The Last Graduate

The Scholomance is a microcosm of the larger magical world that exists beyond its boundaries. It was originally created by the most powerful enclaves, and in both a figurative and literal sense, it reproduces the power relationships that dominate the world outside of the school. Within the school’s walls, enclave students become the beneficiaries of large mana stores that they access using power-sharers. They have also inherited clothing and creature comforts, as well as enhanced protection from mals, and they have greater odds of surviving the graduation hall. Beyond the school, the actual enclaves are collectives that enjoy protection from mals because they have enough mana and spells to band together. With their pooled resources, they enjoy greater material wealth and protection from the outside world.

Inside the school, independent students are socially isolated as they must constantly work to build up enough mana to power spells and enhance their studies, and they are more vulnerable to mals due to their isolation and limited resources. The more socially adept of the independent students learn to call upon the enclave students and make deals that will ensure their survival; enclave students use that fact as leverage that sometimes results in indie students becoming cannon fodder. Beyond the school, those same power dynamics dominate the social landscape; independent wizards do not have the protections that the enclavers enjoy, so they and their children are more vulnerable to roaming mals. Those who do manage to attach themselves to enclaves do so with the understanding that their families will undergo generations of labor in order to be allowed to join the enclave. They do menial work for the sake of their children’s survival.

By the end of the novel, the Scholomance becomes a symbol for the new order that El institutes when she embraces collectivism over individuality. The Scholomance uses its powers to nudge El to help create a space in which children are truly safe and in which cooperation, not Darwinian competition, is central to the school’s value system. The Scholomance also collaborates in its own destruction when it adheres to El’s plan to lure in most of the mals in the world and then drop into the void, thereby trapping the mals and making the world safer for wizard children. This act of self-sacrifice aligns most closely with the collectivist values that the students embrace.