The other day @laneylunen and I were talking about this, but have you ever noticed how Amalia was robbed in season 4?
To be fair, we could be talking about a plethora of things. The fact that they killed her entire family just so she and Yugo could rule being high up on that Dick Move list.
But I am actually talking about how she was robbed of her moment of assertion between episodes 10 and 11. A moment where she could have truly asserted herself as Princess of the Sadida and defended the fact that she's actually one of the highest authorities in their kingdom and, therefore, deserving of respect.
Oh dude this topic gets me fired up because Amalia has always been so robbed. I totally remember talking to you about Amalia's "confrontation" with Armand a while back, and the whole thing still makes me laugh because the show's writing for that episode is just so bad. Anyways I'm going off on a rant, and a lot of my points will have close to zero relevancy to the above post, but I just have so many thoughts about Amalia (and Armand as well) that i have to go on Mark Zuckerbergs internet so i can dunk on a french children's tv show.
I’ll swoop in immediately with a hot take, but if we were to strip Amalia from her face card, I’m pretty sure she’d lose 90% of her fanbase simply because her whole canon character is trope trash and later, a convenient braindead excuse of an “independent” woman. Do I love her? Yes, but part of me also cannot tolerate her.
I get frustrated when people compare both Amalia and Armand on the terms of who’s the better leader, because nine times out of ten, people will say Amalia, and I have to thoroughly disagree. I’m not saying Armand is better, in fact to me, they are equal in how good they are as political leaders. BUT! They are political leaders with strengths that apply to different worlds: Amalia was made to rule in a world of war, while Armand was made to rule in a world of peace.
Mind you, Amalia is definitely more prone to adopting a militaristic mindset in times of hardship and is quick in her decisions, no matter if they be good or bad ones. The fact that she even can make a decision and can carry it out is her true merit, at least, that’s what I think it is. But the series merely hints at such an idea, hardly taking advantage of such a characteristic, so like most of the fandom, I have to pull at strings to explain what kind of a person Amalia even is at this point. Maybe she’ll narrow her eyes in the face of hardship, or enter a throne room with her head held high, but at the end of the day she. just sits there. and not much else. And then the series moves on with the attitude pretending like she did something of worth as a leader, which I simply cannot wrap my head around.
Another point of irritation is the common consensus that Armand was largely a failure of a royal in comparison to Amalia when I find him to be one of the most down-to-earth characters in the entire show (I’m mainly referring to S3/S4 Armand here.) People love to bring up the fact that the Sadidan public largely prefer Amalia over Armand as proof enough that Amalia is the better leader, but I think this is largely due to her living a very romantic life up until the Necrome War; she’s a young, beautiful girl traveling with her friends to supposedly help others and save the world. But a bystanding royal child vs an actively reigning queen can be received very differently by the same audience (as proven by what little I’ve seen of the Great Wave manga, featuring Sadidans getting pissy with Amalia about various affairs coughEliatropescough. But also correct me if I'm wrong, manga readers. I still have yet to actually read a full chapter of TGW cuz I can't be bothered.) On a different note, Armand’s greatest weakness is his lack of self-confidence; it leaves his decision-making ability in shambles and makes him vulnerable to political influence. But to make up for that, he’s is very conscientious, as well as a realist. He perfectly understands his role as king, but because of this, he knows he’s coming up short to meet his people’s expectations, and therefore leans on others as to make up for it (he did so with his father until the latter’s passing, and with no Amalia around, adopted the Osamodas as his back-up.) It’s a shame that he chose the Osamodas as his confidants, because ideally, having intelligent, well-meaning people close by to lend a differing perspective is something I think all offices of power need, and the Osamodas are just not that. In S4, he and Amalia were starting to slowly evolve their political relationship into such, of course, until he passed away.
To me, a better ending would have been to leave Armand alive and instead put narrative focus on Armand and Amalia’s reliance on each other as means of cultivating a cohesive and balanced political atmosphere (as well as provide healing from the intense sibling rivalry they shared as teens.) Where Armand is unsure, Amalia is confident, and where Amalia is naive, Armand is grounded. But instead, I guess the series wanted Yugo to fill Armand's role instead, so they conveniently killed the latter off. BRO TOT STOP PMO!!!!!!!!!!!
I would honestly love to pull more examples from the series regarding how Amalia was robbed from development, but I’ve only fully seen S4 once (once being enough) and really nothing about Amalia ever stood out to me (which maybe proves the point of her being robbed as a character lololol) The only scene of her that caught my attention was when she did the motivational speech to the Sadidas while on the battlefield, but I can’t remember a thing she said and also, considering such a moment through a realistic lens, who is actually listening to her??? The Necromes haven’t stopped moving!! I’d be fighting or running for my life or both, not listening to that!! Idk, also that scene just felt so dramatic to me that I cringed so hard and that's literally why I remember it
but anyways thanks for coming to my ted talk i hate wakfu more than anyone on the internet
