WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Episode 3 of Wandering Witch: The Journey of Elaina, "The Girl as Pretty as a Flower / Bottled Happiness," now streaming on Funimation and Hulu.
While last week's adventure gave Saya a happy ending, Elaina's adventures this week are a lot darker. The latest episode is divided between two stories, each of which has an air of innocence to them until the truth of the matter is exposed. While Elaina resides in a world that's filled with magic, this episode proves not every story will have the happy ending people might expect.
The first story's conflict is brought about due to a seemingly beautiful field of flowers. Elaina finds this field while flying to the nearest city, bumping into a girl who offers her flowers to take with her. The field itself is beautiful with all of the colorful flowers that it contains, serving as a natural wonder that isn't owned by anyone. Without any knowledge of the flowers' deadliness, Elaina takes them along with her until she is stopped by some city guards.
The guards ensure that none of the flowers from tet field pass through the front gates due to the fact that they're poisonous to humans. While witches possess a resistance to the insanity-driving effects of the flowers, those who don't use magic are compelled to go to this flower field. The innocent victims become nutrients for these magical plants, along with becoming agents to spread the flowers. While Elaina has helped others before, this magical field would likely take an extraordinary amount of effort to completely erase. She realizes that she can't do anything to change the situation, and so after visiting the field one last time, Elaina continues on her journey.
The second story shows how the kindness of others may not be in the best interest of the person who receives it. In a separate incident, the son of a village chief does everything he can in an effort to make a slave girl happy. Confined to this house with her seemingly abusive owner, she carries out the duties that are expected of her. In an effort to make this girl happy, the son travels around on a broomstick to collect moments of peoples' happiness to give her as a gift. His actions seem to be carried out from a genuine desire to help her.
Unfortunately, this help might not be what she wants. He firmly believes in the fact that this gift will help her, but it doesn't technically consider what makes her happy. If anything, this gift has the chance to backfire due to the fact that the slave girl can't have all of the happiness that others experience currently. To complicate this story, the ending isn't clearly defined for viewers. Based on the story that Elaina refers to in parallel with the son's tale, his story has a chance to end in a horrific tragedy. Elaina recounts that she never visited him again in fear of that outcome.
This episode provides a tonal shift from the more positive sentiment of Elaina's previous adventures. These darker episodes give her story a sense of realism. Not every situation is likely to come out positive, and so viewers are left to hope for her well-being as she ventures into new environments.
