lareinesophie

[lareinesophie]

Soman needs to learn how to use a calendar

guys I’m so angry!!! looking at the actual dates mentioned in the text of The School for Good and Evil (Book 1), everything happened in just 44 days from “the eleventh day of the eleventh month” (November 11) to the morning after the No Ball/Snow Ball, which is “just before Christmas” (December 24) according to Kiko in Chapter 12. So Agatha kissed Sophie and they both disappeared from the school on the morning of Christmas Day (December 25).

Now, A World Without Princes (Book 2) opens 1 week before the anniversary of the kidnappings (November 11 of the next year), yet the book says the girls returned “9 months ago” which is February!?!? How did they spend the 2 months in between leaving the school and returning to Gavaldon???

Also the events of AWWP take place entirely within four weeks/1 month: Sophie hides in the church for 2 weeks after the Boys attack during Stefan’s wedding (1 week before the anniversary of the kidnappings), then is dragged into the Woods by the Elders at night, with Agatha in hot pursuit. They arrive the following dawn at the School for Girls & immediately start their first day of classes; Agatha sneaks into the the School for Boys to reunite with Tedros that very night, with Sophie secretly tailing her. The Trial by Tale, which is also the night the School Master got revived and Agatha and Tedros were sent back to Gavaldon, happens exactly 10 days afterwards (Chapter 13).

The Last Ever After (Book 3) begins one month after the end of AWWP, as Tedros complains in Chapter 5 that “[they’ve] been trapped for a month in the smallest, foulest house you can imagine” in Gavaldon. 

The events of TLEA take place entirely within a month, a month and a half if we’re going to be lenient, as Tedros notes in Chapter 2 “[he’ll] be sixteen in a month” while in the last chapter it is explicitly stated that his sixteenth birthday and coronation will happen the next day. 

This means only 1 year and 3 months have elapsed between Sophie and Agatha starting their first day at the SfGaE and Tedros’s coronation!!! The wedding of Agatha and Tedros is supposed to happen 8 months after his coronation...So Agatha is supposed to marry a boy she knew for barely 2 years and actually liked for even less??!!! 

Also, Quests for Glory (Book 4) opens 6 months after the end of TLEA/Tedros’ coronation, and the rest of the Evers/Nevers were already in the middle of their Fourth Year quests, so they jumped from First Years to Fourth Years in...1 year and 9 months???

SGE TUMBLR FANDOM (especially @sabrinaofwoodsbeyond cuz you’re the other SGE theorist on here) pls double-triple-check this and maybe yell at Soman for me please and thank you!!!

[lareinesophie]

acot spoiler

lololol Aric never found out that his best friend/soulmate/rumoured lover (Rhian started the rumour) Japeth’s mom, Evelyn Sader, was directly responsible for causing his mom, Lady Lesso, to abandon him in the Endless Woods.

[lareinesophie]

Eh AWWP is notable for Tedros kissing a boy (Sophie as Filip), but Tedros comes off as really homophobic in the earlier chapters, like he sincerely believed Agatha had chosen Sophie as his replacement, i.e. romantic partner and he had to punish them for it. If Reddit had existed in the Endless Woods, Tedros aka u/futurekingofcamelot would totally be posting on r/ProRevenge: “My girlfriend became a lesbian so I burned her village to the ground and am going to kill her girlfriend who stole her from me”.

[lareinesophie]

I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up only for Soman to dash them, but I think there is textual evidence for Sophie being bi/gay, and for the possibility of her being in a relationship with another girl becoming canon. 

First, there’s the obvious fact that the emotional intimacy Sophie shares with Agatha runs deeper than any she had with a boy in a heterosexual relationship, and that their love for each other is 1) genuine, and 2) equal in power to romantic love – Agatha could revive Sophie with a kiss, which is only possible if she truly loved Sophie, and it wasn’t mere gratitude that she felt for Sophie saving her life from the School Master’s blade (e.g. Marius Pontmercy kissed a dying Eponine for taking a bullet for him in the Les Miserables movie.) 

But the story also makes clear that Sophie’s and Aggies’ true love isn’t romantic in nature, despite having the same (or possibly even greater) intensity and level of emotional intimacy as Aggie’s true romantic love with Tedros, simply because Sophie and Agatha themselves (as they were written) never were romantically interested in each other nor viewied their relationship as anything but friendship, however great or deep it may be, despite acknowledging that they were soulmates. This is reinforced in the text: after Agatha revives Sophie with true love’s kiss at the end of Book 1 and they get sent back to Gavaldon by the Storian, Sophie resumes her old self-centred Sophie-ish ways while Agatha pines for Tedros. Now, if either of them had latent romantic feelings for each other, the ultimate affirmation of those feelings that was given by true love’s kiss would have awakened them to at least the possibility of a homosexual romantic relationship with each other. The Woods might be so heteronormative that homosexual romance is unheard of there, but romantic love is a universal experience as well as an extremely powerful feeling at the individual level; when it’s actually present in a person, he/she can’t just be completely oblivious to it and continue dreaming about straight romantic relationships without at least some internal conflict about why she feels this way about her friend.

However, while Sophie and Agatha aren’t gay for each other, their relationship is proof that Sophie’s only fulfilling relationship to date is with a girl, while all her romantic relationships with boys have failed miserably. In fact, it is the yardstick by which Sophie judges her heterosexual romantic relationships so far as emotional intimacy/ mutual understanding is concerned

“Marrying Rhian was supposed to be true love. She’d thought he’d understood her. When she looked into his eyes, she’d seen someone pure, honest, and Good. Someone who acknowledged the shades of Evil in her heart and loved her for them like Agatha did.”

– A Crystal of Time

So even though Sophie isn't romantically interested in Agatha, she wants her heterosexual romantic relationships to have the same qualities as her relationship with Agatha which she regards it as the “gold standard” for a healthy, committed relationship -- even though it’s with a girl, and after the events of TLEA, a girl who’s her twin sister.

  The other bit of textual evidence that opens the possibility that Sophie might be gay/bi and have a fulfilling romantic relationship with a girl in the future, is that Sophie has been shown to find another woman physically attractive:

Hustling behind, Sophie peered at the Dean’s reflection in the breezeway. She’d never seen anyone so beautiful—even her own mother. Proportions exactly out of a storybook, rose-petal lips, hair so lustrous and full, as if the Dean had been drawn to a page and brought to life. What did she use on her skin? Even thistleroot can’t get pores that small, Sophie thought, comparing them in the polished glass to her own—

– A World Without Princes

Of course, Sophie was not romantically interested in Evelyn, but this passage is evidence that Sophie is capable of feeling attraction toward females, as it mirrors the way she was stunned by Tedros’ looks when she first saw him

“And one more walked in. Hair a halo of celestial gold, eyes blue as a cloudless sky, skin the color of hot desert sand, he glistened with a noble sheen, as if his blood ran purer than the rest. […] Sophie gaped, bewitched.” – The School for Good and Evil

Also, Sophie’s starstruck reaction to Evelyn’s looks is significant in that Sophie literally goes to school with dozens of beautiful princesses, but none of them had caught Sophie’s attention or inspired such a reaction from Sophie, not even Beatrice, who “was so beautiful she didn’t look real”. So it was some quality about Evelyn’s beauty in particular that appealed to Sophie. And then Sophie becomes smitten with Rhian at first sight, whose looks take after his mother, and has the pretty much the same reaction as with seeing Evelyn

“The boy had tanned skin the color of amber and copper-brown hair cropped close to his head like a soldier’s helmet. He had a strong brow bone, a long, straight nose, sensual lips, and thick dark brows that ran flat over his eyes like two streaks of paint. […] He looked her age. Perhaps a bit older. One thing was for sure, though. She’d never seen such a beautiful boy in her life, masculine, sultry, and smelling of salt and sand, as if he’d been dewed from the mouth of a desert flower.” – Quests for Glory

“The two professors and two girls turned to see a tall, ravishing woman push through the door, milky smooth and full-bosomed in a teacher’s electric-blue dress decorated with a pattern of butterflies. She had a waterfall of chestnut hair to her midback, forest-green eyes under thick dark brows, a luscious pink mouth, and a gap between her two shiny front teeth.” – A World Without Princes

“The quest team now saw Rhian’s tan, sharp-jawed face in full view, his hair glinting like a bronze helmet, his sea-green eyes running briefly over the Snake, who was still out of sight of the people. ” – A Crystal of Time

I’m really interested in how Soman will elaborate on the Sophie/Evelyn Sader connection in the last book. So far, we know Evelyn’s dress and whatever vestigial trace of Evelyn contained in the dress seem to like Sophie, in a maternal way like Lady Lesso was fond of Sophie.

Lastly, Soman himself is gay, and as he has written much of his own personality into the Sophie character, it’s reasonable to guess that the endgame of the SGE series could be Sophie eventually realising her own homosexuality and being comfortable with it like Soman had. 

Tim Ferriss: When did you become openly gay?

Soman Chainani: I think it was my senior year of college. It’s so funny because now I watch kids come out, and it’s done with such empowerment and this kind of beautiful freedom.

And if there’s one thing I’m sort of envious in the entire world, it’s the way that kids come out now. Because when we did it in the early to mid 2000s, there just wasn’t anything out there to help you. So it was just traumatic, having to come out to people, to your parents, to your friends. Every time you did it, it was just trauma.

So I think once I actually came out is when everything sort of broke open and that’s when I think the path I was on… Up until then, I thought I was going to be in business. I thought I was going to be a consultant or a banker or any of these things. And it was only after I came out that I think my creative self came back. It was almost like that had gone in the closet, too and it took time for both to come out.

– Interview on the Tim Ferriss Show

We’re already on book 2 out of 3 for the second trilogy. Maybe there’d be more LGBT representation in the later books (if the book after ACOT isn’t the last SGE book) when the characters have unambiguously become adults. One reason for the dire lack of LGBT representation in the earlier books could be due to the age of the characters and the intended audience, like having 16/17 y.o. teenagers read about a 20/21 y.o. year old lesbian main character is less controversial (=more sellable) than featuring a 16/17 y.o. lesbian main character in a book for 12/13 y.o. children, because for better or worse, homosexuality, and any actual sexual content, is considered a “mature theme” and thus not a suitable topic for books for younger readers. 

sophie of woods beyond is gay and I can prove it

Happy lesbian visibility day!! Here’s my long-overdue analysis of why I think sophie is a lesbian. Thank you to @ofthickettumble for putting an ask in my inbox about my first post about this and @pumpkinpaperweight for reminding me I never elaborated on it shjdsksjkdfh

Sophie has dated a lot of male characters in this book series, which I know for a lot of people would be the definitive answer to whether or not she’s a lesbian. However, I think many (if not all) of those relationships could be seen as a result of compulsory heterosexuality (the idea that heterosexuality is assumed and enforced by our society). Soman claims there are no labels and therefore no homophobia or heteronormativity in the Endless Woods, but since the entire series is about dismantling societal standards through fairy tales… it’s kind of important to have these biases in the Endless Woods in order to have that theme.

Keep reading

[lareinesophie]

soooo my write-up about my theory turned into a 5 page trainwreck and still nowhere near finished, n I have major exams coming up, with the first paper starting, um, tomorrow... y'all will have to WAIT...for 1.5 months.

Not SGE-related but I have a My Immortal authorship theory!! (psst given my recent posts you guys saw this coming ok) If any of you lovely ppl are up for a long, exhaustively researched post about The Definitive Guide to the identities of ff.net users XXXbloodyrists666XXX and bloodytearz666, aka Tara Gilesbie and Raven, hit the like button please!!!

[lareinesophie]

omg I KNEW I remembered seeing Sophie and the "Why couldn't Satan have made me less beautiful?" quote together somewhere, just that I went digging thru incorrect-sge-quotes blog and couldn't find it.

Yikes sorry for ripping off this post!

The School for Good and Evil / My Immortal- Quests for Glory Edition

(part 1) 

bonus:

[lareinesophie]

Not SGE-related but I have a My Immortal authorship theory!! (psst given my recent posts you guys saw this coming ok) If any of you lovely ppl are up for a long, exhaustively researched post about The Definitive Guide to the identities of ff.net users XXXbloodyrists666XXX and bloodytearz666, aka Tara Gilesbie and Raven, hit the like button please!!!

[lareinesophie]

SGE characters as My Immortal quotes

Sophie: "Why couldn’t Satan have made me less beautiful?”

Agatha: “Why did you do such a thing, you mediocre dunces?” asked Professor McGonagall.

Tedros: He had a manly stubble on his chin. He had a sexy English accent. He looked exactly like Joel Madden. He was so sexy that my body went all hot when I saw him kind of like an erection only I’m a girl so I didn’t get one you sicko.

Rafal: “YOU ARE NOT FIT TO BE THE PRINCIPAL ANY LONGER!” yelled Rumbridge. “YOU ARE TOO OLD AND YOUR ALZHEIMERS IS DANGEROUS!”

Hort: “hey r u crying tears of blood?” he asked curiously, tuching a tear. “fuck off!” we both said and dumblydum took his hand away.

Beatrix: On da way I saw Britney laughing on da stairs. She was wearing a a slutty pink shirt wiv flowers on it, a blu jean skirt Abercromie and pink stiletoos. She looked jest like a pentagram of those fucking preps Hilery Duff and Lindsey Lohan.

Castor: “WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING YOU MOTHERFUKERS!”

It was…………………………………………………….Dumbledore!

Pollux: “NO TALKING IN THE HALLS!” he had short blonde hair and was wearing a polo shirt from Amrikan ogle outfters. “STUPID GOFFS!”

Lady Lesso: She smelled at me with her gothic black lipstick. She’s da coolest fucking teacher ever. She had long dead black hair with blood red tips and red eyes. She’s really young for a teacher. 2day she was wearing a black leather top with red lace and a long goffik black ripped dress.

Dovey: “U c, Enobby,” Dumblydore said, watching the two of us watching the flame. “2 c wht iz n da flmes(HAHA U REVIEWRS FLAMES GEDDIT) u mst find urslf 1st, k?”

Evelyn Sader: “Oh my fuking satan!1” I screamed as I read it. On it said Evry1 Profesor Sinister is away. She is too gottik she is in Azkhabian now. Classes shal be taught by Dubledork who is bak but he shall not be principal 4 now. Sincerely Profesor Rumbridge.

[lareinesophie]

Hi my name is Rafal Japeth Dark'ness Dementia Raven Sader and I have short copper brown hair and icy blue eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like the School Master (AN: if u don’t know who he is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to School Master Rafal but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a Snake, but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a sorcerer, and I go to a magic school called the Foxwood School for Boys in the Endless Woods where I’m in Arbed House (I’m seventeen). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black armoured suit, black leather pants and black combat boots. I was walking around Foxwood. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of Evers stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.

[lareinesophie]

Also it’s interesting how the Spansel works differently from a love potion, the other type of reproductive magic we saw in the SGE series: a love potion essentially causes the parents’ souls to be reborn in different bodies, e.g. Sader said that Agatha and Sophie are “sisters in name only” and that they got Stefan’s and Vanessa’s souls respectively. (also this is why I don’t think the incest argument against shipping agaphie applies, because the book makes clear they are two entirely different people, made with magic, so not related by blood)

On the other hand, the Spansel created physically identical twins, but Rhian appears to haven gotten Evelyn’s soul (judging by their similar personality, especially the kind of tactics they employ to achieve their goals, and close relationship) while Japeth got Evelyn’s magic (scim suit/butterfly dress) but his soul is just berserk evil…like Aric’s, even though Japeth always had a loving and supportive family ugh!!!. Which might be why Aric truly is his soulmate

It’s also possible that Rhian got Arthur’s soul instead of Evelyn’s, but Japeth definitely did NOT get Evelyn’s soul because Evelyn was always methodical, and not murderously insane.

The Spansel / the Spansel Club?

BIG ACOT spoilers!!!!!

Aaaalright this is running off the assumption that Soman isn’t using the same name twice by accident, but I think probably not, because by now, it’s pretty obvious that Rhian and RJ (Rafal Japeth is his full name, calling it now, I’m 99% sure that it’s true, and 100% sure it’s a horrible name) were named after the twin School Masters by their (obsessive…) Mother. And also, Spansel is a made up word. So, they’re definitely connected.

So Gremlaine mentions in QFG that one of the things Agatha has to do is “a lunch fundraiser at the Spansel Club, where you’ll read a storybook to children of rich patrons whose donations will repair the drawbridge”

The money goes into the still-suspect Camelot Beautiful Fund; something not explained yet, beyond a card speaking of an Abermarle at Putsi Bank. I’ve in the past gone “uh bribes to do with SGE” but now we know that Rhian and Japeth resented the school, this doesn’t make sense. But, again, why would Soman use the same name twice??? I think maybe SGE is still connected, but I’m at a loss for now with it, tbh.

And later, we find out that storybook is the tale of the Lion and the Snake. Already suspicious. So here’s what I think;

Either;

1) The Spansel Club is a secret rich people society to get Rhian/Japeth, the older (but illegitimate and weird and magic) heirs, on the throne in the place of Tedros, the only legitimate heir (having said that I guess legitimacy isn’t as big in the Endless Woods as it was in ✨Actual Medieval England✨ bc everyone seems to care if they’re older, not legitimate). So the Spansel Club support the heirs that came from the spansel, hence the name. (Possibly has something to do with the Mistral Sisters, they definitely know more than just that, seem to be low-key masterminding everything).

The Camelot Beautiful fund, then (which seem to be in Putsi, a notably extravagant Ever kingdom and one… We haven’t…. seen…. yet…….) is a scam, and is meant to provide for Rhian/Japeth once he takes the throne, hence the immediate redecoration and sudden surplus of money that Sophie notes at the beginning of ACOT. Both Rhian’s discovery of his heritage and the formation of the fund seem to date a couple of years ago, so it adds up. They want to keep Camelot beautiful, by putting the right King on the throne. The King who wants to eliminate all Evil. Of course they’ll want to put him on on the throne of the most powerful Good kingdom in the Woods, if he’s promising to destroy all Evil!

So no wonder they got Agatha to read the Lion and the Snake; it was their grand plan, all there in a nice book. All they had to do was make our main characters familiar with it.

The Saders are also an old, famous family in the Woods, so I think it stands to reason that they could a) be rich af, seeing as they produce Seers, who are in a lot of demand, and b) be involved in this, especially as it concerns Evelyn’s sons.

2) They’re where Sader got the Spansel from. No one knows/knew what a Spansel was, so they could definitely get away with calling themselves that. Presumably that would make them some sort of corrupt, behind the scenes thing with Evers dabbling in things they shouldn’t be. Someone please tell me whose flesh that was!!! Shit!!!! Disgusting!!

I honestly think if it’s either, it’s 1, because it just… Makes sense.

[lareinesophie]

(acot spoiler)

RJ actually stands for Rafal JUNIOR

[lareinesophie]

truth

My body is but a #fashion temple.

[lareinesophie]

#sge lectures tm and Other Things That Ruined My Life: An Autobiography by lareinesophie

[lareinesophie]

The day I started posting about #tedros of camelot was the best day of my life.

[lareinesophie]

Like if you’re a #aric fan, reblog if you’re a #agatha of woods beyond fan.

[lareinesophie]

(acot spoiler)

guys…I totally predicted that Elle S. is You-Know-Who’s mom :’)

reblog and tell me if any of your theories/headcanons were confirmed in acot??

[lareinesophie]

Omg the other day, I was telling my friend that Iacopo Bruno's cover illustrations of Agatha look EXACTLY like my friend from chess club, who happens to be Asian AND rly smart and into poetry, just like Agatha! In fact, she won a poetry contest (there's pic of her on the page announcing the winners for the curious lol)

Reasons why Agatha should be Asian

Black hair

to make it very stark that she is an outsider when Gavaldon is mostly white people

so there is an added layer of meaning (and race) when Agatha calls herself ugly and undesirable

a foil against what is the typical standard of beauty for the west, i.e blonde and hair i.e Sophie

asian representation in a leading role of a franchise

Interracial relationship (either with Tedros or Sophie, you pick)

so we can ignore the fact that she and Sophie are twin sisters

because i think it’s pretty neat.