Cbr18 Bingo – Wealth: It portrays graphic depictions of the events and people who caused the French revolution.
The Rose of Versailles by Riyoko Ikeda is usually the story of Marie Antoinette. As the story progressed, her bodyguard Oscar went from the deuteragonist to co-protagonist to protagonist.
The reader is expected to know Marie Antoinette’s story ends with execution and the French Revolution. If you didn’t know, it tells you. We see her grow up as the queen of France. She gambles, has kids, and hangs out as the author tells us how her bad choices lead to her death. If only she kept necklace documentation, if only she didn’t listen to Madame de Polignac, etc. then maybe she would have lived. But probably not. It would have taken someone smarter than her to get out of the disaster she was placed in.
Oscar’s story is totally fiction, but I believe she is based on a few historic French people (and Björn Andrésen’s face). She was named Oscar and raised as a boy because her father really needed a son for sexist aristocratic lineage reasons. She mostly identified as a straight woman, happily lived as a man, and flirted with women. By the time she has an identity crisis, the French Revolution started and her gender is low priority. She goes from leading the Royal Guard to the French Guard (normal people military) and is stunned to see what poorness actually is. She cannot fathom not having food or her men pawning military gear to buy shoes for their family.
She sides with the revolution against the people she loves and who love her.
Almost everything I know about the French Revolution is from this fictional story. I only read it the first time out of curiosity because it influenced a lot of my favorites and I knew Oscar was an important part of feminist manga and anime history. I didn’t care about Marie Antoinette and learning was a side effect.
It was time to reread after seeing some horrible adaptation(s) and a parade of Oscar-like characters. This time I wasn’t so distracted by the fun villains and sparkles. I saw it’s ultimately a story about two women born with a lot of wealth and privilege. That’s not a bad thing and neither are faulted for enjoying what they have. The real villain is the system that distributed the wealth. And Jeanne Valois. She was great. And by great, I mean awful.
I’m sure I’ll read it again.
Also, the volumes put out by Udon Press are beautiful.
