Not A Doll, Being Human

The flower representing André is the Cherokee rose!

The flower, in the form shown on the page, only appears in the night of July 12th scene.

But, in fact, we do see André with this flower in the opening sequence.

In one of my many rewatches of the movie, I noticed a resemblance between the two flowers—the one in the night of July 12th scene and the one in the opening sequence. And I thought at first that they were dog roses (rosa canina). But I wasn’t entirely sure if they were the same—they appear in very different colors, and they don't have the most distinctive shape—so I told myself I was probably imagining it.

Turns out, I wasn't! There is something deeply satisfying about having that hunch confirmed by the official artbook.

Here is the English translation of this section of the book.

And here are the scenes from the opening sequence with the flowers.

Marie Antoinette appears with Schneewalzer roses; Oscar with Shinsetsu roses; Fersen with dwarf fireweeds; and André with Cherokee roses.

Here we see Marie Antoinette as both a teenager and an adult, holding a bouquet of Gruss an Teplitz roses. Her younger self is surrounded by Avon roses, while her adult self is framed by Schneewalzer roses.

Fersen, surrounded by dwarf fireweeds, holds a single Gruss an Teplitz rose.

Same thing with Oscar: her teenage self is associated with Lady Banks’ roses, and her adult self with Shinsetsu roses. She holds a single petal of the Gruss an Teplitz rose.

I wonder why her teenage self is shown in the red uniform—especially since this image clearly references an illustration by Riyoko Ikeda. And it’s hard not to think of that scene with Girodelle when seeing Oscar lift a rose petal to her lips.

Finally, André appears surrounded by Cherokee roses, reaching for the last petal of the Gruss an Teplitz rose. Notice how his frame is the simplest of all—both here and in the earlier visual—as if to highlight his status as a commoner.

The movie itself features several scenes incorporating these flowers, and I love how these visuals echo the rich floral imagery of the manga.

It's difficult to tell, but in the final shot of the night of July 12th, Oscar’s Shinsetsu roses appear intertwined with André’s Cherokee roses.

I have been a RoV fan for over 24 years and honestly only in recent years have I seen this be such a HUGE issue. This is pretty par for the course in historical fiction and with Ikeda. If people are this bothered they should go away. This is not for them.

I get the discomfort, but I also understand that it does have a narrative purpose and it pushes the characters forward and I am honestly not mad at it, I don't think it is nearly as bad as people make it out to be and I don’t think we need to “pretend” it didn’t happen. Yes, I would say it is an outdated trope but I think it still works today, for a piece of historical fiction, for what its being used for. But people lack the capacity to look at it properly and past their kneejerk reaction to it. I also don't see it as, "dark romance" or romance at all. Its dramatic, tragic and emotional.

People focus so much on the Andre half of this scene so let’s start with Oscar and what this does for her character.

To start. People give Oscar far too much credit. She isn’t the most considerate person or the most emotionally intelligent. Throughout the story she is shown to overlook peoples feelings and is very slow in learning about herself and others.

It takes being hit over the head or her experiencing the same things to fully understand people, especially when it comes to emotions. She was built for a specific role and doesn't really think about much outside of that.

She disregards Marie Antoinette’s loneliness and desire to be loved, then realizes she isn’t immune to that either (even falls for the same guy). She is extremely dismissive and kinda mean to Rosalie, then she herself experiences unrequited love and finally understands and empathizes with her (the very misinterpreted marriage line scene). We have Fersen ask her if she is lonely living her life they way she does, which she answers 'no'. Only for Girodelle to ask her again later and she hesitates, because yes, by age 33 she is and also has a better understanding of love. Oscar and Marie Antoinette never really understand each other and there is always a disconnect, until their final meeting where Oscar, through her love for Andre finally understands Antoinette as a woman.

Her treatment of Andre is also not great..

Top of Oscar's crimes list here is the whole Black Knight fiasco. While the scene is played out comedically, Andre is forced by her into this very stupid plan. Forced to cut his hair, risk his life and belittled the whole time by Oscar and nanny. This is quite an abuse of power by Oscar as his master and also of his feelings, as he thinks the only reason he is doing it is because it is for her. Then of course he looses his eye, we see Oscar's guilt and a bit of her sense of possession over him with the first "my Andre". This could be read as hidden feelings coming to light in the heat of the moment or as the more nefarious "you broke my property". I think its a bit of both.

A lot of people, use the “Oscar started to see him as a man” phrase for this scene. While true, maybe it gives the wrong impression. This isn't a dark romance, sexual sexy moment, for either of them. So I’ll try this one.

Oscar never saw Andre as being any different from her.

She didn’t see him as a man. She didn’t think he had any desires that she didn’t. Needs that she didn’t. Feelings that she didn’t. I sometimes don't think she even saw him as his own person. He was more an extension of herself, a third arm, always there to do what she need. So when this happens, its unexpected and she is forced to see him as his own person and THAT is what is scary.

So not only does Oscar now have to think about Andre's desires, needs and feelings...She has to think about hers, because that is how she works.

When it is said that this the start of her "sexual awakening" its not "oh that turned me on" *wink wink dark romance* its "oh that is a thing, I never thought about that, Andre feels that thing, do have those feelings too then?"

Answer is yes, we see from here on that she is extremely sexually attracted to Andre. (and is almost seduced by Girodelle) But it isn't because of that scene being physically sexual or arousing, its about the idea planted in her head that she now has to confront within herself.

The scene is after she has her talk with Fersen and he tells her

"Welp sorry I thought you were dude, maybe if you were more girl looking I'd have liked you back, duces" So she is feeling a certain sort of way and Andre senses this.

She is sitting it the dark (it is dark, no one can see, I think people forget this, for what its worth) feeling sad. As the conversation progresses Andre knows something happened with Fersen, and of course he knows Fersen doesn't return Oscar's feelings. He askes what happened and Oscar refuses to tell him and he gets mad that she is keeping things from him. So he one ups her with his insane confession. Worst possible moment to do so.

I agree with your assessment on Andre. I think he is desperate, his situation is bleak, and he has a moment of crazed weakness. This is also meant to shock us all, audience, Oscar and Andre himself as this scene is very uncharacteristic for him from what we have seen so far. There is also the fact that they are master and servant to add to the mix.

I think it is important to note that his main goal throughout this whole scene is to get her to listen to him (I imagine she doesn't do that often) and he is doing so by holding onto her. He also keeps saying he would rather die and be killed, he is baiting her to call her father and have him shot. (Her father, just come in and shoot him? Does this say something about anything? That he could just do that?) So he is a bit suicidal too. What is being said is much more disturbing then what is being done.

A large part of this scene is also to highlight his "great passion and restraint" and at the time it was considered very admirable and people liked this scene for that reason. Here is "the times" and outdated trope. It is an assault though, I don't think anyone would deny that but the point of this scene isn't that it is an assault. The point isn't the physical act but the emotional repercussions, which get so largely ignored it becomes not worth even talking about this scene.

I know Oscar and Andre never talk about what happened and I understand the disappointment with that. But it doesn't go unresolved or without follow up. We see Oscar realize she is very selfish when it comes to Andre, that she makes his life difficult, that she wouldn't be able to live her life the way she does if not for him and her whole female sexuality thing which is also an out of story achievement as it showed women as subjects of desire as opposed to just being objects.

Everything ties into her realization of equality and living her life on her own terms, which enables her to open herself up to returning Andre's feelings and breaking from the nobility. I think a lot of this gets ignored because people don't look at how this scene contributes to Oscar's growth via her relationship to Andre. For god sake its a story about class and he is our one commoner, the main characters' servant. Everything between has weight and importance to that main theme as well. People are too busy seeing Oscar as a victim to notice the growth she gets out of this. Granted I know most of the people who feel that way don't like the Oscar/Andre relationship or really Oscar either, if we are being honest, so it would be easy to miss.

Controversial opinion. I think for the short form serialized medium that The Rose of Versailles is, the scene is fine. I'm not really sure what else could have been done at this point in the story to get the characters moving to where they needed to be while also beating Aim for the Ace in the polls, so..? I think If it was adapted into some other longer "for TV" format it could be handled differently, It would look differently, staged differently. I mean look at the anime, it completely changed the context and made it 10 times worse! But I don't think the bones are bad, its supposed to be uncomfortable shocking drama:

Two friends of 20 years sitting in the dark talking about their past, the woman is hiding something form the other and won't tell, the man knows its about his rival for her love, they start to argue, he tells her to call out for help but she doesn't, the man confesses his impossible love to the woman not caring if it means his death and kisses her, poetic word vomit, she is in shock, he is ready to die by the hand of her father, finally she calls for help in the name of the other man she is in love with, in the struggle the man rips her shirt, everyone in shock, he immediately stops and apologizes.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That all being said I do think the poison scene does a lot of the same work and maybe even a little better, I think it is an easy replacement for this scene or the two could almost be mixed together. It almost feels like it was a late to arrive better idea that got missed the first time around. We will never know.

I’m going to be blunt. I think most takes on this scene are really lazy, shallow cop outs "assault bad" like omg the sky is blue and the grass is green. Please don't waste our time. I think a lot of it is posturing or people being too scared to be judged by people on the internet and over correcting by talking to much about it as if they need to make sure EVERYONE knows they know its #BAD.

This is #1 bad faith topic and close to 99.9% of people who bring it up don't care about anything other then saying "I know assault bad, omg HIT TWEET" It is an argument that they see as being a 100% win because no one can argue against that.