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YMMV / The School for Good and Evil

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  • Alternative Character Interpretation: Sophie: Is she selfish, deluded and ungrateful, or just misunderstood? After all, her mother died, leaving her with her father who hated her, she had to watch him marry the woman who was her mother’s friend, and after all of that, her best friend almost left her for a man, just like what happened to her mother.
  • Base-Breaking Character:
    • Sophie is either a nice, fresh take on fairytale witches who is surprisingly complex and flawed or a annoying idiot who never learns from her mistakes and mistreats Agatha constantly. The fact that her characterization differs between books doesn't help.
    • Tedros. He's either liked for being a prince Charming with depths, burdens and flaws or disliked for being a jerkass who thinks he knows better than everyone else and doesn't listen to Agatha.
  • Designated Hero: In one scene, Tedros (the story's Prince Charming) literally kicks a bunny. And yet the protagonists spend the whole book competing for his affection and listening to Tedros whine about how nobody really understands him.
  • Dry Docked Ship: A lot of fans headcanon that Professor Dovey and Lady Lesso used to date while in school. This especially became popular after the film adaptation.
  • Fan-Disliked Explanation: The plot twist in the third book that Agatha and Sophie are sisters is not particularly liked as it lessens their friendship as they didn't chose to be friends and that there fates were always intertwined. It also destroys the (at the time) popular reading that Agatha and Sophie were in love with each other romantically. It also barely comes up afterwards, making it seem like it was there for shock value.
  • Ho Yay:
    • Tedros kisses Sophie...as she's disguised as a boy, and Tedros fully believes she's a boy.
    • A female example is between Sophie and Agatha. It goes through its ups and downs as Sophie accepts her role as a witch, and Agatha hers as a Princess, and as Sophie sacrifices herself to save Agatha, and the two are reunited and returned home. Then it's subverted when they turn out to be sisters.
  • Portmanteau Couple Name:
    • Tedros/Agatha: Tagatha
    • Sophie/Hort: Hophie
    • Sophie/Rafal: Rophie or Raphie
    • Hester/Anadil: Hestadil
    • Sophie/Tedros: Tophie
    • Hort/Nicola: Hicola
    • Bogden/Willam: Wogden
    • Sophie/Agatha: Agaphie
    • Professor Dovey/Lady Lesso: Dovesso
    • Aric/Japeth: Jaric
  • Sequelitis: The second and third books weren't as well-received as the first, particularly involving Sophie's character.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Nicola of the Woods Beyond is introduced as a intelligent, hard working reader with a knowledge of fairytales. Her entire contribution to the story is that she dates Hort and later breaks up with him.
  • The Woobie: Dot. As a villain, she's got her work cut out for her. Her talent is turning things into chocolate. She gets kicked out of her room by Sophie, Hester, and Anadil. And even Agatha pulls her hair when she learns that Dot knows how Sophie and co. have been entering the school and defacing it.

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