Lady Marie Antoinette is now the Queen of France. What seems like the promise of a bright new
future for the country begins to sour when Marie focuses on lavish expensive
ventures, breaking the back of an already financially fragile nation. While Oscar tries to keep her charge and
friend in line, a trip to inspect those living on her families estate reveal
harsh realities of the true state of the lower folk of France. Can Oscar get Marie to see how desperately
her people need her or is this the beginning of a darker future inching it’s
way to Versailles front gates?
While there wasn’t anything that was as mind blowingly
amazing as Monday’s’s Episode 9, that’s not a bad thing for The Rose of
Versailles
in the slightest and that’s
largely in credit to the shows writing and overall entertainment value.
The story did press forward on several
fronts, mostly centered on three protagonists whose worlds are forever altered
at one point or another, sort of for good in one regard but largely not great
for two poor souls.
I do have one major question to ask though: HOW THE F HAS
THE REVOLUTION NOT STARTED YET!!!???
I
mean forgive me for not being a complete expert on the French Revolution but Id
think that a noblemen shooting a kid in the back for trying to steal his money
in front of a crowd of commoners would result in an instant tearing of the
doucebag to pieces.
Heck Oscar was ready
to do that to Guemenee herself if it weren’t for the fact he’s got more high
society protection than even the King and Queen.
I’m just saying, something arguably worse
happened to another child in Dune: The Butlerian Jihad and that kicked off an
instant wild fire that consumed the whole universe.
I know history must take its course and all
of that but come on, peasants and townsfolk should be rattling the gates of
Versailles after this terrible incident.
Let’s start things proper with Oscar, who got one heckuva
wake up call in these five episodes.
Still walking that thin tightrope between Justice and Duty, Oscar found
herself in hot water for rightfully kicking the aforementioned Duke Guemenee’s
ass in a pistol duel (even though Orleans tried to help him cheat).
But this probably ended up being a good thing
as her forced “Disciplinary Confinement” meant she could check out the villages
under her family’s care and see first hand just how bad things have gotten for
the people beyond the walls of Versailles.
Her chat with Robespierre in the restaurant should hopefully serve as a
good splash of cold water to really drive home for Oscar just how bad Marie is
making things by believing she can do whatever she want without consequence
(more on that later).
Still, it begs a
question: when we see Oscar rushing back to tell of what has happened: is she
doing this for the sake of the ailing people or to protect the pure image of
the Queen she holds in high esteem, flaws and all?
Whatever happens going forward, this is
definitely a series of events that will hopefully forever alter how Oscar
perceives things.
Oh Marie.
Where I
once felt bad for a young girl thrust into a historic situation she had no
control over, now we’re getting to the start of the real meat of her rule.
The girl just wants to have fun and thinks
she can do just that because she’s the Queen.
“As long as I’m happy, everyone should be happy”, Marie says at one
point.
Ohhhh how wrong you are.
The people are starving.
The nobles aren’t being respected.
In short, no one his happy save for the two
seconds everyone thought Marie was pregnant.
It isnt helping matter for Marie having Yolande de Polignac in the mix
now.
A singer who bribed her way into
the Queen’s life with a sweet voice and fake tears, Polignac seems to have
jumped ahead of Jeanne to become the new Madame du Barry, but instead of
sleeping with the Queen, she’s just getting her to pay for all of her expensive
ventures and drag France’s financial situation well past the drain.
But Marie is just so obsessed with being
happy and trying to forget her growing feelings for Hans that she’s blinding
herself to the advice of people who care about her and her rule.
And don’t get me started on the whole faking
the pregnancy thing.
Polignac is a
manipulative slimeball but Marie could have easily just said no to the whole
thing.
A bit surprisingly, Rosalie’s story got a huge kick in
the pants with an unexpected tragedy, courtesy of Polignac of all people.
Ngl I got Relena from Gundam Wing vibes when
her dying mother told her that they weren’t related and that someone else was
Rosalie’s real mother.
Given that she’s
lost her mother and her sister Jeanne has flat out disowned her, I’m all for
Rosalie wanting proper payback against Polignac.
Trying to accidentally kill Oscar’s Mom in a
blood rage though…not a good start.
This
did, however, open the door for a new direction for Rosalie as Oscar takes her
under her wing to train her how to be both a lady in court and a fighter.
It reminds me of The Mask of Zorro with
Antonio Bandaras’s character being trained to be the next generation of the
legendary hero as well as a proper gentlemen.
However, Oscar doesn’t know that is was Polignac who accidentally killed
Rosalie’s mother.
Is she really going to
be ok going along with this revenge plan?
Or is this Oscar’s way of trying to meat out some justice after all the
terrible things she’s witnessed in this set of episodes?
Hmmmm…
Part 3 of The Rose of Versailles continued to show how
increasingly worse everything is continuing to become for the city of Paris and
in Versailles itself.
And yet it
continues to be highly watchable entertainment that begs for the next episode
to be started right away just to see if something good came come out of this
tragedy or if it’s all downhill from here (historically speaking, the show’s
quality is top notch).
We’ll see how
things turn out for Oscar and her new protegee and Marie and the snake in her
ear when we return to The Rose of Versailles Next Monday right here at the
Gundam Anime Corner.
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