Sophie’s dream in “The Princess and The Witch” accentuates her permanent unconscious preoccupation: “Sophie dreamt of princes instead. She had arrived at a castle ball thrown in her honor, only to find the hall filled with a hundred suitors and no other girls in sight. Here for the first time were boys who deserved her, she thought as she walked the line. Hair shiny and thick, muscles taut through shirts, skin smooth and tan, beautiful and attentive like princes should be. But just as she came to one who seemed better than the rest, with brilliant blue eyes and ghostly white hair, the one who felt like Happily Ever After . . . a hammer broke through the walls of the room and smashed the princes to shards.” The dream which is upset by her father’s nailing designates that Sophie is engrossed with being a princess. She aches for her existence to be ‘Happily Ever After’ like the lifespans of the traditional princesses whom she reads about in her books. The fixation is authoritative in that it determines her dreams.
“Evil versus Goodness” binary dominates the entire plot: “Well, in the School for Good, they teach boys and girls like me how to become heroes and princesses, how to rule kingdoms justly, how to find Happily Ever After…In the School for Evil, they teach you how to become wicked witches and humpbacked trolls, how to lay curses and cast evil spells.” The binary designates that children can either be ‘good or bad.’ Good kids are suitable for the “School for Good” whereas evil kids qualify for the “School for Evilness.”
Agatha’s characterization helps to undermine fairy tale plots: “Agatha scowled. “Look, who’s to say the books are even real? Maybe it’s the bookseller’s prank. Maybe it’s the Elders’ way to keep children out of the woods. Whatever the explanation, it isn’t a School Master and it isn’t evil spells.” Unlike Sophie, Agatha is not fundamentally persuaded about the realism of the fairies. Since the fairies are authored by humans, they cannot be said to be unequivocally perfect. The fairy story books are deemed to be a replication of reality even by adults; it is imperious to counter the improbable notions which are proliferated such tales.
