Theodore is not accused of being a magician or sorcerer for the remainder of the novel. By the time readers get to the end of the novel, it has gone far above and beyond the unbelievable. For all that is awaiting them, readers will need to bring their imaginations along. Perhaps this is the author's own crafty sleight of hand, for the purpose of throwing readers off-track and enticing them to suspend their disbelief. Walpole renders magic powerless in the reader's mind right from the beginning to suggest that magic won't be an easy device used to explain events in this story. The reader can see clearly that Theodore will not be able to make food appear while he is trapped under a giant metal helmet. Nevertheless, when a peasant in the crowd ( Theodore) suggests the helmet belongs to a statue from the nearby church, Manfred, the Prince of Otranto, calls him a 'villain, monster, sorcerer' and jails the 'magician' within the helmet, saying, 'he should be kept there without food, with which his own infernal art might furnish him.' Hippolita, near the climax of the story, will declare: 'There is a destiny hangs over us the hand of Providence is stretched out.' The first supernatural event Walpole uses to make this distinction comes when Conrad is crushed to death by a giant helmet that no human hands could lift. Early in the novel Walpole brings up magic to distinguish it from the supernatural events-visions, portents, ghosts, prophecies-that will unfold in the narrative.

Walpole the castle of otranto