Butterflies are a motif that highlights The Confluence of Heroism and Villainy. Often, butterflies are associated with new beginnings and rebirth, symbols of delicate beauty and life. In this novel, however, they are also ironically associated with Evelyn Sader, a largely villainous woman who exploits children and uses them to bring back the evil School Master. The butterflies are often helpful and useful. When Agatha and Sophie run from the red-hooded men in the woods outside Gavaldon, it is a blue butterfly who appears to show them the way to escape and calls the Flowerground on their behalf. On the other hand, butterflies serve as Sader’s spies, listening in on Sophie in the graveyard and the witches in the bathroom so that they can report back to the dean. They even tear Agatha’s invisibility cloak from her body when she’s visiting the forest to learn more about Sader’s motives and goals.

Though butterflies look quite fragile, delicate, and beautiful—all qualities that princesses were traditionally expected to possess prior to Agatha and Sophie’s fairy tale—these butterflies are blue, symbolizing the way the females have taken control of this community, empowering themselves to rule without males and to disregard the former, rigid standards that once dictated their opportunities and choices.