Every Main Character From The School For Good And Evil Ranked
Based on a series of novels by Soman Chainani, Paul Feig's "The School of Good and Evil" is a fresh entry into the wonderful world of the "school of magic" genre. Fans of the genre will recognize certain tropes like dorm arrangements determined by each student's personality traits, a supposedly vanquished foe comes back from the dead, and a lasting message about the power of friendship.
However, "The School of Good and Evil" asserts itself in its own ways thanks to its stellar cast that populates this vivid world with (mostly) lovable characters. Yet not all of these characters were created equal. Some are top of the class, while others are huddled in the back of the classroom, not paying attention. From the bubbly Professor Dovey to Hort the wannabe werewolf, here are all the major characters from "The School for Good and Evil" ranked.
The following article contains spoilers for "The School for Good and Evil."
12. Beatrix
Almost every character in "The School for Good and Evil" has something that makes them compelling or entertaining. However, if we were to grade Beatrix (Holly Sturton) based on how much of an impression her character leaves, she would get a big fat "F." She is by far the least interesting member of the cast.
Beatrix is a student at the School for Good, who mercilessly torments Agatha (Sofia Wylie) and cozies up to Tedros (Jamie Flatters). She's pretty much your standard "mean girl" — and not even a particularly clever mean girl, since she resorts to making immature comments about Agatha's smell.
The movie never really gets into her motivations, aside from her jealousy when she learns that Agatha or Sophie (Sophia Anne Caruso) might steal Tedros from her. Maybe her character could have been deeper if the film had convinced us that Beatrix was genuinely worried about being usurped by Agatha. But we never believe that Beatrix actually feels threatened. When she does finally have a change of heart at the end of the movie, the transformation feels unearned.
While it's true that Beatrix is only a minor character and obviously can't get the same development as one of the leads, we still think the movie could have done more with the character's limited screen time. Just look at Gregor (Ally Cubb), who only appeared in a handful of scenes but still left a huge impact.
11. Hester
Like Beatrix, Hester (Freya Parks) is another bully at the School for Good and Evil, who isn't very likable and gets a half-baked redemption arc in the movie's climax. Unlike Beatrix, however, Hester at least has a real reason for hating Sophie. Hester becomes sworn enemies with Sophie after the new student unwittingly calls Hester's mother a "hag."
However, the film never explores why Hester's mother is such a sensitive subject for her, even though that could have made for a fascinating backstory. For instance, what if Hester's mother was actually a sweet old lady that everybody called a witch just like Agatha's mother (Sandra Cole)? That would have been a perfect way to reinforce the movie's message that appearances can be deceiving.
Although Hester's public persona is tough, she does show a surprisingly vulnerable side after Sophie beats her in a schoolyard fight, where she's left lying on the floor, reaching desperately for her dragon. Still, even this scene misses an opportunity to delve deeper. We wish the movie had taken a moment to show how this incident changed Hester, rather than having the character go right back to her nasty self.
But credit where credit is due: Hester has a seriously cool power. The shot of the skeletal dragon tattoo bursting out of her skin is one of the movie's most visceral and memorable visual effects.
10. Tedros
Tedros is very full of himself but this princely love interest has just enough charisma to make up for his inflated ego. Even though he and Agatha get off on the wrong foot, he approaches her to thank her for "not being boring." And whenever she insults him, he doesn't snap back at her. Instead, he just laughs it off, which is a pleasant surprise.
Despite his redeeming qualities, Tedros can often be naive and tone-deaf, such as when he confesses his love for Agatha in a moment when she's more concerned about stopping an evil plot. What's more, Tedros only changes his mind about Sophie because of an arbitrary rule of magic — the Good always excel at archery, while the Evil always miss the target — not necessarily because he has learned to see past the surface.
Later, he takes a step backward by giving up on Sophie when he learns that she didn't hit the target by herself. He even kills Gregor after the boy has been transformed into a stymph, even though Gregor is clearly not a threat to anyone. All of these things are pretty difficult for viewers to forgive.
Don't get us wrong — Tedros is a decent guy, and he has some romantic chemistry with Agatha. Still, his character doesn't quite achieve anything that hasn't already been done better elsewhere in the realm of pompous princes. Just ask James Marsden's Prince Edward in "Enchanted."
9. The School Master
At a glance, the School Master Rhian (Laurence Fishburne) seems like a laid-back mentorly figure. But observant viewers will notice that there's something off about him. He never seems to take sides, and you can never tell what he's thinking. That's because he's not Rhian at all, but instead his evil twin Rafal (Kit Young) in disguise.
It's a shocking plot twist but the School Master's actions are at least (mostly) in character for a villain trying to sow the seeds of discord between the two schools. After all, when Sophie insists she was put in the wrong school, the School Master declares, "There are no mistakes in the School for Good and Evil." It's a surprising and dangerous view that serves as a bit of foreshadowing for who the School Master really is.
We do wish the movie had further developed the duality of the School Master. Rafal could have been an excellent case study in how Evil can often seem like Good. But instead, the character's inscrutability works against him, making it difficult for viewers to understand his motivations. Neither Rafal nor his persona as the School Master is an interesting character on their own. However, the two of them combined at least make for a thought-provoking villain.
8. Professor Dovey
Professor Dovey (Kerry Washington) is so sweet that at times she can make you want to gag. However, her character is not without redeeming qualities. If the character had been played completely straight, Professor Dovey might have quickly gotten annoying. However, Washington wisely doesn't take the role too seriously. She is clearly enjoying herself, and she even pokes fun at the movie's heavy-handed world-building by delivering some exposition in a sing-songy voice to hammer in the difference between Good and Evil.
Plus, there's more to Dovey than meets the eye. In a key scene, she seems to be angry with Agatha for challenging the school's harsh rules. But it turns out that she's proud of Agatha for showing passionate empathy, which is a quality that Dovey hasn't seen in one of her students in a long time.
When considering this scene, the professor's bubbly persona takes on a potential new layer. Perhaps it emerged as the result of years of watching her students grow vain and petty, until she gave in to resignation and decided that pure, good souls didn't exist anymore.
However, Dovey swings rather suddenly from shallow to empathetic over the course of a single scene, so her transformation is a little hard for viewers to buy. Without a doubt, Kerry Washington is perfectly cast for the role, but we wish her performance had shown a little more nuance.
7. Dot
Dot (Kaitlyn Akinpelumi) is the first character to give Sophie a proper welcome at the School of Evil, unless you count Hort (Earl Cave) giving her a handshake with a severed hand. Dot's friendliness immediately endears her to viewers. As the daughter of the Sheriff of Nottingham, Dot is clearly a little stung that nobody seems to remember the Sheriff's real name. But then, she's probably used to it by now.
It's amusing that Dot's magical power allows her to turn anything into chocolate — but not poisoned chocolate, to the disappointment of Lady Lesso (Charlize Theron). This magic doesn't strike us as particularly "evil," but that might be precisely the point. Like her fellow classmates in the School of Evil, Dot is hardly pure evil. She believes that chocolate doesn't need to serve some nefarious purpose. Instead, she insists, can't it just be chocolate?
Viewers can't help but feel sympathy for Dot when she learns that Sophie would rather hang out with Tedros and the folks at the School for Good. Unfortunately, her character isn't given too much to do; in the scenes where she does appear, she is usually overshadowed by Hort and Hester. However, she does get bonus points for chucking flaming chocolate while cackling madly.
6. Professor Anemone
Michelle Yeoh has a small role in "The School for Good and Evil" but what she does with her brief screen time ensures that viewers won't soon forget her character.
Yeoh plays Professor Anemone, who effortlessly commands the room. During beautification class, she instructs her students on how to smile properly, using unexpectedly violent imagery to describe a smile as "a sword in the battle for life and true love." It's impossible not to love the blasé way she tells Agatha that she failed, or the move in which she snaps her sleeves like whips.
Audiences may be inclined to dislike Anemone at first, since she gives Agatha an F because of something petty. However, viewers soon learn that Anemone is bitter because she was demoted from the head of the Magical History Department — a job she clearly enjoyed.
Now, Professor Anemone spends her days hosting beauty classes, mourning all of the more useful things she could have been teaching her pupils. Her reveal of this demotion and the school's transformation into a place that's "insufferably shallow" says more about the flaws in the magical education system — and the school's entire worldview — than anything else in the rest of the movie.
We wish the film had done more to explore the history of the School for Good and Evil and traced its fall from dignity. For that matter, we wish we had seen more of Anemone since Yeoh is sadly underutilized here.
5. Lady Lesso
Although Lady Lesso is hardly one of Charlize Theron's best roles, the actress certainly gives a gleeful performance as the Dean of Evil. Theron is positively magnetic and brings to light the deeper layers of her dark character.
Normally, Lesso is pretty nonchalant whenever her students are locked in mortal combat. She barely musters a shrug when a student challenges Tedros to a violent duel, which only ends after somebody's arm gets lopped off.
So, it's surprising that Lesso gets upset when Sophie attacks Hester with a swarm of bees. For the first time, she actually seems concerned about somebody getting hurt, perhaps because she sees the potential for incredible darkness in Sophie and that scares or threatens her.
It's a sore spot for Lesso that Evil always seems to lose, no matter how hard her students try. She's equally stung that Rafal chooses Sophie instead of her, especially because she was deeply in love with Rafal. "You weren't evil enough for him," Sophie reminds her, and Lesso can never forgive herself for that perceived failure.
The film reminds us that this seemingly unflappable teacher was once a student like Sophie, who also had to discover who she was and what her capabilities were. The only reason Lesso isn't higher on this list is because certain moments in her performance lack subtlety. She has a surprisingly short fuse, and her change of heart in the third act is awfully sudden.
4. Agatha
When viewers first meet Agatha, she is having a staring contest with her cat and losing badly, which immediately sets the audience up to root for this misfit. Agatha is warm and compassionate, and she always manages to be graceful, even when she has leaves in her hair.
Of course, Agatha is much more than just the typical "nice girl." Although she doesn't have quite the same capacity for meanness as Sophie, Agatha can still be quite sassy. She calls the all-seeing Storian (Cate Blanchett) a weirdo, and when her roommates refuse to sleep in the same room as her, she gives them a biting comeback. It's satisfying to watch her run circles around the village bullies, Tedros, and pretty much anybody else who tries to put her down.
Ultimately, her moral compass is her strongest suit. She is the first to challenge the school's questionable practices and wonder why anyone needs to be labeled as "Good" or "Evil" at all. And like a true Cyrano de Bergerac, she doesn't hesitate when her best friend asks for help wooing Tedros, even though Agatha has a crush on him too.
3. Gregor
Gregor only appears in four scenes in the movie, or five if you count the moment when he appears in the form of a stymph. But he makes all of his appearances count, as he's able to warm the hearts of the audience every time he's on screen.
At one point, Gregor tells Agatha he would rather be anywhere than the School for Good and Evil. Specifically, he wants nothing more than to open his own grocery store. Sure, it seems like a bit of an anachronism, but it does fit right into a fairy tale with a Billie Eilish-infused soundtrack. Really, it's refreshing to see a character so modest at the School for Good and Evil, since most of the other students have lofty ambitions.
Arguably, his most memorable moment is when he recounts how he fainted during dueling class. The movie hilariously cuts back and forth between an over-the-top flashback and Gregor's matter-of-fact account of the incident, which makes him even more endearing.
Sadly, this favorite character dies before the movie is even halfway through. We tip our hats to "The School for Good and Evil" for having the guts to kill off a sweet and innocent kid. Still, this unfortunately means that viewers don't get to see nearly enough of Gregor.
2. Hort
Hort may be in the School for Evil, but he's actually not so bad. His first appearance makes him seem like a creep since he begs Sophie to let him touch her hair, but once you get to know him, he's actually quite harmless and kind of adorable. He dives into his training at the School for Evil with childlike glee.
Hort is the son of Captain Hook, though in personality he's probably more like Smee: earnest and always eager to please. When Professor Manley (Mark Heap) asks him to dunk Sophie's head into an ugliness potion, Hort does it, but not before assuring Sophie, "You'll still look beautiful to me." Later, Hort tries to show off to Lessy by turning into a werewolf during class but the best he can manage is a single measly chest hair.
The first time Hort meets Sophie, she insults his name, telling him, "It sounds like something you cough up." Hort replies, "That's the nicest thing anyone ever said to me." What makes this line so great is that Hort isn't being sarcastic in the slightest. He delivers it with genuine sincerity, and we love him for that.
1. Sophie
Right from the beginning, Sophie is underestimated by everyone. On the surface, she seems like a kind and gentle young woman, who dreams of becoming a princess. Things clearly aren't what they seem with her though, as she hits a villager in the head with a frying pan to protect Agatha. Not long after, a shadow creature from the School for Good and Evil drags Sophie away from everything she knows and drops her into the School of Evil.
Initially, it seems like this is a mistake, but Sophie's true colors soon start to show and suddenly, this side of her personality doesn't seem so surprising. Ironically, the School of Evil that Sophie so despises is actually the perfect place for her.
It turns out, Sophie can be quite cunning and even venomous. She calls her best friend a weirdo, even as she's asking her to deliver a love letter on her behalf. And when Hester attacks Sophie with a skeletal dragon, Sophie retaliates with a swarm of bees that leaves Hester writhing on the floor. She even kisses a random passerby just to prove a point.
Of course, Sophie isn't really evil, any more than any of her fellow students at the School for Evil. Rather, she's going through a process of self-discovery, which leads to a startling transformation and brings her within a hair's breadth of succumbing to her inner darkness. For all of these reasons, we crown her the most fascinating character in "The School for Good and Evil."