YMMV / Spellbinder (1996)

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Just how much is Blaise to blame for the behavior of some of her ex boyfriends, in particular Randy? Thea says that Randy to set fire to the school gym for Blaise and she clearly found it amusing, but it's unclear how willing Randy was or what Blaise's involvement was precisely. Was it Randy's idea or Blaise's? Blaise presumably didn't intend for him to stalk her to her new school and start threatening her, so it seems Randy remained obsessed with Blaise - to the point of violence - even after their relationship ended and they weren't in contact for several months. It's possible Randy was never all that stable to begin with and Blaise's influence made things worse.
• Genius Bonus: The Cup of Lethe is mentioned as being one of the most powerful memory potions created by witches. In Greek myth, Lethe was a river in the Underworld that the dead drank from the forget their past; the word lethe itself also means "oblivion", "concealment" or "forgetfulness" in Classical Greek.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The novel, published in 1996, features Blaise's deranged ex Randy threatening her and other students with a weapon at a school dance, though he's disarmed before anyone is seriously hurt. Three years later, the Colombine shooting occurred, after which mass killings at American schools came to much greater attention (and unfortunately increased in frequency). While the incident in Spellbinder is certainly disturbing, it no longer seems as shocking as it would've been in 1996.
• Unintentional Period Piece: While all the novels in the series have tell-tale signs of being set in the late 1990s, this one particularly stands out because of the incident where Blaise's ex-boyfriend crashes a school dance armed with a razor. Spellbinder was published in 1996; following the rise of mass shootings and similar incidents in the late 90s and 2000s, high schools and especially school formal events tend to have much tighter security (including metal detectors) so it's much less likely Randy would've even gotten past the front doors.
• Values Dissonance: While Blaise's tendency to manipulate and play mind games with boys isn't condoned in the work, many modern readers have noted it gets treated less seriously than it would now and that her eventual punishment is pretty lenient all things considered. In the book, Blaise's actions are often treated more as pranks that sometimes go too far, whereas these days - with a greater understanding of and lower tolerance for abuse - Blaise comes off as a borderline-sociopathic predator and thus much less sympathetic to many modern readers. It's been pointed out that if you flipped the genders to have a young man seducing and gaslighting teenage girls for amusement, Blaise would've likely been viewed much more harshly.

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