Okay, I need to rant about something that irks me in the Witch Hat Atelier fandom, if that’s okay.
Okay, so. The Anime is out now and it’s amazing and beautiful and suddenly there’s a big inrush of new fans, which is great because the story is amazing and I’m happy so many other people are enjoying it not only because it means the artist gets recognized for all her hard work, but also because there’s been this big in rush of new fan content, like fanfics and fan art.
And one of the big fan art things is using the magic system to make and draw out unique spells.
And people have been doing some weird stuff with it. Like writing spells for Nuke, Male Pregnancy, and Boil Blood.
And there’s this joke going around the fandom that the witches are right to keep magic secret if that’s the stuff that people are going to make.
And, I realize this is a joke, (I’ve made this same one ever since I saw all these homemade spells too) but I think this idea of “most people will make the most awful thing imaginable if the Witch Hat magic system was real” are missing a fundamental piece of the picture.
Yes, many people in the internet have made some truly terrifying or downright strange spells using runes from a fictional series, but they’ve done that because it’s just that. Fictional. It’s a thought experiment, a way to take simple building blocks to see what you can make with zero real world consequences.
Yes, if the Magic system was real, some people would go on to do absolutely AWFUL things with it. But (and this might be my inner hopepunk talking) in my experience, most people are fundamentally kind, or at least not actively malicious.
Saying that witches are right to gatekeep magic based on the runes that people make as a stress-reducing hobby, (and yes, I realize most of these arguments are based on the modern internets culture of dark humor) reminds me a lot of the alarmist narratives about “violent” video games.
Just because someone picks up a controller and goes a little murder hobo in Call of Duty or Baulders Gate 3 after a stressful day, doesn’t mean that if you place a real AK-47 in their hands they’re going to shoot their neighbors for shits and giggles. One is consequence free fun. The other is murder.
Witch Hat is so good because it poses complicated questions and challenges you to think deeply about why different rules are in place, encouraging you to challenge the reasons behind power structures and how to build something better from a flawed system, and I think that reducing it too “The Witches are right to gatekeep power because the average person would do terrible things with it” based on runes people made for fun, fully aware that their creations could never actually harm anyone is a disservice to the story and the impact it has had on so many people, myself included.
Anyway, sorry for the novel, I just feel strongly about this (clearly 😅).
areudirty
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind
vaporwave
blakekathryn
kianamaiart
izzy806
