This one is, admittedly, true. Louise was nothing but loyal to Henrietta, to the point of willful ignorance. With that said, I won't pretend to know what the right and wrong are of a love triangle.
I have to admit, I've never quite understood the loathing people hold for Henrietta. She's just a normal person in a position where her choices are able to hurt more people, which is why monarchic governments are stupid. Furthermore, she lacks an honest and upright influence in her life. She is surrounded by sycophants who seek to use her as a figurehead, and her only true friend, Louise, worships the ground she stands on and would never disagree with or counter her opinion. Having grown up in this environment, is it any wonder she is the way she is?
To be quite honest, I personally view Louise as being no better. The degree she takes to her abuse of Saito is ridiculous, rewarding kindness with hostility. She, unlike Henrietta, has good friends who serve as forces of change, and yet her progress is slow, minimal and occurs only by necessity.
This, however, is rather like a contest for last place. I find openly honest and generous characters such as Tabitha, Tiffania, and Siesta much more appealing.
"There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible and wrong." H.L. Mencken (1971)
i find trying to steal other people's lovers an act of evil mwa ha ha ha.
but yea. half the ZnT cast is disfunctional in their own sense.
I guess its true that in some ways, tabitha and kirche deserves a better sitting among the cast. however, in the recent volumes they seem to get lesser and lesser pages/screentime. which is quite dissapointing.
Tabitha is one of my favs actually. kinda like Yuki? who came first anyways.
and about louise, even if she is a sadist, she is clearly portrayed she is clearly growing along with the story, unlike the other characters. she is opening herself out of the nobility shell she have been confined with even if its slow.
while characters like mrs queeny , kirche, and siesta, well, they are the same as always?
oh! talking about yuki, znt characters sometimes reminds me of the haruhi cast ^.^
This one is, admittedly, true. Louise was nothing but loyal to Henrietta, to the point of willful ignorance. With that said, I won't pretend to know what the right and wrong are of a love triangle.
I have to admit, I've never quite understood the loathing people hold for Henrietta. She's just a normal person in a position where her choices are able to hurt more people, which is why monarchic governments are stupid. Furthermore, she lacks an honest and upright influence in her life. She is surrounded by sycophants who seek to use her as a figurehead, and her only true friend, Louise, worships the ground she stands on and would never disagree with or counter her opinion. Having grown up in this environment, is it any wonder she is the way she is?
To be quite honest, I personally view Louise as being no better. The degree she takes to her abuse of Saito is ridiculous, rewarding kindness with hostility. She, unlike Henrietta, has good friends who serve as forces of change, and yet her progress is slow, minimal and occurs only by necessity.
This, however, is rather like a contest for last place. I find openly honest and generous characters such as Tabitha, Tiffania, and Siesta much more appealing.
Personally, i hope that Saito would be with Siesta in the end =X though i doubt that will happen... Poor Siesta...
God!!
You need not forgive me.
For those I love,
The violence brought about by sinful men
Shall now be used once more.
If you were created to save this world,
If there is a single shred of hope left for the future of mankind,
I am very sorry, but, please begone!
Then you are wishing Saito unluck, since you are wishing him to end with a nice girl but whom he doesnt love, as the one he loves is Louise.
Also, no matter what, Louise is the character that develops the most compared to other characters that sometimes seem to be stagnated. Louise indeed is moving on to open herself more and eventually putting even her nobility behind to save her friend (something that would be hard for the Louise in the beginning to do).
Henrietta isnt a bad person but she isnt a good person either. pretty normal two-faced girl.
well, okay...so if my best friend tried to murder me, then tried to seduce my partner, then try to send me to die at war at the front lines, then backstab me, she really isnt a bad person.......
okkkkkkkayyyyyyy................. i guess i can only curse my sense of justice........
Lol, when you put it like that she indeed sound like a mean bitc*...
But seduce and backstab go together..On the hand you forgot the part where she put Louise and Saito to prison, though again it was more due to circumstances than her evilness.
And I can find more negative arguments about Henrietta than positive, but lets look at those few positive ones...
Basically , Henrietta is a victim of circumstances she did grew up in not a very friendly environment... Weak arguments, i know.. Stalin also grew up in an unfriendly environment but it doesn't make hundreds of thousands of people he sent to death more happy...
Henrietta suffered a lot (like Wales death)...Another weak argument as it seems... Hitler also suffered a lot in his personal life actually but it doesn't make him better...
Henrietta does regret silently of her unfair deeds... Bit stronger argument but again, since those thoughts usually stayed in her heart it did not change the outcome. Musolini also regretted a few of evil deeds he did, but he still was a bast*rd in general.
Well the best I can come up with is... She sold her furniture to help people, suffering from the war. It does sound pretty nice if we ignore the fact that she herself started that war due to her personal revenge...
She still doesnt look like totally evil somehow.. Yet she is far from being an angel, that's for sure...
In response to the comments on Louise:
You are correct that Louise has indeed changed from when we first met her. With that said, as I've pointed out earlier, her change has been slow, minimal and necessitated by events in her life (I'll talk about this later). This is because, in essence, Louise is defined by her pride.
When we first meet Louise, she is a stereotypical noble with an inferiority complex to rival Napoleon. From her mother and eldest sister, she has learned both the arrogance of the nobility and viciousness. From Cattleya, she has learned to be kind. At school, she is known as "Zero," the lone mage with no ability whatsoever at what is the definitive talent of a noble, magic. This, and the expectations due her as a member of a significant noble family only serve to further her sense of inferiority. Her pride will allow her to seek no comfort, and her one friend, Henrietta, now a Princess-Queen and unable to offer her support (Henrietta isn't the type of person who could fulfill this role anyway).
It is at this time that Saito enters her life, and things begin to change. Saito is the single strongest influence in her life, and he is one of change, and for the better. With his appearance and subsequent defeat of Guiche, she is renewed in the eyes of her peers, and she is able to begin to form friendships. Saito then brings an end to the single most destructive influence in her life, her inability to use magic. Furthermore, she is revealed to not just be able to use magic, but as the heir to the legendary Void element! On countless further occasions, Saito demonstrates both courage and his desire to protect her. Moreover, said occasions allow Louise opportunities to finally serve her friend, Henrietta, as one of her sole trusted lieutenants. Finally, as an outsider from our world, the entire time the two are together, Saito futilely attempts to help Louise understand the stupidity inherent in the pride of the nobility. The stubbornness of the two serves to effectively prevent any progress between the two, but it is admittedly Louise's stubbornness that provokes Saito's resultant sulking. In the mean time, Louise continues to abuse Saito like a wife-beating redneck high on meth, although perhaps this is intended as a literary comedic element, though I fail to see the humorous aspect.
In terms of her friends, Kirche and Tabitha are a stabilizing influence in her life, with Kirche providing encouragement and teasing on the romantic front. Even Louise's love rival, Siesta, seeks to help her. Her teacher, Mr. Colbert, seeks to help both her and Saito understand the deeper ethical concerns of the circumstances they find themselves in, although only Saito receives his advice. Even minor characters like Monmon genuinely seek to help her.
Louise well understands that she likes Saito, but her pride as a noble does not allow her to be simply content with this because of the disparity between their statuses, as noble v. commoner and as Master v. familiar. It isn't until she loses him, and thinks him dead as a result of her actions that she truly begins to change. To be quite frank, the only reason she even gets an opportunity to change her attitude towards Saito is because she is given, quite literally, a miracle of a second chance - one, admittedly, she does not waste.
In response to the comments on Henrietta:
@ Darknemo2006:
To compare Henrietta to monsters such as Hitler and Stalin, or even to incompetent wannabe monsters like Mussolini is too much. These are people who sought power as the ends to their means. This is the definitive difference between her and them, and in my mind, it is a large one. Henrietta was born into power - she never chose it, nor, as we can see later, even desired it. Furthermore, in her favor, she understands the duty of the nobility as apparently no other nobles do, and serves out of her duty towards her people. It is at this point that we meet her, and at this point that events in her life take a dramatic downward turn. Her previously peaceful life is abruptly interrupted with war, and she is forced to make decisions that are beyond her capability. Again, this is simply more evidence of the stupidity inherent in hereditary rule. Time goes on, and without any counterforce present in her life, the consequences of her inability begin to accumulate, and things spiral out of control.
From what we can see of her actions during these events, we do not see a monster - we see a helpless girl doomed by her environment. She makes decisions that most normal people are guilty of, but because of her position as a Queen, their impact is significant and terrible. We call her a traitor and a backstabber when her attempt at selfish happiness brought harm to those around her, and yet, even here this is only possible because she is a woman in charge of power she is not ready to wield (in this case, her magic).
To put it simply, as Louise is defined by pride, Henrietta is defined by the corruptive influence of power. Let me explain with a simple example. If any of us were suddenly given super-powers, would we be Hercules, mighty, incorruptible and selfless, or would we be the rest of the Greek gods, capricious, vain and vengeful? I think we all know the answer...and it isn't Hercules.
"There is always an easy solution to every problem - neat, plausible and wrong." H.L. Mencken (1971)
If you are saying that Hercules was not selfish then I would recommend you to read greek mythes again as he was far from being selfless and mister nice guy. The modern interpretation of Hercules made him to be selfless and so on, but original greek myth's were not that easy on him.
Well thats just details anyway...
From where you got the idea that I was comparing Henrietta to Stalin or Hitler? I was just showing that the usual arguments do not work since same arguments could be used to defend such monsters as those.
Henrietta is human and she never wanted this power or responsibility but it doesn't mean that her mistakes become less bad because of that. She cannot be a superman (or superwomen) as she is pretty normal, its just that her screw ups have much greater affects....
On the other hand I really do not like how she treats Louise who is supposed to be her best friend...
subject.
