The School For Good and Evil

Agatha is the other protagonist in the story. In the beginning, she is a loner who lives in a cemetery, wears black, has an evil cat, and carries matches in her pocket. She is different, and everyone shuns her—except for Sophie, who befriends her as a good deed. But Sophie and Agatha become friends because Agatha sees Sophie for who she really is and loves her anyway, while Sophie makes Agatha feels ordinary. Agatha doesn’t believe in fairy tales like Sophie does or want to be kidnapped, as Sophie dreams of. When she sees a Shadow heading to Sophie, she bravely follows and tries to save her, which results in her being kidnapped as well. Agatha is dropped into the School for Good and immediately feels out of place next to all the beautiful girls. Her only desire is to go home where it is safe and comfortable and nothing has to change in her friendship with Sophie.

At first, Agatha is convinced a mistake put her in the School for Good, because she feels at home in Evil and understands the desire of a villain to be alone forever. After Sophie keeps rebuffing Agatha’s friendship and tells her to get her own life, Agatha is at a crossroads. Previously, Sophie made Agatha feel normal and loved; without her, Agatha doesn’t know who she is. Seeing Agatha’s struggle, Professor Dovey asks her about her ideas of goodness. Agatha says it’s a mistake that she is in the Good school because she doesn’t look beautiful. Professor Dovey challenges her ideas of good and gives her a pretend makeover that forces Agatha to reevaluate her perspective and realize that it’s what is inside that counts:

All these years she had believed she was what she looked like. An unlovable, dark-hearted witch. But in the halls, she had believed something different. For a moment, she had unchained her heart and let light rush in. Gently Agatha touched her face in the mirror, glowing from the inside. A face no one recognized because it was so happy. [….]  she had the truth to guide her. A truth greater than any magic. I’ve been beautiful all along (381).

Sophie’s rejecting her forces Agatha to embrace her Goodness and grow in self-confidence for the first time. Agatha is Good and doesn’t give up on Sophie, and her love leads Sophie to change and brings her back to life after she sacrifices herself. Agatha had to embrace her goodness and beauty and realize who she was apart from Sophie to become the best version of herself.

Tedros is the classically handsome fairy-tale prince and one of the main obstacles in Sophie and Agatha’s friendship. His presence and love tears them apart. He has blond hair, blue eyes, tan skin, and ripped muscles. Among all the Everboys, he stands out as the best at everything and the most handsome. To top it all off, he is the son of King Arthur, the ruler of Camelot. Girls fall at his feet, and boys want to be his friend, but he is burdened by his father’s mistakes. His father fell in love with Guinevere, a woman who only wanted the trappings of the King and not the real man. As soon as she could, she fell in love with someone else and ran off. Tedros vows that he will not be like his father; he wants a girl who sees the real him, not just his handsomeness or position. He doubts himself because of his father’s mistakes and because he chased the wrong girls in the past just because he could. He vows to be different at the School for Good.

Immediately, Tedros is drawn to Agatha but doesn’t know why, because she is rude to him and doesn’t fall at his feet. When he falls for Sophie, he thinks that he finally found his princess, but she lets him down and doesn’t fight for him. He is at a loss: He trusted his heart, and it was wrong. When he realizes that it was Agatha he fell for all along, he finally allows himself to acknowledge his feelings for her and ask her to the ball. He finally chose the right girl who sees him for who he really is, and all seems well for him until Sophie tricks him into believing Agatha betrayed him. Once again, Tedros thinks he’s like his father and decides to end his mistake by killing Agatha. Sophie stops him, but it’s too late. His true nature is revealed, and he grieves. Although this mistake makes him listen to Agatha for the first time, he doesn’t get his happy ending because his princess disappears with her friend the witch, leaving him empty-handed once again.

The School Master is the unseen villain for most of the story who moves behind the scenes like a puppet master to get what he wants, which is Sophie. He is introduced as a shadowy character, a person who kidnaps two children from the town of Gavaldon every four years and puts them in a fairy tale. It is revealed that years before, there were two School Masters: a Good Brother and an Evil Brother. They protected the balance of Good and Evil until the Evil one got greedy and started the Great War. One brother died, and the other survived, but no one is sure which one died. For most of the novel, the question of which brother the School Master is remains a mystery.

After he kidnaps Sophie and Agatha, they are determined to go back home. When they make it to his tower, he doesn’t send them home; instead, their fairy tale starts, and he gives them a riddle. He promises if a princess and a witch are truly friends in the end, they can go home. This promise sends Agatha and Sophie on their quest to get Tedros to kiss Sophie and ultimately tears them apart. In the end, the School Master reveals that he is the Evil brother. He killed his brother to have full control of the Storian and make sure Evil always won. His plan backfired, and he ruined the balance between Good and Evil, so Good always won. He embarked on a quest to find a pure Evil love to conquer Good’s love, which led him to Sophie. When Sophie rebuffs him, he decides to kill Agatha, because she is an obstacle to his love, but Sophie sacrifices herself for her. His brother’s spirit comes back to life and kills him, putting an end to his villainous ways.

Hester is Sophie’s roommate who plays both antagonist and friend to Sophie and Agatha throughout the novel. In Hester’s first encounter with Sophie, she pins Sophie over their window and taunts her to prove that she’s good. When Sophie responds that she’s beautiful and they’re ugly, Hester says she’s definitely a villain. Their relationship goes downhill as Hester is jealous of Sophie’s number-one Evil ability and the favoritism shown to her by teachers. Hester wants to be Evil Captain, so she sees Sophie as a threat. When Sophie decides she wants to go home after visiting the School Master, Hester helps her to get her out of the way. But she also shows Sophie compassion after her heart is broken by Tedros. Hester comforts her and helps her prank Evil. Hester is a leader in the School for villainy, and the school rallies around her when she puts a bounty on Sophie’s head in the Trial. When Sophie invites all the Nevers to the ball, Hester is the one who rallies the troops. After Agatha breaks into the ball, Hester welcomes her, but when she is allowed to help stop the war between the Evers and the Nevers, Hester chooses not to because of the ways she was hurt in the past. In the end, she redeems herself by helping Agatha climb the tower to save the school from the School Master. Hester has many roles within the narrative, and she is shown to be complicated and not truly Evil because at many moments, she is Good.

Dot is another one of Sophie’s roommates. Dot has an affinity for chocolate, and her special talent is being able to turn anything she touches into chocolate. She is a kind Never who likes Sophie immediately and befriends her. She defends Sophie to her other roommates and is not very good at school, so she consistently gets low grades. She wants to be liked and accepted, but Sophie calls her fat even after Dot makes sure she doesn’t fail a challenge in class. Dot’s kindness in Evil is a bad thing; she is forced out of her room by her roommates and has to live in the Ever boys’ bathrooms because no one will take her in. However, in the end, her kindness is an asset, because she saves Hester from dying although Hester treated her horribly. Dot is an example of how people cannot be categorized as all Good or all Evil; rather, she is a kind Never.