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Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 10 – Quick Summary
In Wistoria: Want and Sword episode 10, “Our Dream,” Will and Wignall Lindor found themselves separated from the rest. The state of Wingall’s abilities further complicated matters: some of the creatures they faced were immune to magic consisting of pure illusion. Will wants to find the others, particularly Colette. But the monsters seem to be against that idea, and Will’s struggling to take on so many monsters at once. Can Wignall get out of his own way and help? Can the others find them in time? Or do they have enough problems of their own?
Note: This post may include spoilers, so be cautious.
Favorite Quote from Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 10
Wignall could barely comprehend Will’s attitude. Capture from the Crunchyroll stream.
Wignall came clean with Will in this episode. He told Will his origin story: how, when he was young, he was friends with Ellenor Ljos Alf, who was now a Magia Vander. She’s the one I’ve been thinking of as “the hot elf” since we first met her.
Apparently, Wignall felt the same way, but with more emotional depth. He felt as strongly for her as Will felt for Elfaria. In fact, both stories shared strong similarities. Both Wignall and Will were hopelessly dedicated to their loves; both were seen as weaklings and “laggards” by their peers.
Both Ellenor and Elfaria were ridiculously overpowered.
They also both practiced and honed what skills they had. They trained relentlessly.
Relating the story to Will seemed to reinforce the feeling of failure in Wignall’s mind. He seemed utterly dejected.
“I see,” Will said, his enthusiasm confusing the heck out of Wignall (05:49). “That’s what it was! I’ve always felt we’ve had something in common!”
Will was excited to have found a kindred spirit – and that excitement and realization upended Wignall’s perspective.
Favorite Moment from Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 10
Lihanna has lived with despair for a long time – she seemed almost relieved to unburden herself to Colette. Capture from the Crunchyroll stream.
Setup: Wignall and Will’s Shared Experience
I like what the show’s doing with the friendship between Will and Widnall. The unexpected shared experience of how their peers perceive them was something Will had admitted and lived with since forever. Wignall, though, had chosen to hide behind a mask of disdain. He was shocked when Will enthusiastically embraced their friendship. Will’s going to be a good influence on Wignall – I hope!
The show’s done a good job of hiding some of its biggest themes in plain sights. For example: we saw in previous episodes how the scouts would just pick students out of the competition. Elfaria herself got selected at an early age; so, apparently, had the hot elf (who I should probably just call by her name Ellenor, but in all fairness, she is both hot and is an elf).
With Will’s support, Wignall could go beyond what he’d done before. What would he have become if his people had supported him? Capture from the Crunchyroll stream.
Though the show was free with that information, I didn’t think it through. I did not consider the implications. But in my favorite moment in this episode, Lihanna Owenzaus showed that he had already figured it out. And she didn’t like the implications.
Colette and Lihanna wandered the eleventh floor. Lihanna filled Colette in on the obvious secret. Yes, students needed so many points to graduate. But the scouts would pluck out a talented, promising mage from the competitions; or a mage would create a promising spell on their own.“Over the past six years,” she said to a very uneasy Colette (03:39), “I’ve watched as the talented departed. We are truly the ones nobody wants.”
Delivery: Lihanna’s Honest Insight
That bothered Colette, and I got the feeling it wasn’t on her own behalf. Colette didn’t like seeing Lihanna so beaten down. She pointed out that people referred to Lihanna as “Miss Perfect” based on her skills and talent.
Lihanna had no illusions about her title. She said (03:51), “That is only within the academy. We are no more than tiny frogs who know nothing of the great oceans.”
For me, that stood the whole show on its head. It’s not that Will was the outcast; the lone individual without talent. He was just one of many. One of a school-full, in fact. Wignall, Sion, and Julius hid behind a mask of arrogance. Lihanna had hidden in plain sight. But all of them were still in school because they were, in the eyes of whoever’s managing the front-line conflict, “laggards.”
Colette was there to help Lihanna put everything into context – using Will’s experience as a lens. Capture from the Crunchyroll stream.
In terms of their “worthiness,” only Will had (as far as I can see so far) honestly embraced the fact. And then he had ignored it to train harder. It helps that he has a friend like Colette. It helps he knows he has Elfaria’s good will. Given that, I think it makes the progress Wignall has made even more exceptional. After all, he didn’t have a Colette, and it doesn’t seem that Ellenor is nearly as supportive as Elfaria.
I like how the show hid all this in plain sight. As soon as Lihanna laid it out, all the pieces clicked into place. The show might be targeted at a younger demographic than mine, but that doesn’t mean it skimped on plot craftsmanship!
What did you think of the fights in this episode? What were your favorite moments? Feel free to let me know in the comments!
Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 10: Other Posts
Other Anime Sites
- Reddit: Tsue to Tsurugi no Wistoria • Wistoria: Wand and Sword – Episode 10 discussion
- Otaku Sinh – How to Anime: It Comes Down to THIS MOTIVATION in Wistoria: Wand and Sword! (YouTube)
This Site (Crow’s World of Anime!)
- Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 01 – Like a Lone Sword
- Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 02 – As Though Undaunted
- Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 03 – Order & Watcher
- Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 04: The Eve of the Grand Festival
- Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 05: Raise the Starting Pistol
- Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 06: Between Pride and Passion
- Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 07: Twelve Secret Ice Magics, El Glace Frosse
- Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 08: Shall We Date?
- Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 09: Praxis Begins
- Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 10: Our Dream
- Wistoria: Wand and Sword Episode 11: The True Name of Cowards
- Wistoria: Want and Sword Episode 12: Wand and Sword
Have you ever read The Way of Kings, by Brandon Sanderson? I’m reminded of how one of the main protagonists realizes that people often need someone whom they have it better than, someone they can look at and say, “At least I’m not them!” He realizes this when he’s at that very spot, among those that even the lowest of the low can look down on, the very bottom of the bottommost bottoms. Everyone “above” them puts on airs to at least some degree, even if their lots aren’t that much better.
It’s the masking of weakness with arrogance, a frail, fragile, shallow facade which, ultimately, in their heart of hearts, they know is worthless.
So everyone here at the academy has been looking down on Will because he can’t use magic. They’ve treated him horribly, and as with all other cruelty, it stems from weakness. Sion and Julius have been cruel and they keep trying to deny their weakness. Lihanna and Wignall still have their facades, but they admit their weakness to themselves, and they have not been cruel. Will and Colette just focus on being as strong as they can be and being there for each other.
I haven’t read it! I devoured The Lord of the Rings. Then I read The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but it degraded my enjoyment of fantasy — or it didn’t have what I had hoped it would have. Then I tried to read Wheel of Time, and that was it for fantasy and me.
Though the way you describe it, it does sound interesting. I like novels that investigate topics like that.
Good points about the other characters, especially Lihanna and Wignall. Especially Lihanna — she reached out to Will when the others (excepting Colette) would not.
Heh, that is but one of many things which are observed and explored in that series. 😉 I haven’t heard of The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, but I know exactly what you mean about Wheel of Time. I made a good effort, but didn’t get through that series. I can recommend a number of excellent fantasy books – seriously, I think I just tallied off nine of them in my head, one more and I can make a post about it, LOL.
Honestly, I have trouble taking this series seriously. Lihanna’s “revelation” didn’t put anything in place for me, though I must admit that Lihanna/Collette was the more intersting pairing in this episode for me. Will/Wignall was so-so; I’m pretty indifferent to that development.
Back to Lihanna’s “revelation”: It’s deeply focussed on becoming a Magia Vende, and it’s steeped in “either you’re part of the elite, or Nobody Wants You!!!”. It’s just silly. If spots in the tower are limited, than you pick out not the “talented” but the most talented of those who meet the minimum requirements, and the requirements might drop with need. All competition-anime seem like that to some degree: either you rise to the top or you’ve failed. This is an attitude that inherently creates more failures than successes by default, and it also devalues the very necessary upkeep work, or different spots with different elites, or…
To some degree the show knows this (see dwarves and bean-cultivation, for example). But while you respect that kind of work, it’s still not protagonist worthy. I doubt this author would be much interested in writing a story about the value of bean-cultivation and the struggle to get it’s value recognised (without it being a super-secret over-powered world-saving skill).
To me, this didn’t upend anything; it just demonstrated the usual limited vision of what makes a good shounen protagonist (the same thing, basically, that soured me eventually on My Hero Academia). I mean, I’m used to it; I can take it; I find the show has some kind of charm that keeps me coming back. But it’s writing really isn’t the main draw for me.
I’ve been wrestling the idea of why I can enjoy a show that has the kind of holes you just pointed out — and for the record, I agree with your analysis. But I agree with it from the perspective of my writer brain.
Years ago, I decided I’d become a co-conspirator for writers who have these issues, provided I can find something else to latch onto. This show gives me that something, so I can turn off my writer brain and just leave my viewer/reader brain running. Yes, I have to consciously suppress a shudder when Julius yet-again-disparates-Will. But for me, the emotional payoff from the shounen framework is worth it.
For me, my enjoyment of the show comes from it’s charm. It seems a little naive, but it’s a good-hearted naivety that I like. I feel, though, that the inherent violence of the shounen fighter genre doesn’t go well with this attitude, and for me it causes clashes at times. It’s nothing drastic, more like a hiccup that annoys you for a while and then goes away. I’m perhaps too much of a cynic to appreciate this writer. I think if I wanted to figure out where my view of the mind behind the stories (an implicit author-image I get automatically just by watching the shows; not to be confused with what I think the author actually thinks) clashes with my personality could best be explored during the monster arc in Danmachi; but that’s long and I’d need to rewatch it and I don’t want to.
And while this has nothing to do with the show, re-reading my line in above reply “…inherently creates more [stuff] by default,” makes me cringe. There’s a doubling of content here that’s awkward, but I don’t find it easy to fix. “Inherently” is what I mean, but “by default” has the position and emphasis I want. That’s where I’d re-write in the edit (unless some sort of super end-of-clause phrase came to mind in time.) Again, this has nothing do with anything. But, well, I noticed…
oops anyway, the story has no where near peaked as based on the manga so hoping for a second season
Really? That’s good to know! The world’s interesting to me — kinda reminds me Assassin’s pride, but with a better story and more comfortable relationships.
I’d watch a second season!
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