So I wanna talk about Orla Maguire (TBoMT)
I've been re-watching the series along with @ayalaatreides (thanks to Teleparty!) and I'd forgotten a lot of the Season 1 stuff so I was somewhat unprepared for the Shit Gets Absolutely Real in S01E06 ("The Test").
Spoilers ensue, so I'm putting the rest under a Read More:
What I love about this episode is it digs into the very real challenges Kyra will face as a Tri-ling in the magical world she's only just begun to navigate via Professor Maxwell's school in River City, and the series personifies those challenges in the form of Orla Maguire, an elf:
Melanie Zanetti (Orla's actress) just nailed the menacingly benevolent way she approaches Kyra.
She's all smiles, but you can just tell she's ready to stab Kyra in the back at the slightest opportunity, and boy, does she get that chance this episode!
And she grabs the Shadow Cloud, after which she espies Peter across a park and chooses to let it out there:
And right here, this is where she crosses the Moral Event Horizon.
She purposely moves the cloud near Peter.
I believe this was deliberate, because doing this sets Kyra up for two equally bad alternatives:
She takes her mind off the Shadow Cloud threat and will have to rush and save Peter, failing the test, or
She fails to save Peter and ends up letting the Cloud go on to do further damage before containing it.
Kyra, luckily, knocks Peter out of the way and distracts him while Imogen manages to vacuum the cloud up using a magical artifact.
But regardless of the outcome, thanks to Orla Kyra was doomed to fail this test anyway, and we see that the reason for this is due to deep-seated prejudices that still exist within the magical world of TBoMT:
These prejudices play out in the relative socioeconomic positions of the Maxwell School students:
Imogen's and Darra's parents are hinted to be quite wealthy, given Orla's remarks about generous donations to the Department of Magical Intervention (also, noteworthy is that they're all full-blooded elves).
Lily's (a full-blooded fairy) father Sean Reegan (also a fairy) is at this point hinted to be a high official in the DMI (we later find out he's the Director of the DMI - effectively the Minister for Magic).
Ruksy's family situation isn't elaborated on by this point. However, given that she is treated the same as Lily, we can conclude that Ruksy's family is probably the equivalent of magical middle class.
But Kyra is a Tri-ling in a world where any mixed-ancestry magical people are regarded with suspicion at best, and her father is a policeman - good at his job, but hardly a rising star destined for fame and fortune.
So this firmly puts Kyra at the bottom of the socioeconomic hierarchy, a situation which Professor Maxwell sympathizes with, being a half-ling himself. He also remarks (anviliciously, perhaps, but some things need to be said) that it means Kyra will have to work twice as hard to be considered as good as the other students.
To bring this back to Orla, it's impressive how well this episode uses her character as a vehicle to show the extent of discrimination Kyra will face, and how prejudice against her can easily lead to abuses of magical power in ways that could hurt Kyra or her friends.
I'm purposely avoiding spoilers for Orla's later character arc, but feel free to bring those up if you've already seen the entire series and want to discuss! :)
