✨ Hey what’s up Sofia the First fandom and fellow Cedric enthusiasts 🧙‍♂️🪄

I’ve wanted to make this post for so damn long but I’ve been so busy and a little imitated 👉👈

But with Royal Magic coming out in just 2 weeks I thought well fuck it

I’ve seen a lot of different analyses about the show, about Cedric, his family some of the villains, etc., but I really wanted to throw in my two cents here and do my own analysis on why I think Cedric is unintentionally written as neurodivergent

To my actual shock I don’t think I’ve seen anyone else talk about this. I’ve seen headcanons here and there but that’s it and I’m so surprised because in my honest opinion I’ve never seen a character so obviously neurodivergent in my life (okay maybe not in my life but still)

Now I’m not a psychologist so I can’t like officially diagnose anyone so I’m going to just use the word neurodivergent as a broad term to describe these traits

That being said I do have ADHD and most if not all of my friends are neurodivergent and all across the spectrum so I feel like I have a general idea of what I’m talking about

So to the best of my ability I’m going to go over each symptom that I see from him and use canon examples

There really isn’t any order to how I put all this together. Some symptoms have more information on them than others and a lot of them overlap but I did my best

So buckle up and get comfy this in an ungodly long post you have been warned

Very forgetful

(Or some sort of working memory issue)

For me, this was one thing that I noticed that got me to raise my neurodivergent eyebrow at Cedric because it happens SO often to him

For example in Substitute Cedric his main reasoning for going and teaching Sofia's class was so he could go and get Vex Vine for his potion but by the end of the episode Sofia tells Cedric that he can go to the greenhouse now and he says "Why would I go there?"

The same thing happens in the episode Hexley Hall. He starts off saying to Wormwood how he can't wait to learn more about the amulet but by the end of it he has completely forgotten about that to help Sofia against Grimtrix

Now maybe you're still not sure since there was a lot of shit happening in those episodes but what about in the episode In Cedric We Trust

Wormwood tells Cedric that one of the crowns was made out of elven gold and phoenix feathers, but when Cedric goes up to tell Roland he messes it up and says it made from phoenix gold

Maybe he was nervous to impress Roland but he seemed pretty confident in his answer and even made a pun about Roland’s name before he walked up to him so I think it's more likely that he just forgot what Wormwood told him

Okay so maybe you're still not convinced but get ready for what I think are Cedric’s neurodivergent magnum opus: Cedric Be Good and The Fliegel Has Landed

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I'm going to start with Cedric Be Good because oh my god this episode. Now Cedric does a lot of things in this episode but this is the forgetful section so I will try to stick to him being forgetful. Let’s start from the beginning

So the episode starts off with Cedric making a potion that will let him gain a power from the amulet but he's gotta switch out a fake one that he's made with the real one

So he hides behind a tree, successfully switches them only to then PUT THE AMULET ON HIMSELF

I remember when I watched this episode for the first time I was yelling at the screen like what the fuck are you doing Cedric!? Don't you fucking remember that it curses you when you do something wrong? Maybe he didn’t know stealing was wrong but I think that’s silly

Maybe it's been a few years since he told Sofia about the blessing and curse shit but HE was the one who told her about it. And in the episode Cedric's mom is the one who has to remind him

I don't even know why he put it on in the first place. All he needed to do was hold it in his hand and walk to his tower and dip it in the potion

But he didn't do that he put it on and was surprised that his fingers got sticky and completely forgot about the curse/blessing thing

So obviously you know how this goes if you’ve watched the episode. Cedric goes into town does something good, gets a power, then does something "evil" then loses said power

With some of the powers I do think Elena was fucking with Cedric but with others it genuinely felt like he forgot that the amulet would curse him, especially when he gained a power he thought would be useful enough to take over the kingdom

For example there's at one point he gets like these Elsa ice powers and he gets all excited about how he’s gotta use it to take over the kingdom as if Elena would let him do that please and accidentally he freezes a lake and causes a boat to crash into a dock

He loses his power of course but then says "No matter how hard I try I just cannot be good"

I mean I don't know about everyone else but when he said that my first thought was but okay that wasn’t evil

It just seemed like he in his excitement of gaining a useful power he forgot that the amulet could curse him

And my initial reaction to him forgetting all the amulet's lore was: Why does he keep forgetting this very important detail about the amulet? Why can’t he just remember it?

This is the exact same type of mentality a lot of adults had in my life as I was growing up. I would constantly forget things even if they were important. And taking over the kingdom was really important to Cedric at this time in the show

And yet he just can't remember this one little detail about the amulet even though it’s really important to him

It feels like something else is constantly getting in his way and it's not that he's too "evil" to be good, or a bungler or stupid. It looks like a working memory issue

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The second episode I wanted to talk about was The Fliegel Has Landed because I find what he does in this episode to be so interesting

So in this episode Sofia goes to get Cedric to help her create some cave crystals but it doesn't work.

So he goes to the cave to stop the fleigel himself but instead of blasting her away he creates a bunch of chickens and word-for-word says "I forgot to wipe off the eyeshell powder"

Now I don't know all the lore of the show but I feel like cleaning off your wand before using it for the next spell kind of seems like Wand Care 101

But Cedric didn't do that he straight up said I FORGOT and that's why his spell didn’t work. Not because he was nervous or something affected his wand but because he just simply forgot. I mean I rest my case

He does make a lot of mistakes because he’s nervous but there are also a lot of times he makes mistakes and it's NOT from him being nervous

And I think there are other things getting in the way of him being this big bad Disney villain like him potentially have an…

Executive Dysfunction

Now this was definitely thing where I thought oh god get this man on whatever the STF equivalent of adderall is

Now if you don’t know what executive dysfunction is it’s a symptom that disrupts the brain’s ability to control thoughts and behaviors. Most neurodivergent people have it

There are other things that are associated with it but but I will be mainly talking about Cedric’s lack of ability to plan a coherent “evil” scheme

Right from the start in the pilot he gives Sofia a sleeping spell to put everyone asleep and as a way to get the amulet

It’s a good plan but does he get it? Nope because he didn't realize the sleeping spell would also affect him and fell asleep

Did he forget that would happen? Did he just not stand far enough away and already knew? Did he not realize that it would affect him? We’ll never know but it’s clear Cedric didn’t either and he made the plan

This is just a common theme with Cedric and his "evil" plans. Like in The Big Sleepover, his plan doesn't seem that well thought out

The plan consists of him putting on a puppet show, then ask Sofia to give him her amulet, she'll give it to him, and then take over the kingdom. But just TWO episodes ago she told him that she never takes it off so this would have never worked

In A Royal Mess, Cedric is so hyperfixated on the amulet (more on that later) that being asked to fix the royal mural gives him this idea to use a spell to bring small objects to him but once again we ask the question how was this going to work out? Wouldn't Sofia have seen the amulet floating toward him? How would he explain that to her as it landed in his hand?

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Just like in Cedric Be Good and The Fliegil Has Landed, The Leafsong Festival is Cedric's executive dyfuntion magnum opus. First off he makes up his plan on the spot when Sofia brings Crackle to ask him to get rid of her fire

So with Crackle's fire gone, he covers the whole kingdom in forever frost, which is apparently really slippery, which he knows and says out loud

So what does he do in the next scene? Immediately steps on the ice and slips all over the place....

Why didn’t he put some spikes on his shoes or use a floating spell. And WHY did he take the dragon fire with him?

Anyway if you’ve seen the episode you know how it goes, he slips, the dragon fire falls out of his hand, and in the end Crackle gets her fire back and unfreezes the kingdom

Even if somehow Cedric didn't drop Crackle's fire, how was this plan even gonna go?

March up to Roland and the royal family and say, "Make me king or I won't fix the ice?" Roland would have just probably arrested Cedric on the spot

Cedric isn't stupid or a bungler. All the plans are good in theory, but there really isn't a lot of thought put behind them

It’s a good thing he has Sofia as a friend because he has a serious…

Lack of social skills & friends

I mean this one is basically confirmed in canon at least with the lack of friends. In Mystic Meadows Winifred says “Sofia is the nicest friend you’ve ever had and in fact might be the only friend you’ve ever had”

And ofc with the banger My Evil Dreams where he says "My evil schemes were my friends when I was alone" implying that he really didn't have a lot of friends

We technically don't actually know why Cedric doesn't have any friends. I think it's been inferred by the fandom that it's because of his association with The Incident and Cordelia telling everyone he’s a bad sorcerer

And definitely think that’s one piece of it. He doesn't want to be made fun of or bullied so he stays out of everyone's way but I also think it could be because I don't think he has the best understanding of social situations

Going back to his “evil” plans, a lot of them do fail because he doesn't have the executive functioning skills to complete them but they fail because he doesn’t really take into consideration that other people can’t just talk it out. It’s just he expects people to act exactly as he expects them to

The best examples I can think of is in Princess Butterfly and The Amulet and the Anthem. In both cases he expects Sofia to be in this big huge pickle be backed so far into a corner that she's just gonna have to give him her amulet

But in both cases none of that even comes close to what happens as Sofia just talks to Amber, her friends, and well Princess Belle to sort it out

He's just throwing these half baked plans and doesn’t seem to really understand that other people have their own individual thoughts

It probably also doesn't help that he's very...

Disorganized & Messy

Cedric sooo disorganized and messy. Of course the best example I can give of this is in Cedric's Apprentice when says "I can't find anything in this mess"

And we know he created said mess because a minute later when he’s yapping to Wormwood about taking over the kingdom he drops a vial on the floor and later knocks over the cauldron when singing Cedric the Great

And that's not all of it. One of my favorite subtle moments from that episode is when Sofia goes to clean his spellbook she gives a loud "Ick!" and proceeds to wipe whatever gunk Cedric had on it

It gets even better when she tells him that the spellbook was dirty, he goes "SO?" which I just find so funny

What’s even funnier to me is that he never once thought to clean his spellbook when he was trying to create the invisibility potion

Then of course in The Winter's Gift we get even more of a confirmation that Cedric is messy af

He says "Where is my family wand? It always goes missing when I need it." That's why Sofia's gift was so special to him and why it meant so much to him

He obviously loses his wand enough for Sofia to notice so she made him something to help with his disorganization which is just so 🥹

It's good that Sofia really values his friendship since I'm pretty sure Cedric has...

Rejection Sensitivity Disorder

I saw this headcanon lurking around on tumblr but I can’t find it anywhere but I am completely subscribed to it

Now I’m pretty sure RSD isn’t an official neurodivergent symptom but I think so many ND people have experienced it that many have accepted it as one

To sum it up briefly RSD means that someone will experience intense emotional pain related to being rejected

This could mean getting embarrassed easily, having low self-esteem, troubling in believing themselves, and turning their feelings inward, which may look like a snap of severe depression

Not only that but a lot of the time people with RSD might even “feel severe anxiety or other negative emotions before an anticipated rejection”

Hmmm sounds really familiar to someone right. There are really three examples I can think of where Cedric kinda of displays this behavior

In Cedric’s Apprentice after Cedric was rejected by Roland he just sits in his workshop staring at nothing as Sofia cleans up around him

In Mystic Meadows after his father doesn’t give him the family wand he sits his family’s couch eating jellybeans while Sofia and Winifred are talking to him

And of course the biggest example I have is how utterly defeated he looked after getting rejected by Roland in The Enchanted Feast. I mean look at how upset he looks in that gif. He’s just laying there on his open spellbook

If Cedric had RSD it would explain why he would get so nervous before performing in front of Roland or really anyone because he’s afraid he’s going to get rejected. Of course, none of this explains how he can be so...

Impulsive

Well I’m going back to Cedric Be Good again because I gotta talk the last scene of this episode

So by the end of the episode he’s finally got his super strength and holds onto to it long enough to tell some servant to get Roland so they he can use his super strength to take over the kingdom even though Elena would have probably taken his power away

And instead of just waiting what does he do? He does some sort of jazz hand thing and says “I can’t wait any longer” and sits down on Roland’s throne and declares himself king

This kind of ties into his forgetfulness and executive dysfunction because ofc he when he declares himself king he says “I’m going to rule with an iron fist.” The amulet glows and he gets once again

If he wasn’t so impulsive or excited he would have waited for Roland to show up and then shown his super strength but he didn’t he just sat right down and lost his power

But that’s not all as Cedric can be very...

Easily distracted

This one really isn’t shown that much but the best example I can give is in the episode The Amulet of Avalor when Cedric completely abandoned the plants he was collecting for his “evil” potions to go chase after the amulet all day

I would even argue that in The Fliegel Has Landed Cedric got so distracted about his hatred for the fliegel and her bothering Sofia that he completely forgot to wipe off the eggshell powder and that’s why he’s spell didn’t work

Or maybe he’s just really distracted because he has…

Limerance

So limerence itself is not actually a ND trait but I know a lot of people who are ND relate to it

This is also another headcanon I mean lol aren’t they all that I saw floating around tumblr but i honestly think it really makes sense

Limerence is essentially a way to describe when someone is deeply infatuated with someone else

A lot of people confuse it with falling in love but it’s actually just another form of a hyperfixation but on another person and most of the time it can be very intense

Being very obsessed with someone, thinking about them all the time, getting very anxious about them

Obviously this show is not a romance show but I just can’t explain how Cedric got so obsessed with Sasha in The Enchanted Feast

Now I know this infatuation with Sasha from Cedric is kinda of a hotly debated topic since people are not sure if Cedric was put under a love spell by Miss Nettle or not

But if we’re going, for the sake of the argument, that he wasn’t under a love spell Cedric falls for “Sasha” really quickly and very strongly.

So much so that when Sofia goes up to express her concerns about her he brushes Sofia off and talks about how wonderful Sasha is despite not knowing anything about her

It’s very common for ND people with limerence to ignore any red flags and to ignore any flaws

Which I feel like is strange for Cedric since it seems like he’s always…

Constantly Irritated

Cedric for most of the show is known for being “grumpy” mainly at anyone coming into his workshop and asking for him to do something he doesn’t want to do

And most of the time when they first enter he will immediately ask them “What do you want” and “Why are you here” as if he’s trying to get them out as fast as he can

And while he could be doing that because he’s just an introvert there really rarely is a time that he isn’t annoyed or making a sassy comment so he seems pretty irritated most of the time which is common in ND people

Obviously we’ll never know why Cedric is constantly irritated but maybe it could be because he’s…

Not paying attention

So I have a few examples for this. In When You Wish Upon a Well Sofia gets turned into a cat and goes to Cedric to get him to turn her back into her normal self

But Cedric doesn’t help her and is completely annoyed that she’s flipping through his spellbook since he’s clearly working on something

So she leaves and Wormwood notices that she’s wearing the amulet and tries to get Cedric to notice it too but he doesn’t and kicks him out

The whole time I just couldn’t understand why he didn’t see the amulet of Avalor on the purple cat sitting on top of his spellbook but saw a griffin last season like 20 something feet away. I know it was probably just for the plot but still

This also happens in The Fliegel Has Landed. The main reason Sofia and Cedric have to go down into the caves was because Cedric was out of diamond dust which he needed make cave crystals

But he never checked what he put on his wand and did the spell with eggshell powder instead and not diamond dust and the of course later forgot to wipe it off

Interestingly enough he wasn’t even anxious when he failed that spell he just didn’t check the label and only checked AFTER he did it

Maybe he was just excited to do his spell like when he’s…

Stimming

So this headcanon is from this really cute fanfic on Ao3 about Cedric spinning as a stim and after I read it I realized how much Cedric does spin in the show

For example spins and twirls a lot in Cedric be Good when he thinks he’s got a power that’s going to help him over the kingdom. It happens so fast that you really don’t notice when he does it

And of course when Sofia invites Cedric to meet Merlin in Gone with a Wand he literally spins in front of the mirror like I have in the gif

He also paces in Through the Looking Back Glass right before his sister visits. I’m sure there are other examples that I can’t think of but I am pretty confident in the fact the amulet of Avalor was an…

Implied Hyperfixation

Yeah saw this on tumblr as well and I’m fully subscribed to it. I know it was probably just a writing choice from season 1 to season 2 but it’s so interesting how Cedric is constantly thinking about the amulet and always making plans for it but the first time we see him after The Floating Palace he’s helping Sofia and Amber try and catch baby James. He doesn’t mention the amulet once

I thought maybe he would try and do something with the amulet but no he doesn’t. The only times he thinks about it is in The Enchanted Feast and The Curse of Princess Ivy but that’s only because other people were trying to take it. It’s as if he forgot it existed until someone else wanted it

Even he’s only “evil” plan for that season is in The Leafsong Festival which has nothing to do with the amulet.

And I know he’s into the amulet in Cedric be Good but it feels more like a brief interest back into it

I don’t know about everyone else but my hyperfixations fluctuate and most of the time I feel like I can’t really control them.

They just spring up at random points. It’s almost like a ope I guess we’re back into this again me with Sofia the first lowkey

But Cedric isn’t only into the amulet or taking over the kingdom. He’s always making potions which I think is an…

Implied special interest

If you go back and watch any episode that features Cedric I bet you a million dollars that he’s probably making some sort of potion or talking about making potions. And I’m not sure what these potions are

Maybe Roland is assigning him to do these but in one episode he mentions that it’s taken him 12 hours to make a potion that will turn toadstools into tornadoes

Not sure who’s asking for that or how that would be useful in any way. Maybe he made it to try and take over the kingdom? Or maybe he just really likes making potions

From what I’ve got from the show Roland doesn’t really ask him to do much so I assume all the potions he’s making are for fun

Even in the end of Substitute Cedric he’s so excited to teach Sofia and her classmates more sorcery that the first thing he mentions is teaching them how to make potions. Definitely sounds like he likes to do it for fun

And of course how could I not talk about his idol, the one he has a whole catchphrase on, Merlin. I don’t know but I don’t think it’s very neurotypical to have a whole catchphrase based on your favorite celebrity / hero / idol and especially one that you’ve used since you were a child

Not only that but in The Fliegel Has Landed Cedric mentions that he has a book called Thursdays with Merlin so I assume he has the other weeks as well

Cedric has a lot of neurodivergent traits but I also think he has some…

Co-morbidity

I’ve seen a lot of people theorize and give their own ideas of what Cedric also might have: anxiety, social anxiety, depression, PSTD, etc

We know for a fact that Cedric gets nervous especially when performing in front of others and especially in front of Roland. He says it in Cedric’s Apprentice and In Cedric We Trust

Now it could be a trauma response from The Incident or for being bullied and teased all his life

It’s not uncommon for neurodivergent people to have multiple other disorders

For example, most adults with ADHD have at least two disorders. 80 to 85% have ADHD and one other disorder and more than half may have three disorders. This could include autism, OCD, anxiety disorders, depression, other learning disabilities, and so many more. And with people with autism it’s just as high around 85%

And this is the modern day. Imagine the 1800s or whatever time period Sofia the First is supposed to take place in

So Cedric having anxiety while potentially being neurodivergent is actually in fact very common

And for Cedric if it wasn’t his anxiety that was going to mess up his spell then it probably would have been one of the symptoms above. It’s like a double edge sword for him

And no matter what people would have seen him as a bungler whether he messed up from being anxious or being neurodivergent

And every mistake he made probably reinforced his own anxiety and everyone's perception of him being a "bungler"

And I think there are a few people to blame for…

Cedric's Life in the Castle

(Aka some people don’t know how to handle someone who’s neurodivergent)

Now I just want to preference that I don’t hate Roland or even Cordelia. I think those two are very interesting characters and have their own issues that they didn’t deal well with and unfortunately lot of it back fired onto how they treated Cedric

That being said… I have a few words about Goodwyn and his “parenting” skills. Let me explain.

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In Mystic Meadows we see that Goodwyn constantly corrects Cedric as he clearly thinks of him as a bungler whether from The Incident or from something else.

By correcting Cedric, Goodwyn thinks that he’s “helping” him become a better sorcerer and fixing whatever he thinks is wrong with him

And in the end Goodwyn does finally see Cedric as a good sorcerer but this is only because Cedric had to PROVE it to Goodwyn and not because Goodwyn did any self-reflecting on how he’s treated his son all these years. The lesson that Goodwyn learns is that oh I guess Cedric can do magic

And Cedric shouldn’t have had to prove himself to his father. Goodwyn should have been proud of Cedric regardless. But he didn’t he tried correcting him instead and too saw him as a bungler even if he never said it

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While I love Mystic Meadows as an episode I do have a problem with the idea that Cedric could only be a good sorcerer in his father’s eyes if he didn’t fail and Goodwyn only believes in him now because he successfully saved everyone

Especially with the way that Goodwyn is so dismissive of Cedric before he saved everyone it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth

I know it’s just a preschool show and this episode came out over what like over a decade ago but it’s still something I saw people pointing out on Tumblr and I agreed with them

So how does this relate to how Cedric was treated in the castle. Well in my opinion the way that Goodwyn treats Cedric, as if he’s different and needs fixing, is very familiar to how a lot of ND people are treated by parents who don’t really understand it

A lot of the time if a parent has a ND kid and they don’t understand them they’ll do everything in their power to either fix them, blame them for things that are out of their control, mock them, get annoyed at their struggles, or think they’re inferior to them

All things Goodwyn does to Cedric. If Cedric was born neurodivergent I’m sure he made a lot of mistakes in front of Goodwyn which might have frustrated him especially if Goodwyn wanted Cedric to replace him as the royal sorcerer

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I do have some potential proof of this. I made another much MUCH smaller post about this months ago but the reaction that the adults have to The Incident is very strange. One sorcerer lady says “Oh he’s a bit of a bungler, isn’t he?”

The “isn’t he” is what gets me. It means that she’s either been told or seen Cedric mess up a spell before and when she saw The Incident it confirmed everything she knew about Cedric

A crazy thing to think about for a child but if this child was known for exhibiting any of the symptoms above and the adults didn't understand what neurodivergency was it unfortunately makes sense why she said what she said plus it being the 1800s doesn’t help bitches today don’t even get it

You know how many times I was told I was lazy or was questioned why I forgot something or why I couldn't remember that tiny detail. Most of the time these things were said to me when I was around Cedric’s age

Obviously it's because I'm neurodivergent and my brain works differently but some of the adults in my life didn’t see it that way because they didn’t understand

If some random ass sorcerer lady was thinking about that about Cedric imagine what the general uppercrust sorcerer bitches we’re thinking, imagine what Goodwyn was thinking

And all of this passed down to Cordelia

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When we first meet her in Gone with a Wand she’s constantly talking over him and not listening to anything he’s trying to say

And in Through the Looking Back Glass the first thing she says to him is to ask him if he’s forgotten how to cast an ironing spell and insulting how he looks, something Goodwyn did when he first saw Cedric in Mystic Meadows

She’s copying what Goodwyn has done to Cedric. This leads me to believe that she learned her behaviors from him, probably after the The Incident, and carried it into adulthood

And I think a lot of that had to do with how they were raised after The Incident.

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In Day of the Sorcerers Cedric tells Roland that everything Roland and Cordelia did was greatest thing but they made mistakes that everyone ignored

Meanwhile, for Cedric, all anyone noticed was when he made a mistake and anything good he did was brushed aside or ignored

I mean it’s very obvious that Cedric is the scapegoat child, Cordelia is the golden child, Goodwyn is a narcissistic parent and Winifred is an enabler. Well at least to me someone get this family in some counseling

And if Roland was also potentially a golden child then perhaps that could have been one of the reasons he sort of stop being friends with Cedric because he too blamed Cedric for The Incident and didn’t understand him

I’m not going to go too crazy into this maybe another time but I do think Roland wants to look perfect in all aspects of his life to be like his great father. Having a friend be labeled as a bungler doesn’t make you perfect

Plus we know in Through the Looking Back Glass Cordelia would tell Roland how terrible of a sorcerer Cedric was plus adding onto the fact that Cedric is already nervous to perform in front of Roland it was just a recipe for disaster

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So bringing it all together if Cedric was born neurodivergent that probably meant that as he was growing up he was already a lot different from Cordelia

If he displayed any of the symptoms from above Goodwyn might have already been frustrated or disappointed in Cedric if he wanted Cedric to replace him as the royal sorcerer

But it didn’t seem to stop any of Cedric’s confidence as he successfully performed the smoke spell in front of Cordelia before The Incident

It seems that Winifred’s love, Cordelia’s inseparable bond, and Roland’s friendship was enough for Cedric at the time

But when the Incident happened and with the event being so public, two of the three people who might have supported him, abandoned him and in some cases became antagonistic towards him

And with The Incident, Cedric became Goodwyn’s scapegoat child and Cordelia the golden child which caused Cedric to have a lot of self-esteem issues and to be anxious performing in front of others including Roland

Which made Roland think that Cedric was a bad sorcerer even though Roland, as he wanted to look perfect, was part of the problem. He could have made his own opinions about Cedric but didn’t because he valued the approval and opinions of other monarchs and sorcerers more than his friend

And if Cedric was nervous along with the added on neurodivergence he could have been making a lot of mistakes, like some of the ones I pointed out in the show, which would make him look like a “bad” sorcerer even though he’s not

But in the end despite everything working against him and a villain arc based on pure revenge, he made it out because of the patience and kindness of Sofia, along with Winifred and Calista’s support

I hope that every neurodivergent has a Sofia in their lives

God damn do we all need one

Conclusion

Oh my god my brain is fried but god damn if you made it all the way down here you’re a real one for sure

Obviously was so much more that I wanted to say but this post is so fucking long already and I had to cut shit out

 A thing that really bothers me about when people mischaracterize Roland in headcanons and fan fictions, is that it always goes hand in hand with mischaracterizing Miranda, by making her into a uncaring or fainthearted mother, when she is the opposite.

 Roland will normally be mischaracterized as being a bad stepfather to Sofia, by either yelling at her (he has never done that). Or giving her unfair punishments for nonsense reasons (the only thing he ever punished her for in canon was when she told him she broke the stained-glass window and he said she couldn't come to the circus that day, and Miranda agreed with the punishment, and she got to see the circus anyway at the end of the episode). Or banning her from doing things she loves or seeing people she cares about (whenever he actually discouraged her from doing something in canon, by the end of the episode he will have completely turned around and decided that actually it's perfectly okay for Sofia to do what she was doing, every time).

 But every time I see Roland being out of character like this in fan fictions, there are never any scenes where Miranda tries to stop him from being a jerk, or comfort Sofia afterwards. If Roland was actually openly being mean to Sofia like this, Miranda would defend her, we've seen that in Canon, in other circumstances. We see this in the first normal episode of the series, Miranda stood up for Sofia when her siblings were telling her that she couldn’t be in the flying derby, it even looked like Roland was going to say the same thing but as soon as Miranda looked at him, he decided to encourage Sofia to continue racing instead. And Miranda stood up for Sofia when, from the knowledge that she had, Carol of the Arrow had been unfair to Sofia, even though she was a total stranger that the news scrolls reported on as a hero (It turned out that it was unwarranted for her to have to defend her daughter because Carol had come to them to tell Sofia that she was going to accept her for who she was, but it was still good of her to make the effort).

 But instead in these fan fictions either Roland will be mean to Sofia in front of Miranda and Miranda just simply will not acknowledge it, which makes her into an uncaring mother. Or Miranda will suddenly go quiet and act like she's too scared to tell Roland that she thinks he's being unfair. Which is not the dynamic that they have at all! It makes their whole relationship seem abusive! Miranda always tells her opinions to Roland in a gentle way or a sassy way, and she never hides them from him, and this is one of the things that makes their relationship on a romantic level so nice to see. She's never afraid around him, sometimes she's annoyed by the stuff he does, but never afraid.

 And then there is the fact that she is never the one in these fan fictions to comfort Sofia afterwards, at most she'll give her some kind of empty platitude and then leave. Miranda is one of the main people in the show that Sofia goes to for emotional advice and comfort when she's feeling sad (the others being Roland, her animal friends, a Princess the amulet has summoned, or that episode's special side character, depending on the episode). Miranda has known and loved her for longer than anyone else possibly can and is legitimately good at giving emotional and friendship advice. Sofia knows this. And there's also many times where Sofia wasn't the one to go and find Miranda, but Miranda was the one checking in on her to ask if she was doing okay and then help her feel better, because that's what she does, because she is an excellent mom. She'll even stay strong and assure her of things she's not sure of herself, like when they weren't sure whether Roland was okay in the snowstorm in Holiday in Enchancia, Miranda stayed strong and assured Sofia he would be fine even though she didn't know whether he was or not herself.

 So logically if Miranda is in a fanfiction, and Sofia is feeling sad, Miranda should go to her and try to listen to her and give her advice and comfort her. But that doesn't happen. Because Miranda would just get in the way of Cedric comforting Sofia, which is what these mischaracterization fan fictions are normally all about.

 Cedric has rarely comforted Sofia in the actual show, and she has helped him through his emotional issues way more often than he has with hers, so it makes sense that people would want to see a scenario where he would comfort her. And this is a perfectly fine thing to want, but if it comes at the cost of mischaracterization for everyone else it just doesn't seem worth it to me. These authors could always make up scenarios where Miranda would be unable to help Sofia because of many reasons like: if Sofia was traveling far away and Cedric is one of the only people with her, or Miranda was captured (like in Secret of Avalor) or put under some kind of curse (Once Upon a Princess, The Curse of Princess Ivy) or something else that would stop her from helping. These types of scenarios could also help create an overall plot to the story or a reason why Sofia would need to be comforted by Cedric in the first place without butchering Roland or her mom.

 I've seen a few fanfictions just decide to unceremoniously kill off Miranda in order for Cedric to step in, but I also dislike this because they never actually give Sofia the amount of grief she would have if her mother just died, they just use it as an excuse to have Cedric be a larger part of her life. Heck you could even have a fanfiction where Miranda and Cedric both help Sofia in their own ways by giving their own different perspectives on a problem, like if Sofia was having a friendship problem that involved magic both of them could give her their own specific points of view on it. But instead, these fan fictions will make Roland into a complete villain and Miranda completely useless in order to center Cedric, which I just think is really unfortunate.

Because the whole plot is that the kids are now being forced into a class where, instead of fact memorization, they have to do inquiry based learning essentially, in which they have to figure out the answers themself. And you know what? I'm all for that!

I can so see where Desmond is having a lot of issues with this, though, because he isn't used to not having a clear cut answer. This is basically taking a guy who likes school cause there is just one right answer and telling him "hey, the world is a lot bigger." I think a lot of kids need to learn that lesson.

And also Professor Peculian? This man is a good teacher, even if his teaching style didn't mesh with Desmond's at first. As Sofia said (paraphrasing), change is good sometimes. Desmond is a prince, so he needs to learn how to think on his feet. (and yeah, he had to do so before but not directly in class I don't think, so it is a change). And he was offered help! it's just his mindset of "I am good at school, so I can't ever ask for help" is impeding him so much, and is far too relatable as an adult.

That's why James + the others succeed so much quicker, it seems. They are used to having to try a lot at school, so the idea that they can't rely on a book isn't as nerve wrecking to them.

Plus, the part where him trying to essentially cheat by copying others work/reusing a technique he learnt before is so relatable to me, I am sorry. And the fact that the plant loves to read? Hysterical.

(I’m probably overanalyzing so hard but whatevs)

“My evil dreams” - Cedric the sorcerer

This song is unironically a lyrical and instrumental masterpiece and I feel like we need to talk about it more - from the lines of it and their meaning, to the music underneath - it’s probably the best Sofia the first song.. like ever.

THE LINES

The chorus is often (at least from what I’ve seen) very misinterpreted because of what’s happening on the screen, with Sofia.

“My evil dreams were my friends when I was all alone, my evil schemes made me feel like I had a home.”

These lines are about the comfort he found in his plotting and villainy. Since Cedric was a child he was teased and bullied and taken advantage of, his talents have been diminished, and he’s only chalked up to his mistakes. He was driven to the point of villainy (so real for that tbh). The idea that one day he was going to take over enchancia in order to prove himself and prove that he is capable of being a powerful sorcerer and a king drove him, it kept him going for years until being evil was all he knew.

Also unrelated but he’s speaking in past tense!

“But now it seems something’s changed, I don’t know what to do, my evil dreams could come true, but I don’t know if I want them to..”

Here is his MORAL AMBIGUITY. After everything Sofia has done for him, the platonic love, helping him kindle his relationship with his father, being there for him when he needs it, etc, he doesn’t know if he wants this anymore. SOFIA IS WHAT IS KEEPING HIM FROM HIS “DREAM”. She is what truly makes him happy. This is literally self destruction at its finest, he doesn’t believe that he can take over, and be happy at the same time, but yet he still sacrifices his relationship with Sofia, who makes him happy, to finally take over.

ALSO HIM CALLING HIMSELF CEDRIC THE GREAT???? WTF???? He - at this point in time - hasn’t referred to himself as that since I think season 2. It’s a reference to his villainy, and his need to be recognized as a powerful sorcerer, like his father. But Cedric the SENSATIONAL, is his name that shows his redemption, his good, “In darkness there is light.”

THE INSTRUMENTAL

The key of this song is typically in a major key, specifically C major. Which is interesting, because Cedric is going through his redemption arc. Of course the song will be in major key. But the really interesting part of it that I like, is that at the end it sounds like a key change, like it’s suddenly in minor key (also the key most used in villain songs, including ‘Cedric the great’ which is in the key of A minor.)

But the thing is..

ITS TRICKING YOU,

It’s not really in minor key! It’s still in c major! It’s just using a series of sharps and flats to trick you into believing it is. WHICH IS WHAT HAPPENS TO CEDRIC. This song, and the events after trick you into believing that he’s a bad guy again, for good. BUT HES NOT. HES REDEEMED.

TLDR; Charlotte must have gotten the amulet after Tilly, Tilly was not the last Princess to use the amulet before Sofia.

In the episode “The Secret Library” there is this exchange:

Sofia: “How did you find this place?”

Tilly: “The same way as you dear, although I did it 30 years ago.”

This is probably an approximate number but using this number as an estimate would place her as being somewhere in her 40s. This also means that the amulet was in her possession approximately 30 years ago, but the amulet has only been in circulation outside of Avalor for the past 41 years.

But in the episode “Beauty is the Beast" Princess Charlotte recognizes the amulet Sofia is wearing and says that she used to have one just like it. Then Sofia comes to the conclusion that it was the same amulet. And that the amulet connects all the princesses whoever wore it so that's why it's summoned her to help. The thing is Princess Charlotte seems a lot younger than Tilly, since she still lives with her parents and acts immature, so it doesn't seem like she could have gotten the amulet before Tilly, but how could she have gotten the amulet after Tilly if it was being kept in the Enchancian royal treasury at the start of the show?

Now many people in the fandom at large assume that Tilly was the last princess to receive and wear the amulet before it was put away in the Enchancian royal treasury until it was given to Sofia. But I don't think that that is the case, and the show has evidence towards that not being the case.

First of all, in “Elena and the Secret of Avalor,” Alacazar says: I searched the globe for years, until I grew too old to continue, and used the last of my magic to transform myself into this book.” And his flashback shows him going from having fully brown hair and a lot of strength to having fully white hair and needing a cane to slowly walk. If he spent his time traveling the world for approximately 11 years before giving the amulet to Tilly and turning into a book, then he was aging remarkably fast.

There is also a little bit of evidence that Alacazar was actually working with Goodwin at some point considering that in the royal sorcerer tower in Enchancia they have a book that talks about the amulet and even about how to possibly release someone from the amulet that has pictures of the amulet being purple. The amulet was red before Elena was put into it, and pink after she got out of it, so that part of the book could only have been made during the 41 years.

So the most likely explanation for the timeline of events is that Alacazar traveled around for about 11 years giving the amulet to different princesses before he gave it to Princess Tilly, she had it for a certain number of years during which she discovered the secret library and became Storykeeper. During this time Alacazar Probably worked with Goodwin to see if there were any alternative ways of letting Elena out of the amulet that were possible. Then Tilly grew too old for the plan Elena had in mind/was judged in some other way to not be suitable to free Elena, so Alacazar took the amulet back and gave it to more princesses. During this time he probably gave it to Princess Charlotte which would explain why she's younger than Tilly but still got the amulet. Then he became too old and weak to continue giving the amulet to princesses and turned himself into a book inside the Secret Library. But beforehand he either must have given the amulet to King Roland ii who put it in the treasury for safekeeping. Or gave it to Tilly to give to another Princess, but she put it in the royal treasury at some point while she was adventuring and so busy with something else that she couldn't even go to her own brother’s wedding.

We know for a fact that Roland had no idea there was a Princess trapped inside of the amulet, and that Elena specifically made the amulet glow in order to get Roland to notice it and give it to Sofia as a gift. That actually would be a very Elena thing to do, if she was supposed to wait for Tilly to get back and give the amulet to another Princess but then just decides: “Hey there's a new Princess here, so I'm going to make sure the amulet goes to her instead.” Very impulsive Elena thing to do, and it ended up working out perfectly, also a very Elena thing to happen. Roland also concludes in the episode “The Amulet of Avalor” that the amulet might have purposefully chosen Sofia to wear it but never questions how a supposedly inanimate object could make decisions like this. Then again Roland has a lot of experience with magical objects that do magical things and he does talk to them like they are people (with both the magic mirror and the well). So who knows, maybe this is normal or maybe he is weird.

So that answers the question of how Charlotte got the amulet after Tilly, Tilly was not the last Princess to use the amulet before Sofia.

 In “Cedric be Good” when a village man is having trouble building a house Cedric just builds him one for free, and he's all set to live in it. That combined with how we see in “King for a Day” that there is a perfectly good house that just happens to be abandoned in the village and everyone's fine with James just turning it into a candy house. There weren't any squatters living in it which means that they must have enough housing for everyone as well. In “Holiday in Enchancia” the woodsman and his wife don't have any new toys to give to their children, but they also have a lot of food for their holiday feast, they already have enough to be able to feed all of their extra unexpected guests.

 So, while it seems that peasants don't have access to as many luxury items like toys, jewelry, and magical items, that royalty have, they still have affordable, if not free housing, food, and all of them are wearing clean, unpatched clothing. Plus, the free public school we see for the peasants doesn't teach magic but at the same time it's got individual science equipment for all of the students, toolboxes and building materials, and art supplies. So they do have a very well funded school system on top of everything.

 My point being that while marrying Roland would give them a higher quality of luxury in their lives, it wasn't a matter of starving or food for Miranda to marry him, since the government was already fulfilling the first two steps on Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

 I also think that it connects more to the subversion of the evil stepmother trope if money (and power) wasn't a factor, since Disney's two famous evil stepmothers (Snow White and Cinderella's) are implied to have married their husbands for money and power rather than love and that's why they didn't love and care for their stepdaughters. Meanwhile Miranda is immediately interested in getting along with Amber and James and spontaneously wants to do things as a family.

 Miranda doesn't take advantage of many of the financial luxuries she would get as queen; she often cleans up even when there are servants around to do it and will generally try to solve problems with her own practical skills and knowledge rather than getting servants to do it for her. She only seems to have two tiaras (less then either of her daughters). The types of family excursions she goes on are ones that are very practical and involve just spending time outdoors together rather than spending money doing something, or the one time she wanted to play board games together indoors. Like she does the political in social job of being queen, but she isn't flaunting her new wealth.

 Lastly, I just think that it would add a weird undertone to their relationship that just isn't there in the actual show. Roland and Miranda are mutually obsessed with each other, they have set up scenarios where they can spend time together or give each other thoughtful gifts. Whenever they're together, they'll always hold arms or lean against each other or gaze lovingly at each other, even when it would be easier to animate them just standing next to each other not interacting. If one of the reasons she went after him was because of his money then I think there would be more tension there, more reluctance or faking but there isn't.

Roland: -I know it sounds hard to believe, but it was almost as if the Amulet chose you that day. And if that's true, I'm sure it'll make its way back to you again. So there's no need to worry. Sofia: You're not mad? Roland: Oh, I'm furious, at whoever took your Amulet. But not you. Never you, Sofia.

 Which means that after this episode, Sofia knows for a fact that Roland wouldn't be upset with her for taking off the amulet since he wouldn't even be upset with her losing it. But in “The Enchanted Feast” Sofia tells Sascha the sorceress “Oh, I never take off my amulet. My dad gave it to me, and I promised to never take it off.” Which at first might look like an inconsistency but it isn't. Sofia knows that her dad is okay with her taking off the amulet, but other people don't know that. So, if she personally doesn't want to take off the amulet but also doesn't want to seem rude, then she can just say that she's obeying her father rather than saying that she's acting on her own preferences.

 I just realized something, and it might be a coincidence, but I think the reason why Roland is wearing a white necktie specifically in “In Cedric We Trust” is to reference Snow White, making him (and Sofia) the metaphorical Snow White in the episode. Like this whole episode is about them trying to get back the evil queen from Snow White (Queen Grimhilde)’s crown, but the symbolism goes deeper than that.

 At the start of the episode, Roland says he needs his white necktie because he wears it to all big events in the village, but actually no he doesn't, we've never seen him wear it before this episode. But attention is still drawn to it and to the fact that it is white. Cedric offers him a new white bow tie that he rejects. But later in the episode when Cedric ruins his outfit on accident, he gets his spare clothes from the carriage and finds his white bow tie and puts it on right before Sofia convinces him to follow Cedric along with herself alone into the woods. And at the start of Snow White, the evil queen orders the Huntsman to take Snow White into the woods, supposedly to look at flowers, but actually to kill her when her back is turned. Unlike Snow White though, Roland doesn't fully trust Cedric and says as much, but still, he does let Cedric keep his wand while he's unarmed.

 Roland believes that Cedric and Wormwood plotted to steal the crown, and when he sees Cedric out of context with the crown, he believes they have been betrayed. But when they are attacked by Prisma, Cedric defends them against the Evil Queen’s crown and saves the two of them from getting hurt. (At one point he also hits an apple tree and apples fall on Prisma, which I think is also a reference to Snow White just a fun visual one). Literally fighting against Queen Grimhilde’s Power in order to save them, even though the story isn't over yet and Prisma got away with the crown. It's like how at the start of Snow White the Huntsman was thinking about betrayal but ultimately couldn't. He admits to Snow White what he was going to do and tells her to get to safety, going against Queen Grimhilde’s orders. Snow White was not permanently safe by any means, but she was saved at that moment and that gave her a chance. So, Snow White wasn't expecting a betrayal but ultimately was saved by the one who could have betrayed her. And Roland was expecting a betrayal but ultimately was saved by the one he thought could have betrayed him.