IRJE #2: Villains Make the Stories Happen

The School for Good and Evil, by Soman Chainani, is a series of 6 books in where 2 girls, Sophie and Agatha, are taken from their homes to the mystical school called The School for Good and Evil. Really, the school was actually 2 different schools, one magnificent, grand, and expensive school; the school for Good, and one run down, old, and dumpy school; the school for Evil. In the first 3 books, Sophie and Agatha go through their 3 years in the school, Sophie in training to be a princess, and Agatha trained to be a villain. In the last 3 books, their kingdom faces attack from the School Master, and they have to team up and defeat him. My quote is from the first book, though.

She had always found villains more exciting than heroes. They had ambition, passion. They made the stories happen. Villains didn’t fear death. No, they wrapped themselves in death like suits of armor! As she inhaled the school’s graveyard smell, Agatha felt her blood rush. For like all villains, death didn’t scare her. It made her feel alive.

This quote made me think deeply for a while when I read it, because I think there is a lot of meanings behind it. I think it demonstrates off the bat a different way of thinking. It makes you think about how villains affect the stories we read, and how if there were no villains, every hero we know wouldn’t be a hero, because they never saved anyone from anything.

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