I’ve seen a handful of takes over the past few months that amount to “the brimmed caps are ontologically evil and if you’re sympathetic to them you don’t understand that to be a brimmed cap is to be evil” and like no I don’t think thats what shirahama is saying in the slightest with this story.
I think she has set up the world as this really ugly dichotomy of: either follow the laws of the pointed caps or you’re a brimmed cap. Like… to me Tartah didn’t choose to be a brimmed cap, he just couldn’t side with the pointed caps anymore and what else was he supposed to do? He’s a child. Custas only chose to be a brimmed cap because the choice of being a pointed cap was never an option for him, and what was he supposed to do? Stew in the knowledge that magic is a possibility for everyone with just ink and a pen, but he should never touch it because of someone else’s rules saying he wasn’t born to the right family for it?
The only other option for witches who divert from being a pointed cap is having your memories erased and being sent to adanlee, essentially losing yourself and your family/community.
I truly believe that there are kind brimmed caps (or an entirely different group (crooked/bent caps???)) in the story of witch hat that our characters haven’t interacted with because they are reclusive, maybe we’ll get to meet them in custas and tartah’s stories going forward.
To me it makes sense that the only brimmed caps we’ve met so far have been mostly evil/bad because those are the ones that are angry and violent and willing to make contact with pointed cap society in an effort to change it. If you were a chill brimmed cap healer wouldn’t you try to avoid all contact with the pointed caps for fear of losing your memories and being sent to adanlee? I certainly would.