Grudgeby is interesting to me because it's a sport that to play you'd need to use a multitude of magics just to stand a chance of not dying while playing.
And it's shown to be an important sport to the people on the Isles, like it's apart of their culture.
But to mix magics is actually illegal. That's what gets me.
For along time teaching more than one type of magic was against the rules at hexide.
But yet its a sport that is promoted in the school and on the Isles.
And you can be sure belos wiped away alot of witch culture when he came to power if he went as far to change the history books. He's not above cultural genocide.
So the question is why keep grudgeby? what perpose does it serve? surely that would hinder his plans right?
If you take a look at the kids that play grudgeby it's all the rich privileged witches. The kid who's parents would want them to join the emperors coven. The kids who's parents can afford to pay for tutoring from people like Lilith, and can give their kids a leg up in belos's system.
It's clear it's not illegal for kids to mix magics. Amity was shown training to learn fire magic when she takes abomination classes and also knows plant magic, also willow was allowed to switch tracks.
no one was arrested when Bump decided to let the students choose how many magic classes they want to attend. I imagine Bump was able to justify the change of rules to what ever councle/coven is encharge of education with; "they're going to choose one coven any way so what's the harm?"
So it was against hexides rules but not illegal.
I'll just get to the point and say the average student at hexide wouldn't have stood a chance playing grudgebe beforehand, and it was only the privileged kids who had access to a higher education.
Grudgeby is a sport that would train a witch to be a fairly good fighter. The kids who play it end up being stronger. They join the emperors coven and now belos has powerful soldiers straight out of school who don't need as much training with their magic. Maybe just discipline.
That's fucked up but it's the only reason I can think of why he'd keep the sport around.