A World Without Princes

In this section—and throughout the entire book—illusions to traditional fairy tales appear regularly, providing clues about the magical world of the school and its students. When Agatha and Aric draw near the School Master’s tower, “a massive rope of braided blond hair flung out the window and tumbled to the Bridge below” (198). This alludes to the story of Rapunzel, a young woman held captive in a tower who tosses down her long, blonde braid so that her stepmother and later, her prince, can climb up to her. In such stories, females are valued for their beauty and stereotypically feminine qualities like grace and virtue rather than their intelligence, ingenuity, or creativity. By repurposing Rapunzel’s hair to serve their escape rather than framing it as a symbol of helplessness, the boys unknowingly subvert its original fairy tale meaning, though they remain locked into rigid gender roles. However, this time, it is the prince, Tedros, who is kept in the tower and Agatha, the princess, who climbs it. This ironic reversal of the traditional “Rapunzel” plot mirrors how emasculated Tedros and the other boys feel because of Agatha’s choice and the widespread social response to it, reinforcing how gender roles are unstable and subject to change and highlighting The Fluidity of Gender.

Further, Hester’s mom is the “now-deceased witch who tried to kill Hansel and Gretel,” and Agatha learns that “Beatrix’s grandmother was the maiden who out-witted Rumpelstiltskin” (161). Millicent is “the great-granddaughter of Sleeping Beauty,” while Kiko is “the child of one of Neverland’s Lost Boys and a mermaid” (161). These allusions demonstrate the long history of tradition—children following in their parents’ footsteps to become either Nevers or Evers—and helps to explain why girls, especially, are so eager for a different world, one in which they aren’t destined to become ugly and despised witches or pretty and vapid princesses, respectively. The text plays with the idea of intergenerational legacy, showing how fairy tale descendants of all genders are often caught in expectations beyond their control. Agatha’s story presented all magical females with an alternative, showing that their destinies do not have to be dictated by history. 

Regarding The Fluidity of Gender, while the girls experience newfound empowerment in their school, the princes undergo the opposite transformation, stripped of their traditional authority and sense of purpose. Just as the girls were once forced into roles centered on beauty and passivity, the boys are now treated as disposable obstacles rather than heroes. This reversal of fortune breeds resentment, particularly in Tedros, who, rather than seeing Agatha’s rejection as a personal choice, interprets it as a betrayal of the entire gender order. His quickness to assume the worst of Agatha, believing she deliberately deceived him by sneaking Sophie into the tower, mirrors the emotional volatility of the other displaced princes, who now view the girls not as equals, but as usurpers. The novel challenges the notion that empowerment must come at the expense of another group, showing how both the boys and girls struggle within a system that only allows for extremes of power rather than balance.

The narrative also continues to foreground The Fiction of Traditional Happy Endings through Agatha’s determination to change her “ending” and Sophie’s resolve to reaffirm hers; both show that a condition once believed to be permanent is, in fact, not. To this end, Agatha tells Tedros, “We can end this. We can … rewrite our story […]. S-s-she’ll go home. Like you wanted her to” (205). Here, Agatha directly challenges the idea of a fairy tale as a closed, immutable narrative. That their story can be rewritten is a completely new concept for this community, which accepted the permanence of their stories’ ends. For her part, Sophie is so eager to retain Agatha and her own sense of goodness that she becomes obsessed with the possibility of losing them. Rather than understanding that happy endings are shaped by choices, Sophie sees them as static and dependent on keeping Agatha close to her. This underscores how fairy tale ideals—rather than being sources of stability—can become sources of anxiety, as characters like Sophie struggle to maintain control over their stories. If one’s happily-ever-after truly were happy and forever, then Agatha would not desire to change hers, nor would Sophie be so afraid of turning evil again after Agatha chose her and seemed to cement her goodness. The novel suggests that the fear of losing one’s happy ending may, in fact, be what causes it to fall apart.

The Fluidity of Gender is demonstrated repeatedly by the secondary characters’ experiences. When Sophie speaks protectively of Agatha, Beatrix tells her, “You sound … like … a … prince …” (174). This moment reinforces that traditional gender roles are performative rather than intrinsic. Sophie’s protective nature is seen as a “princely” quality, even though there is nothing inherently male about it. If a girl can sound like a prince, then boys do not inherently or solely possess certain stereotypically male attributes. This highlights that gendered traits, such as bravery or protectiveness, are social constructs rather than biological realities. Agatha’s decision to kiss Sophie rather than Tedros reflects a similar idea: She chose “wrong” according to some, but her choice only seems wrong because it was nontraditional. It disrupts the gendered, heteronormative idea that girls always choose boys and boys always choose girls, an idea that—when people acquiesce to it—generates some social stability. 

Agatha uses this very disruption to cross the shattered bridge to the boys’ school. At first, the bridge will not allow her to cross to the boys’ side because it identifies her as a girl. There is evidently no answer that identifies a boy or girl’s innate qualities, and this shows that such qualities do not exist. Instead, the definition of “boy” and “girl” is purely relational—defined by what the other is not. This idea reinforces the social construction of gender, showing how it is built on oppositions rather than natural truth. 



Agatha’s reflection instead tells her, “I know someone who wishes for a Boy must be a Girl […] Because Girls wish for Boys and Boys wish for Girls and you wished for a Boy so that makes you a Girl” (186-87). Agatha’s ability to “trick” the system by exploiting these assumptions highlights how arbitrary they are; her moment of gender subversion allows her to break past a seemingly impenetrable boundary. Thus, when Agatha says she “Kissed a Girl to life like all the best princes” (187), her reflection declares her to be a boy. The bridge’s spell relies on oppositional definitions that society creates, and Agatha’s subversion of her gender’s social role permits her to manipulate the spell to her advantage, demonstrating how gender categories can be not only fluid but also weaponized.