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shi-daisy · 4 hours ago

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I am loving all of this! Hope you're right on the money with them all because it was fun to see you be priven right last book. My bf is so smart! 🥰

Ahem but biased gushing aside I really love the effort put into this and how neatly it ties up the series. Goes to show our buddy Will is great at what he does by making a story so cohesive yet fun to theorize and play with

More Wizard School Mysteries Fan Theories Now That Wicked Witchcraft is Out

So, that was an exciting third instalment, wasn't it? Anyway, literally the night before it released, I made a post compiling a few of my fan theories for @tyrantisterror's excellent Wizard School Mysteries series (if you're unfamiliar with this wonderful series, I gave a summary of the concept in said post linked above, so read that then go read the series if what I described sounds interesting, since everything under the cut is going to be complete nonsense to you otherwise), only to take so long typing it up I didn't finish till past midnight, meaning I had to go to bed and cut what I'd planned to write short. And of course, with Wicked Witchcraft having released over a month ago and me having time to read it twice over, once for myself (all in one day no less, because I'm kind of obsessed with this series) and once reading it to @shi-daisy over Discord as part of my evil plan to suck her into another awful fandom, I've had time to think over this newest instalment's plot points and what they might foreshadow about this series future. But first, in light of reading the very book I had theorized about, I have to ask...

So... Was I Right?

So let's start with the theory I made that's been definitively answered, where I proposed that Helseng was not a mortal wizard, but Azrael, the angel of death in Will's other novel No Sympathies... and I was kind of right? Because Helseng was revealed to be an angel of death, but not Azrael specifically, as when the Meddlesome Youths descended into the river to the underworld they'd discovered earlier in the book to save Gretchen from the clutches of Hell, Polybeus encountered the spirit of Gabriev Zelgad, his opponent in the titular tournament of the previous instalment who had died in his arms from the book's villains sabotaging the match. While the focus of the scene was the two sharing their tender goodbye, Gabriev also reveals that after he had died, it was Helseng that was there to greet him. It was this revelation that inspired James to call on Helseng as the defence in the trial for Gretchen's soul, where she shed her mortal guise and revealed herself as the grim reaper Helsengel (and just a side note... wow, great job coming up with that cover identity, Helseng, I'm sure no one would suspect a thing).

And speaking of said trial, that was another thing I was right about, since I'd guessed the book's climax would involve a Battle for Everyone's Souls trial for Gretchen's soul, thanks to the clips Will had posted for that chapter in his "out of context spoilers" post preceding the volume's release. Granted, I did also theorize some details about the trial that did not come to pass, thanks to me reading too much into the details of the Castlevania clip Will included in the same post when it really was just referring to a supporting character revealing themselves to be Death, but the whole premise of this segment was "I was mostly right but got some details wrong," so it's not that big a deal.

But Helseng's identity was not the only theory I made in my original post that this third instalment answered, because while we have yet to receive the future volumes and confirm which of the Youths they will centre around, I managed to come up with a more elaborate theory for what I believed to be Rodrigo's instalment, and I didn't even get one chapter in before I learned that I might be onto something.

Okay, so when I was speculating on future volumes based on the titles Will had revealed for them, I proposed that Volume Six: Amour of the Rings might involve an arranged marriage plot for Rodrigo, as not only would it tie into his Tarot Arcana and cause conflict with his relationship with Ivan, but as the only noble among the Meddlesome Youths, he would be far more likely to become embroiled in such a plot than any of the others. Cue Wicked Witchcraft's first chapter, where Rodrigo has invited the now homeless Ivan into his family estate to spend the summer, and we learn that Rodrigo's parents wish for him to marry a noblewoman so that Rodrigo, being a seventh son, might produce seven children of his own and thus a luck child, further increasing the family's fortune and influence. In learning this, we also learn that Rodrigo has not told his parents of his and Ivan's relationship, or even that he is gay at all, with Rodrigo's mother even taking Ivan aside to request that he stop Rodrigo from courting any maidens during their studies.

As much as I would like to pat myself on the back for how seemingly right on the money I was for this prediction, that also got me thinking on what the exact specifics for Rodrigo hiding his sexuality from his parents might be, since from what we've seen in both this series and Will's other work set in this world, homophobia doesn't seem to be much of a thing in Midgaheim. We certainly how that transphobia is unfortunately alive and well, both implicitly from what James and Gretchen have said about their previous living situations, and explicitly from the Letharg coven insistently misgendering Gretchen up until a literal god calls them cringe for it. On the other hand, other than a gag about a sanitized translation of the Iliad recasting Achilles and his lover Patroclus as cousins, overt homophobia has yet to rear its ugly head, with Rodrigo and Ivan able to kiss in the middle of a public tavern in Calampen with nary a comment from passersby, and the occasional NPC in Will's Midgaheim campaigns casually displaying same sex attraction and courtship with no more mention from their respective peers.

So with that in mind, what would Rodrigo's parents think if they found out their son was gay? The answer could simply be that an old money family might the Cervantes could simply be old fashioned in that regard, but I think the true answer is less that such sexual preferences would be frowned upon and more that any nobles are simply expected to produce heirs to the family regardless of said preferences. I even envisioned something similar in my own WIP fantasy novel The Witch's Apprentice, as with my protagonist in that story being an openly bisexual man in his own medieval fantasy setting, I decided that LGBT+ people are generally accepted, but if one is set to inherit a family trade or property, the expectation would be for someone otherwise interested in the same sex to marry for the sake of producing an heir. So in Rodrigo's case, I imagine even if his parents knew he was gay their reaction would be less one of disowning him and more "okay son, you've had your fun, but now it's time you grew up and found a wife so you can start putting babies in her already."

...Wow, that was a lot of theorizing for what was supposed to just be addressing what from my previous theory had been confirmed true or false. So you know what, let's get these new theories started, starting with the least consequential one.

We Will Get Updated Character Art for Book Four

Look, not all of these are going to be about important plot details, all right? But in any case, as I was reading through the latest book, it occurred to me that a few of the Youths have updated their wardrobes since Will made their initial character art prior to Book One's release. Rodrigo has incorporated a cock hat bycocket into his usual getup, Margot gained a thunderbolt iron helm at the finale of book two to match her gauntlet, Ivan has swapped out his tattered old clothes for his late master Odolpho's old duds (likely the getup seen in the art above) after the gang... shall we say "liberated" them from Ross Weber's storefront, Serena learned to sustain her Dazzling Diamond form and the even frillier battle costume that comes with it, and most significant of all, Gretchen finally mastered James's Highly Refined Transformation spell and transitioned into her ideal body, giving away her face concealing garb to her new undead little brother Buddy. With that in mind, some new art for out heroes is probably warranted and besides, isn't the halfway point of the series the perfectly place to get our Naruto Shippuden/One Piece 3D2Y/Insert Anime Timeskip Here outfit redesigns?

The Plot of Creative Spellcraft Will Focus Around a Hocus "Infestation"

With the topic of homunculi personhood being brought to stark attention in the chapter following Maxeral's shattering at the hands of Buddy in the most recent instalment, it's become abundantly clear that that ongoing thread will be coming to a head in Book 4, which Will has since explicitly confirmed on his blog. So because I trust Will to approach this topic in a far more engaging way than just two characters screaming at each other about whether slavery is bad for half the book, that leaves the question of how it will figure into the plot. This is Wizard School Mysteries after all, and while our heroes are correct in thinking homunculi like Maxeral and Childe get a raw deal in life, it's no mystery, and it'll take a plot with more meat on it than that to make a story. So I believe that the main plot will not focus on gargoyles or mudmen or any of the other kinds of homunculi we've seen employed at the AAAM, but a different kind of homunculus entirely: hocuses.

Okay, this might need some explaining even to people who have read this books, since this kind of Midgaheim beastie hasn't been mentioned by name in this series yet and not everyone scours the internet for every scrap of lore Will's ever posted about this setting. Sometimes in Midgaheim, a wizard's magic will seep into their personal effects, usually their hats and cauldrons, creating a form of accidental homunculus, called hocuses in the former case and pocuses in the latter because who doesn't like wordplay? Will has at least confirmed that Ivan at least will have a hocus and a pocus in his roster of homunculi (the former of which I presume to be Odolpho's old hat as seen in the image for the above theory), but apart from that Will has capitalized on his penchant for designing a lot of his wizards' hats to resemble faces by drawing hocuses based on certain characters' hats, such as James's as seen above.

However, unlike intentionally created homunculi, hocuses are not seen as useful by wizards, from what Will has revealed about the critters. Quite the opposite in fact, as it's been stated that hocuses can leech off of their wizard's magic and even puppeteer their wearers to some extent. So if they started appearing at the AAAM in high numbers, they would be regarded as a pest to be exterminated by the wizards of the school. So I believe that something will cause the hats of the AAAM's staff and student to gain life as hocuses, and the Meddlesome Youths will be both investigating the cause of this event, and trying to convince their peers and teachers alike that the sentient hats are living beings as deserving of life as the wizards whose heads they sit upon. I imagine James in particular will have great reason to argue the hocuses' case, since we have already seen his hat act of its own accord to warn him of the curse placed on him in Book 2 to rig his match in the Ultimate Wizard Battle tournament, so of course upon learning that same hat is truly alive he will want to return that favour. I doubt the argument that convinces the AAAM to spare the animate headgear will just be one saving James's life, because "we should keep them around because they can be useful to us" is the exact kind of human-centric thinking that Will's writing tends to push back against, but I severely doubt his hat's kindness shall go forgotten, either.

Lornwig Kayjay Will Be a Minor Antagonist in Book Four

Okay, I should probably preface this by clarifying that I don't think this joke character Will made to both slag off both JK Rowling and that one kid in every college class will be in any way responsible for the wrongdoings the Youths will be solving in Book 4. After all, even divorced for the real world context behind this character's conception, at the end of the day Lornwig Kayjay is in universe just a classmate of our heroes who's just really racist against Midgaheim's fantastical peoples like fairies, ogres and the French. Someone that would be satisfying to see our heroes punch to be sure, but still quite the significant downgrade from fairy nobles, murderous wizard martial artists, and a satanic witch coven. So when I say this character will be an antagonist in the next instalment, I do not mean she will be the Big Bad, or even working on their behalf. In fact, I'm not even suggesting she will necessarily be a villain, as strictly speaking, an antagonist can be anyone who opposes the protagonist.

But why am I so insistent that this joke character who only gets a handful of scenes per book to her name at most is going to have an even remotely significant role in the coming volume? Well, as I was rereading Tournament of Death in the month leading up to Wicked Witchcraft's release, I'd gotten to the scene where Lornwig hits on Richard Rainsford (brief aside, but good thing her advances were unrequited; dude might be an unrepentant murderer, but he can do so much better), and she mentions that she enrolled at the AAAM two years prior. That would mean she was a third year student at the time, and is therefore in her fourth and final year as of Wicked Witchcraft, and with Creative Spellcraft taking place during the final semester of that same year, this will be the last book of the series she will likely appear in. And Will has even said that he plans to have this series move away from being a Harry Potter critique as it moves on, so having the expy of HP's author leaving the story at its halfway point make sense. So if Will ever planned to utilize this character in any significant manner, this next instalment is the last chance to do it.

So what antagonistic role do I think she'll be playing, then? Well, Will has made it very clear that this next volume will be where the question of homunculi autonomy comes to a head, and with our heroes being very much against the common consensus among wizards by considering the AAAM's homunculi to be people, there will of course be characters who voice that aforementioned consensus for them to push back against. We've already seen the AAAM's homunculi crafting teacher Castux Frey call Maxeral nothing more than a tool in need of repair, scoffing at the very idea of students and faculty paying respects to the recovering head of security. So it's fair to say that Professor Frey will likely be the main voice of this sentiment among the school faculty, but the Youths are likely to receive pushback on their progressive views from their peers as well, and I believe Lornwig Kayjay will be the primary voice of that.

Aside from the obvious meta joke of "ha ha, the JK Rowling expy's the one vouching for this world's version of her most yikes creative decision," what makes Lornwig especially suited to play such a role is that the ultimate root of Lornwig's particular brand of assholery has always been a human supremacist worldview. She spent the bulk of her Book 1 appearances insisting that fairies are uniformly evil and citing the multiple Goblin Wars as proof (an especially ghoulish thing to say when we've since learned that the First Goblin War was actually waged against a human wizard who just used goblins as his foot soldiers, and that at least the last two had the human side as the explicit aggressors, as seen in Will's Currents of War TTRPG campaign), and openly voicing that AAAM should be a humans only institution and other peoples should just "go to their own schools." Will this mean we'll see this character receive some form of comeuppance for her behaviour? I can't say for certain, but if so, we can at least be sure it won't involve implied sexual assault by centaurs unlike in other wizard school series I could mention. Will's got far more class than that.

Well, that was a lot of theorizing, so that should mean I'm done with these until Creative Spellcraft comes along and shows whether I was on the money, right? Well no, actually. Because my dumb hyperfixating brain just won't stop, there are actually still some theories I've formulated from what I believe to be Wicked Witchcraft's biggest revelations for future plot developments, as well as one I was going to include in that first post before I ran out of time, that concerns how this entire series might end. So tell you what, I'll split those into a post of their own, and just leave it this one here, because I've been chipping away at this post on and off in my drafts for weeks now, so I might as well just post this already. But in any case, see you next time!

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