Week 8: サイレント・ウィッチ 🤫 🧙‍♀️

Japanese Language Book Clubs
1

Join the Intermediate Book Club here!
Silent Witch :shushing_face: :woman_mage: Home Thread

Week 8

image
image328×487 83.3 KB

Start Date: Feb 22
Previous Part: Week 7
Next Part: Week 9

Reading:

Week Chapter End page End % End on Page Count
8 五章 1/2 ~116 39% モニカは自分にそう言い聞かせ、震える足を動かした。 ~12

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun! :durtle_the_explorer:

Participants

Mark your participation status by voting in this poll.
(Please feel free to update your status whenever you like!)

  • I’m reading along
  • I have finished this part
  • I’m still reading the book but I haven’t reached this part yet
  • I’m no longer reading the book
  • I’m reading this book after the club has ended
0 voters

If you’ve already read this book but are still going to join the discussion, please select “I have finished this part.”

Proper nouns

Name Note
ケルベック伯爵領
ウォーガン山脈
リディル王国
アガサ 侍女
イザベル・ノートン ケルベック伯爵令嬢
アラン 馬丁、アガサの弟
シェフィールド 風の精霊王
モニカ・エヴァレット 沈黙の魔女
ネロ
アニー
ミネルヴァ school
ルイス・ミラー 結界の魔術師
リィンズベルフィード (リン) 風の上位精霊
ライオネル 第一王子, 27 yo
フェリクス 第二王子, 18 yo
アルバート 第三王子, 14 yo
セレンディア学園
クロックフォード公爵 第二王子の祖父
ダスティン・ギュンター 作家
ロザリー・ミラー ルイスの妻
アーロン・オブライエン 生徒会会計
エリオット・ハワード 生徒会書記
ブリジェット・グレイアム 生徒会書記
ニール・クレイ・メイウッド 生徒会庶務
シリル・アシュリー 生徒会副会長
(フェリクス・アーク・リディル) 第二王子、生徒会長
ヴィクター・ソーンリー 先生
ラナ・コレット 2年生
セルマ・カーシュ 保健委員

Don’t forget to set this thread to Watching in order to stay abreast of discussion!

5 Likes
2
Week 8 notes

「……ねぇ、ネロにとって……無駄じゃないものって、何？」
「おぉっ？ なんだ？ 急に哲学的な質問だな？

Nero makes a good impression…

……哲学的って言葉を知ってるオレ様賢くてカッコイイよな。褒めろ！」

…and immediately ruins it…

モニカが雑に褒めると、ネロは「それだ！」と右前足の肉球でモニカをビシリと指した。
「オレ様にとって、お前の褒め言葉は無駄じゃないぞ。だから、もっと褒めろ！ 称えろ！ なんだったらバラード作って、小説書いて、肖像画描いて後世に伝えていいぞ！」

…only to change that impression again to appear simultaneously smart (I thought he was just distracted by his own brilliance of knowing 哲学的, but it was actually a good answer to her question!) and incredibly vain :laughing:

He’s such a spoiled brat cat.

今にも死にそうな声になってしまったけれど、ちゃんと最後まで言えた。

Yeah! Well done, Monica!

「いらない。それ、もう流行ってないもの」

What a tsundere.

「……き、昨日の……やり方……お、お、教えて、もらえましぇんか」

!!

「うぅ……完成された綺麗な数式を分解して、でたらめな数式を書き込むみたい……」

She’s nothing if not relatable.

ここで「嫌です」と泣いて逃げだしたら、昨日までと何も変わらない。
モニカはスーハーと一度だけ深呼吸をすると、小さく頷いた。
「……わ、分かり、ました」

I really like how Monica is challenging herself.

And on that note, her interactions with Lana this chapter were really nice! We’re already getting to see some :sparkles: character growth :sparkles:!

8 Likes
3
Reply

I liked Nero in this chapter too! He really feels like a cat :slight_smile: And he is very helpful! Great 使い魔.

Monica has an unique way of processing the world. Feels refreshing.

8 Likes
4
ネロ

I like to see how ネロ tries to encourage モニカ and coaches her for her social interactions. He certainly is a very special cat (reading books, transforming into a human shape, …).

On the other hand he is a rather arrogant guy, speaking of himself as オレ様 and always wanting to be praised: ‘ほめろ’ (not only wanting but ordering).

I hope we will see more of him in the upcoming chapters …

8 Likes
5
This week

I’m also really proud of Monica’s progress and how she is challenging herself, not only when interacting with Lana but also with Elliot. I really liked her interaction with Lana - you can see that Lana is also a lonely girl who struggles to communicate (a bit tsundere perhaps?) or just to get along with others in general.

Elliot on the other hand, man, what a prick… I get that he is being protective of the prince, but he really seems to be enjoying making Monica suffer in this chapter.

9 Likes
6
This week

Really enjoyed this week. It was painful to have to stop at a cliffhanger point, just as we’re about to discover what Elliot wants from her.

I like how Monica thinks of everything in terms of math and this crops up again and again. It gives her POV a very distinctive feel.

Also liked to see Monica bonding with Lana. She’s made great progress in this chapter and was able to speak several whole sentences. Guess her practice with Nero paid off.

As expected of a cat. Seriously, I like how catlike he seems, no matter if he’s shape-shifted or not.

11 Likes
7
This week and overall thoughts

So I started reading the book this week and just caught up. As others noted early on it’s definitely nice to have something I can get through quickly after 妊娠カレンダー、where I felt like I had to digest each sentence carefully due to the ambiguous nature of the story. But now I have to avoid the temptation to read further!

I definitely have not felt great about the way everyone treats Monica, so I agree that it’s nice that Lana’s interactions with Monica aren’t just bullying. I’m also very interested to find out (maybe soon?) what her interactions with the prince are like. I initially thought that he would be an asshole like the rest of the student council appear to be, but their first meeting during lunch break made me think otherwise (I suppose we don’t actually know for sure that he’s the one who brought her to the nurse’s office but regardless, he wasn’t immediately bullying her like Elliot does).

I also didn’t really like how last week ネロ’s method to help モニカ with social interactions was turning into ルイス and being mean to her. And then this week we find out that that actually worked? I find ネロ pretty insufferable and having to be in his presence just makes me feel bad for モニカ even more. Maybe it is just meant to be comedic and absurd than how I interpret it.

Also another thing I thought was interesting was that from the prologue and the first chapter, I expected that Monica was going to be not only magically gifted but also knowledgable about pretty much everything else, but with the downside that she is shy and has social anxiety which she needs to overcome. However, we recently learnt that it appears that she’s only really interested in mathematics and things related to magic (古代魔法文学、精霊語 etc.) and that she’s average at best in other areas. I mostly read this as her having little interest in these other topics, and this combined with her intense interest in very particular things and her social anxiety make me interpret her as someone on the autism spectrum or at least with many of the same characteristics. Also, I think her “I’d rather learn to cast spells silently even though it’s never been done before rather than learn to do it the ‘normal’ way by vocalizing in front of others” method of passing her magic exams growing up also fits this profile quite well. I think this is a lot more interesting than the not-so-uncommon archetype of a protagonist who seems to be intellectually gifted in every single area but has some personality flaws or social ineptitude.

9 Likes
8
Nero

I feel like Nero was inspired by cat people humor. Like a cat person observed their cat and wondered what it would say if it could speak and he’s the result. People who own a cat generally do so because they find their self-centered ways cute rather than annoying, and Monica doesn’t strike me as an exception. I’m sure she wouldn’t have taken a sentient cat as a familiar if she minded his superficial arrogance and his constant "praise me"s. Plus, Nero is pretty supportive of her, always giving her foodrubs when she’s down.

8 Likes