trying to think of how my superior and totally correct rewritten ending would work without turning Robespierre into a one dimensional gay woman-hating supervillain and the whole...mess that was done by the end of the Reign of Terror "arc"
@infinite-resignation replied:
Sakamoto makes so many halfhearted writing decisions in Rouge, his simultaneous cowardice and bullbaiting edge really just frustrates me. The worst part is that, in its most abstract, a lot of the decisions that Rouge makes are so... interesting!! Marie represents the unwavering radical to Charles' lily-livered milquetoast reformism, the Sansons' world increases in size as violence gains more and more truck in more and more aspects of politics, etc
Like, it's very funny that he has his own hobby-horse morally ambiguous radical (Marie has Big Stirner Energy) and then he imagines Robespierre as this evil demagogue for doing... all the same shit Sakamoto is not attracted to Robespierre
Yes to all of this actually. I'd say Rouge started off kinda strong in the beginning, but the story took a downturn following the Affair of the Diamond Necklace, and we don't get a lot of Marie developing as a character to maker her as "real" as Charles. For example, while Charles closed himself off for a majority of the manga while connecting with others, Marie never undergoes a parallel development of her recognizing that by forming connections, she can help create change with the power of a community. (She has this realization(?) during the Versailles Execution Release Incident, but she quickly reverts backs to being her lone wolf self)
And then you get to the ending where it's like Shinichi wanted to cram in as much info and stereotypes of the Reign of Terror as much as he could. You'd think that with trying to make his characters be more faceted, Shinichi would also try to do something different with Robespierre, a historical figure who is constantly watered down as a bloodthirsty dictator who wanted to immediately guillotine anyone who didn't agree with him. There's this well-researched post by @lanterne about what is called Thermidorian Propaganda, regarding Robespierre. It's a lengthy one, but it's worth reading. There is, of course, also the fact that Rouge ends with the manga stating that Napoleon establishing the French Consulate essentially ended the French Revolution, with no mention of the French Directory or the (First) White Terror that preceded it.
It's funny that now that you mentioned the similarities between Marie and Robespierre, I can't think of it as anything but hypocrisy, that we're supposed to see the morally ambiguous violent Marie (who, as we remember, was idolized as a hero for the working class after her "execution" to the point that costumes of her were popular) as justified for killing aristocrats left and right, while Robespierre's similar actions of ordering the deaths of people left and right to be heinous.
The only difference I can think of is that a majority of people who died during the Reign of Terror were from the Third Estate, while Marie was strictly killing rich people (although even that must be criticized, as the manga leans into the idea that all rich people are nothing but dolls scheming to steal from one another and from the lower classes, and they deserve no sympathy as they use their privilege to amuse themselves)
There's also the thorn that Rouge deals more with misogyny to an almost comical degree, with Shinichi even going so far as to change certain events to fit more with the idea that every man in France didn't want women to have rights. (*cought Theriogne de Mericourt's assault cough*)
Also fun fact while I was trying to search up more info: One of the people Charles Henri Sanson executed was a woman named Cecile Renault, who was accused of attempting to assassinate Robespierre. I wonder if some of Cecile's actions (bringing in a change of clothes, and her breaking down before smiling before the scaffold) were inspiration for Shinichi's take on Charlotte Corday. . .
So...
The thing with Cécile Renault and Nicole Bouchard. They were somewhat mentally ill, cute-looking girls who were executed for the sake of making anti-Robespierre propaganda.
Executing children was seen as messed up even by XVIIIth century standards, so these girls looking like children even though they were late teens did stur up the majority of the audience. It was so messed up because they were so obviously innocent, that Desmorest l'ainé refused to tie them, and Charles-Henri Sanson had straight up hallucinations.
The older Desmorest brother was Charles-Henri's right hand man, and he was taken in by the Sanson family as a twelve year old orphan. He also married a certain Gabrielle Sanson, the youngest of Jean-Baptiste children. His younger brother was only fifteen during the Revolution, and he was called "Le Jeune" by Charles-Henri to differenciate him from his brother. They were distant relatives, and the two Desmorest, but also Legros would use the term "cousin" as one of reverence. (G. Lenotre did retranscribe the letters of the Sanson assistants, all calling Charles-Henri Sanson their cousin, even if Legros was not related).
The real-life Charles-Henri Sanson straight up went insane from the Terror and kidney stones, spending his older years in constant physical and mental pain. He got to see his grandson, but I'm not sure this man wanted to live that much longer, exept if he feared hellfire.
So yeah, in Innocent, Shinichi Sakamoto either didn't knew about or ignored but...Him writing Charles-Henri as closed off until the death of his son is...interesting.














