Season 4, Episode 7
The Side Effect
"All I'm saying is you think you've seen stories like this before, so you can guess what's going to happen... who's important and who isn't. But that's because you are trapped in your POV. You have a classic case of White Male Protagonism, Derek, and a Librarian simply can't have that. But that's why these books are so important. They're such a gift. They... they can allow you to see other points of view. And once you start seeing that, you'll find that the story doesn't end the way you think, and the most important characters aren't who you expect."
— Penny 40
Penny 40 discusses the importance of various characters to a new hire, delving into the stories of characters we lost track of.
Tropes That Appear In This Episode:
- Bag of Holding: Kady has to find a bag that's bigger on the inside and does so at a hedge witch black market via a Chain of Deals. We don't get to see it in action, however, as it's handed off to Baba Yaga offscreen. Also discussed:Kady: I'm looking for a Bag of Holding... whatever that is.
Kareem: It's a Doctor Who kind of thing. A bag that's bigger on the inside.
Whitley: Actually it's a D&D thing. - The Bus Came Back: Pete returns to minor character-hood after a several episode absence.
- Chain of Deals: Kady needs to trade for a Bag of Holding, but the black market vendor won't trade for the magic cufflinks she has. Cut to a quick montage of trades until Kady has somehow managed to get her hands on Aleister Crowley's ashes, which the vendor is willing to trade for.
- Cut His Heart Out with a Spoon: The Baba Yaga threatens Kady with some gruesomely creative deaths if Kady doesn't make rent.
- Dangerous Phlebotinum Interaction:
- The Library tracking spell interacts badly with the makeshift enchantments used by hedge witches, causing them to die unless the enchantments are removed.
- The cure for the talking animals causes (or would have, anyway) the iguana in the Birthright Box to combust. It's not clear why, since it worked on the other animals.
- A Day in the Limelight: The episode follows Fen, Zelda, and Kady during the events of the past few episodes. Lampshaded repeatedly by Penny and Derek, as the latter sees them as side characters and Penny keeps steering him towards the bigger picture: these side character subplots are going to be hugely important. Also lampshaded by Kady, who says she is tired of being a "sidekick" to Quentin and the others and wants to do something for herself.
- Dreaming of Things to Come: Fen gains the ability to dream the future. A strange woman in a green cloak seems to be responsible.
- Dream Weaver: They teach lucid dreaming in the first year and Brakebills, and Josh is able to give Fen some pointers for her next psychic dream.
- Enemy Mine: Zelda gets Dean Fogg to arrange a meeting with Alice because she needs Alice's help.
- Framing Device: Penny 40 and Derek deciding how to classify various characters in the narrative is used to show what said characters been doing in the past few episodes.
- Internal Reveal: Zelda figures out that Alice changed the books so the Library couldn't track her and her friends, but keeps it to herself.
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
- Penny 40 and Derek's entire conversation is this, as they're speaking of how the cast can be classified in literary roles.
- The new hire says that what he learned from reading the gang's diaries is that women are one bad day away from a psychotic break. On this show he kind of has a point.
- Legacy Character: Pete has taken on the name of "Lovelady" in hedge witch circles. The previous holder was an Earl with his own island. Discussed, as he compares it to the Dread Pirate Roberts.
- Locked Out of the Loop: The Underworld branch of the Library has knowledge of the future well beyond the topside Library, but they don't share that information even though they could because the dead don't meddle in the affairs of the living.
- The Lost Lenore: Zelda is mentioned as seeing a lot of Harriet (presently assumed deceased) in Alice.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: By telling the hedge witches about the Library tracking spell poisoning them, Kady drives the hedge witches to be much more militant in their dealings with the Library, culminating in the bombing of the Library branch in Modesto. This in turn convinces the Library to be more aggressive with the hedge witches to protect themselves. To her credit, Kady does at least try to talk the hedge witch responsible out of taking rash action, but she doesn't listen.
- Noodle Implements:
- The landlord for Kady's apartment turns out to be the Baba Yaga, who demands an assortment of odd items as rent.
- Tick has been stealing peaches for a reason Fen assures us is surprisingly not disgusting.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: There's enough overlap for the Gordy the veterinarian to identify what makes Pete collapse, but he only knows one good human diagnostic spell.
- Oh Wait, This Is My Grocery List: Inverted. When Kady assumed the apartment from Marina, she found a list on the fridge she assumed was some sort of weird grocery list. It's actually the rent Marina owes Bailey/Baba Yaga.
- Out-of-Character Alert: Zelda is able to tell Alice faked her book because several character details are off, particularly getting a dog instead of a cat.
- Passing the Torch: In a weird kind of way. Kady feels responsible for closing the cases her fake detective identity had open.
- Rousing Speech: Kady gives one to the other hedge witches after they discover a Library tracking spell is poisoning them, urging them to stop fighting among themselves and focus on the bigger threat.
- Secret Test of Character: Derek is actually a supervisor two levels above Penny 40 posing as a new hire to test if he's ready for the next level.
- Sequel Hook: Penny 40 meets someone familiar when he's moved up to "Secrets Taken to the Grave", but the episode ends with the camera facing him, not his guest.
- Simultaneous Arcs: The Framing Device of the episode is set an indeterminate amount of time after the previous one, but most of the flashbacks are concurrent with the events of the past few episodes, just with different viewpoint characters.
- Split Personality: Bailey channels Baba Yaga when she needs to sort out things like rent. While Baba's active she can occasionally pop in while Bailey's talking.
- Time-Travel Tense Trouble: Fen has some issues with this while trying to explain her prophetic dreams to Margo.
- Tracking Device: Zelda gets the idea to build a tracking spell into the magic coins, hoping they'll eventually tag Santa Claus.
- Void Between the Worlds: Zelda travels into the mirror world because she believes Harriet may still be alive in there. She's forced to flee when monstrous reflections of Harriet try to attack her.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The Library consider themselves defenders of the "Flame of Knowledge", and justify anything they do as necessary for that cause.
- White Male Lead: Discussed.
- Derek sees the white male Quentin as the protagonist of the story; this point of view represents the audience, who have been viewing a story that has put Quentin at its center. Penny 40 dismisses it as "white male protagonism" and says that the other non-white-male characters have more to contribute than Derek thinks.
- When Derek is revealed to be an Underworld higher-up, he says that white male leads were definitely the norm back when he died (the Crusades).
