Every time I hear him talking about his mother, my heart breaks more and more each time. And this somehow hurts more than queen never even trying to love Chevalier. But if she tried to love him, to celebrate his birthday, but still failed and ended up failing—then that would have left even bigger impression on Chevalier that he was simply unlovable creature.
I just read your chevalier vs clavis route post and 100% agree. And I love both Chevalier and Clavis, but Clavis' route is so so much better than Chev's. Do you also feel like part of the reason it falls flat is that it's not just a starter route but they (cybird) were still kind of finding their footing with the story they were writing? This was one of their few otome's where it's not based on historical figures so they had a lot more creativity space. Space it felt like they were a little unsure how to expand upon at first. Like with each route release it's felt like the overall story is getting fleshed out far better and each route gets far more interesting.
Agreed!
While I do think it's a pity a route with SO MUCH potential like Chevalier's was so,,,, lacking, i do understand why that is, though
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While we all love cybird games, and we do like to think the creators like them just as much as us, we gotta remember the Ikemen games are not a passion project. Cybird is a company and for projects to move forward they need to bring one thing: profit.
The cybird games very much work on a formula. I only caught Ikepri and Ikevamp on their English releases, so i can't really say for sure, but it seems to me that they do what works. The three starter routes:
The fun guy that befriends/protects the MC, that seems perfect in every way but got an angsty past (Leon/Napoleon)
The prickly tsunderes who just wants to be loved and has his own issues (Yves/Mozart)
The distant genius who sees MC as this bright existence in his "lack of humanity" (Chevalier/Leonardo)
And while they mix and have different personalities, of course, at least for me it's visible that cybird found something that works and is running with it.
These three personalities cater to their audience enough to make them keep playing the game. Even if someone doesn't particularly likes any of those, they're enough to make this person stick around and wait for a route that they think might interest them more, and it's playing the game that generates revenue.
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Ikemen games are not exactly,,,, gameplay centered. There's no minigames or something we can actually PLAY. Sure, we have challenges that work as inconveniences while we're trying to read the story but that's hardly the same.
When I say "gameplay" in Otome games we can think of Obey Me! or Twisted Wonderland (even though it is not an Otome), or many other rhythm games that duo with dating Sims/narrative games. The Ikemen series is,,,,, not that.
We don't have to level up anything, or grind (just diamonds and in-game currency, but these come naturally). So i reckon that people might start to play these games for three reasons:
Narrative: they're interested in the story of the game.
Artwork: They're just here to appreciate pretty anime boys, and tbh, same.
Lighthearted mindless entertainment: they're not here for a wild ride, they're here for the romance and the cheese, it's their escapism after a long day of work/school, and they just wanna chill.
Taking that into consideration, the three starter routes are the ones that need to balance out all these three things so they can grab the attention of as many people possible, which, i theorize, explains why the starter routes are the way they are.
The three starter routes are always the cheesiest, blandest of them all, because they need to be simple enough to grab attention. No one downloads an Ikemen game to be mindblown, we just want to have fun, which,,,, it's hard, specially when the story involves politics.
I don't know if anyone else noticed or it's just me, but the deeper the plot gets, the more political it gets, and the more political, the less romantic.
If we compare the three starter routes, in which MC was way too busy being lost and fawning over whichever boy she chose to follow like a duckling, and the latest routes, more specifically, Clavis' (which is the most political by far) we can see that Clavis' route is way less romantic than any other route, because MC is way too busy figuring shit out herself, doing her duty as Belle and trying to keep up with Clavis to actually focus on romance. (I'm not saying it wasn't romantic or that it was lacking, but Clavis route had other focuses. It was even the route in which MC and the suitor took the longest to get together.)
So, the point of starter routes is to deliver just enough information to not let the the narrative-centered players down (some foreshadowing for future routes and characters, for example), but have enough romance and cheese/lightheartedness to deliver on the game's advertising (it's a LOVE STORY game, after all) for those that are only interested in that aspect of the game WITHOUT overwhelming them by pushing heavy plot down their throats.
They also gotta be all good looking and eye-catching enough for those interested in the graphics to stay interested (cue the starter character designs: a handsome more rough around the edges (Leon/Leonardo), a more lean delicate and stylish one (Yves/Mozart), one that is almost ethereal, perfectly balanced between handsome and pretty (Chevalier/Napoleon [a bit of a stretch, i reckon it]), all this, perfectly balanced to get all three kinds of people hooked on the game so they'd keep playing and awaiting for the next routes.
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Why that doesn't work? I won't say it DOESN'T work, but i do think it was a mistake to have Chevalier as one of the starter route.
From an economical stand point? Great move. People ate it uP- Chevalier and Leon were the most popular routes, and even so Chevalier stans are gREAT numbers. From the people that want to be stepped on to the people who are convinced that "they can fix him", Chevalier is THE ikepri cash cow.
However, in my opinion, plot wise, if they really wanted to go feeding us little bits of lore, the starter routes should've been all from the domestic faction. I can easily see a world where, instead of Chevalier, the starter routes were Leon, Yves and Licht.
Why's that: as I said before, the easier to digest the route, the less political it is, and what makes a route political are the international relationships, which is what Chevalier's faction is all about.
So to make any of their routes (Chevalier, Nokto, Clavis or Luke) without making then political (heavy on the political drama, full baggage, full on war crimes) is a disservice to the plot, because that's what they DO. (Try to imagine Nokto's route, but take out all the international negotiating and diplomacy, take out the information gathering from the women he sleeps with, and only MENTION that oh yeah, Nokto's quite the savvy diplomat but he does use underhanded means. That's exactly what happened with Chevalier's route, but we didn't realize it until now because we didn't have anything to compare to,,,,, until Clavis)
While Leon's faction is all about internal affairs, which, in a scenario with the possibility of a war looming over the kingdom, could still be interesting while being lighthearted enough to not scare everyone off (plus, people loved Licht and it sealed with almost ZERO political drama aside from this madman trying to die on the battlefield)
In my opinion, Chevalier, as the LEADER of his faction, should have the MOST political route out of them all, on par with Gilbert's. So i do believe that Chevalier's route should have been one of the last ones, certainly after Clavis', which would've worked greatly to humanize him and show us a bit of a relationship between Chev and MC a bit before we get the full scope of who Chevalier is as a person and what made him who he is.
Thank you for coming to my TED TALK :D
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Observation: Also, i dislike how calm and collected Chevalier is all the time. I wish his route was the most dramatic.
In a perfect world where I am Ikemen Prince's writing manager, his route would be released alongside Gilbert's, playing hard on the duality between them.
And in it we'd see this cold beast crumble. I'm saying full meltdown. All the emotions he "discarded" coming back full force as the man who's always ten steps ahead realizes he's met his match (resident Poor Little Meow Meow Gilbert) and he might be in over his head; something the impeccable genius can't do alone, and gotta rely on his brothers who he himself labels almost nuisances. But that's just me. It has nothing to do with this analysis.
Disclaimer: There will be triggering themes in this post, so Trigger warning ⚠ , and big spoilers. These are just my thoughts/ theories, and analysis regarding two fictional characters that I wanted to share with others. If you have your own thoughts on this matter feel free to share. I will be using what I noticed from my playthrough, current part in the story (Nokto Klein, CH 16) and side stories for Nokto and Licht We will be taking everything we as the readers, know from ENG/ JPN trailers, ENG Main stories and side stories I acquired since I don't want to spoiled anything for myself.
Rules I will follow so it will align with the analysis;
Nokto is 2 years younger than Licht. Obviously twins are more common to be born only few minutes apart, but there are rare cases of twins being 1 or 2 years apart,
Each of the prince made their own crest, i.e. chose the animal and color.
With this all in mind we can start analyzing the Klein brothers,
1 Character analyses
Before we can fully start putting pieces of their story together, we need to sort said pieces to get the idea where each twin starts and ends. We will thoroughly analyze everything about the twins, from their design to the symbolism associated with them. I won't be mentioning anything that I think won't tell us more about the characters themselves.
The name
Side note: Children are given name based on their looks; do they look soft, are they small,.. , actions; are they loud or quite, active or calm, even what the parents hope the kid will become.
Licht; means, light, candle or sunshine. A big contrast to the over all personality of Licht as we know. This makes me think Licht was the outgoing twin. Happy, full of energy and curiosity, nice to both people, and animals. These traits didn't leave him; we learn that he cares dearly about his horse Marron, found cliff deep in a forest, a place as he said "No one knows about.". But his benevolent nature is more highlighted time and time in his side stories, and glimpses of this trait can be seen through out the Nokto's main story. His politeness on the other hand was taught. If we stick to the theory of him being more of a wild and mischievous kid, him being polite had to be taught in a more forceful way considering his straightforward nature, a trait look down upon in high class.
Nokto; means night or darkness. Also big contrast to his character. If we stick to my previous theory it would mean Nokto was the silent twin, or for better word, more observant and analytical. Always watching from the side lines and coming up with strategies for anything that made him feel anxious. As night is also associated with fear of unknown, danger and evil, I think he was more suspicious than Licht, and far more afraid to go venture into a woods. His skill to analyze made him perfect for events as he always knew what to say and how to look. Opposite to his older twin who said what come to his mind no matter the statue of the person. This could also be one of the things that made younger, and current Nokto admire Licht.
Klein; means, small. That doesn't give us much, but Klein could be also taken from the word Kline; it's not uncommon for writers to swipe letters, or use the pronunciation of a word to create name/surname. So, if we assume their surname originates from the word Kline; nickname from klin i.e. 'wedge'. Wedge is a piece of iron/wood shaped triangular, used for splitting wood. If that's the case, I think klin is associated with someone/ something splitting the close twins apart. From Licht's Birthdays side story we do learn that they were once very close, to the point of them huddling with each other for comfort, implying something, or someone, made them seek comfort from the latter.
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The crest:
Side note: crests symbolizes the overall character of each prince, or i.e. their personality.
L/Wolf; as the wolf is a common symbol to see, it made it to be associated with many traits and symbolism. The most accurate are, loyalty, family, teamwork, wildness, instincts and playfulness. This shows that Licht is hiding his true self away to make himself look more cold, also explains why his troupe is the strongest; wolves hunts in packs, with everyone knowing what to do, where is their position, etc. But everything positive has it's counterpart of negative. Wolf can symbolize greed, danger and cruelty. Wolf is also associated with the Moon, a contrast to his name. Wolves howl at the moon; Licht can canonically sing as we learn this during one of his side stories (that was a nice detail). The moon represents death, emotions and enlightenment.
N/Fox; commonly known for deceive, independency, cleverness, mischievousness, logic and playfulness. The fox does not have any negative traits as their 'positive' ones are considered to be more neutral traits. It more depends on persons view on the traits. Fox is associated with the Sun. Again, similar to his brother it is contrast to Noktos name. The Sun represents life, power and happiness.
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Titles:
L/6th prince; in western numerology the number 6 is heavily associated with love and caring for others, especially animals. The number is about love, relationships, responsibility. It also talks about sacrificing, caring, healing and protecting. Yet in the eastern Asia; more specifically Japan, since CYBIRD, the company who makes Ikemen games, is a Japanese one. There the number 6 is considered 'unlucky'. To be more specific the pronunciation as a counting number is muttsu; this can sound like the word for nothingness, 無 (mu).
N/7th prince; in western numerology the number 7 is associated with analytical, perceptive and introspective traits. It is symbol of perfection and humanity's deep inner need to find depth; Nokto feels emptiness, and less connected to his emotions than his brother. In eastern part; specifically in Japan, the number 7 is rather confusing here. It has good but also neutral, if not bad association. The neutral association is with the celebration of life and the mourning of death, while it's also linked to be universally lucky or holy number; not only in Japan but all over the world.
L/Older twin; older siblings in general are thought to be the ones who take care of their younger siblings; protected them, teach them and overall help them. As we already know, Licht is responsible person, so he definitely took the role seriously when he was informed he will be older brother to his younger twin. For Licht, safety of his closed loved ones is far more important than their feelings, as we know from his monolog in his Birthday side story. So thinking that he could done something in order to protect his younger brother isn't farfetched.
N/Younger twin; Mirroring isn't uncommon for roommates, close friends, family members or siblings who respect each other. But twins are known to mirror each other more, intensely, sometimes even without knowing. It isn't hard to figure out that Nokto is mimicking his brother; shared hate towards certain foods, shades from the same color, animals they represent belonging to the same family, similar cloths. Nokto mimicking Licht out of admiration is supported by his actions towards Licht during his main story.
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Appearance:
Eyes; we can't rule out the possibility of them being albino, but I like to think this isn't the case for their chosen hair nor eye color, and what it entitles. The color red is strongly associated with anger, passion and love, but that's only for superficial thinkers, we are digging way deeper. Historically the color red is associated with sacrifice, danger, and courage.
Hair; They are the only characters with "unnatural color scheme". To be more specific, the color white. White hair on people isn't unnatural, but more what is the cause of them. It is known that stress can give you gray hair no matter the age. Let us elaborate, Stress can cause hair to gray by affecting the stem cells that are responsible for regenerating hair pigment, and the key role in this is played by body's fight-or-flight response.
Reason: The color scheme they choose to give the twins hair:
E1E0DE, as the white hair, and CDC2C0, as their original hair color since this color is working as a sort of under color for the white. I'm also fully ever this may had been for simple artistic purposes, but that's a simple way of looking at it. I like to believe the cause of their white hair is because they experience high stress level, either in their young or teen age.
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Body:
L/Clothes; Licht is shown wearing too much clothes. Even other characters have less clothes than him. As a knight, he needs to be agile and have fast contortions when fighting multiple enemies. Even with the additional layers he still is, it just adds to the difficulty in moving in them. Him wearing gloves can mean that he has 'dirty hands', or for better word 'blooded hands' signifying that he has dirty secret i.e. the crime he committed. Gloves can also mean hiding hands in general, as they can reviled a lot a person, or the person can simple hide something under them. The main color is blue, or more specifically 'light blue'. Light blue can be associated with tranquility, understanding, softness, coldness, aloofness, lack of emotion, unfriendliness.
Bare; Lich has bleeding wound on his wrist indicating self-harming wound.
His suicidal tendencies should not come as a surprise to those who read his birthday story or are already on the same CH in Nokto's main story as me. His reason is his past crime he have committed, and the heavy burden he needs to carry with it i.e he doesn't feel forth living for what he have done in the past, therefor the need to disappear and end this. His suicidal tendencies also had affected Nokto. As Nokto is his younger twin who admires him, it wouldn't be out of question for Nokto following in his brothers footsteps, or rather thinking "If he doesn't care, I shouldn't too". This thought process was evident in with the poison scene.
Leon also stated that:
Indicating Licht felt suicidal for some time, so the crime had to happened long ago, or at least closer to his teen years.
The scares on his hands, shoulder and most likely back can be explained as followed:
a) Self harm, minus back since there is no way he could done that himself. The scars on his elbows and shoulders could been self inflicted with the smaller dagger he caries around.
b) Battle scars, in Nokto's main story we learn how Licht is a strong fighter, and always fights to protect. It wouldn't be surprising if he was the first in the front lines fighting, as Leon said, recklessly.
c) Someone else inflicted them, either for misbehaving or disciplining.
All the options have one thing in comment, Licht didn't mind dying. With his Birthday side story we learn he was both mentally and emotionally effected by what he did. He stated that he has a better grasp on them; showing his emotionally awareness, by realizing how it will effect those around him, yet on his Birthday the urge to die ia stronger, making him think more on the lines of "I don't want to hurt anyone anymore."; i.e. sacrificing himself for the happiness of others.
N/Clothes; not much of a difference. The only thing different is how Licht has everything button up; closed off person, privet, while Nokto has his clothes more ruffled and open; extroverted person, who has less things to hide. The ruffled part indicates that he sleeps around with multiple people, or he doesn't know how to correctly button up his clothes; since royal clothing is hard to out on. Nokto's clothes also suggest that he is more open than his brother, or rather easier to approach. His main color, similar to Licht's, is blue, specifically Teal; restfulness and mental balance, as well as uneasiness, edgy, private. The edgy trait could be also linked to his painted nails on fingers that are visible when doing the fox pose, and his pierced ear.
Bare; His skin is smooth. Meaning no scars; he may rarely engage in fights or prefers to fight from the shadows i.e. attack on unsuspecting foe. That would also line up with the definition of his name. He takes good care of his body, and overall appearance; from clothes to body. This behavior isn't unusual if we consider his position as a prince. But not to the extant of him needing to know exactly what colors to match, what to wear at what event, etc. Something or someone had either taught him, or he is interested in fashion. Although the first is more likely since he doesn't show any passion towards said topic, and acts like he had to learn it, moreover he shows knowledge in choosing clothes for women rather than men. This is supported with CH 16 where MC needs to change her dress, and Nokto subconsciously goes to her dresser and starts to chose her new dress.
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2 Personality Now VS Then
Licht; he gone from wild and playful, to being distant and strict. Or to be more specific, he just chose to surpass his playful nature; we can see him being more playful w MC in few of his side stories, and openly sarcastic with Nokto. Since I think Licht is more emotional twin he can't really hide his true nature, and more so when he's with Nokto, that's why he does everything to stir away from Nokto. If we stick with this we would get 2 main points about Licht as a character; 1. He's more playful and outspoken than he lets on, 2. Something happened in his past that made him gone from active to passive, before the crime.
Nokto; on the other hand didn't changed much, or didn't changed drastically as Licht did. He is still more secretive and independent as he was as a kid, and still observing from outside to choose the best approach. The things that did changed was his playful nature and his playboy antics. Let's assume that in their younger years Licht was the one who provoked Nokto to get him to play with him. Now though Nokto is the one trying to provoke Licht to simply make him look at him. This makes me think that, the crime made Licht put walls between him and his twin, even thought Nokto never blamed him.
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3 The beginning of the end
Side note: If we stick with everything we analyzed so far, we can get one thing clear, the crime was committed by Licht who was also strongly effected; making him to be the emotional twin, and the crime seen by Nokto who didn't took it as hard; making him the logical twin.
The crime Licht committed was the murder of his own mother. There are 2 possible scenarios that lead to the murder:
1. Licht killed her accidently. As twins they were really close, but sometimes the provoking or them playing around cause more harm then good. Something happened between him and Nokto that made Licht storm out and run into the stables, most likely to tend to Marron or other horse to calm himself down. His mother come search for him while Nokto stayed in the bedroom. Now let it be known when a person calms down they tend to be more alert, so if Licht heard someone coming into the stables without the person announcing themselves he would reacted on his first instinct and that's attack. I think Lichts dagger was the first weapon he ever received and was also the weapon that he killed his mother with.
That would explain why Licht feels guilty and thinks over the lines of not wanting to hurt anyone anymore, but not so much Noktos playboy antics; besides him using it as an escapism from feeling nothing that can be explained by not having a mother figure anymore, and distant twin. it also can't explain his knowledge about only women fashion. As stated before he isn't passionate about it, more like he's doing it as a chores, a subconscious behavior. The fight, or argument also feels wrong since I think Licht being the more responsible one wouldn't get argument better of him nor start it, and Nokto who is observant wouldn't even start one, or he would simply come up with a solution.
2. Licht killed his mother intentionally. That would indicate their mother wasn't very kindhearted person, treated them badly and didn't give them much attention. Although, if we put the whole "Twins bring both good and bad fortune" saying, it can indicate that their mother treated Licht kindly, but after Noktos birth everything changed. The treatment made them rely on one another, and seek comfort from the latter. That would mean they slept in each other's bed, so as young Nokto wanted to go to his twins bedroom had to cross his mother's first, and may saw something he wasn't supposed to. Something, that also awoke his playboy, or more specifically his way of thinking, and acting on it after Licht puts wall between them. Nokto may think that sexual activity will make him feel something for a while; their mother felt unwanted and empty after she learned the king didn't loved her, needing to fill up the void she choose to indulge in sexual activities with other men. Interruption from Nokto lead to their mother lashing out on him, which alerted Licht next door. After Licht saw their mother about to strike his younger twin, he embraced Nokto, successfully shielding him . When everything calmed down, blinded by his anger, Licht stabbed their mother with his dagger that he brought with, after hearing the load voices.
This would explain why Nokto doesn't feel resentment towards Licht, but also why Licht feels guilty, if we stick with him feeling emotions more deeply. We can also explain his thoughts "I don't want to hurt anyone anymore" by assuming that he may had pushed Nokto who tried to stop him from commiting a murder. Noktos knowledge about women clothes could come from their mother who used him to match her clothing, after Licht took all their responsibilities in hopes of Nokto to have more free time before the murder took place.
Small theories:
1. Like other characters, Licht's and Nokto's background will be reviled as the story progresses. The difference is how it will be executed to us as the readers. The fact that their are twins, the only full blooded relatives, makes me think that both of them holds one part of the whole story not only of their but their twins, i.e. Nokto holds his but mostly Lichts, and vice versa with Licht.
2. Seeing as Nokto uses the nickname 'naughty' whenever he or MC are going to do something that's consider wrong, may be because of their mother. She may tend to call either both, or only Nokto a "Naughty boy" whenever he did something unruly, if we go with the second scenario.
That concludes my analysis and theories on the Klein twins! Sorry if it was inconsistent, I hope you enjoyed reading my thoughts of the matter. Feel free to comment or post your own theories and analysis. I hope you have great day/night ฅ^•ﻌ•^ฅ
I will always adore how Chevalier's character doesn't romanticize war. He's army general who's said to side with war and you'd think it's because he doesn't think much of war or Ignores the losses and pain brought by it but no. He understands better than anyone that war is a place where you have to make hard decisions and bears the responsibility of the said hard decisions all alone, he gets angry when his people are killed and he remembers the name of every single person who died in the war because he thinks they're his responsibility. And he has been carrying this responsibility ever since he was a child. I'm crying and throwing up.
I've noticed that one of the biggest problem with Emma's writing is that, the writers think kindness immediately means naivety. it's as if they're trying to show how pure-hearted Emma is by making her naive as fuck. like look how sweet and innocent she is, she would never want to harm anybody and that's why she won't expect to be scammed in like 5 minutes from now. ok, I get it, when you are giving kindness, you expect kindness in return, but the way they're linking a positive trait with negative trait is annoying.
A person can be kind and pure-hearted and also absolutely kick ass, be smart schemer, physically strong, stand up for themselves and see through the lies of others and whatnot. And while Emma does have moments where she's a badass, writers still insist on her on being naive, inexperienced, slow and clumsy. I've noticed this is often for the sake of romance with love interests. such as Emma clumsily tripping and male lead catches her, creating a romantic tension or Emma naively putting herself in danger and male interest coming to her rescue. sure, romantic tension is great but clearly no one enjoys repetitive themes that's justified by the MC being too dumb, too clumsy, too naive.
Another thing I noticed is that writers sometimes purposely make Emma ask naive questions so they can explain more to us. for an example: "the peace treaty Obsidian signed isn't trustworthy." "Oh so they still possess threat to us?" yes. yes, when a peace treaty is not trustworthy, it means there is no guaranteed peace, hence the threat is still here. we know this but for some reason, Emma still asks the second question, which writers use to widen their explanation, which is sometimes unnecessary and can come across as annoying. like, you can trust your readers to put two and two together, you know? no need to make the main character purposely naive just for this.
These traits also fail to portray that she represents a rabbit, because rabbits are highly intelligent, very cautious animals and have strict boundaries, they're quite complex and definitely not simpletons. So like, where did they get an idea from that just because she was a prey animal, she couldn't be planning for world domination because for all I know, many rabbits like to cause trouble and would definitely aim for world domination were they humans. (do you hear that, Gilbert?)
Sometimes I really don't get hate on Chevalier's Emma in his main route.
"She's naive." She's idealistic and obviously she would not be educated on how corrupt nobles truly are because ffs, she's a commoner in a time where commoners, especially women, could not get education and even books were luxury, plus nobles aren't dumb enough to expose their corruption to commoners' faces—that's why many rebels required Gilbert's help.
"She was against war but then she suddenly changed her mind?" She has ALWAYS understood the importance of war. It's literally mentioned when they had roundtable meeting that she has understood Chevalier's and Leon's point. What she had problem with was Chevalier's attitude towards the dead and it was a VERY valid concern because a war led by a tyrant (ik Chevalier isn't one but you get my point) will always. ALWAYS. end in huge tragedy.
Emma in Chevalier's main route hasn't sat down and whined about being unable to do anything, unlike Emma in certain someone's route. Meeting Chevalier halfway? She did that. Helping villagers? She did that. Saving soldiers? She did that. She hasn't consulted Sariel much about what she should do, because she always found a way herself and worked to better herself. She was helped by Jin once and by Clavis twice. And it wasn't huge help either, just guidance. She did allat on her own without whining about being helpless not even once. And she's dealing with Chevalier of all people. Sure, in romantic route, she did say she could not do anything about the clause 99 herself—which is TRUE because she would have immediately be thrown into jail. Even Chevalier took 1 whole ass week. Yet, despite allat, she still came back even though she could have been arrested.
Idk about y'all but for a starter route, she was very realistic and brave.
Man I absolutely love how Chevalier is about Emma from the very beginning to the very end, and how his feelings just develop and he can't do shit about it. Like he saw her as someone completely unnecessary, since he didn't think there was any need for Belle anyway but that quickly turns into an interest when she gathers enough courage to face him, when she looks at him dead in the eyes and overcomes her fear. an interest turns into something deeper when he finds out she likes books too and he unknowingly starts to find her amusing but also takes her opinion seriously enough to reread a whole book over and over again to understand her point of view—like actually puts effort in it when he has never done so before. that unconscious feeling of care wells up in his heart slowly and he can't do anything to stop it. he's concerned when she falls down from the stairs, or because he knows she will end up lonely at the party with no man asking her for a dance just because she's standing with him, so he just leaves??? so she won't become a laughing stock??? he has no idea why he's going far enough as to protect her from behind the scenes, why he secretly saves her from getting kidnapped but he cares??? he truly does??? he knows he shouldn't but can't do shit about it, which is shocking to him because he can easily detach his mind from his heart but there's something about this woman and the feeling he wished to experience as a child but forgot about it, the feeling that he has read thousands of books about, settles down in his heart and fuck. he gets attached to her quickly, so much that he starts caring about how she perceives him, so much that the thought of her death brings him agonizing painful feeling that twists his ever-so-composed expression into pained one. it's the way he started caring about her so early into the story because you'd think he wouldn't let her into his heart until the end of the story but no?? at chapter 5, he's already showing that he cares in his own way??? which goes to show just how much he actually has been craving love or someone who just...believed in his humanity. I truly love how fast he starts caring.
