Ep. 01: Secrets of the Silent Witch

Of the many shows I’m covering this summer, Secrets of the Silent Witch is touching on an issue that effects me directly in its portrayal of a character with social anxiety disorder. While I don’t have this personally, my boyfriend Arogrim does. Despite that, though, I could still fully relate to Monica’s panic and the way that it was physically affecting her throughout the episode. Talking to people doesn’t phase me. But many physical activities, like getting into new vehicles I haven’t ridden in before, or going down an escalator, do.

As I watched the episode I could feel my own body growing tense and my own heart rate increasing. I know what that panicked, backed into a corner, and being coerced to to do something I totally don’t want to do feeling is like. And let me be clear: sometimes that kind of discomfort is necessary. You need to get to the top floor of a museum or take a bus to the airport. You have to give a presentation to your history class or actually talk to a stranger for that job interview. I get it.

But the thing that really icked me about the flow of this episode is that the situations Monica is finding herself in don’t fall under those categories. The things she is being pushed to do are not for her benefit. She is being manipulated and used by a smarmy and much older Sage to do a duty that the king of their nation has assigned to him. To protect the second Prince of the realm. No small task there.

And he is deliberately leveraging Monica’s limitations against her to make her do what he wants, while knowing that what he is asking her to do is going to put her in the very type of situation she is trying to avoid. As it stands right now? I hope one of the dragons swooping around this kingdom dive-bombs toward the earth and has him as a bedtime snack. I disliked him that much.

To make matters worse, he and the Count of an area Monica recently protected from a black dragon have come up with an overly complicated, and generally shitty, backstory. Monica is going to be the ill-treated and loathed servant of the Count’s daughter when the two start at the academy. This is totally genius, boys! Take a girl who can barely speak when people are being nice to her, and then put her in a situation where she’ll be dealing with would be assassins and some bitch making her life hell as ‘cover’. Brilliant. Not.

Fortunately the girl, Isabelle, is 100% putting on an act. She actually really appreciates Monica as the Silent Witch, because during the recent dragon attack, Monica saved her life. And if anything I saw in the trailers is accurate, hopefully the nonsense of this plan will be kept to a dull roar. Monica is going to have enough trouble interacting with people, and assumedly enough real enemies trying to target the prince, that this kinda foolishness just borders on intentional cruelty.

I think part of the humor in all of this is supposed to be that the regular life things that Monica thinks are so terrible probably aren’t all that bad. While the truly horrific things that would break most people are situations that Monica excels at facing despite the fact that she is only sixteen. This inversion of priorities does have the chance to be humorous. Though I will be honest in saying that, since I can relate to that feeling of being cornered over certain issues, there were things I did not see as funny until I was reflecting on the episode.

Despite that caveat I did find myself generally enjoying this show, though. The art style is really pretty, with soft colors and some of the best facial expressions I’ve seen on characters so far this season. Those DID get a laugh out of me on several occasions. I think that the show will find its legs more as it goes forward and we get introduced to the academy, see what other characters Monica is going to be interacting with, and learn more about this world.

Secrets of the Silent Witch is off to a heartfelt and sometimes hilarious start, and I look forward to seeing what will happen to Monica and Isabelle as they start their lives at Serendia Academy. So, are you watching Secrets of the Silent Witch? What did you think of this episode? feel free to share in the comments below, and I’ll see you in the next video. Talk to you later. Bye!