small and angry but mostly small

and while a few are good (hiehart and jujy for example)

…a lot of them are just. Bad.

Euini and his master who calls him “useless”

Richeh and her former master (ignore the spelling of her full name I am using the fan translation for easy screenshots lol)

Luluci and her master (who is straight punishing her for defending herself and her fellow apprentice from sexual predators)

And with so many examples that are not so great I was wondering why Qifrey is such a good master!!! And then I realized

Beldaruit is Qifrey’s primary example of what it means to be a teacher. But there may have been some mixed signals here. Because he isn’t just a teacher to Qifrey. He’s first and foremost his dad.

I’ve seen people theorize that Beldaruit is the one that names him even, which would make sense. He calls him “boy” at first and Qifrey has no autobiographical memories to the point of not knowing what a birthday is

He straight up adopts Qifrey after finding him in the ground like a turnip. But Qifrey doesn’t have parents!! He has no personal experience with parents! He wouldn’t know the difference!

Other teachers don’t seem to have too much personal involvement with their apprentices. They care more about the fact the kid is learning than anything else, like their safety or happiness. In their defense, presumably these kids have parents slash adults who would fill that role and advocate for them, so that isn’t a role teachers would necessarily have to fulfill. Meanwhile Qifrey? He is out there worrying about his kids varying tastes in food, and their passions, and their dreams, and making sure they’re safe, and is deeply deeply invested in each of them and supporting them and advocating for them

Just like Beldaruit doesn’t hesitate to defend Qifrey as a kid -

Qifrey won’t hesitate to defend the girls

Beldaruit is his dad. His embarrassing dad. And they are family and they love each other.