Queen, Icon, Goddess

Happy lesbian visibility day!! Here’s my long-overdue analysis of why I think sophie is a lesbian. Thank you to @ofthickettumble for putting an ask in my inbox about my first post about this and @pumpkinpaperweight for reminding me I never elaborated on it shjdsksjkdfh

Sophie has dated a lot of male characters in this book series, which I know for a lot of people would be the definitive answer to whether or not she’s a lesbian. However, I think many (if not all) of those relationships could be seen as a result of compulsory heterosexuality (the idea that heterosexuality is assumed and enforced by our society). Soman claims there are no labels and therefore no homophobia or heteronormativity in the Endless Woods, but since the entire series is about dismantling societal standards through fairy tales… it’s kind of important to have these biases in the Endless Woods in order to have that theme.

First, there’s the obvious fact that the emotional intimacy Sophie shares with Agatha runs deeper than any she had with a boy in a heterosexual relationship, and that their love for each other is 1) genuine, and 2) equal in power to romantic love – Agatha could revive Sophie with a kiss, which is only possible if she truly loved Sophie, and it wasn’t mere gratitude that she felt for Sophie saving her life from the School Master’s blade (e.g. Marius Pontmercy kissed a dying Eponine for taking a bullet for him in the Les Miserables movie.) 

But the story also makes clear that Sophie’s and Aggies’ true love isn’t romantic in nature, despite having the same (or possibly even greater) intensity and level of emotional intimacy as Aggie’s true romantic love with Tedros, simply because Sophie and Agatha themselves (as they were written) never were romantically interested in each other nor viewied their relationship as anything but friendship, however great or deep it may be, despite acknowledging that they were soulmates. This is reinforced in the text: after Agatha revives Sophie with true love’s kiss at the end of Book 1 and they get sent back to Gavaldon by the Storian, Sophie resumes her old self-centred Sophie-ish ways while Agatha pines for Tedros. Now, if either of them had latent romantic feelings for each other, the ultimate affirmation of those feelings that was given by true love’s kiss would have awakened them to at least the possibility of a homosexual romantic relationship with each other. The Woods might be so heteronormative that homosexual romance is unheard of there, but romantic love is a universal experience as well as an extremely powerful feeling at the individual level; when it’s actually present in a person, he/she can’t just be completely oblivious to it and continue dreaming about straight romantic relationships without at least some internal conflict about why she feels this way about her friend.

However, while Sophie and Agatha aren’t gay for each other, their relationship is proof that Sophie’s only fulfilling relationship to date is with a girl, while all her romantic relationships with boys have failed miserably. In fact, it is the yardstick by which Sophie judges her heterosexual romantic relationships so far as emotional intimacy/ mutual understanding is concerned

“Marrying Rhian was supposed to be true love. She’d thought he’d understood her. When she looked into his eyes, she’d seen someone pure, honest, and Good. Someone who acknowledged the shades of Evil in her heart and loved her for them like Agatha did.”

– A Crystal of Time

So even though Sophie isn't romantically interested in Agatha, she wants her heterosexual romantic relationships to have the same qualities as her relationship with Agatha which she regards it as the “gold standard” for a healthy, committed relationship -- even though it’s with a girl, and after the events of TLEA, a girl who’s her twin sister.

  The other bit of textual evidence that opens the possibility that Sophie might be gay/bi and have a fulfilling romantic relationship with a girl in the future, is that Sophie has been shown to find another woman physically attractive:

Hustling behind, Sophie peered at the Dean’s reflection in the breezeway. She’d never seen anyone so beautiful—even her own mother. Proportions exactly out of a storybook, rose-petal lips, hair so lustrous and full, as if the Dean had been drawn to a page and brought to life. What did she use on her skin? Even thistleroot can’t get pores that small, Sophie thought, comparing them in the polished glass to her own—

– A World Without Princes

Of course, Sophie was not romantically interested in Evelyn, but this passage is evidence that Sophie is capable of feeling attraction toward females, as it mirrors the way she was stunned by Tedros’ looks when she first saw him

“And one more walked in. Hair a halo of celestial gold, eyes blue as a cloudless sky, skin the color of hot desert sand, he glistened with a noble sheen, as if his blood ran purer than the rest. […] Sophie gaped, bewitched.” – The School for Good and Evil

Also, Sophie’s starstruck reaction to Evelyn’s looks is significant in that Sophie literally goes to school with dozens of beautiful princesses, but none of them had caught Sophie’s attention or inspired such a reaction from Sophie, not even Beatrice, who “was so beautiful she didn’t look real”. So it was some quality about Evelyn’s beauty in particular that appealed to Sophie. And then Sophie becomes smitten with Rhian at first sight, whose looks take after his mother, and has the pretty much the same reaction as with seeing Evelyn

“The boy had tanned skin the color of amber and copper-brown hair cropped close to his head like a soldier’s helmet. He had a strong brow bone, a long, straight nose, sensual lips, and thick dark brows that ran flat over his eyes like two streaks of paint. […] He looked her age. Perhaps a bit older. One thing was for sure, though. She’d never seen such a beautiful boy in her life, masculine, sultry, and smelling of salt and sand, as if he’d been dewed from the mouth of a desert flower.” – Quests for Glory

“The two professors and two girls turned to see a tall, ravishing woman push through the door, milky smooth and full-bosomed in a teacher’s electric-blue dress decorated with a pattern of butterflies. She had a waterfall of chestnut hair to her midback, forest-green eyes under thick dark brows, a luscious pink mouth, and a gap between her two shiny front teeth.” – A World Without Princes

“The quest team now saw Rhian’s tan, sharp-jawed face in full view, his hair glinting like a bronze helmet, his sea-green eyes running briefly over the Snake, who was still out of sight of the people. ” – A Crystal of Time

I’m really interested in how Soman will elaborate on the Sophie/Evelyn Sader connection in the last book. So far, we know Evelyn’s dress and whatever vestigial trace of Evelyn contained in the dress seem to like Sophie, in a maternal way like Lady Lesso was fond of Sophie.

Lastly, Soman himself is gay, and as he has written much of his own personality into the Sophie character, it’s reasonable to guess that the endgame of the SGE series could be Sophie eventually realising her own homosexuality and being comfortable with it like Soman had. 

Tim Ferriss: When did you become openly gay?

Soman Chainani: I think it was my senior year of college. It’s so funny because now I watch kids come out, and it’s done with such empowerment and this kind of beautiful freedom.

And if there’s one thing I’m sort of envious in the entire world, it’s the way that kids come out now. Because when we did it in the early to mid 2000s, there just wasn’t anything out there to help you. So it was just traumatic, having to come out to people, to your parents, to your friends. Every time you did it, it was just trauma.

So I think once I actually came out is when everything sort of broke open and that’s when I think the path I was on… Up until then, I thought I was going to be in business. I thought I was going to be a consultant or a banker or any of these things. And it was only after I came out that I think my creative self came back. It was almost like that had gone in the closet, too and it took time for both to come out.

– Interview on the Tim Ferriss Show

The School for Good and Evil / My Immortal- Quests for Glory Edition

(part 1) 

bonus:

BIG ACOT spoilers!!!!!

Aaaalright this is running off the assumption that Soman isn’t using the same name twice by accident, but I think probably not, because by now, it’s pretty obvious that Rhian and RJ (Rafal Japeth is his full name, calling it now, I’m 99% sure that it’s true, and 100% sure it’s a horrible name) were named after the twin School Masters by their (obsessive…) Mother. And also, Spansel is a made up word. So, they’re definitely connected.

So Gremlaine mentions in QFG that one of the things Agatha has to do is “a lunch fundraiser at the Spansel Club, where you’ll read a storybook to children of rich patrons whose donations will repair the drawbridge”

The money goes into the still-suspect Camelot Beautiful Fund; something not explained yet, beyond a card speaking of an Abermarle at Putsi Bank. I’ve in the past gone “uh bribes to do with SGE” but now we know that Rhian and Japeth resented the school, this doesn’t make sense. But, again, why would Soman use the same name twice??? I think maybe SGE is still connected, but I’m at a loss for now with it, tbh.

And later, we find out that storybook is the tale of the Lion and the Snake. Already suspicious. So here’s what I think;

Either;

1) The Spansel Club is a secret rich people society to get Rhian/Japeth, the older (but illegitimate and weird and magic) heirs, on the throne in the place of Tedros, the only legitimate heir (having said that I guess legitimacy isn’t as big in the Endless Woods as it was in ✨Actual Medieval England✨ bc everyone seems to care if they’re older, not legitimate). So the Spansel Club support the heirs that came from the spansel, hence the name. (Possibly has something to do with the Mistral Sisters, they definitely know more than just that, seem to be low-key masterminding everything).

The Camelot Beautiful fund, then (which seem to be in Putsi, a notably extravagant Ever kingdom and one… We haven’t…. seen…. yet…….) is a scam, and is meant to provide for Rhian/Japeth once he takes the throne, hence the immediate redecoration and sudden surplus of money that Sophie notes at the beginning of ACOT. Both Rhian’s discovery of his heritage and the formation of the fund seem to date a couple of years ago, so it adds up. They want to keep Camelot beautiful, by putting the right King on the throne. The King who wants to eliminate all Evil. Of course they’ll want to put him on on the throne of the most powerful Good kingdom in the Woods, if he’s promising to destroy all Evil!

So no wonder they got Agatha to read the Lion and the Snake; it was their grand plan, all there in a nice book. All they had to do was make our main characters familiar with it.

The Saders are also an old, famous family in the Woods, so I think it stands to reason that they could a) be rich af, seeing as they produce Seers, who are in a lot of demand, and b) be involved in this, especially as it concerns Evelyn’s sons.

2) They’re where Sader got the Spansel from. No one knows/knew what a Spansel was, so they could definitely get away with calling themselves that. Presumably that would make them some sort of corrupt, behind the scenes thing with Evers dabbling in things they shouldn’t be. Someone please tell me whose flesh that was!!! Shit!!!! Disgusting!!

On the other hand, the Spansel created physically identical twins, but Rhian appears to haven gotten Evelyn’s soul (judging by their similar personality, especially the kind of tactics they employ to achieve their goals, and close relationship) while Japeth got Evelyn’s magic (scim suit/butterfly dress) but his soul is just berserk evil…like Aric’s, even though Japeth always had a loving and supportive family ugh!!!. Which might be why Aric truly is his soulmate

Black hair

to make it very stark that she is an outsider when Gavaldon is mostly white people

so there is an added layer of meaning (and race) when Agatha calls herself ugly and undesirable

a foil against what is the typical standard of beauty for the west, i.e blonde and hair i.e Sophie

asian representation in a leading role of a franchise

Interracial relationship (either with Tedros or Sophie, you pick)

so we can ignore the fact that she and Sophie are twin sisters