#but it's funny to imagine a very tired scholomance trying to find enough complex and high mana-cost spells

[krakenattack]

Mild spoiler for The Last Graduate ahead, but:

Having just reread the whole series, I love how at odds El and the Scholomance are. Like, El's pessimism is a great way of making your narrator unreliable, since El is sometimes right and sometimes wrong always expecting the worst response from everyone around her(a thought worthy of another entire post), but it becomes very funny once she realizes that part of the problem at school is that she can't do small spells? Like, she spends the whole first book being like 'this school is the devil tempting me to evil, it wants me to become a maleficier, I can't even ask for a simple cleaning spell without getting horrible spells for summoning mortal flames and enslaving an army of people, I hate it', and meanwhile the Scholomance is flipping frantically through its catalogue of spells gathered over thousands of years, desperately trying to find a spell in a language El knows that she can also cast with her affinity for working incredibly large and powerful spells. El's over here driving a bulldozer and saying, 'I would like to build a Jenga tower' and the Scholomance is looking at her with the weary despair of a preschool teacher knowing they're going to be suffering through a temper tantrum soon but unable to stop it.

El, a furious teenager who doesn't know as much as she thinks she does: I don't wanna summon a mortal flame! I want my room clean!

The Scholomance, a giant building that cleans its own hallways, floors, dishes and various and assorted other workings with mortal flame: Why is this child testing me

Also hilarious in retrospect is El's blithe statement in the first book about how no one would ever give her that much mana to do these high volume spells bc mana isn't free or easy to acquire and so the school is clearly telling her to turn maleficier and kill her fellow students all while Orion is humming to himself as he kills mals and dumps oodles and oodles of mana into the New York power sharers.

El "I'd rather die than ask for help" Higgins: I won't do these spells bc no one will give me mana

The Scholomance, as loudly as a building who may or may not be partially sentient and who can't speak human languages: Wow, those sure are some HIGH MANA VOLUME spells you got there! If only there was SOMEONE around who would be able to provide you with a NIGH LIMITLESS FLOW OF MANA so that you'd be able to cast them!

Orion: :)

El: *hisses like a feral cat*

Orion: :(

The Scholomance: oh my freaking god

Hilarious. Top tier humor.

#the scholomance #a deadly education #the last graduate #naomi novik #I also truly believe that the scholance was trying to prep El for her future by giving her those spells #she ends up being able to use her knowledge of several of those spells to useful and non-malicious effects in the last two books #but it's funny to imagine a very tired scholomance trying to find enough complex and high mana-cost spells #to placate the bewildering moral whims of this angry wizard child