Champignon Witch

Episode 8

I've been framing this story as one steeped in fairy tales. I can't help it; study folklore even a little, and you'll see tale types everywhere. Last week I talked about how Champignon Witch is in many ways a refutation of the stereotype of the evil witch in fairy tales, and I still think that's true. But what's striking this week is the way that the story frames Lize as the princess figure. I've mentioned before his Snow White imagery when laid out on Luna's table, and this week, imagery from the tale categorized as ATU410 is added to his literary ancestry. You probably know the tale best as Sleeping Beauty.

The discovery of how Lize activates his magic – with his love for Luna – is tantamount to this reading of his character. Claude, horrible person/crow that he is, has been very clear with Luna that failing to get Lize to master magic will result in his death, and in the nicer versions of the Sleeping Beauty story, love is imperative to breaking the sleeping princess' curse. Lize could be said to be “sleeping” in terms of his magic – it's slumbering within him, unable to awaken without the realization of his feelings for his mentor. This parallel is highlighted when the spirits all begin giving him gifts; their blessings are analogous to the gifts of the fairies in Sleeping Beauty stories. Claude's casual statement about how Lize is a prince (something we know to be true from his flashbacks) adds to the idea that he's a gender-swapped version of the best-known princess fairy tales. He could even be said to be the Beauty to Luna's Beast, since the crux of that tale type is that the Beast isn't beastly, just misunderstood.

The narration is quick to tell us that black magicians can't do love, but we already know that's a lie. The entire point of the Henri storyline was to show us that Luna can love; things didn't work out because he was human while she's a witch. (And while he might have had some white magician ancestry, he wasn't powerful like Lize.) Luna thinks love is her handicap, but that doesn't make it true, no matter what Claude says. And plenty of works before this one have refuted the idea that witches can't love; two of my favorites are the lesbian fairy tale collection Kissing the Witch by Emma Donoghue and the French children's musical Émilie Jolie.

But more important to this story is the idea that black and white magicians are two halves of a whole. Black magic users filter out the impurities in the world so that people can live. White magic users encourage the untainted world to flourish. Despite the prejudice that people have against Luna and her brethren, they couldn't exist without them, and Luna's job wouldn't be complete if there weren't people like Lize to pick up where she left off. People seem to have forgotten this, but remembering it will be crucial to both Luna and Lize, especially since there's plenty of evidence already that they're not that different. Luna's desire to feed Lize good food is born of her love for him. Lize's miasma is born of his love for her. Together, they can create a space where they balance each other out.

The Mushroom Lord seems to be the only character aware of this, although in his scant defense, Claude may just not want to acknowledge it. (That doesn't give him an excuse for being such a pill, though.) But now that Lize has successfully awakened his white magic, things may begin to change.

The tone of the narration often sounds hopeless, like Lize and Luna are doomed to part. But there's always a wait in fairy tales before the happy ending. The Beast must appear to die, Beauty must sleep for a century, and quests must be undertaken. I choose to believe that Lize's awakening of his magic is a sign that things will work out.

Rating:

Post-Script: The pig prince who pops up in this episode as if we're supposed to know who he is comes from a short story in the manga, I think in the third volume. (I don't have my books with me at the moment.) The apothecary similarly has his backstory in volume one's short story. It's a bit annoying that only the Cat Witch got her part animated, but there's still time.