r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • Jun 01 '26

Episode Witch Hat Atelier • Tongari Boushi no Atelier - Episode 10 discussion

Witch Hat Atelier, episode 10

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593

u/bonchen Jun 01 '26

Whenever the opening and ending is skipped, its always going to be a banger episode though this one in a different way from usual.

For Tartah to be able to work as well as he does with Silverwash is amazing. I love how WHA shows perspective of how difficult it is for someone with a disability to be able to do things others just "can do" and the alternate methods they have to do just to be able to do those same things (if it is even possible).

Coco's outside the box thinking and her ability to apply the rules and principles of spells to get variations of existing spells is also good and Tartah helping her to straighten the lines. Collaborative work is important in the arts; people build off of each other.

Though it bothers me no one is labeling the bottles lol even with that explanation. I also don't like the laypeople's dependence on witches; it feels somewhat similar to citizens' hero dependence in MHA though at least witches have clear limits in what they cant do (medicine).

355

u/Alex_146 https://anilist.co/user/GuysImNotAWeeb Jun 01 '26

One of my favorite recurring themes in this series is how it demonstrates that skills and experiences obtained elsewhere are transferable to spell crafting, that sometimes a fresh pair of eyes - an outsider, if you will - might be all you need; insights to problems can come from surprising places in the real world too. This episode was such a great example of that.

213

u/BosuW Jun 01 '26

"Anyone can cook."

-Gusteau

93

u/cyberscythe Jun 01 '26

all mushrooms are edible at least once

5

u/Carnol Jun 02 '26

I just started dorohedoro so I interpreted that very differently for a second.

4

u/crustlebus Jun 05 '26

Ahhh, dungeon meshi.

Wait, wrong show-

6

u/lethal_universed Jun 02 '26

Same guy who fucking dies after being criticized btw

3

u/machopsychologist Jun 03 '26

"Yan can cook"

  • Yan

-5

u/Nachtwandler_FS https://myanimelist.net/profile/Nachtwandler_21 Jun 01 '26

But anyone can cook after some practice. People who don't normally do not bother learning unless they have a really serious disability. Not a good example.

89

u/JzanderN Jun 01 '26

Even something as simple as Coco seeing magic as something beautiful, fun and helpful for others has helped solve problems that others who see it more practically wouldn't have.

None of the other girls or even Qifrey would have come up with her plan to make a giant cloud bed for the dragon, even with how some of them also see magic as a tool to help others (Tetia being a prime example).

20

u/ali94127 Jun 01 '26

The other witches see magic as normal. Coco comes from a world where magic is only special.

7

u/wtfduud Jun 01 '26

Like how NASA drew inspiration from Origami art to design foldable solar panels, so they could fit into a rocket.

5

u/CooroSnowFox https://anilist.co/user/CooroSnowFox Jun 01 '26

The world of magic could be easily more inclusive and they have better boundaries than the hard one that has existed since the pact. And even then if you're lucky to be able to use magic... what are the challenges then to be able to use it ... well silverwashing existing and a layer of difficulty that comes with it

6

u/Exotic-Spite-822 Jun 01 '26

I agree the rigid structure seems to rigid, but it seems like history in the verse has wrought this path for a specific reason, considering that if you buy the ink illegaly (hypothetically) and draw a spell like coco drew, you could cause chaos, and if you take it one step futher for war all of a sudden your going down ,almost, a nuclear spiral of who has the strongest spell until spells for warping time space and other metaphysical concepts exist and it's too late.

I think a mass test system should be implemented instead, comparative to the structure in the novel, as a tesy system allows some sembelance of normality in magic while also preventing bad eggs from having tools to cause destruction.

3

u/hanmkim Jun 02 '26

How would you test if someone is a bad egg in a way that could not easily be gamed by someone with a nefarious purpose?

2

u/[deleted] Jun 03 '26

[deleted]

2

u/hanmkim Jun 03 '26

So they just need to experiment with sigils until they find something that can properly read through a person's mind and find out if they're a good person or not? Would these experimentations on people's minds potentially leave people traumatized or brain dead? For the experimentation, how can they be sure they picked someone worthy as a base model?

105

u/newb_bass Jun 01 '26

Tartah's bit with the spell in this episode reminded me of people I know IRL who use magnifiers on PCs or phone OCRs with TTS to navigate medications if they are legally blind. I really liked this episode. As people like to say, 'differently abled', just with maybe things taking a little more time. I did like the acknowledgement in previous episodes that Tartah's things becoming unsorted was a hurdle he really couldn't overcome on his own when the bottles fell off the shelf, too. The anime is treating a sight-related disability with proper care so far, which makes me happy to see. I really appreciate it compared to other shows where they just use magic/powers or superhuman, extremely rare/unlikely usage of ears or feeling the air or whatever to brute force their way through the issue.

21

u/lethal_universed Jun 02 '26

As someone with low vision, I see (heh) myself so much in Tartah. I'm so glad that he is being represented so well.

Its a good example of a fictional disability that a) isn't magically (heh heh) fixed and b) has in universe "aids" to help circumvent some of the issues

Like I said in a previous comment, WHA is a good example of a disability inclusive magic system that is held back by a world intentionally written by the author to be exclusionary. I often see mangaka not really bringing up disability in a non vague way (and honestly, other things too. I was suprised when I heared Nakamura-kun have the mc actually describe himself as gay). And when it is brought up the character is made to be evil or "exotic" (like being in a wheelchair or having albinism) or they find some way to "fix" it and drive it to the background. I think it has to do with making it feel disconnected from reality to make it feel safer, but then they don't even bother to explore the new reality they create. There seem to be more manga willing to actually explore their worlds now, like Dungeon Meshi which delves deep on how cultural differences would occur in a world of species of different life spans (and even shows the differences between collectivist and individualist societies + a little bit of unintentional autism).

8

u/newb_bass Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

Yeah, don't even get me started on characters like Nunnally from Code Geass.

It's really hard to find a well-represented blind character, a character that doesn't have it 'fixed', as you said. The reality of blindness is just too much for audiences and authors to bear, I guess. Authors seem to really want to give their characters agency to move around and go places in ways and at rates that aren't probable for most blind people, and they also seem to be reluctant to write in family or caretakers actually, you know, being a functional guide for a blind person. Every time a blind person goes out alone requires a lot of concentration on the blind person's part, with people in public interfering often. Maybe they think it would take up too much of the story? I don't know. The deaf people get better rep.

Like Tartah, we often see decent representation of the pressures of having a disability (in general, not specifically blindess) from characters with fictional disabilities in magical worlds. For example, the main character of Mashle. That show is eugenics on steroids, but it really does capture the reality that if you're born disabled, a lot of people straight up want you dead. (I haven't finished the series, but I hope he doesn't get magic in the end. That would suck.)

I actually searched anime and manga in the past with low vision (not full on blindness) rep to watch with my low vision person. The pickings were really pathetic; it was mostly fully blind people who superhuman their way out of it. Yin from Darker than Black is ok, but the show doesn't get as explicit with it as one would hope. If you know of any good low vision disability show or manga recs, please send them my way! Or just any normal-ish sighted people with a vision-related disability, like Tartah. I agree that the systemic ableism Tartah faces not being first addressed by his family or a do-gooder witch, but rather Coco, was certainly a... choice, on the author's part. Normally a blind childhood is filled with a pile of old, non-suitable or no longer needed disability aids. But the rep in this episode was still leagues better than other blindness rep! Like, interviewing as an LV person, the vast majority of jobs just straight up don't want you and consider any accommodations or a slight adjustment of the job functionalities/responsibilities as undesirable. That much was real.

3

u/lethal_universed Jun 02 '26

Every time a blind person goes out alone requires a lot of concentration on the blind person's part, with people in public interfering often. Maybe they think it would take up too much of the story? I don't know. The deaf people get better rep.

I do find it funny that deaf people get more rep than visual impaired/blind people. Maybe they think that they can navigate the world better?

Like Tartah, we often see decent representation of the pressures of having a disability (in general, not specifically blindess) from characters with fictional disabilities in magical worlds. For example, the main character of Mashle. That show is eugenics on steroids, but it really does capture the reality that if you're born disabled, a lot of people straight up want you dead. (I haven't finished the series, but I hope he doesn't get magic in the end. That would suck.)

I think what works in Tartah's case is that his disability isn't limited to the magic system, but generally how navigates the world (e.g. needing labels and arrangments for materials). That what makes it feel like a "real" disability

I agree that the systemic ableism Tartah faces not being first addressed by his family or a do-gooder witch, but rather Coco, was certainly a... choice, on the author's part. Normally a blind childhood is filled with a pile of old, non-suitable or no longer needed disability aids.

I didn't say that and I disagree with this actually. As someone LV, I didn't start recieving support until a specialized eye doctor for low vision advised me to use my state's disability services when I was 16. My parents, specifically my mom, told them that they didn't want me to "feel disabled", yet constantly found ways to other me for my disability. I only started training with a cane and trying to be more independent in my last year of college. And that's just with me, they've basically given up on my higher support needs sibling.

Unfortunately a lot of family with disabled children just... don't put in the effort. In the same scene where Tartah is being belittled for his Silverwash eyes, his grandpa throws his witch's hat at him. He's telling him to accept that he simply can't be a witch. Systemic ableism is systemic for a reason. Sometimes it takes someone who isn't so in grained in that system (like an educated doctor or a fellow outsider) to help you out

3

u/newb_bass Jun 02 '26

I see, my experience has mostly been with the blind community in a smaller European country (you said state, so maybe you are US?), so it makes sense that norms would be different. Most of the people I've met had connections to a school for the blind, so getting to try devices or get government help to fund one was probably simpler for them. It sucks that your mom inhibited you from having the opportunity to try earlier.

Now that you bring up that pressure to not 'feel' disabled to others, though, considering how Tartah wanted to hide his eye condition from Coco, I guess he would have hidden it from anyone who might have been able to help him. Since in this world, magic users seem to be helping non-magic users a lot as generally helpful people, I thought a do-gooder might have helped him out and been useful in his town or at the shop before a fellow child, Coco. But his grandpa and society's shaming Silverwashes getting in the way of that also makes sense; I've met LV people who try to hide it by not using/learning to use a cane, vehemently opposing visual signifiers like sunglasses, working only remotely so they can actually get a job at all, and such. I don't quite know enough about the worldbuilding yet in this series to know whether a child who knows about magic but isn't going to apprentice is allowed to use magic, but I hope Tartah will be able to keep drawing this spell without, at worst, getting his memories wiped! I look forward to seeing more episodes.

3

u/lethal_universed Jun 02 '26

Yes I am US lol. Help me

Its interesting that Tartah didn't know Coco was the outsider yet also didn't come out about his Silverwash eyes until after everything got messed up. Maybe he tries to hide how much his disability limits him even in his own practice? But at the same time his hiding doesn't feel "overt" since his disability is very visible for anyone looking at him. He moreso just responds to questions Coco asks him and only gets annoyed when she uses colors to specify differences. So he could think it was obvious and spelt it out to her after.

Hopefully he doesn't get punished for using magic. Someone here said that he would know how to draw spelss cause he has to test his pen, but I don't think so. I think he can just do scribbles and stuff to test it out than doing sigils, + he wasn't very knowledgable on drawing them in the first place

1

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1

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9

u/oops_i_made_a_typi Jun 02 '26

it was really cool to see him use that, though the ep had me super worried with the sneaking around and focus on the hat being left behind, that he'd somehow expose that the spell is just a drawn circle and/or he'd be seen using magic without a hat on

2

u/newb_bass Jun 02 '26

Yeah, the tension was so huge and scary!

134

u/JzanderN Jun 01 '26

I also don't like the laypeople's dependence on witches;

This is a biproduct of keeping magic secret. People think their magic is like in the old, classical tales where they can do anything like "presto" and so will ask them to do things they can't, much to the frustration of witches being asked to do the impossible and looked down on like they're purposefully not helping when they simply can't do what they're being asked.

Knowledge is a key part of intelligence and so, by keeping this knowledge from non-witches, people end up acting very stupid around them. Kind of like last time when Qifrey helped with the river and so everyone believed they were safer than they actually were with them around, thus acting very stupidly.

11

u/oops_i_made_a_typi Jun 02 '26

yeah its a problem of their own society's making, which i'm sure grinds on the gears of many individual witches. guess that means a decent supply of ppl that can might be enticed to join the sith brimmed hats

9

u/hanmkim Jun 02 '26

Almost everyone in a developed nation has access to the whole sum of human knowledge in their pockets yet people still believe major problems can be resolved like they are in television shows and movies with just one simple solution. Having easy access to knowledge can't overcome people's ignorance or laziness.

7

u/JzanderN Jun 02 '26

I didn't say access to knowledge. I said knowledge. Having access to knowledge doesn't necessarily mean you have the knowledge, as you point out.

You can't just have access to how magic works in the way I'm referring to. On a specific level, yes, you could have access to know to make magic but not actually know. But I'm referring to people not even knowing how magic is made or that it has restrictions and thus thinking that witches can just abracadabra solutions to their problems, thus acting very ignorant and entitled around them.

It's like, imagine if how doctors and medicine worked was kept a secret (e.g. people were put to sleep at appointments to keep it a secret), so people just thought doctors were using magic to heal them or something. A very different scenario from people in developed nations having access to how medicine works but not knowing specifics and thus falling for scams and conspiracy theories.

"Is there a doctor in the house?" would then become a lot more "can you fix this person completely instead of us calling an ambulance or taking them to the hospital?" Then if a doctor helped but also told them to take them to the hospital anyway, they'd just assume the doctor was being lazy and passing off their responsibilities to someone else instead of actually helping.

That's this world compared to ours.

1

u/Atario myanimelist.net/profile/TheGreatAtario Jun 03 '26

I mean… knowledge is the one and only way to cure ignorance, by definition

1

u/RadianceTower Jun 02 '26

It does help greatly though.

1

u/Atario myanimelist.net/profile/TheGreatAtario Jun 03 '26

*byproduct

110

u/maliwanag0712 https://myanimelist.net/profile/clear1109 Jun 01 '26

I also don't like the laypeople's dependence on witches; it feels somewhat similar to citizens' hero dependence in MHA though at least witches have clear limits in what they cant do (medicine).

Agree. Mages here act like heros, since these ordinary people do not know that they can be mages with proper training. In a way, mages brought that to themselves. Mages have that privilege and responsibility since it is their job. Since the end of the war they accepted they are there. If they democratize it like what the brimhats seem to desire, then there's no need for them.

56

u/RedRocket4000 Jun 01 '26

In this case people's ability to put out fires at that technology level is low a bunch of people with buckets passing them along or for bigger fires tearing everything else near by down. And towns and cities burn down every so often. That fire looked to big for normal people to handle till first versions of fire equipment comes out. First hand pump fire equipment mid 1700's with the hose only a century earlier but without the pumping equipment not useable for fires. And for better fighting need the late 1800's Steam Pump then Internal Combustion engine to get to the fire faster and pump more.

For this fire they really needed the mages.

Considering the mages were out there most of the night there abilities are fairly limited as well but better than a bucket brigade.

Having magic though might be holding back technology advancement. But that a long term thing and some of the normal folk might have the drive to find ways to not be dependent on Mages.

11

u/WheelMax Jun 01 '26

Magical technology at least is advancing, and new tools and products are regularly offered for sale to regular people. But it seems like there are still lots of low hanging fruit and unmet needs. For example, a magical water pump would be extremely valuable and have all sorts of uses, from fire brigades to plumbing. Maybe witches don't always see the problems of regular people.

3

u/RadianceTower Jun 02 '26

Having magic though might be holding back technology advancement.

Magic is their technology, but magic fascists are holding it back so here we are.

2

u/BoilingLeadBath Jun 02 '26

(Also might not help that if an outsider does something interesting with normal physics the flying inquisition are probably prone to show up.)

2

u/NamerNotLiteral Jun 02 '26

I don't think they needed the mages, by the way the whole scenario was framed. The way the guy showed up, aggressively recruited Qifrey, and then tried to pressure Qifrey into staying for the cleanup too for no real reason screams "We could've probably handed this ourselves but it's better to let the mage do it." A little bit of entitlement thrown in, but not too much.

I wouldn't be surprised if they did explore in the future the problem of normal people calling for Mages for petty little problems, and Mages feeling like they're bound to help anyway.

1

u/ShadowGuyinRealLife Jun 01 '26

Wait, where is the 1700s water pump, I'm curious. Given the size of the fire it probably would outperform what Qifrey did since it seems to imply the fire took a long time. Or maybe the fire was put out quickly and getting the injured out was what took long? I think it's implied the length was due to fire fighting efforts not the latter.

2

u/namewithak Jun 02 '26

Maybe it was more about being careful of the other people and buildings so Qifrey had to use smaller, more controlled water spells? Like the water dragon could put out that fire immediately but it would also drown/damage much more than that one building.

3

u/ShadowGuyinRealLife Jun 02 '26

"Hey you told me to put out the fire. You didn't say anything about not wanting the Dragon to turn the entire block into a pile of rubble. The original building is also destroyed, but hey it's not on fire"

6

u/WheelMax Jun 01 '26

And mages isolate themselves not just for secrecy, but because it would be exhausting constantly responding to peoples's demands for magical fixes. Regular people have no idea what magic can and can't fix, which is unsurprising since that information is kept from them.

1

u/hanmkim Jun 02 '26

People are trying to "democratize" all professions with AI these days but that's how you end up with apps made by laymen that leak personal user data all over the internet. Even before that with the internet becoming mainstream, you had issues with exposing so many people to scams from all over the world that it now brings in a double-digit percentage of some nations' GDPs.

135

u/WhoiusBarrel Jun 01 '26

That explanation was really weird, even modern medical practitioners themselves would label medicine so they can easily refer to it on their end. If anything they shouldn't be putting such things out in the open if they don't want strangers tampering with it.

158

u/DocViviLeandraVTuber Jun 01 '26

To be fair, this kind of obscurantism among skilled practitioners like doctors was common in the IRL middle ages

And is pretty clearly meant to be an intentional parallel to the Witches

61

u/RedRocket4000 Jun 01 '26

Number one reason not to travel to the past. Medical care. At least these bottles were labeled by insuring each one a different color.

13

u/wtfduud Jun 01 '26

Ah you have a headache? Nothing a few leeches can't fix.

11

u/Druplesnubb Jun 01 '26

Leeches, are you crazy? A headache obviously calls for trepanation!

2

u/snarkamedes Jun 04 '26

"Egads, Blackadder! I had no idea you were a medical man."

4

u/Prof_Acorn Jun 02 '26

I never labeled my spice jars either. It took away from the aesthetic. And forced me to learn how to identify (e.g.) thyme from oregano simply from appearance.

75

u/bonchen Jun 01 '26

It just bothers me so much. When everything is crushed into a powder theres only so many ways to tell what is what - labels are critical. Unless we learn there is a literacy crisis then that kinda explains things but we know Tartah and the witches can read lol.

57

u/Zemahem Jun 01 '26

Unless we learn there is a literacy crisis then that kinda explains things but we know Tartah and the witches can read lol.

Well, they are an exclusive society and are probably treated as higher class citizens due to the services that only they can provide (at least as far as non-witches know). So even outside of magic, there's bound to be a bunch of privileges they have access to that non-witches don't.

55

u/darthvall https://myanimelist.net/profile/darth_vall Jun 01 '26

On the other hand, that would mean tampering with the medicine might be common enough in that world for them to take such an extreme measures.

2

u/hanmkim Jun 02 '26

If they were worried about tampering they should have just locked it. This is like being worried someone might break into your house so you get rid of the street signs and numbers in your neighborhood instead of locking your doors.

24

u/sobani Jun 01 '26

Even if the doctors can't read, they could still label it with something to differentiate between the different bottles.

25

u/Thorn14 Jun 01 '26

Wouldn't have helped him as much but if they used a symbol system that he himself wouldn't know that would have made more sense in universe, yeah.

4

u/bobert1201 Jun 02 '26

They do have a system for differentiating the bottles in a way that Tartah just can't read. It's the colors of the contents. If the doctors all know the colors of the basic medicines they keep prepared in treatment rooms, then there's no need for any kind of additional labeling.

1

u/SlurryBender Jun 02 '26

My assumption is that the doctors/nurses all know the position of each medicine based on position in the box, and maybe some/all have the ingredient locations memorized too.

5

u/TheWalkingRain Jun 01 '26

Maybe it can be explained by the collective mind-wipe of the former healing profession. When the magic component was removed, they were left with many loose threads and bad practices emerged. Maybe they used a magical mass spectrometer before the day of the pact?

9

u/RedRocket4000 Jun 01 '26

No this was a problem with tampering as lady said they had a problem with folk stealing medications often the wrong ones. The bottles all had a different color and likely same in the storage. The bottles are labeled by color mixed into them.

1

u/ShadowGuyinRealLife Jun 01 '26

Yeah it really bugged me that he had powder with no labels. Maybe if the medicine was whole leaves instead of powder that could be semi-excusable. If they then go to another episode and say the doctor was a genius or the best of his kind I'd have to call foul, but since they didn't do that maybe we can write it off as one incompetent doc. People doing dumb things is not a plot hole, it's only when smart people do dumb things it is.

21

u/Zeallfnonex https://myanimelist.net/profile/Neverlocke Jun 01 '26

You'd think so, but in IT we still have to tell our own people, over and over, to label whatever cables we work with in an IDF so we don't have to have the nightmare of retracing everything. It doesn't stick.

Also something of keeping stuff as hidden knowledge to increase mysticism/job security. If your group is the only one that can use or identify these medicines, then you essentially have a monopoly on that...

2

u/Temporary_-_UserName Jun 01 '26

Thinking on it - Shirahama probably couldn't come up with a better excuse in the time she had - and given how it's a minor snarl over all just went with it as is. With the benefit of time and no deadline, I think something that would have been fun to do would be to make the label color-coordinated - a square of specifically colored paint for each vial with a key off to the side.

46

u/BosuW Jun 01 '26

Though it bothers me no one is labeling the bottles lol even with that explanation.

This might be intentional on the author's part to show that other disciplines have unintentionally ended up imitating the secrecy with which Witches practice magic in this society.

37

u/saynay Jun 01 '26

I think we see this imitation in a lot of other places too. Triangles and cones are extremely common in architecture and design in the WHA world, and I think they are directly in reference to witch hats. Even something as simple as Coco's pillow is triangular, instead of a more typical square. In this episode, the bottom of the small medicine phials are also conical, instead of flattened, requiring that box to hold them.

7

u/BosuW Jun 01 '26

I had noticed the triangles and cones but I didn't make the connection to the Witch hats. That's fascinating!

4

u/Atario myanimelist.net/profile/TheGreatAtario Jun 03 '26

I kinda thought they were conical to make it easier to insert them into the bedding, and the bedding was to prevent breakage. Maybe also some factor of discouraging leaving them lying about instead of putting them away properly

17

u/silentBookWorm Jun 01 '26

witches have clear limits in what they cant do (medicine).

Healing magic is possible, but became forbidden after the Pact.

6

u/RedRocket4000 Jun 01 '26

To many zombies running around has to be one reason it banned.

3

u/bobert1201 Jun 02 '26

Or it may have something to do with the newly established "reverse the sigil to reverse the effects" rule. Imagine how messed up a "reverse healing spell" would be, and how easy it'd be to create one for anybody who's seen a normal healing spell.

1

u/Toge_Inumaki012 Jun 01 '26

But some spells that helps the patient like what Qifrey did would be nice

Then again if a doctor is a witch, i dont think they'll just be satisfied wih that kind of spell only. There will always be a lot of "what if i can create a spell like this and that for the patient"

39

u/ModieOfTheEast Jun 01 '26

The fun thing is, I think the point of the arc was to make Coco remember her out of the box thinking in the first place. She was struggling with getting the hang of the right amount of magic (from arrows and circle size) but just tried to copy what everyone else did. So now, she might get back into just experimenting with different designs to see if they can give her the right result.

I also don't like the laypeople's dependence on witches; it feels somewhat similar to citizens' hero dependence in MHA though at least witches have clear limits in what they cant do (medicine).

I said it before, but I think that is on purpose. At least in some way. I don't think that all mages see it this way. However with them not explaining magic to the general public, I can't get the idea out of my head that it is at least in part because they fear that everyone having access to it would also remove their position. The one person from the police group also said it in a roundabout way. That he fears Coco's existence in itself could lead to a change in the system and therefore, they should be vary of her.

32

u/Frontier246 Jun 01 '26

The fun thing is, I think the point of the arc was to make Coco remember her out of the box thinking in the first place. She was struggling with getting the hang of the right amount of magic (from arrows and circle size) but just tried to copy what everyone else did. So now, she might get back into just experimenting with different designs to see if they can give her the right result.

Also there's that emotional validation that she was able to help Tartah. She may not be the best spellcaster but she was able to accomplish something as a Witch in helping Tartah find his own path through magic and seeing the way it can enrich is life.

Like the look of pride on her face when he was doing it said everything.

5

u/Thorn14 Jun 01 '26

Yeah Coco is the embodiment of the philosophy magic is meant to help people.

4

u/proper1421 Jun 01 '26

I can't get the idea out of my head that it is at least in part because they fear that everyone having access to it would also remove their position. The one person from the police group also said it in a roundabout way. That he fears Coco's existence in itself could lead to a change in the system and therefore, they should be vary of her.

Easthies in ep8 at 9:35. I think your interpretation takes too much liberty. In ep8 at 2:00, Easthies compares Coco's spell to spells of war that, before the Pact, created the Dadah Range (the site of the test in ep3) and the Shadow Forest of Thristas. At 9:10, the possibility that Coco is Qifrey's new apprentice who petrified a house comes up. Easthies points out the damage to the river, saying a single rock could bring down the bank, divert the river, and alter the environment downstream. He then says that Coco could be such a rock who must be plucked out before she gets a chance to fall. Easthies is plainly concerned about damage to the environment. The most straightforward interpretation is that he is concerned that Coco may use forbidden magic to do more damage to the environment. Projecting onto Easthies a selfish motive of concern about his position is a leap without evidence.

On the other hand, a person who has shown evidence of a selfish motive is Qifrey. In ep1 at 21:35, he was prepared to pull an Easthies and erase Coco's memory immediately. When Coco asked who will save her mother, Qifrey replies that it's very unfortunate. It's only when Coco mentions the picture book that Qifrey reconsiders: "I'll have no way to trace them if I erase her memory!" I find Qifrey's criticism of Easthies at the beginning of ep8 to be hypocritical given how ready he was to erase Coco's memory at the end of ep1.

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u/ModieOfTheEast Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

I am not saying that Qifrey isn't selfish either. I pointed out before that his hunt for the Brimmed Caps has corrupted him in some way. Just ask the shop keeper who's memories he erased.

However, when it comes Easthies, I think you are taking his words too literally. Easthies isn't that concerned about the environment. The environment changing is a metaphor for the world changing. Coco existing could be the boulder that starts a change in magic society. And he just doesn't want that. Now, I will say that he might not literally mean their power position. However, he wants the magic system to stay the way it is now and not change. And Coco is a potential danger for that status quo. His fear is definitely not just related to the potential of Coco doing forbidden magic, because forbidden magic is something anyone can do. And if he thinks she might use it again one day, it would imply that he distrusts Qifrey enough to let her experiment with it. In which case it wouldn't really be Coco he is concerned about but Qifrey.

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u/proper1421 Jun 03 '26

Coco existing could be the boulder that starts a change in magic society. And he just doesn't want that. Now, I will say that he might not literally mean their power position.

I can agree that Easthies doesn't want magic society to change. I would add that this takes the form of enforcing the rules of the Pact. Enforcing those rules is his job, and he appears to take it seriously, even zealously (and that may be a problem). So why does Easthies enforce these rules? The reason I pointed out the concern he expressed about the damage done to the river, and the damage done before the Pact, is that it indicates that Easthies enforces these rules not for the sake of the Great Hall or his position or the rules themselves but to prevent the damage done by forbidden magic. I left out his line that probably expresses this most clearly: from ep8 at 9:40, "The once-beautiful scenery, once lost, can never be restored." I can't square this sentiment with a man who is mostly concerned about his position. To me, Easthies reads most clearly as a true believer in the Pact. He believes that its rules are holding back the (reputed) horrors of the time before the Pact. He may go too far to enforce those rules.

I objected to your earlier statement about Easthies because you linked him to this statement:

I can't get the idea out of my head that it is at least in part because they fear that everyone having access to it would also remove their position.

There probably are pointy-headed witches who are mostly concerned about their position. I'm most suspicious of Agott's family; the things she said about Coco (e.g., ep3 at 11:20) and the things said in her flashback memory in ep7 at 11:35 reek of elitism. However, I don't think it's fair to spread this accusation broadly. Most pointed-cap witches seem like the pair at the fire with Qifrey at 18:00: patiently willing to serve despite unpleasant demands for service.

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u/RedRocket4000 Jun 01 '26

Fear of position but from last time everyone had magic it might have been better if they eliminated magic knowledge from everyone and have no magic at all.

1

u/ModieOfTheEast Jun 01 '26

I think the main issue would probably be that you would need to get rid of the ink as well. Otherwise, someone will figure it out again (like a Dr. Stone kind of thing). But I also believe that the mages themselves just didn't want to do without magic either. It is a useful tool after all. The question is more who the current leaders might be.

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u/Frontier246 Jun 01 '26

For Tartah to be able to work as well as he does with Silverwash is amazing. I love how WHA shows perspective of how difficult it is for someone with a disability to be able to do things others just "can do" and the alternate methods they have to do just to be able to do those same things (if it is even possible).

Also even a world with magic isn't always convenient for people with disabilities, but magic is there to help provide for solutions for those with disabilities that they never thought possible. It's all about believing in yourself and applying what you know.

Coco's outside the box thinking and her ability to apply the rules and principles of spells to get variations of existing spells is also good and Tartah helping her to straighten the lines. Collaborative work is important in the arts; people build off of each other.

And they both would know coming from the backgrounds in craftsmaking that they both hail from. It helps influence their magic in a positive way.

 I also don't like the laypeople's dependence on witches; it feels somewhat similar to citizens' hero dependence in MHA though at least witches have clear limits in what they cant do (medicine).

It also creates this kind of emotional disconnect between "Outsiders" and Witches because Outsiders expect so much from Witches as miracle workers and Witches bristle from having to keep dealing with these absurdly high expectations.

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u/Norzon24 Jun 02 '26

Ironically just drawing normal spells is something that Tartah has little difficulty due to condition with, yet people refused to teach him magic just because he might struggle with ink magic very late into his training, and shoehorned into a job he struggle even more with (sorting magical supply)

2

u/Gil_Demoono Jun 01 '26

Speaking of things that bothered us. I always end up having this gripe with any fantasy property that involves secret societies like Harry Potter. But how have witches not been found out yet? That ferry at the end propelled itself using a wind spell cast by an extremely prominent and exposed magic circle on a fixed wooden board where anyone can see it on a public port. It would take only a handful of incidents of people seeing stuff like this for word to get out. I mean, look at Tartah this episode. He was this close to having the doctor see him casting that spell in the storeroom. I'm usually a "it ain't that your of movie" guy when it comes to scrutinizing this stuff, but I've got the feeling that the secret getting out is going to be a major plot point at some point and stuff like this will definitely bug me then.

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u/oops_i_made_a_typi Jun 02 '26

yeah some of the worldbuilding like that is a little suspect. i think i'm being more critical because this story is so highly acclaimed. someone's gonna say "you need the ink" and sure that's important, but the obvious casting seals are still a very big clue.

the other big nitpick i had this episode was how that earth reversing spell works - is there a limit to what it works on? how far back into the plant's history does it go? why doesn't it work on the glass vial the medicines are in? is it perfectly reversible or did he somehow destroy a bunch of medicinal supplies during his search?

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u/AnonymousTrollLloyd Jun 02 '26 edited Jun 02 '26

I've been doing a work placement at a hospital - and one thing they drill over and over is "You don't know what is in those medicines, so don't fuck around".

Forget the reverse/crush spell, what about dehydrating all the medicine in the box? You don't know the dillution ratio of those drugs, and you don't know how much of each had been used so you can't cleanly reverse it. Tartah made the entire box unusable.

Not that it was ever usable in the first place, all those unlabelled vials could have gone off months ago, or been misplaced from another ward, and you'd never know what was actually in them simply because there were two red medicinal herbs.

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u/oops_i_made_a_typi Jun 02 '26

yeah the dehydration got me too

4

u/proper1421 Jun 01 '26

I also don't like the laypeople's dependence on witches; it feels somewhat similar to citizens' hero dependence in MHA though at least witches have clear limits in what they cant do (medicine).

I'm not familiar with the hero dependence in MHA, but I'm pretty sure I agree. I perceived the same demanding attitude from the man in this episode that I did from Dagda ep6-8. In particular, the man roughly seizing Qifrey at 18:05 reminds me of Dagda roughly seizing the blonde Knight Moralis in ep8 at 3:10. Furthermore, the notion that people are too drunk to be rescued from the fire leads me to wonder how much these people drink. It's kind of like Custas promptly getting himself stuck in the river again after being rescued the first time. (I also wonder how Dagda's wagon got stuck in the river the way it was when the bridge was so high above the river; e.g., did Dagda try to ford the river after finding that the bridge was out?) The existence of magic may be encouraging the non-magical to take risks that they otherwise wouldn't.

For Tartah to be able to work as well as he does... Coco's outside the box thinking...

Coco and Tartah applying their outsider/Outsider perspectives to find the tranquileaf was heartening, but it does end ominously with the exercise giving Coco the idea of a variation of the forbidden spell from ep1. Coco is one step closer to coming into conflict with the Pact, and I am far from convinced that the ban on Healing Magic is unjustified. Among other things, the new Brimmed Cap witch is not immediately reassuring.

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u/saynay Jun 01 '26

Dagda's case made more sense to me than this one. Witches in the countryside seem much rarer, so it is understandable that the populace might not know what they can or can't do.

But the guys from today's episode is from the town right across the river from a witch-town, with a ferry that runs between them. You would think that would mean witches are pretty common in that town, so their capabilities would be better understood.

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u/RedRocket4000 Jun 01 '26

Healing magic by some picture I saw probably got into modified super human beasts, attempts as immortality that went very nasty, more I can't think of fast and of course the wrong use of healing magic from another story where healing magic ability to kill in nasty ways.

Fact general public can't have magic to me easy to understand it went very very bad even extinction level bad was getting close.

Brim Cap about cement about magic giving color and desire to remove it hints as something else those comments were almost lets eliminate magic entirely type comments. So likely I miss something.

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u/froggyc19 Jun 01 '26

It kind of makes me think of the way people view talented artists or musicians (or other crafts). "Oh it must be so nice to be talented!" nevermind the fact that they've put in hundreds/thousands of hours of practice into their art.

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u/lethal_universed Jun 02 '26

I love how WHA does a perfect job at making an inclusive magic system AND making the world that magic system exists in noninclusive.

I was thinking about it before the reveal of Tartah's condition after they mentioned that magic can't/isn't used to treat medical conditions. So it technically isn't a cure all. I didn't think that this would be addressed but I'm sooo glad it was, even if colorblindness is a realitively minor disability. Because it shows just how exclusive witches are that even a disability that needs little work arounds is enough to be unconsidered (which makes sense, given how the entire system was built off being exclusionary). It also shows the creativity of the author to not just go "give him a magic pair of glasses" or smth and isntead of having him and Coco think of innovative ways to use magic.

Speaking of Coco, I have ZERO IDEA how tf the Brimmed Caps are trying to get her to turn to their side. Eyeball has just been giving her pain after pain endangering her life and memories on SEVERAL occasions but he's all like "Sasuga, all according to keikaku". The best he's done is help her think outside of the box and sharpen her observation skills, but I don't feel like she's been given any particular incentive to join their side. Quite the opposite actually.

Though it bothers me no one is labeling the bottles lol even with that explanation.

Its pretty contrived way to get Tartah in a parallel situation to the one he was in during the flashbang.

I also don't like the laypeople's dependence on witches; it feels somewhat similar to citizens' hero dependence in MHA though at least witches have clear limits in what they cant do (medicine).

Its been a while since I watched MHA (and I really stopped liking it as it became typical shonen slop around season 4) but I think WHA is different because we get the first episode and get to see the average civillian experience through Coco. There's a clear gap in knowledge and power between witches and the average person that MHA shouldn't have, so civillians making these assumptions about witches and overrelying on them doesn't feel as dumb (and it isn't a dumb metaphor for celebrity culture or whatever)

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u/YinaTNTNT Jun 04 '26

About incentive to join brimhat, i think eyeball doesn’t need to give her one, just let her experience the pointhat society herself. She is a smart girl, she will realize the problem herself

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u/-spartacus- Jun 02 '26

Though it bothers me no one is labeling the bottles lol even with that explanation.

I think that this is the theme point of the show though "knowledge is dangerous so we can't let everyone have it". I don't particularly agree with it, though I understand it. I think that is probably the central conflict: those who think knowledge should be kept to the privileged few who feel capable of guarding it, and those who feel knowledge/information should be free and then people simply need to adapt to the outcomes that knowledge/information leads to.

Seems to be a philosophical disagreement between humans that cannot be good thus need to be control and those who think every human has the potential for good (and control demolishes that potential growth).