Eva’s First Impression
Sheesh, talk about a traumatic first encounter!
When Constance (Connie) was weaving through the crowd with her friend Kate, and mused whether a festival was happening, I couldn’t help but snort: “Kid, this is definitely not a festive mood.” And sure enough she learned that the hard way when she found herself unknowingly running to the front row seat of a public execution. Traumatic to say the least to witness not only the harrowing crowd calling for the woman’s death, but to witness a beheading so imitatively close, that she got blood on her.
Yeah that’s beyond terrifying for a six year old child.
The woman who was executed was Scarlet Castiel. She was sentenced to death by her former fiance, the Crown Prince Enrique and his lover Cecila. She was accused for plotting to poison Miss Cecila, and the prince ‘unmasked her’ for her crimes and ended their engagement. You know, the usual.
Constance comes to meet Scarlet as a ghost shortly after she caught her fiance Neil having a rendezvous with Pamela, a woman who has a notorious reputation for jumping man to man. Constance didn’t realize Scarlet was a ghost then, thinking she was simply just another one of the guests, but it appears by acknowledging her granted her the permission needed to finally enter the Grand Merrilian ten years after her execution.
While Constance was busy trying to figure out the best way to handle the revelation of Neil’s affair, she soon found herself put in a terrible situation where Pamela orchestrated a whole event where she’d frame theft on Constance to push Neil to break off his engagement with Constance.
The woman was too greedy for her own good, seeking to see another suffer because of her inferiority complex.
It was disgusting to watch those complicit with Pamela’s performance, yet shockingly the only one who DID the absolute bare minimum as none other than Neil. Now I’m not saying the guy’s redeemed in any sense. He definitely wronged Constance by having an affair with Pamela behind the scenes, but we should acknowledge that at the very least, he didn’t participate in dog piling the blame onto Constance. Instead, (and to his credit), he pointed out that Pamela has no proof that she had stolen it. And why I’m pointing this out? It’s because the bar for these type of characters in the role of “annulling the engagement” themes are already so low, that the fact he didn’t follow along to Pamela’s whims on this matter is something to appreciate. In-fact, because he wasn’t responding the way Pamela thought he would, she was the one who was urging him to announce the break-up.
But considering Scarlet intervened before we could see how he’d respond to that in the heat of the moment, we’ll never know for certain whether he would’ve meekly caved in and gone along with the flow. If he had, well, it was nice while it lasted I guess.
That being said, I did roll my eyes really hard when Pamela went on to say everyone there was a witness to it. I couldn’t help but think, ‘You sure you want to put it that way?’
Since Constance being the sincere and gentlehearted girl she is, just didn’t have it in her in that moment to do what Scarlet knew had to be done. You can’t play nice when you’re being framed for something you didn’t do, you have to stand up for yourself, and that’s what Scarlet did on behalf of Constance by possessing her. (Including later demanding that the engagement be called off, on her terms.)
It goes without saying, the scariest thing about these kinds of situations is how easily these type of people can switch sides if they see things not leaning in their favour. When Pamela looked as though she had complete control over the situation, the party-goers followed her lead, and remained silent despite having bore witness of the encounter between Constance and Brenda. But the moment Scarlet took possession of Constance, she shifts the spotlight onto them, and boldly confronts them in a way that it would be in their best interest to speak the truth, or else suffer the consequences of what follows. Thanks to that, the exact set-up circled back to Pamela who fired the shot in the first place.
As result, Pamela did actually immediately reap the consequences of her actions, but even I was flinching at it. While she didn’t have to dance on burning coal (which arguably would’ve been worse and more hellish), she and Neil were still subjected to dance until their audience said otherwise, which led to her feet bleeding badly. It’s always a chilling to see people be entertained by inflicting punishment onto others. The scene honestly left me feeling quite squeamish.
Since Constance had agreed to Scarlet’s terms of agreement, she now bears the responsibility of assisting Scarlet with seeking revenge against those who had wronged her. Scarlet believes this is the only way she will be able to finally move on, and she had been lingering around, waiting until finally someone (that being Constance) noticed her and enabled her to finally step into the ballroom of the Inner Palace.
It will be interesting to see how things will pan out now we have two polar opposites personalities working together towards a common goal. The idea of seeking revenge on someone is something that’s far beyond Constance’s realm of imaginations, so it will be interesting to see how she copes, or even justifies fulfilling that ambition. The one thing we haven’t been told today is what would happen if she were not to comply with the agreement. Certainly there must be a price to be paid if she doesn’t. Though it could be as simple as Constance agreeing not to take possession of her body unchecked. Whereas if she doesn’t comply, Scarlet could possess her 24/7 until she achieves what she has set out to do.
That said this was a great start, and I’m actually looking forward to watching a mystery for an exchange. However whether I will be blogging this is up in the air at the moment. The Winter Season has had such a good launch that I’ve excitedly been signing myself up to cover for just about everything I’ve been watching so far.
For that reason, like some of the other shows I’m already considering, I’m going to have to give this one up to three episodes to see whether or not I’ll be able to handle the number of shows I’m ambitiously attempting to cover this season. For context, this would be the fourth one. And there’s still three more shows that I’ve had my eye on, (one of them being Champignon’s Witch that also airs on Thursdays), so we’ll see whether or not this is a show I’ll rather watch or want to commit myself to covering within the next two episodes!
Possibility of Blogging: High – Going to give up to three episodes to see how many shows I can handle covering this season, and whether it’ll be among the few I pick.
Possibility of Watching: Guaranteed
Most of the time, watching a bad character getting their comeuppance left a satisfying taste, but this…I have a rather mixed feeling. But on the other hand, I have to give props to the animators for animating the scene and VAs for their splendid performance during that moment.
Yeah they did a good job making it as chilling as it was!