Movie Tagatha My Beloved

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SOPHIE'S TRAUMA (Or lack thereof)

Something that's always irked me about TCY is how flippant Sophie is toward references to Rafal. This old ass bitch groomed and took advantage of her, manipulated and brainwashed her with the Swan Gold, and by the Ever-Never Handbook she's talking about him like he’s an unfortunate ex and not, you know, a fucking monster.

In TLEA it is specifically stated that Sophie is terrified of Rafal before he gives her his ring. Even after that, she makes numerous comments on feeling unsafe around him. There's no denying that she was affected by Rafal's behavior during the time they were together, so why is he written off as another guy Sophie couldn't keep? Why does Rafal become a punchline from the Handbook forward, not even a year after his death?

To put it simply: Sophie was taken advantage of by an older man. She showed obvious signs of how this was negatively affecting her in TLEA. It's safe to assume that she would gain some sort of trauma from this, but such is never exploited in QFG onwards.

Sure, Sophie is a very frivolous person, so her making a joke at the expense of an ex or commenting on how he's “still hot” doesn't come unexpected. But Rafal isn’t a Tedros or a Hort or even a Rhian. Sophie was never actually in love with Rafal—she thought he was hot as a teenager, yeah, but her romantic feelings for him were made up by the ring, and the rest was about her desire to become Evil’s queen and her jealousy toward Tagatha.

It’s like… shouldn’t the memory of Rafal affect Sophie in some way outside of, “yeah he was evil but at least he was hot”, or whatever? Isn’t there a chance that maybe the reason she was happy on her own at the end of TLEA was because being with Rafal had scared the concept of having a prince out of her? And that her lunging for the first cute boy she sees in QFG is completely out of character?

Trauma and grief affect people differently. I’m not going to pretend to be a psychology major when I’m not. I can’t speak from personal experience, but I can confidently say that Sophie “getting over” Rafal as quickly as she did felt shallow and lazy.

The closest thing to a reaction at the mention of Rafal that we see from Sophie is her comparing theSnake to him in QFG and getting a little unnerved. I find it bizarre that Sophie’s pretty much moved on from the whole ordeal not even a year later.

The argument that displaying a character suffering from trauma in a children’s book is inappropriate doesn’t work here, either, because Soman’s already written the toxic relationship she would be suffering trauma from into the damn book. That’s not to mention Tedros getting tortured in book 2, Callis getting burnt at the stake, Sophie being brutalized and left to die by the Elders—seriously, I could go on for years about the things that aren’t “suitable for a M.G. novel” in this series.

In fact, I believe it would be important to show Sophie having nervous or negative reactions toward references to Rafal. It would display the damage a relationship like theirs can have on a person, and then maybe less 12 y/o’s would find Rafal and Raphie less hot.

This can be applied to more than just Sophie, too. Literally every character in this series has lost a parent or guardian. Tedros was tortured, Sophie died in book 1, Agatha watched these horrible things happen to her friends… the list goes on. It amazes me that not one character has mourned or shown grief for a dead character or has had a breakdown over the immense amount of shit they’ve been through. Callis is mentioned maybe three times over the course of TCY. It’s insane.

Is this comprehensible? I’m not sure. It’s vvv late but I need to get these thoughts out.

Bottom line: I don’t think the Sophie/Rafal situation was handled well post-TLEA, and the representation of the trauma these kids undoubtedly should have is nonexistent.

Ok, I feel like I need to like, expand a bit.

-The story would happen 5 years in Tedros's and Sophie's marriage. They do not have a heir yet, which concerns the court and the population.

-Sophie quickly lost affection for Tedros but she is hungry for power, so she is still investing in the relationship.

-She is loved by the public.

-Tedros is absolutely disgusted with himself.

-Most of the plot of book 4 will be ignored (for convenience.)

-Agatha's location is a mystery for most people (basically, only the Coven and Dovey knows) and she has not been in contact with Tedros and Sophie.

-Agatha is somewhere in the woods granting wishes and selling potions with Hort (completely platonic relationship, not romantic at all, they just feel comfortable with in each other.)

-Kiko is there too.

That would be a rough explanation about what I am thinking.

letter to theo by vincent van gogh

AS THE WORLD GOES ON ITS WICKED WAY

bonus:

I watched the adaptation of The School for Good and Evil on Netflix and was, to be honest, kind of disappointed. I watched without reading it first which made me wonder : "Is the book as bad as its adaptation ?"

The whole ambiance, world and characters in the movie felt really promising but also sort of shallow.

Then I read the first book and realised how much more nuanced it actually is and how more developed the characters are.

So I made a series of character designs based on the book and movie characters.

First : The Evergirls Reena, Kiko and Chinen (which isn't in the books but deserved her own character design...)

the way you draw izuku is everything to me thank you for treating my son so well 🙏🏽

thank you it’s always an honour to draw him 🫡 the most special boy on the planet <3

here’s the little doodles I did of him in class yesterday

> Sophie of Gavaldon

Quick drawing

She gets on my nerves sometimes but it's okay 🤍 Our queen fr!!

Missing my queen,, oh her radiance, her grace,,, Agatha of Gavaldon how i miss you

Prologue

"Well, Agatha had an answer to that.."

Apparently I didn't posted these here. so here it is.

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