100 pages • 3 hours read
Soman ChainaniThe School For Good and Evil
Soman ChainaniFiction | Novel | Middle GradeA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more. For select classroom titles, we also provide Teaching Guides with discussion and quiz questions to prompt student engagement.
Themes
Friendship and Betrayal
Agatha and Sophie’s friendship and its evolution in the story are the core of The School for Good and Evil. They endure numerous trials, going from friendship in Gavaldon to being placed in different schools to fighting over a guy and becoming nemeses to one friend’s dying for the other. The strength of their friendship is the true love that brings Sophie back to life and takes them back home. The question the book asks is whether a princess and a witch can be friends. The answer is a resounding yes.
Agatha and Sophie are shown from the beginning as opposites. Sophie is vain, snobby, has great ambition, is classically beautiful, and loves pink. In contrast, Agatha cares nothing for her looks, loves black, lives in a cemetery, and craves being ordinary. They are complete opposites, yet their friendship works because they understand each other. When Agatha accuses Sophie of being her friend only as a good deed, Sophie says, “You see who I am. That’s why I kept coming back. You’re not my good deed anymore, Agatha. [….] You’re my friend” (15). Sophie feels truly seen, understood, and loved by Agatha. Agatha loves Sophie because she is the first person who truly tried to be her friend and makes her feel like she belongs: “Because you make me feel ordinary [. . .] And that’s the only thing I’ve ever wanted” (16-17). The two girls have a deep connection and friendship. At the end of the first chapter, they both wish to be together because they care about each other.
However, their friendship is tested by the School for Good and Evil. Sophie always wanted to become a princess in the School for Good and meet a prince. When Sophie is put into the School for Evil, Agatha is no longer just her friend but an obstacle to getting what she wants. At every opportunity, Sophie betrays Agatha for her chance at Tedros and a fairy tale ending. Sophie is willing to betray Agatha and sacrifice their friendship repeatedly to get what she wants. After Sophie finally gets Tedros everything she ever wanted, she tells Agatha, “You need to make new friends, Agatha. [….] I have a prince now” (289). Sophie loves Agatha as long as Agatha doesn’t stand in her way. Meanwhile, all Agatha wants is to go home. Agatha knew Sophie was vain and ambitious before going to school, but she chooses to love her anyway. Despite Sophie’s many betrayals, Agatha doesn’t give up on Sophie, even to the very end. Agatha is a friend who is faithful and steadfast no matter what.
Because of Agatha’s steadfastness in the face of betrayal, Sophie has the strength to return to Good. When Sophie is faced with the chance to be with her Evil true love, she refuses it because she knows pure love in Agatha. Agatha’s love saves her, and Sophie saves her in return. When their true love’s kiss brings Sophie back to life, the friends return home together, shocking everyone. A princess and a witch, polar opposites, are friends who love and protect each other despite their differences.
The Complex Nature of Good and Evil
In a book titled The School for Good and Evil, it is no surprise that one of the main themes tackled is the idea of good and evil in fairy tales. Throughout the story, Chainani shows that the idea of people being completely Good or Evil is not as clear-cut as fairy tales would have people believe. Good and Evil are complicated because people’s actions and motives are muddled and complex; people are not all good or all bad. Chainani shows this through Sophie and Agatha’s placement in the “wrong” schools. Sophie believes she should be in the School for Good because she is beautiful. When Hort asks her why she believes she is not a villain despite substantial evidence to the contrary, she says, “I look in the mirror” (294). Sophie believes her outward appearance and obsession with looks make her worthy to be in Good, and this superficial view makes her overlook her evil actions. Lady Lesso makes Sophie question her beliefs when she says, “It doesn’t matter what we are, Sophie [. . .] It’s what we do” (355). Sophie believes she’s Good, but her actions prove otherwise.
Agatha seems like the perfect candidate for the School for Evil because she is described as ugly and alone, but Good and Evil run deeper than appearances. A person’s outward appearance doesn’t indicate their inner character qualities. This is made clear in Agatha and Professor Dovey’s conversation about beauty. Professor Dovey confronts Agatha’s idea that she doesn’t belong in Good because she doesn’t think she has a pretty face. After Professor Dovey gives her a fake makeover, Agatha realizes that it isn’t her outward appearance that determines her inner character: “But in the halls, she had believed something different. For a moment, she had unchained her heart and let light rush in [. . .] she had the truth to guide her. A truth greater than any magic. I’ve been beautiful all along” (381). Agatha has a breakthrough when she realizes that her Goodness isn’t based on her looks. She internalizes this truth and bolsters Beatrix in the battle against Evil when she wails about not being able to fight because she isn’t beautiful anymore. Agatha tells her, “Our towers aren’t Fair and Lovely! [….] They’re Valor and Honor! That’s what Good is, you stupid cowards” (473). Agatha is a reminder to Good that their character isn’t based on looks, but on action.
The idea of the School for Good and Evil putting students in different schools to make their souls pure is shown to be flawed because people aren’t just one thing. Agatha realizes the cruelty of the school during the Circus of Talents when she finds out the punishment for failing is to become a guard for the other school. She confronts the whole school about their ideas of Good and Evil: “We think we know what sides we’re on [….] We think we know who we are. We tear life apart into Good or Evil, beautiful or ugly, princess or witch, right or wrong [. . .] But what if there are things in between?” (423). Agatha says being Good or Evil is more complicated than being categorized as one or the other; that binary opposition doesn’t allow people to change or make mistakes. People are more complicated than those inflexible labels. When Sophie is dying and says she doesn’t want to be Evil, Agatha tells her she isn’t evil; she’s just human. In this modern fairy tale, humans aren’t purely good or purely evil; they are a complex blend of motives, talents, and desires.
Coming of Age and Identity
Sophie and Agatha are 12 years old at the beginning of the novel; the School Master kidnaps children who are 12 and older. The School for Good and Evil presents their journey of leaving home, growing up, and figuring out who they are and who they want to be. Their character arcs are coming-of-age storylines. At the beginning of the book, all Sophie wants to do is get out of Gavaldon to become someone who changes the world. She sees the School Master and the School for Good and Evil as her ticket to becoming a princess and living out a great fairy tale. Agatha wants just to stay home; home is safe, and she knows what to expect there. When they are kidnapped and placed in different schools, the girls are forced to confront who they are and grow into new versions of themselves.
Sophie has low self-awareness and thinks that her rightful place is in the School for Good. However, her ambition to be great and her inability to forgive and admit her own mistakes turn her against Agatha and lead her to start a war. When Sophie is faced with the impact of her actions, she changes: “Sophie stared at this war she had started, Good and Evil fighting now for nothing at all. ‘What have I done?’ she breathed. [ . . .] ‘Please,’ Sophie begged. ‘I want to be Good’” (483). Before realizing that what she had done was Evil, Sophie thought she was Good, and everyone else was wrong. After she sees the realities of her actions and accepts who she became, she decides she wants to change. This change indicates her character’s growth and leads her to save Agatha’s life.
In contrast to Sophie’s ambition, Agatha wanted only to live out her safe, comfortable existence in Gavaldon. When she confronts her mom about wanting her to go to the School for Good and Evil, her mom says, “‘My wish is that you get away from here,’ she hissed, eyes dark as coal. ‘This place has made you weak and lazy and afraid. At least I made something of myself here. You just waste and rot until Sophie comes to walk you like a dog’” (27). Agatha’s mom interprets her lack of ambition and reliance on Sophie as faults. These will be the things that Agatha has to come to terms with in the School for Good. At first, Agatha wants simply to return home. She fights her feelings for Tedros and her place of belonging in the School for Good. She returns to Sophie time and time again, even when Sophie betrays her. It isn’t until Professor Dovey tells Agatha that beauty isn’t related to Goodness, that Agatha realizes she was beautiful all along. When Agatha realizes that she is Good and can be her own person apart from Sophie, she accepts her feelings for Tedros and the possibility that her happy ending could be as a princess in a fairy tale. Agatha changes but still loves Sophie and saves her in the end. Although the girls return to Gavaldon together in the end, they go home changed, as they learned to accept the full richness and all the contradictions of their identities at school.
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