Goodness I can’t believe how fast this episode flew by! When it ended I thought: HOLD UP WE’RE AT THE END ALREADY!? But it just shows how enjoyable it was!
Qifrey has taken Coco to his Atelier, where he’ll be teaching her, along with three other disciples how to wield magic. And no less than a day later, Qifrey has already entrusted Coco into her first lessons! Although she certainly possesses the ability to make fine, precise lines, the problem is that she’s not used to drawing with a pen. So much to her embarrassment, her lines aren’t as clean as she’d like them to be. Still, knowing how determined she is, and the fact she already has experience doing this, she’ll probably get the hang of it faster then her peers expect her to.
As for Qifrey, he certainly seems to be a gentle soul at heart, but he’s also very pragmatic and is locked in on the mission. However he does have a good reason not to waste any time with diving into the lessons right off the bat. Coco needs to learn magic in order to pass the Librarian Trial. This is needed in order to access the Tower of Tomes, where the Witches preserve the knowledge of all books related to magic. They are duplicated there the moment they are written. So the goal is to get to the tower and hopefully find a tome that can tell them what kind of Forbidden Magic Coco had cast while her memory is still fresh. Makes sense, considering the longer it takes, the harder it may be for her to remember the exact details.
Today, Qifrey also explained to us why the rule to erase people’s memories of witnessing magic existed.
In the old days, originally magic could be done by anyone as long as they knew the combination of specific patterns, and had specially made ink on hand. But the problem was that there were no ‘rules of conscience’, and when great power is limitless and left unchecked, ‘anything’ goes. As result, many horrific spells were created for malicious purposes and the world was consumed in lawlessness. These spells are known as Forbidden Magic was drawn with the intent to hurt people. For this reason, the moment the Day of the pact was established, it banned from usage.
The Day of Pact was formed by a group of individuals who wanted to end the conflicts and lawlessness united together as Witches. Their mission is to effectively in order erase the truth and knowledge about how one can wield magic from history and civilization as a whole. To do this, they are actively stripping people of their memories by taking away people’s memories of this. Only disciples who have sworn to protect and hold the secret are permitted to learn how to use magic. That is how the Day of the Pact came to be. It was arranged by individuals who wanted to end the conflicts and lawlessness by unifying together as Witches, with the purpose to take other people’s memories of magic.
I think it’s an understatement to say this is quite an extreme approach to attempting to establish law and order. But the biggest thing that stands out to be is the noticeable absence of structure or organization to establish such rules and guidelines for people to follow. And rather than cracking down on those who abuse the accessibility and the infinite possibilities of magic, the Witches ultimately decided Humanity as a whole was simply too irresponsible, selfish and utterly untrustworthy to have such power in their hands. It’s honestly sad considering those who wielded magic with good intentions and purposes like healing and bringing joy to others, the only way they’ll ever have access to do so if they are privileged enough to know how to get their foot in the door to be even considered a disciple or likely be dragged into it because of circumstances.
This is particularly why Agott is pretty annoyed to see Coco given basically a fast pass to apprenticeship. Disciples like her spent their entire lives learning how to draw Casting Seals over and over again till their fingertips turn black. They cannot become a disciple until they passed the tests. So to her, Coco is just an ordinary Outsider who knows nothing, and is incapable of becoming a Witch.
Similarly, we saw Tetia and Richeh momentarily express wariness of the fact Coco is the rumoured Outsider who cast the Forbidden Spell, and most importantly was given the special exception to keep their memories of doing so.
Actually speaking of the rumour, I did initially wonder how that got around so quickly since it hasn’t even been a full day since the incident. With how fast the word gotten around you’d think it had gone viral on social media! But the reason why so many caught wind of it was because Qifrey had to ask the head of the organization to give Coco a special exception to become his disciple. The others don’t know it yet, but again, it’s specifically because she has knowledge of the Picture Book and claims to have memorized the pictures by heart. They need this knowledge since this is their best source to build a lead to the individual that has been distributing them among ordinary people.
With all that being said, this was a great episode. I really appreciate how clear and easy to understand the world building run down was. Sometimes it’s overly complicated but the rules of magic is very straight-forward making it easy to remember. Coco really got her work cut out for her, but to her credit, despite her justifiable fear of practising magic, she’s eager to learn and instill the knowledge of every forbidden spell in existence so that she never repeats such mistakes again. The odds of saving her mother is slim, but until said otherwise, there’s still hope. For the mean time, Qifrey planted some Guard Briar Seeds around her home to act as a barrier since to her house was petrified by an unknown forbidden spell. This will keep people from getting too close to it as well. The one thing I do wonder though is whether or not the Witches have or will go around to erase the memories of those who know Coco’s family and business. I can’t imagine anyone would stay quiet if the house, Coco and her mother disappeared overnight, or if they see what had happened to their home and her mother.
