Reign of the Seven Spellblades

Episode 14

While Reign of the Seven Spellblades is still (very) gradually following Oliver and the other main characters as they descend into the Labyrinth, that's less central this week than it was previously. Some of it is following up on already familiar formats, including Miligan instructing the first-years in techniques and execution, or encounters with other students as they continue their magical mystery tour. Some of this comes off as clear loading of Chekov's guns, like the water-walking spell which can be upgraded into walking on air later. Others are simply mechanical, like Carste supposedly not being able to follow Oliver across the water despite Stacy and Lynette having no problem crossing it under their own power. I'm not pushing to apply any amount of "Gotcha" logic to a series powered by actual magic convenience, I'm just noting how so much of what this episode does in the present is purely structural.

That's only in the present, though, as coming all this way sees Seven Spellblades, at last, make time to glance back and expound on past details. Early allusions are made, as they get deeper down into the layers, to how the prevalence of Ophelia's perfume is…adversely affecting Oliver. Never mind that he had resistance to it and had no trouble sitting right next to her back in the eighth episode. Some aside references from that very conversation, as well as mentions from the parallel Campus Watch crew, are what lead this episode to wind back and provide some past context on Ophelia's deal. Just in time for everything to work out fine and non-tragically and with no pathos around her by the end of the season, I'm sure.

Snarky as I may be, this kind of flashback is precisely what I'd been asking for in the past weeks, so I can't be too pithy. It's genuinely neat to see earlier iterations of characters like Ophelia and Carlos who come off like younger, less-experienced versions of the people I've caught in cameos through Seven Spellblades. There's an irreverent approach that makes them feel more like actual, regular school-age friends than even some of the supposedly major present-day players who've barely amounted to set dressing (looking at you, Guy!). The likes of Godfrey had hardly registered for me in the parts of the series seen so far, but here they reintroduce his younger self through an overly long gag where he repeatedly magically kicks himself in the dick to prove how much of a Woman Respecter™ he is to Ophelia. That's stupid, but it's an earnest, entertaining kind of stupid that works to endear me to this flashback fellowship as a group of goofy school chums.

Granted, the reasoning around the need for magical dick-kicking is one of the points I'm a little more iffy on in this story. I understand what Spellblades's plot is looking to do with Ophelia's lusty perfume powers. It ties into her baby-making bad-times backstory that was alluded to last week, coalescing into a cocktail of commentary on how this wizarding world, as in the regular world, treats women as sex objects and birth factories, regardless of their personal desire to be such. Salient enough, but the actual mechanics of Ophelia's magic can feel too bluntly deterministic. It works on all biological males, regardless of their actual attraction (RIP Tim), but then seemingly excludes Reversi who have shifted into girl mode, regardless of if they would be attracted to women anyway. So presumably it doesn't work on lesbians either? I know I shouldn't be putting this much thought into something like this, but given how Seven Spellblades has otherwise been pretty decent about casual queerness in its world (obligatory "Suck it, Rowling"), it sticks out when it suddenly decides to adhere to magic bio-truths.

Regardless, the core communication of the cruelty that led to Ophelia's turn is delivered decently, if a little quickly, by this episode's flashback. There is something appreciably quaint about how, apart from all the more fantastical pressures, it was simply a particularly cruel round of bullying from her peers that made Ophelia into the monster they believed she was. Tale as old as time. It expands on the reasoning for characters like Carlos in the present day making such an effort to foster an atmosphere of acceptance and mentorship for their underclassmen. As well, it gives Oliver's current crew of main characters another concrete aspect of the world to push back on and reform positively. I may not be crazy about how it all mostly frames Ophelia as a necessary victim at the altar of her own sacrifice for all this. But that also speaks to this episode at last making me care about her on that kind of level, alongside the others from her past now converging on her.

Rating:

Reign of the Seven Spellblades is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris is back for another season of calling wizards nerds. Feel free to disagree with him on that on his Twitter (for however much longer that lasts), or check out his irregular musings on other nerdy subjects over on his blog.

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