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← view full thread · [Spoilers] Secrets of the Silent Witch - Episode 08 Discussion
Okay, am I missing something, or is there any reason Monica had to go running around looking for the barrier code and re-write it so it would nullify the bomb after it exploded as opposed to just... going to where she knows the bomb is and telling everyone there to get the fuck out?
Like, that feels like a needlessly complicated roundabout solution she in no way needed to do. She can sense the bomb with her mana so she knows where it is, once Casey's incapacitated there's nobody in her way, and judging from how the sky turns from sunset to evening during her search, looking for the barrier code takes way longer than just running back to the warehouse would have. Why not just go tell the prince "Hey, someone left a bomb in here, everyone should clear out"? What's stopping her?
She's literally undercover.
"Hey, prince, someone left a bomb in here and tried to kill me! Let's deal with that!"
Not pictured: any mention of her being the Silent Witch or connected to the Seven Sages
Here's the scene from the Light Novel:
“Please… I’m begging you, Casey… stop the Spiralflame…!”
“No. Even if I were tortured, I would never stop the Spiralflame. Prince Felix’s assassination must be carried out to the end.”
(Should I use voice amplification magic to urge the entire student body to evacuate? …No, that won’t work. My words don’t carry enough weight; they won’t believe me. Should I use wind magic to blow only the Spiralflame into the sky? …No. The Spiralflame is a fixed-type magical device, so it’s probably anchored to the wall or floor. On top of that, it has the property of absorbing surrounding mana, so if I’m careless, it might explode the moment I try to activate my spell.)
In the end, the best option she can think of is to seal the Spiralflame inside a barrier and suppress its flames.
Monica is capable of using remote magic, so from here she can just barely manage to cast a barrier.
The problem is the barrier’s strength. The Spiralflame has enough destructive power to pierce through most barriers.
(If I pour all of my mana into it, I can weaken the Spiralflame’s power… but that’s not enough. Unless I completely suppress it, it’ll ignite the fireworks and cause a catastrophe. The barrier needs to be as strong as Mr. Louis’s…!)
The novel also explains very clearly that because the Spiralflame has the power to break through most magician's barriers, it's also called "Mage Killer", so even someone as powerful as Monica had to borrow Louis's barrier to be able to suppress it completely
Thank you for the explanation
Can I ask a question?
Why does Casey hate Monica?
Because she claims to have hated her from the very first moment, so ever since the incident at the stable, but Casey obviously doesn't know that she was the one who roused the horses or stopped the bandits, and there doesn't seem to be any further explanation. She throws her tea in the trash can, cut the ropes hoping to hurt her...
The reason doesn't even seem to be the fact that she's on the student council because they never talk about it... I'm confused as to what makes her hate Monica and want to deceive her from the very beginning.
I was confused by that too
The anime is skipping a lot of explanation, so I'll paste the scenes from the light novel here.
Here's the part where it explains why Casey threw Monica's tea in the trash can:
If she became Monica’s friend, she might be able to hear about the second prince’s schedule. That’s why Casey actively interacted with Monica.
Even discarding Monica’s tea leaves during the tea party class was done so that, by extending a helping hand to Monica in her time of trouble, Casey could win her absolute trust. In this way, Casey had always been aiming for a chance to assassinate the second prince.
The scene where Casey says that she hates Monica:
“I hate you, so I decided to do a little prank on you, Monica. Honestly, I aimed that lumber to fall right at you… but I slipped up, and it came crashing toward me instead. What a mess, huh?”
Casey forced a laugh, trying to act as if nothing was out of the ordinary.
But the cracks were obvious. Her words sounded rehearsed, her voice rushed, and her eyes never once met Monica’s.
She was lying.
“…That’s not true,” Monica said softly.
“It is. From the very first time we met, I hated you.”
The words pierced Monica’s chest. Normally, she might have lowered her head, fighting back tears.
But this time, something stronger than pain rose inside her—an undeniable sense of wrongness.
“What are you hiding, Casey?”
“Nothing. I hate you. So I tried to hurt you. That’s all.”
Here's the scene where it explains why she cut the ropes:
At last, Monica understood.
The reason Casey had knocked over the lumber in the eastern warehouse and staged an accident was to create an alibi.
If incidents occurred in two different places on the same day, most people would assume that both were the work of the same culprit targeting Felix’s life.
That way, by being a victim in one of the incidents, Casey could divert suspicion from herself.
Here's what I think about it:
So, Casey was lying about hating Monica. In the novel it is pretty obvious that Casey was lying for the sake of hiding something, as you can see on the second spoiler.
She tried to use Monica to get to know about Felix's schedule, and she did those things to Monica to gain her trust. But since Monica found out about the tea incident and the rope incident, Casey had to come up with a lie on the spot, for the sake of her alibi. It would be strange that she caused an incident on the same day the second prince was assassinated (if she succeeded), so I think she was trying to pretend to be like those noble girls that poisoned Monica, so she would have a reason to "hate" Monica. At the very least, she wouldn't be suspected of terrorism, since other people would think her target was Monica
Thank you so much for the explanation and the parts of the novel, unfortunately the anime doesn't make it clear that his "hatred" was a farce and that he only wanted to get closer to Monica to have a better chance of hitting the prince, which of course is deducible because it's plausible but the hatred thing at first sight put me in difficulty because it's obvious that Casey wasn't a bad person and that she was driven by personal goals such as saving her country, but the fact that his hatred is only pretence is not shown very good, too bad because a simple sentence would have been enough.
continue this thread →It's pretty subtle but Monica deduces that Casey needed an alibi so that she wasn't suspected of the Spiralflame: "Was the accident earlier all for an alibi?" As such, you can work backwards from that to determine that Casey didn't actually hate Monica.
But you don't need to do any of that, because the anime is a visual medium. You can literally see that Casey is lying. She doesn't hate Monica. Her face shows nothing of hatred. She's smiling and carefree at first, and only shows emotion when she realizes Monica knows of the Spiralflame.
Anyways since I've already seen episode 9, their 'relationship' is made even clearer.
Superb source material. Superb adaptation.
it also felt needlessly complicated to activate the barrier, the thing that is supposed to protect from danger. i felt like i was missing information
The barrier can't protect from the inside, Monica said it after defeating the earth dragon, so she activated it by attacking from the outside and then used its power to cast the final spell. That's why Louis appeared in person as opposed to sending his maid, he sensed that someone is f-ing with the barrier.
It was complicated because she was hacking the barrier and rewriting the formula, to make the barrier do something that it wasn't supposed to do originally. But the barrier activated instantly when Monica attacked the school, since the barrier's original function is to protect from external attacks.
