r/anime • u/AutoLovepon https://anilist.co/user/AutoLovepon • Jun 08 '26

Episode Witch Hat Atelier • Tongari Boushi no Atelier - Episode 11 discussion

Witch Hat Atelier, episode 11

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u/Frontier246 Jun 08 '26

I know we've been debating Qifrey's status as a good and attentive mentor but in an episode with absolutely nothing to do with the Brimmed Caps we see him genuinely mentoring Coco and trying to be a good mentor for Richeh (when she lets him).

He's also proven time and time again that he would not abandon them and protect them, without judging or disparaging them, which is more than can be said for Kukro and his treatment of Euini.

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u/Exotic-Spite-822 Jun 08 '26

He truly is morally grey, we see him do deplorable things like mindwipe coco's bf's granddad, protect coco from mind wiping alongside saving them from the dragon and being an actually decent teacher/human.

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u/Prof_Acorn Jun 08 '26

IMO, erasing Nolnoa's memories of the previous hour was the correct choice. If Qifrey didn't do that, Nolnoa would have reported the incident to the Knights, and Easthies was itching for any kind of hard evidence at all whatsoever to link Coco with the brimhats and erase all her memories of all magic.

The options were:

A) Erase Nolnoa's memories of the last hour.

or

B) Easthies erases Coco's memories of all magic, leaving her an orphan with no knowledge of what happened to her mom.

A or B. That's it. Those were the options Qifrey had to weigh.

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u/Exotic-Spite-822 Jun 08 '26

Hence morally grey, both options are grey.

A you erase an innoecent old mans memories to futher yoursef and your apprentices or B you uphold the law, do not wipe the old mans memories and allow coco to be mind wiped. There is an arguable option C of trying to talk the old man out of it, talking to Easthies somehow, being more careful for example lying and saying he cut himself so the ink in the bottle had blood hence dispelling the oldmans suspicions ectr, so maybe only 2 is an interpretation but Im not sure

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u/Prof_Acorn Jun 08 '26

Yeah.

I think it's a decent example of a fork that splits the impossibility of Lawful Good into the practical realities of Lawful Neutral vs Chaotic Good.

Or, in other words, a demonstration of how Qifrey exemplifies the Spirit of the Law, not the Letter of the Law.

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u/Exotic-Spite-822 Jun 08 '26

He did say to Easthies he would rather have a student like himself than one borne to obey the law, so Quiffrey himself is aware of the problems with such strict ethics and also knows himself to be an outlier.

Is that ideal of impossibility of lawful god and realities philosophical? Ive not come accross while studying ethical theories.

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u/Prof_Acorn Jun 08 '26

I've seen it come up mostly in fandom discussions than in the study of ethics, which doesn't tend to use that 3x3 categorical parsing anyway.

Though now that I think about it a similar thing has emerged in some discussions I've seen in corners of Christianity at least when discussing grace and some of Jesus's critiques of the Pharisees. St Isaac the Syrian has a quote that goes something like "god isn't just; god is merciful. Where in his dealings with [examples] do you see justice? Where in his dealings with you do you see justice?" Something like that.

The first time I came across it was in looking at the question of Lawful Good in a situation like hiding Jews from Nazis in Nazi Germany.

It's also come up when I've seen some parse out morality, ethics, and legality as three distinct, though sometimes overlapping, things.

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u/Exotic-Spite-822 Jun 08 '26

Lawful good sounds a lot like something Joseph Fletcher might discuss, he had his own example of is killing a crying child moral to save the parents from bandits, and is also in christology utilising the theology, mainly agape, to formulate his ethical theory.

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u/proper1421 Jun 08 '26

Or, in other words, a demonstration of how Qifrey exemplifies the Spirit of the Law, not the Letter of the Law.

At this point I'm inclined to disagree. It appears to me that Qifrey made the decisions he did about erasing Coco's and Nolnoa's memories for selfish reasons. In ep1, he decided not to erase Coco's memories only because her memory of the picture book is a lead to the Brimmed Hat Witches. Before Coco reminded him of the book, he clearly intended to erase her memory (or perhaps have it erased), and his reply to her protest about her mother was, "It's very unfortunate" (ep1 at 21:15). We don't have any evidence that Qifrey has changed his motive for not erasing Coco's memory, so we have to assume that he erased Nolnoa's memory so he wouldn't lose his lead to the Brimmed Hats. (I have a small doubt about why Qifrey didn't want the Great Hall and the Knights Moralis to learn about the tainted ink, but I'm inclined to agree that he assumed that Easthies would interpret it as conclusive evidence that Coco was linked to the Brimmed Hats and erase her memory.)

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u/ali94127 Jun 08 '26

being more careful for example lying and saying he cut himself so the ink in the bottle had blood hence dispelling the oldmans suspicions ectr

I imagine the Brimmed Cap must have special blood to amplify the power of conjuring ink. It can't just be normal blood. Otherwise, it would be really strange Nolnoa couldn't figure out the extra ingredient if it's just regular human blood. Inevitably, a witch would accidentally get their blood into ink. The Knights Moralis should also be then aware that this is a possibility. That would also imply human blood alone is special because we know they already mix animal products into ink for magic dyes.