the most difficult/expensive homunculi around.
  • Our Goblins Are Different: Goblins and hobgoblins here are described as looking a lot like humanoid frogs, and are often seen as canon-fodder by stronger fairies.
  • Our Gnomes Are Weirder: Gnomes can best be described as humanoid mole/rhino people, with short hairy bodies, large cranial horns, and huge claws for burrowing.
  • Our Homunculi Are Different: Homunculi can take on almost any form (gargoyles included), and are pretty much some of the greatest achievements conjurors can come up with. They include living mud monsters (the most common staff at the AAAM), scarecrows, and even whole living ovens like Childe. Ones like the latter can be sapient, but most are single-minded and therefore put to menial labor.
  • Our Kelpies Are Different: Instead of just being water horses, kelpies are sapient predatory crocodilian lake predators that just so happen to have the same body plan as equines, and are ridden as such by elves. They pretend to be horses to lure prey, and then once it's on their back, their spikes jut out and impale their food to keep it from escaping.
  • Our Kobolds Are Different: As Oomlowt is quick to note, he is NOT a kolbold. Rather, those are more cat-like beasts here.
  • Our Orcs Are Different: They are a Proud Warrior Race of boar-men who will gladly crush their enemies, but have nothing but respect for those who fight greater forces.
  • Our Pixies Are Different: See Our Fairies Are Different above.
• Playing with Fire: Margot's bread and butter...though it's so unstable she needs a gauntlet to keep it under control.
• Portal Door: Professor Schwaa has access to a special piece of chalk that can summon a portal to Fairyland.
• Punny Name: The countries of Bretonce and Francane are based off of Britain and France, except the sounds of the last syllables of each are swapped. This ties in to how the two countries are in a constant on-and-off relationship.
• Quirky Town: Calampen USED to be a perfectly normal village before the AAAM turned it into a bustling, if slightly reluctant, college town full of warring shopkeepers and bustling taverns. They're not completely happy about having a bunch of unstable magical beings coming to their town almost every weekend, but they make the most of it in their own way.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits: The main eight include a transgender runaway, the failed apprentice of a dead wizard, an introverted bookworm with Litchrot, a very tall and strong orphan of war, a Lonely Rich Kid, a foreign student with conflicting viewpoints, a spider-girl caught between two opposite sides of The Fair Folk, and a pompous former bully desperate for fame.
• Rambling Old Man Monologue: The most generous way we can describe Dermberder's lectures during Basics of Magic. They're so long and pointlessly self-aggrandizing that everyone who attends practically develop eye-bags in an instant. Then again, it's revealed near the end of the first book that everything the dean says is extra credit on the otherwise easy final exam for the class, so it at least serves some purpose.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Oomlowt, if only because he actually takes the time to listen to his and other students.
  • Tournament of Death gives us Juno, Maxeral, Bubo, and Heka as additional faculty members who actually give a toss about the havoc all around them.
• Recurring Extra: A trio of students with at least one sort of claw for a hand (mechanical scorpion-esque, lichrot, and crab-like respectively) appear all throughout The Meddlesome Youths. Their leader, Shere Satchel, actually gets to play a part in the Tournament of Death against Margot.
• Red Herring:
  • This is Dhenregirr's name, once the anagram is deciphered. It's more a meta-example more than anything else.
  • There are three suspects in Tournament of Death as to who's the saboteur, all with equally good reasons to be so (dissilusioned Broken Ace Richard, arrogant Jerkass Miguel, and the far too enthusiastic and ominous Grammy Crumblebuttons). It's revealed to be the first two working together, albeit it was mostly Richard. Grammy is just endearingly kooky that way.
• Ribcage Ridge: Ribcage Holloway, a fitting name, is a part of the Behemoth Bone Mountains, which were formed by the corpse of the titular beast.
• The Runaway: The story begins with James abandoning his old home to find belonging elsewhere.
• Sadist Teacher: Alys Evelina is perfectly cordial and encouraging to her students...except Margot, which she treats with absolute contempt for needing a gauntlet to channel her magic. She becomes a major antagonist of the first halves of The Meddlesome Youths and Tournament of Death as a result. She loses this along with all her bravado after Margot soundly defeats her in a duel.
• School Festival: The Samhain festival is basically prom night, though the gang uses it to get info on the mysterious kidnapper in The Meddlesome Youths.
• School Is Murder: It certainly is when you're trying to handle the ever-volatile art of magic AND living next-door to some of the most dangerous creatures in this world and the other. To give you an idea, most inexperienced wizards wind up exploding.
• Screw You, Elves!: The ultimate conflict of The Meddlesome Youths. The Summer Prince is a powerful high elf who's kidnapping students, and our youths must stop him. And they do.
• Seers: Charlotte and her kind, the ettercaps, can sense the future through the threads of "the web". Only they have access to these threads, and while the predictions don't tell the whole story, they're good guides nonetheless. Not to mention, Charlotte recognizes the danger of relying too much on prophecy.
• Sequel Hook: Tournament of Death is a bit more overt in doing this than the last story, with Gretchen being invited to join a witches' coven for the summer, and James being told by Helseng that he won't be staying long at the AAAM until he ends up confronting "Judgement" (heavily implied to be the dean himself).
• Ship Tease: Between James and Margot, Ivan and Rodrigo, and Gretchen and Serena. Tournament of Death resolves the first two, and adds Polybeus and Charlotte to the mix.
• Shout-Out:
  • Ivan's last name is derived from Ilya Muromets, one of Russian folklore's greatest heroes.
  • Charlotte, a spider girl, gets her name from Charlotte's Web, and looks a lot like Miss Muffet.
  • One of the names for Fairyland is Underland, and some say it can be accessed via following a white rabbit or through a looking glass. It also takes cues from the works of Dr. Seuss.
  • The prologue of The Meddlesome Youths is called "He's Leaving Home", a direct reference to "She's Leaving Home" by The Beatles. Word of God considers it to be his favorite song, and a fitting metaphor for James' situation.
  • Ivan refers to the AAAM's vast library as "a rainbow of reading."
  • Dermberder refers to Lord Dhenregirr as a "coward, bully, cad, and thief".
  • Dermberder's reaction to seeing Lord Dhenregirr get sent flying into the distance by the youths:
  Dermberder: Looks like Lord Dhenregirr's blasting off again!
  • The second half of Heka Tlancheb's speech at the beginning of the UWB tournament is a homage to the opening of Elden Ring.
  • Dhenregirr summoning an army of skeletons via magic seeds is almost just like the warriors of the hydra's teeth from Jason and the Argonauts.
  • The fight between James and Dhenregirr is mostly based on the lyrics of the lyrical version of "Chaos King" by Man on the Internet.
  • Richard's opponent in the first round of the tournament, a gnome who's kind is known for their burrowing ability and huge knife-like horn on their foreheads, is named Gyrion (derived from Tyrion Lannister's first name, but with the first letter changed as with the names of many of the dwarves in The Lord of the Rings), though it's initially presumed to be Guiron.
  • Sarkani Charmil, one of Margot's opponents who can turn into a swarm of bats, claims to hail from Kastelvania.
  • While fighting, Gabriev recites an old code of chivalry that he admits he paraphrased from a really good ballad with a dragon in it.
  • Margot's Doomstar bears a striking resemblance in both its form and how it's summoned to the Signature Move of Frieza. Cope even used a picture of him without context to hype up the book it debuts in.
  • When Serena declares that she wants to fight Margot in the arena one day, she shakes her fist while stating "our battle will be legendary!", just like Tai Lung in the much-memed scene from Kung Fu Panda where he declares the same upon hearing about Po.
  • There was an incident in Calampen where a wizard at the Puff Dragon Inn brought to life all the brooms and mops to clean endlessly, forcing the innkeeper to destroy them.
  • Polybeus declaring "the disaster will be theirs", is based on The Phantom of the Opera, complete with a similar context of finally foiling the villain.
  • Richard madly declaring that he's the wizard slayer during his defeat calls to mind Admiral Zhao's Villainous Breakdown in Avatar: The Last Airbender.
• Sleep Deprivation: James ends up trying to get to the bottom of the student disappearances in The Meddlesome Youths to the point of losing a ton of sleep. He nearly gets kidnapped by goblins because of it.
• Snipe Hunt: James sends Polybeus on one during their first meetings in order to get him off his back. The Meridan youth spends a good chunk of the first book looking for special stones that might enable him to duel James on the tower. All James can do is move the goalposts every time he makes progress.
• Star-Crossed Lovers: A very subtle example. James and Margot are from Bretonce and Francane respectively, two countries at each other's throats. That being said, they occasionally come to a truce to produce heirs with each other (hence the Francobreton distinction). This divide doesn't affect the youths that much, but it's an interesting background detail.
• Storming the Castle: The climax of The Meddlesome Youths has the gang infiltrate the Summer Prince's castle to find the missing students. Margot, Serena, and Polybeus distract the guards while the rest explore the different parts of the building.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: When Margot appears in front of James and Polybeus, the latter jokes about the school letting ogres in. Right afterwards, Professor Evelina does the exact same thing.
• String Theory: Polybeus briefly dabbles in this while his Snipe Hunt is underway.
• Super-Power Meltdown: In The Meddlesome Youths, Margot ends up so overwhelmed by the stress of the orc assault that her magic runs wild, taking in Fairyland's magic and turning into a huge storm of fire before she's able to make it calm down. The orcs are so impressed by her regaining control that they stop fighting. It happens again in Tournament of Death, requiring Margot's opponent to help her make it stop.
• Supreme Chef: Childe, the oven homunculus that runs the entire feast hall.
• Take Away Their Name: The Summer Prince does this to James, ensuring nobody remembers who he was when he was Elizabeth Marlowe. He's actually very happy about this.
• Take That!:
  • The main character is trans. That alone is a major jab at the Wizarding World's author, J.K. Rowling, who is now known for her unfortunate views on transgender rights. Not only that, but Word of God has explicitly stated that making his expies of Harry and Hermione (whom he views as Rowling's self-inserts) trans was a major act of gleeful (and deserved) spite on his part.
  • Dermberder is an explicit jab at the Hogwarts headmaster himself, as Cope sees him as an incompetent Manipulative Bastard who mishandled his school with Head-in-the-Sand Management while grooming Harry into killing a powerful evil wizard. The AAAM's dean is all of this, except it's not glossed over like in those books.
  • By far the most subtle yet explicit example comes from a minor character named Lornwig Kayjay, who spends her entire time in the first book snobbishly declaring that fair folk are in only two categories of good and evil, actively balking at the idea that it's more nuanced than that. Her full name is an anagram for Rowling Jaykay. Now, what does that name sound like when it's reversed, again?
  • According to Polybeus, the romantic tale of Achilles and Patroclus was sullied by author Forr Kydd's translation turning them into cousins, as in 4Kids Entertainment, masters of bowlderization.
• Taken for Granite: The fate of most beings who are felled by Serena is getting turned into crystal.
• Talk to the Fist: Margot's solution to beating an orc covered in magic-proof armor is to clock him a couple times with her gauntlet and then use magic.
• Tarot Motifs: A major aspect of the series is how the major characters fit into the cards of the Major Arcana tarot cards (James as the Fool, Ivan as the Magician, Gretchen as the Hermit, etc.) According to Helseng, James had to meet and befriend them all in order to succeed and claim The World, whatever that may be. For more information, see the Characters section.
• Team Mom: Margot is the most protective of the Meddlesome Youths, acting almost like a concerned parent to the rest. As the physically largest of the group, she even looks to be the perfect guardian for them all.
• Theme Naming: So far, all of the characters from Castalan (the Fantasy Counterpart Culture version of Spain here) are named after characters and/or the author of Don Quixote.
• Theory of Narrative Causality: Gretchen points out that when wizards and non-wizards say things like "this is absolutely safe" and "things couldn't possibly get worse", they're just Tempting Fate with accidental prophecy magic.
• Title Drop:
  • Occurs once in The Meddlesome Youths when the kidnapping plot becomes apparent. Then near the end, Dermberder calls the gang meddlesome youths, while James declares them as such with proper capitalization in the text. Later, this becomes their moniker throughout the series.
  • The UWB is called the Tournament of Death by the text after it claims its first true victim.
• Tournament Arc: Fittingly, Tournament of Death has its entire plot center around the Ultimate Wizard Battle tournament, which was around since the school's inception, and is all about young wizards proving their mettle in mostly non-lethal combat. Of course, the title wouldn't be the way it is if someone wasn't rigging the fights to end in murder.
• Trans Tribulations:
  • James was once a girl, but he experienced gender dysphoria while his parents ignored his problems. Using a glamour spell, he became a boy, and ran away mainly to get away from his family's unrealistic expectations. Near the end of The Meddlesome Youths, he seals the deal he makes with the Summer Prince by offering his dead name, Elizabeth Marlowe, ensuring that no one would remember the person he was before. He's quite happy about it, all in all.
  • Gretchen is hinted to having the same issues as James, but in reverse. Word of God has confirmed this, and promises to explore it in later stories.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Outright stated by Ivan no less when James says they'll be absolutely safe in the library. Gretchen then lampshades that things will most likely go wrong when people say they won't.
  • Many times, people will claim that the UWB tournament is going to be a safe and good time, and at the beginning, the youths look forward to a semester free of peril. It isn't until they're already participating in the aforementioned tournament that they find out - the hard way, in Polybeus' case - that an unknown (and eventually murderous) saboteur is on the loose...
• True Companions: By the end of the first book, the main cast are more than willing to stay at the school until next semester because they value each other so much.
• Token Non-Human: Charlotte amongst the youths. Oomlowt is this for the teachers.
• Token Rich Student: Rodrigo.
• Unknown Rival: Polybeus to James for a time.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Almost all fairies are weak to iron, and anything that might be related to it.
• You Meddling Kids: The entire premise of the series takes major cues from stories that feature youths foiling greater conspiracies. It's right in the first title, even!
• Your Mind Makes It Real:
  • For denizens of Fairyland, assumptions tend to manifest into reality. An example is the weakness to iron. It's only because they almost all believe it to be so thanks to a brutal war that had lots of iron in it.
  • Legerdemain (illusion magic) is all about tricking the mind into thinking that which isn't real is. Geoffrey Travers helps James and Rodrigo take it further by making their and their friends' rooms Bigger on the Inside with this power.

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