The vil essay, but it's a twitter thread (aka this was made for tumblr but oh well its here too)

Vil Schoenheit, the dorm leader of Pomefiore and a 3rd year at Night Raven College. He is a character that people seem to mischaracterize often, which is a shame. People like to write him off as narcissistic and vain and that’s about it, but these people miss every other aspect

about him and only focus on the parts openly apparent due to his association with Snow White’s Evil Queen. He is such an interesting character, and it is a shame people dumb him down to his want to be beautiful as his only personality.

Throughout the 19 character stories he appears in (at the time of writing this), he is shown to be a much deeper and thoughtful character than some people make him out to be. Out of the 57 notes made from every story he appears in, Vil has only shown the stereotypical nature that

fanon has given him in 9 of them. So yes, while the traits are there, they are simply a small part of a greater, more complex personality.

His strictness and attention to his appearance aren’t out of narcissism though, he is in no way narcissistic. The definition of a Narcissist is, according to Merriam-Webster definition A of Entry 1, “an extremely self-centered person who has an exaggerated sense of

self-importance,” and yeah, if you take Vil at face value, you could assume this is true of him, but if you look more into him and read the stories he appears in, you would quickly see that this is not the case. Another thing is that Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD),

according to Oxford, is “a personality disorder characterized by an exaggerated sense of self-importance, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy for other people.” That last part, “lack of empathy,” is a big thing, as it is seen that Vil does have empathy. He knows that he

is strict, and he knows that the routines that he makes the students of Pomefiore go through can be hard and stressful for them, and he understands that not everyone can keep up with it, which is why he looks for effort overall. If the students he looks after put at least some

effort into trying to keep up with the skin and hair routines Vil puts in place, he will be happy.

Moving on from that, it is seen that Vil is rather observant. For example: In his lab SR story, he was able to tell the slight difference in the color of the potion he and Rook were trying to create, and in Jamil’s Fairy Gala SR story, it is seen that he can accurately pick out

the issues in 3 separate people that he was coaching at the same time, telling Leona, Kalim, and Jamil the flaws in their practice. To elaborate on this, he was able to tell Leona wasn’t motivated just by watching him practice, he noticed all of Kalim’s mistakes in his dancing,

and how Jamil’s dancing fails in being able to captivate an audience. He watched the 3 of them practice at the exact same time and picked all of these out, informing them of their shortcomings.

Now, for the idea that Vil is self-centered and doesn’t care about anyone but himself… There is much evidence that shows this is not the case. One of the biggest is the entirety of his Ceremonial Robe SR story. The story is focused on him and Jack for the most part, to the point

he makes a cameo in the Groovy art for the card.

If you haven’t read the story, the basic summary of it is this: At the Entrance Ceremony at the start of the school year, Jack, a 1st year, sees Vil in the crowd and calls out to him. Vil responds, remembering Jack from their home is the Land of Pyroxene. He comments that Jack

was one of the few people who weren’t prejudiced against Vil because of his choice of career and expression, and they spoke for a while, Vil noticing that Jack’s robes were messy but deciding to not comment on it. Later they ran into each other once more. Jack makes an offhand

comment about how his ears make the robe’s hood uncomfortable, and Vil questions him on it, commenting on how the entire Robe was put on sloppily, making Jack let him fix the uniform for him so that he wears it correctly, commenting on how Jack’s build and how he should wear the

robes for it to be most comfortable all while looking nice, giving him a small lesson about how the Ceremonial Robes are the most formal uniform they have.

With this story in mind, it is clear that Vil cares quite a bit for the appearance of others, and not just himself. And if his entire Robe story wasn’t enough, Leona’s uniform R card story also shows this, where Vil comments on how one or two of Leona’s buttons are loose, though

he doesn’t fix it for him, given that Leona is a 20-year-old man who should know how to fix a button, until Leona annoys him enough that he just does it for him. Vil will take note of other people’s appearances, telling them the issue with their appearance and possibly how to fix

it, though he has no intention of fixing it himself most of the time. And how could I forget Vil’s strict beauty regimen that he wants his entire dorm to do? He says it is in place simply to keep up Pomefiore’s beautiful image, but in reality, he wants his dorm members to become

better. One of Pomefiore’s biggest things is becoming comfortable in your own body, which is, in all honesty, probably why Epel, the small, feminine-looking boy who wants to become physically strong and more like Jack, was placed there.

And speaking of Epel, one of the reasons people seem to dislike Vil is his treatment of Epel in Epel’s robe SR story, where Vil almost crushes Epel’s head in his hand and forces Epel into speaking “properly,” having good table manners and posture, and generally not letting him

act like a “mud-covered potato” as Vil so lovingly referred to Epel. While yes, this behavior from Vil is a valid reason to dislike him, he has his reasons for this. Epel is considered to be extremely beautiful by nature, with his small frame and feminine appearance, and Vil

knows this, which is exactly why he is so strict with Epel. Vil knows Epel hates his body for being small and frail, he knows Epel wants to be stronger, and while the way he is going about it certainly isn’t the best, Vil does want Epel to become comfortable with himself, and

looking at the Ghost Marriage event, which is set after the Pomefiore chapter coming this September, it can be assumed that, during the events of Chapter 5, Vil does become laxer with how he treats Epel, given that he seems to ignore some remarks made by Epel towards him getting

slapped by Eliza for not owning a large dog

To go on a small tangent, speaking of Ghost Marriage (GM), In this event, we saw a new side to Vil, one probably coming out after he Overblots in chapter 5. He seems less forceful than he has been shown to be, especially with Epel, but for sake of not repeating information, let’s

look at another detail; Vil’s use of personal pronouns. In Japanese, the terms used to refer to oneself are gendered, and Vil uses Atashi (あたし), which is a more feminine term, as opposed to using Boku (ぼく), which is generally more masculine, and for the first time in GM, we

heard Vil use boku to refer to himself, specifically when he had to act like the perfect prince for Eliza, the ghost bride. Leona had specifically made a remark about Vil while he was in his act, basically saying that he knew Vil was uncomfortable referring to himself using such

language and that he should stop, but for the sake of the act, he kept it up, until he got slapped that is. What can be taken from this is that Vil prefers to use feminine terms for himself, but over all he is still a man and refers to himself as such, even if he uses feminine

personal pronouns

Vil is a character who is and does many things. Vil is strict. Vil is punctual. Vil critiques others. Vil points out their strengths and weaknesses. Vil helps others, in his own roundabout way. But above all, Vil cares about other people’s opinions. In most of the stories he

appears in, he listens to what the person he is speaking to has to say, albeit with varying levels of patience depending on the person. He may seem forceful, yes, especially with how in Leona’s Gala SSR he ran to Savanaclaw and banged on Leona’s door demanding he came out after

Leona ditched practice for the Fairy Gala, but as explained earlier, Vil has good intentions with this and he knows how Leona can get sometimes, and as such he knows that some force is needed, though there are times he can get too forceful and cause an issue.

There are so many aspects about Vil that can be taken just from his personal stories, and the way people normally portray him is definitely there, but those traits are just a few of many that create Vil’s personality. As a character he is complex, and until Pomefiore’s chapter

comes out, we cannot be sure as to his true motives for wanting to achieve true beauty, but even without that, we can still look at his character and make speculation. Before the release of Chapter 5 mid September, it should be said that, whatever happens and whatever Vil does in

it is going to be him at his worst, as is the trend with the Overblots. It is perfectly fine to dislike him for his actions and criticize him for them, but ultimately he is just a character. Don’t berate someone just because he is their favorite, even if you yourself don’t like

him; this can be said for any character in any series, not just Vil.

If you would like; the notes used to make this can be found in this document: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1vZWkC8dQLq8X8zOT2mt8o9MR1EtqPtsIrjMdw-tmK1E/edit?usp=sharing