The Legacy of Alan McNasty: A Fairytale #38 #cong24 #legacy

Reading Time in Minutes

4

1. What seems permanent isn’t
2. Evil also ends.
3. Legacy can be much shorter than you think.

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By Dermot Casey

There’s a ballad of Alan McNasty and his legacy of evil.

In Carraigorms halls where the dark shadows fell,
Alan McNasty governed, his heart cold as hell.
Gone now his spirit, like a ghost in the night,
Yet in whispered corridors, lingers his blight.
His reign commenced under a shadowed veneer,
A death cloaked in secrecy, masked by fear.
A mortal taken by magical hands awry,
Silenced were voices, no soul dared to defy.
The fairy tale goes deeper.

Alan McNasty is gone now. A ghost. But not the kind that lingers in the hallways with a translucent mist; the sort that clings to the corners of rooms, a gloomy presence felt not seen, his legacy the chill of a draft in an otherwise warm room. He began his illustrious career as the principal of Carraigorm Academy, an exclusive private school that charged tuition fees hefty enough to fund a small lunar expedition. Carraigorm, under his rule, was less Hogwarts and more what happens if Atilla the Nun had been given free rein to design a school with Donald Trump as her consultant.

The legend began in earnest in as he ascended to the headmaster’s office. His first act, notoriously unmagical yet darkly wizardly, involved the cover-up of a scandalous incident. A student from a rival academy kicked to death and potentially incriminating witness statements McNasty took were strangely misplaced and magically vanished disappearing at the exact moment they were needed most, leaving only bafflement and suspicions in their wake.

But the darkness of McNasty’s reign wasn’t just about what he did; it was about what he undid. Alan ruled not just with an iron fist but with a heart of stone. Love, that most potent of magics, was alien to him. His heart, a joyless vacuum, incapable of the warmth that filled the hearts of normal people. This void left him an empty shell, a man stitched together with threads of duty and power, devoid of the substance that makes a soul whole.

Alan McNasty’s approach to crises of a more personal and delicate nature was equally devoid of empathy. When adults souls haunted by decades old abuse sought his refuge, they found not a protector but a persecutor. His infamous retort to their pleas for help—“Fuck off and come back with a solicitor”—echoed not just through the halls but through the years, a chilling refrain that reminded all that the School was not a sanctuary but a battleground.

Within the walls McNasty fostered a cult. Many staff, under his dominion, were less colleagues than minions. Dissent was met not with discussion but with mysterious misfortunes. His allegiance to the Magical Order of the Iona Stone, a group as outdated in their thinking as they were in their fashion sense, shaped his policies and poisoned his principles. His malign presence sucked hope from the very air.

The malevolence that marked his tenure wasn’t just a product of his actions but of his essence. Like a prion, that rogue protein known for its deadly transformations, McNasty seemed to warp the very fabric of many of those around him, bending them towards a dark mimicry of his already darkened soul. He was the catalyst for a cascade of folding misfortunes that whispered through the corridors, turning potential joy into utter despair.

But then he was gone. The corridors, once a silent testament to McNasty’s reign, now buzz with a cautious optimism. Within weeks of his departure the very air in the school changed. , The academy reshapes itself into a place not of fear, but of possibility. His legacy is the damage he did while he was there. Men unmade in manhood. Distorted views and damage to students and teachers.

The darkness that once seemed so impenetrable is now filled with the light of stars stubborn enough to shine through. McNasty’s legacy, a lesson in the dangers of unchecked power and loveless leadership, becomes a cautionary tale told in the flickering light of the fireplace, a story to guide the next generation of wizards who will, hopefully, lead with hearts unafraid to love

For the first time in a long time the halls resonate with the sound of rebuilding.

C.K. Chesterton wrote that “Fairy tales do not give the child the idea of the evil or the ugly; that is in the child already, because it is in the world already. The child has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a way to slay the dragon.” In the legend of McNasty its important to remember that evil also ends.