while i only read/caught up on witch hat atelier about a month ago, something i've noticed a lot in reading other people's theories as they go is a high tendency to assume something... intrinsic about the concept of forbidden magic. a lot of, "does casting magic on a human take a toll on you?," as if by taking something from the user, tainting them, coming back to haunt them. "maybe that's what's at fault for [character]'s [affliction]." i've seen that a lot. the notion that by "violating the rules," by pushing the arbitrary limits of some natural force too far, you must simply face some kind of divine consequence.
and i don't point this out to talk down on anyone who's thought this—it is, after all, an extremely common trope of the genre, and most often i hear it from people who haven't gotten far in enough to see the story touch on these themes—but in fact one of the biggest reasons i'm so compelled by this story is because that concept is so completely out of the question.
this is a story that presents you, right out the gate, with a hard line— and then does everything in its power to force you to confront it. the integrity of the pact is challenged relentlessly by the story and its characters. "you will sit down, and lose hope in brighter futures (like saving coco's mom) without crossing the line, and you will empathize with people who have suffered terrible injustice because of the line, and you'll watch faithful enforcers of the line break down as their worldview is shattered before their eyes, and you will question that damned line Or So Help Me God," the story says.
so why would there be such a line, baked right into the world itself?
despite the medium of choice, nothing in this story is black and white. every single part of it lives in shades of gray. there is no such thing, strictly speaking, as "witches" and "non-witches." spells of healing and harm are cast with the same sigils. the knights' ability to enforce the pact at all hinges singly upon the very same magic it forbids.
there is no higher being, no "natural order of the world" to meter out punishment for crossing some fixed line of morality—of "good" and "bad" magic. the consequences wrought by a spell are only determined exactly by how that spell was designed and how it is used—whether with the intent to cause harm or as a result of ignorance.
olruggio's phantasmal fireball is a completely normal, non-forbidden spell designed with only the best of intentions, which also has the capacity to cause great harm incidentally. qifrey says it pretty plainly:
it just isn't that simple. the real world doesn't so kindly provide a straight, unmoving line for you to measure your actions against, and trying to draw one for yourself and others is futile at best and actively harmful at worst. for as long as you create and act, you will always have to put in the work to weigh the potential effects your actions may have have on yourself, others, and the world around you.
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