The School for Good and Evil Ending Explained: Do Agatha and Sophie Defeat Rafal?

By Aarush Sharma On Oct 26, 2022

It’s important for the fairy tale fantasy world to evolve and shed its harmful preconceptions, therefore it’s constantly adapting to new ideas and trends. Inspired by Soman Chainani’s novel, “The School of Good and Evil,” available on Netflix, discusses the dichotomy of good and evil in fantastical settings.

We all have our good and bad sides, but no one is perfect. Each of us can be the hero of our own narrative while also being the villain in another’s. The story’s message is excellent, but the film itself falls short. Too much effort is made in “The School of Good and Evil” to include features that will appeal to the young adult demographic.

On occasion, we find ourselves listening to popular music while simultaneously realizing that the words being sung bear little relation to what we’re seeing on screen. It’s easy to guess what each character will do, and they have little real complexity. There was no serious debate between the schools of evil and good.

‘The School of Good and Evil’ Plot Summary: What Happens in The Film?

Two identical brothers established the academy that teaches virtue and evil. Rafal founded the academy of evil while Rhian oversaw the good academy. Rafal had become tired of his routine. He had had enough of always coming out on the losing end. He was prepared to take on his brother for the right to control the world.

Rhian was taken aback by his sibling’s actions. Nothing he said or did sway Rafal from his original position. Rafal tried to kill Rhian by using banned black magic. Despite Rhian’s best efforts, Rafal was unwilling to listen to her and instead insisted that he get to create the rules right now. Rafal launched an attack on Rhian, causing both of them to tumble off a cliff. Rhian clung to the cliff face for dear life, but Rafal couldn’t.

Sophie and Agatha were close friends living in another realm while the fairytale world was in turmoil. Sophie lived in the village of Gavaldon with her father, Stephan, and stepmother, Horona, but she imagined herself to be a princess from a fairy tale. Agatha’s home was isolated from the rest of the village by the cemetery.

According to her, her mother was a witch whose portions were always ineffective. Even Nevertheless, Agatha’s mother was confident that her daughter would make a fantastic witch because she possessed the innate ability that she herself lacked. Sophie’s family laughed at her, but Agatha was reviled by everyone in town.

The friendship between the two little girls provided a safe haven from the hostility they had experienced. When Agatha came into Sophie sobbing at her mother’s grave, she intervened.

Vanessa, Sophie’s mother, promised her daughter a lifetime of happiness and world-changing success. Both Sophie and Agatha enjoyed reading fairy tales, but they had very different tastes. Agatha’s style was edgy and androgynous, while Sophie’s was all about regal opulence.

Bookstore owner Mrs. Deauville gave them a lecture on the morality of good and evil and its implications one day. She told them that a girl named Leonora had formerly resided in their town. A monster abducted her on a night with a crimson moon, and she was never seen again.

She may have attended the school where virtue and evil are taught. The tale held Sophie’s interest. This felt like the best way for her to escape Gavaldon. Sophie submitted a letter to the school and stashed it in the wish tree, but no one understood how applicants were selected. After receiving no response to her letter, she made the decision to leave Gavaldon without anybody else.

Agatha was not prepared to say goodbye to her close friend. Sophista pleaded with her to remain. After all, Agatha had nothing else to turn to. Sophie had said she would stay, but she was still planning to sneak out later that day. Agatha caught her in the act, and as they were arguing, a monster grabbed Sophie and began to drag her away.

Agatha’s grip on Sophie was tight. Shortly after, a huge bird whisked them away to the school of good and evil. Even though Sophie believed in happy endings and had always hoped to be a Cinderella figure, she was instead sent to the school of evil. As opposed to Agatha, who was left at the academy of good despite her self-identified witchy nature.

The now-separated best friends were resolved to prove to their schools’ administrations that they had been misplaced. However, no one believed their claims. Sophie desired enrollment in a good school, but Agatha longed to return home.

While Sophie wore tattered clothes, Agatha looked like a princess. Sophie was set on proving herself, and she was willing to go to any lengths for this, and Agatha was just concerned about her safety.

The School for Good and Evil Ending Explained

Sophie is sure that she and her sister Agatha have been dropped off at the incorrect schools when they first arrive at their new campuses. She wants to be a princess as in a fairy tale, but instead, she is sent to the School for Evil and Agatha to the School for Good.

Sophie is challenged by the School Master (Laurence Fishburne) to find true love’s kiss as proof that she is genuinely nice. Sophie believes that she can show her goodness by making Tedros (Jamie Flatters), a student at the School for Good, fall in love with her, despite the fact that students at the School for Evil and the School for Good are forbidden from romantically entwining.

Sophie fails the Trial by Tale because Agatha rescues Tedros instead of her. Tedros begins to develop feelings for Agatha, and Sophie is visited by the ghost of Rafal (Kit Young), the nefarious brother of the School Master who passed away long ago and now believes that Agatha is her archenemy.

At the Evers Ball, Sophie gives in to her darker impulses and schemes to have the Evers attack the Nevers. And so, the Nevers and the Evers exchange sides, and havoc breaks out throughout the school.

Sophie had no idea that the School Master is really her malevolent twin brother, Rafal. The School Master, posing as the good brother Rhian, has been upsetting the natural order of things in an effort to establish his dominion over the world.

Sophie and Rafal exchange a kiss of genuine love, which sets in motion the destruction of both schools because Rafal wants to create his own “never ever after” world. Sophie gives her life to protect Agatha from Rafal, who is about to stab her. And then Agatha delivers the knockout blow, finally putting an end to Rafal.

Sophie is about to die, but thanks to a kiss from Agatha, she is brought back to life (hi Frozen). Sophie and Agatha return to Gavaldon despite Tedros’s pleas for her to stay with him, and the two schools reconcile and come to terms with the fact that Good and Evil may coexist.

All ended happily, right? Actually, no. Sophie and Agatha have returned to their normal lives, but in the closing moment, we watch Tedros’s arrow break the barrier between our world and the next. He cries out, “Agatha, I need you,” before a knife enters the frame and cleaves the arrow in two.

Storian (Cate Blanchett) adds ominously in the concluding voiceover, “This was merely the beginning.” This raises two questions: whose dagger is it, and why does Tedros need Agatha?

The identity of the dagger is easily determined because it is the same dagger used by the School Master at the beginning of the film. Although Agatha appeared to have killed him with her knife, his death could not be as final as it seems; after all, we are in a fairytale.