It is the tragic reality that anyone who only ever watches the Ascendance of a bookworm anime will never be able to ship Ferdinand and Myne. That’s because as much as I love the anime, it really dumbs down Myne and constantly undermines how cunning and scheming she can truly be.
Like, I’m watching the new episodes and I noticed how when Sylvester and Freida are arguing over the “fluffy” bread, the anime frames Sylvester as the one who comes up with the idea of keeping the recipe from Freida to gain political advantage. Meanwhile Rozemyne hesitantly agrees, almost like she’s being pressured or even tricked by Sylvester.
Which LN!Rozemyne would never. She keeps the recipe from BOTH Sylvester and Freida because she wants to use it for herself. She lays down the plan of using it to cement her position in noble society - thing that she comes up with completely independently. It’s not even remotely Sylvester’s idea. In fact, Sylvester and Elvia only teach her that she must come up with new ‘trends’. And Rozemyne inmediatly launches to plan and do things on her own, which is very on brand.
And when the time comes to impress Sylvester, she plays him like a fiddle. Too well, even to Ferdinand’s standards. She designs the menu to ‘impress a child’ which works wonders for Sylvester.
It shows that Rozemyne isn’t just a kid. She’s capable of outsmarting even some extremely politically savvy people. Which the anime simply does not covey. In the anime, it really does feel like Rozemyne is this young naive girl who keeps getting pulled and pushed by people. LN!Rozemyne, on the other hand, seems more like someone who keeps getting a little bit too good at her job and accidentally causing problems because of it.
I know she’s like a horribly unreliable narrator, but LN!Rozemyne still was able to convey how scarily intelligent, calculating and cunning Rozemyne could truly be, when she wanted. In numerous occasions people go “thank god you only have books in your mind, if you had literally anything else, you would be a HUGE danger”. Her power was to only in her mana (in fact it wasn’t her power for the longest time) it was how fucking smart she is.
Which is why Ferdinand and Rozemyne work! They’re both extremely smart, eccentric people, who understand each other’s strange but practical approach. In the novel it truly does feel like the only person who truly understands what the other one is thinking - are each other. As much as Lutz was her arms and legs, Myne was a mystery to him. She could read him, but not really understand her train of thought. Ferdinand could - to a degree. And only because he’s Ferdinand. No other person in the entire series comes close to - not only comprehend the bizarre things she’s trying to come up with, but grasp their impact and act accordingly to be able to make it a reality and ensure no one dies in the process. That’s why in PART 3 they’re butting heads and trying to pull each other’s legs.
The anime though, it feels more like a strict guardian x ward relationship. Which is very sad.
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