Reel Tastes & Travels – a light dose of entertainment to wake you up

Finally, things are starting to heat up again! At HeartsLabyul’s unbirthday party, Ace tries to play nice with Riddle and gives him the chestnut tart as an apology. Unfortunately for him (and coming as a surprise to probably no one watching the show) there is a rule dictating what can be served at the unbirthday party and chestnut tarts are very much NOT on the approved menu. This of course sets Riddle off, but the sheer ridiculousness of it all also inspires our main quartet to stand up to Riddle’s tyranny.

Sadly, it doesn’t last long as the rest of the house is too scared to support them, and it just results in Riddle setting magic collars on all of them. Later, Trey apologizes to them, and we finally learn Riddle’s backstory. Turns out I wasn’t too far off on my guess of parental inflicted trauma earlier; I had just pegged it to the wrong person. Yup, Riddle is a textbook case of how the crushing weight of parental expectations can warp a person. His parents are exceptional healers who expected nothing but the best from Riddle. To that end, they treated him less like a beloved (or even simply tolerated) child, and more like a repository for their ambitions, with every minute of his life strictly scheduled and disciplined. Trey, being from the same town, saw this and hence can’t find it in his heart to confront Riddle about how insane his actions are. However, Ace rightly points out that by choosing to turn a blind eye, he is I’m fact being a poor friend to Riddle. Trey doesn’t seem fully convinced yet, but I predict this thought will eat him up inside until he is finally driven to action, and that will be what finally saves Riddle from his misguided villainous turn. 

But before that, the Headmage pops up to prod Ace and Deuce into challenging Riddle to a duel for the role of house warden. I mean guys, really? I applaud your desire to stand up to tyranny but we have heard again and again what an exceptionally talented mage Riddle is. And you two aren’t even able to practice your magic properly with the collars on. You don’t even think to ask about the rules of the duel before agreeing to it and seem to go in with no real plan of action beyond talking big. As expected, Riddle polishes them off within five seconds flat, and the grand mutiny seems to die a quick death right there. But perhaps the seeds of doubt planted in Trey’s mind here will bear fruit next episode. And probably just in time too, as we see that Riddle’s brooch is almost completely black now. Will there even be much of him left to save?

Stray Musings

• Deuce is one of my favourite characters so far. Despite his deep seated desire to become an honor student and avoid trouble, he’s still ready to take a stand and back up Ace in the face of injustice.
• A measure of exactly how crazy the HeartsLabyul rules are? Even Trey, who is a third year student has memorized less than half of the rules. How does Riddle expect brand new first years to know it all? And more importantly how has Trey escaped being magic-locked so far?
• We also got an answer to why Riddle is housewarden so early. He challenged the previous housewarden (what do you want to bet it’s because he felt that he wasn’t enforcing the rules sufficiently) and won. Riddle also points out not a single student has been held back or expelled under his rein. A very ‘ends justify the means’ mentality which is understandable given his upbringing. Hard to see how having lemonade after 8pm, or a chestnut tart at an unbirthday party would undermine that though!