About Rashtas childishness... [TW: Mentions of CSA]
So another easy way the og story found a way to make Rashta easily hateable was by making her act extremely childish when it came to regulating her emotions especially. Wheras Navier almost never cries and when she does, she looks as graceful as the true Empress she is, Rashta easily cries even in public in a way that I would describe as "Ugly crying." Generally not being afraid to sob in front of multiple people to get what she wants according to the narrative.
Chapter 4 is the first chapter where we see Rashta and Sovieshus relationship first hand and obviously it was trying to make fun of old tropes like the sweet and innocent pauper being taken care of by a rich man. Comments don't really see how Sovieshu is clearly more gross by calling her his prey and simply revert back to "I want Trashta dead, she be mean to our beloved empress" because Rashta was actively taking part in the relationship (I've already made countless counter arguments explaining why Rashta can't say no to an emperor before, you can check those out on my archive)
Now, I doubt the writers thought of this and if they did, that the audience sure as hell couldn't see it but I always believed Rashta was age regressing as a coping mechanism considering her childhood had been ripped away from her and she was now put in a place that more than enough money to make any little girls old princess fantasies come true.
A similar character that was written like this wonderfully would be Nurse Bendy from Moral Orel. Like Rashta, Nurse Bendy is a mistress to a married man [who is her boss, mind you] who refuses to take proper accountability for his lustful actions aside from feeling sorry for himself and she is generally regarded as a sexy ditz by most of the other characters, especially the men, but in the well known episode that got Moral Orel cancelled titled "Alone" it was revealed that in private, Nurse Bendy age regresses as a small child, her apartment is decorated like a little girls bedroom, she has a set of teddy bears that play the role of a pretend husband and a pretend son, titled as Hubby and Sonny, and she generally speaks in child-like mannerisms, the context clues in the episode paint a story of why Nurse Bendy age regresses, she changes out her work uniform and into something more comfortable in the bathroom with the door almost entirely shut, an emotional speech about her wanting other people to see her as human with feelings and thoughts while she's saying grace at dinner with her pretend family, and of course, her mental breakdown when hubby falls on top of her in a suggestive way when she's cleaning up spilled food, combined with dialog of her crying "You can't! You can't! You can't! Not you, you're different!" The episode doesn't have to tell you that Nurse Bendy was a victim of CSA who gave birth when she was still a child herself and now age regresses into a time where she was still happy as a coping mechanism.
When I noticed the similarities between Rashta and Nurse Bendy, it actually surprised me. While one hand, you might think that one difference they have is how they react to the men who want their bodies. Nurse Bendy is portrayed as not being all that interested in and even annoyed by the men wanting to get in her pants, wheras Rashta is desperate to keep the men in her life around by means necessary and is eager to please them but the reason I still think this makes them similar is because while their reactions are polar opposites, their reasoning for consenting to their lifestyles is similar, they both internalized that they are only good for "taking the stress off the men" and as a result, decide to reluctantly embrace that role being thrust upon them.
Rashta starts out with a similar backstory as Nurse Bendy. She too had her childhood stolen away from her starting when she became a slave and while we don't know exactly when Alan started grooming Rashta, it had to have been long enough that she believed Alan truly loved her thanks to a flashback of Alan gifting Rashta a flower that takes place before her first pregnancy. TRE also never gave Rashta a clear age but based on the confirmation that she is younger than Sovieshu and Navier, who are both 25-26, and the fact that Rashta generally is designed to look much younger compared to everyone else based on her face shape and eye type that is only ever seen in other characters like Evalie and Delice, the former being 16 and while the latter doesn't have a confirmed age, her naive outlook on life can lead us to assume she is 18-19 years old, so we can presume that Rashta is around the ages of 18-20 by the time she arrives as a mistress.
And if we take into account that Ian is last seen standing up on his own and also just generally being too big to be a newborn, he could be two years old at the oldest, meaning that the youngest possible age Rashta could have possibly been when she gave birth to Ian was 16 years old.
Unlike Nurse Bendy however, Rashta's abuse was not only never tackled but her rapist was presented as this stand up guy who only made a mistake and is just a flawed human being who wants the best for his son, even if he isn't great with his words. Rashtas time as a slave and her story as an abuse victim is deliberately left out because A: you're not supposed to think about that, you're only supposed to think about Navier and how happy she is in the western empire, and B: The author themself probably didn't even think of Rashta as an abuse victim to Alan because he wasn't being over the top with insults or acting like a cartoons depiction of a rapist nor did they think of the age Rashta or Alan could have been when she first gave birth since TRE isn't that great with timelines to begin with.
But even if take into account of the poor writing Rashta was subjected to, she still is a victim of dehumanization, grooming and sexual abuse that causes her to age regress as an innocent young girl who squeals in delight at the sight of sweet treats and loves dressing like a princess, there's even a few scenes where she's shown to be holding a teddy bear in her arms. It's also very likely that Rashta figured out Sovieshu loved her innocent bimbo act and kept it up hoping it would appease him and she wouldn't be kicked out, which as you can guess would enable her to keep age regressing.
This also made sense to her adamant desire to wear flashy dresses, a lot of her dresses are either accessorized to the max with bows and frills or in her simpler gowns, she's wearing at least three rings, all meant to show her as callous and bad of course, not like Navier who only wears simple gowns with only earrings for jewelry. ☺️
The possibility of Rashta age regressing is already sad enough and then you remember it was used as way to contrast her and Navier and show off how mature Navier is for not letting her emotions get in the way of her coolness, because unlike Rashta, Navier handles her trauma with grace and it never impacts her relationships because of how she handles it. In reality, that is not true, Navier actually struggles to admit she loves Heinrey because of her trauma of being cheated on and emotionally abused but she has friends and family who actively cheer her up and give her the help she needs.
The "help" that Rashta receives is just "Remember, you will never be as great as Navier, you don't try hard enough for this empire like she did, and if you keep slipping up, then Sovieshu will divorce you, take your child, and leave you behind to die 😜"
What I'm trying to say is that Rashta is Nurse Bendy if her story was written through the perspective of the men in Moralton. A stupid and ditzy woman who led the men astray with her charms.
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