i think my issues with the canon romance at the end can be summarized by that competition alicia holds to win lloyd's hand.
she's like 'oh your new body sucks you need to marry someone who can protect you 24/7' so she holds a tournament to find the strongest woman in the continent and marry him to her so he'll have built-in bodyguard. which is objectively the funniest thing she could've done i love her so much. but. like. it's so unnecessary, redundant and also just,,,, factually incorrect??? ajdhka god lemme explain
here's how alicia puts it
but,,,, lloyd already has a bodyguard who's at his side 24/7. like. that's very much a plot point of the entire novel. there's literally a character who's arc is about coming to care about lloyd above anything else and deciding to stay at his side for the rest of his life to protect him. like. that's very much a thing that happened. it literally takes us 320 chapters to get to that point why are you acting like you're doing something new here
a swordsmanship competition. to decide who gets to marry lloyd. remind me what character have we spent the entire novel being told and shown over and over and over again is the most powerful and strongest swordsman in literally the entire world???
right. but he can't participate. because he's not a woman. which i think it's the point to this rant.
i don't think i need to spell it out but i'm gonna anyway.
the only reason javier isn't the one to end up with lloyd is because he's a man. because even by the in-universe made up requirements he's the most qualified one to do so, except that he's not allowed to even participate because he's not a girl.
and y'know what's the extra thing that just. makes me go a little insane because it's the one detail that makes me doubt for one second that all of this wasn't just pure chance or coincidence and instead is bk moon taunting us. y'know what it is.
what character is the only one who canonically can and has passed for a woman with no issue whatsoever in a seemingly out of nowhere gag that never comes up again. do you remember.
so we have,,, a character who is devoted to our main character and has sworn to protect him for the rest of his life with everything he has, who is the strongest swordsman in the entire world and who can easily pass for a woman.
and then the main character is supposed to marry whoever wins a competition to decide who gets to protect him for the rest of his life, who is the strongest swordsman in the country and where only women are allowed to participate.
and i'm not supposed to read anything into that.
okay. i feel like i'm going crazy this is me right now
but seriously. this little tidbit that was probably just meant to be a joke about how alicia came to marry lloyd just,,, really highlights how unnecessary and redundant their romance feels to me
like. why would lloyd need to marry alicia. when he already has javier.
