Liketwoswansinbalance - LikeTwoSwansInBalance

I just learned what a panopticon is. And, I thought, if the School Master's tower had more windows than one, Rafal would be living in some version of a panopticon, as the prison guard. That sounds odd, but when you think about it, even the students that want to be there at the Schools are prisoners. The only way out is through graduating, through failing or death, or "through a fairy tale." And, no one had ever seen the School Master. Everyone believed Sophie and Agatha were liars.

Here's a book 1 quote to succinctly prove Rafal's got surveillance over everything, even if we already knew that:

“Neither side could hear the laughter from the tower, half shadowed, lording over them all” (339).

I could just imagine Rafal looking all professorial, when he's going to teach his Nevers, in an all-black, tailored suit. His clothes would just scream class and elegance, if Sophie influences him, or if Evers (Read: traditional Evers) and his brother influenced him, once.

Consider this: Rafal outranks every boy in the Woods, even Tedros, in attractiveness. (Though, this is a subjective quality.)

The proof?

Sophie is the oft-touted most beautiful girl in the Woods, and she rarely doubts her own beauty.

Rarely does anything ever make her doubt her own beauty. She is the epitome of ego. So, when a boy causes her to doubt herself in this particular metric? That is significant. She feels self-conscious once around Rafal. Though, it could be because of her generally disheveled state and her fever, but still. There was even a line in TLEA where she wondered whether she was the uglier of the pair of them. A thought that she never had about Tedros. No other boy in the Woods has ever managed this. This, as in, to make the Witch of the Woods Beyond doubt herself.

Is Rafal an anti-hero or an anti-villain? Probably both. It depends on when. Prequel or main series? And, it changes too often. And, from whose perspective are we looking at this from? His own? The readers’? The side characters’? Rhian’s? Sophie’s? I just keep thinking in circles.

Also, to possibly oversimplify the terms: I think of anti-hero as good intentions/desired outcome, bad deeds/means. And, anti-villains are bad intentions/desired outcome, good deeds along the way.

Joke headcanon: Rafal has Marie Antoinette syndrome because of all the undue stress Rhian put him through during their childhood. Because Rhian had exactly zero self-preservation instincts, and Rafal had to keep him from trusting anyone suspicious-looking, or anyone who looked vaguely murderous. Rhian has probably given Rafal a near-heart attack on multiple occasions.

Rhian is a poor judge of character. It's highly unlikely, but this could be what drove Rafal to fratricide. Maybe, he got fed up with continually saving Rhian, and decided he would just murder Rhian himself than allow him to be murdered by someone else.

I could see him thinking that he'd rather murder Rhian himself than let anyone else do it. That he’d rather be the cause of Rhian's death than anything else. If he were twisted or possessive enough, he probably would rather Rhian die by his hand than anyone else's.

All this aside, I think he’s naturally white-haired though. I've always pictured him like that anyway, and it suits him.