Half of Romeo x Juliet finished

[tigerlily]

Episode 9: Well. She's internalized all she's heard about her being weak and needing to grow up to do the duty assigned to her. It's nice that she does take responsibility for making a mistake, even though honestly it's not all her doing, despite Tybalt's lecture. Wait, that's episode ten. This episode shows what a disaster it is to force someone into a role of savior through familial expectation and sheltering. Juliet naturally does her best to go along with what she's being asked to do, especially since she's been told it will help the people, and it goes badly because she didn't know better and was relying on Conrad, who should have known better.

Episode 10:
A giant jerk. A terribly contradictory jerk. He says he doesn't care if she goes up and dies, but he helps her when asked, does the equivalent of harsh protective lecturing when he tells her to stay out of things because she's not up to it -even if he puts too much of the blame on her and is an asshole about it, so maybe it's not really protective lecturing- and then he stalks her until she's taken into a convent. Of course she was also in danger on the way and he did nothing to prevent it. Then by episode twelve he's told nobody where she is and I don't know whether he followed up on that at all.

Juliet doesn't put a lot value on her life. She thinks she doesn't deserve to live if she got all those people in trouble. And that she's too weak to do anything -thanks, Tybalt, you've been haunting her since episode 8 with that kind of talk.

Episode 11:
Just the thing to cheer her up. So begins the episode I found awkward and boring the first time around. I mentioned I wasn't good at sappy scenes? Well, sometimes I am, but not here unfortunately.

I understand this is meant to further establish that they're innocent kids who need to escape their troubled lives and all, but that works better when they actually struggle. Well, when Juliet struggles. I appreciate Romeo tried to do something political last episode, but it was pathetically uninteresting and he just gave up after one try. One try he should have known better about, being raised in a political den of evil. I suppose the whole thing also makes it feel like their Too Good for This Earth, which will show up again at the end. The imagery and one of the songs here is what will happen in the epilogue with everyone happy and Romeo and Juliet frolicking in the after life forever.

My reasoning for giving up Cielo is, they weren't planning to go back. And Juliet thought she didn't have a hope of rescuing anybody or accomplishing what was laid on her. That's the reason for this entire episode. It's weird that I'm writing so much about this episode, when I remembered it as the nothing happens episode.

We get more evidence that Juliet has always wanted to assume a feminine role. I suppose it makes sense, if the gender roles are strict: she's always been reminded that she was a girl but couldn't show it, so she'd feel bad and yearn for it all the more. She probably had sword lessons and became the Whirlwind to help people, and I guess because it's impractical for her to be a totally helpless lady when she's in hiding. Yet she wouldn't have been exposed to life-threatening situations -nobody who raised her wanted her being the Red Whirlwind-, which is why she has such problems getting used to the idea of hurting people.

Yeah, the romance. The episode further establishes that this is a love story, not a resistance story. As stated in the prologue of the first episode.

Episode 12:

I guess I can't say the tree thing wasn't foreshadowed, with episode ten having a tree death be a big deal, because of the effect on the people, thanks to a ruler that did not love them. Now the story is about love, and Juliet's love for both Romeo and people, and I guess Romeo's love for Juliet even if he's not that important other than saving her from hell later, I guess. It should have come earlier though, so nobody would get fooled into thinking the story was about a resistance and not the power of love.

Hey, foreshadowing for Curio's later job. They really could have done better giving him and Francisco dimension.

Maybe the cryptic comment Tybalt made about fate is about letting Juliet disappear into a convent? And just letting her story end there, thus not showing up to tell anyone what happened to her?

Hermione the doormat pushes all her grief and anger onto Juliet. I say that's doormatty because if Romeo were treating her badly instead of just rejecting her, that's what she'd be. She just blames a guy's behavior towards her on another woman. I'm still fond of her though.

It's creepy that they're living in an abandoned yet suspiciously well preserved house in an empty village.

That sounds like an inefficient way to find a person, unless they're counting on his niceness to make him reveal himself.

He is a royal, stupid. Hés not getting hurt.

Why the hell would you reveal yourself! Way to screw up having a life together, now they know what she looks like. This is one of the few times when I wholeheartedly agree with the criticisms of Juliet's behavior around Romeo. Just, what?

The use of 'totally' in the subs took me out of the story again. Now and in episode four or five or so. THere's too much use of the word 'somehow' as well.