On Cecile's plan including the destruction of the sisters' embroidery and Cecile embodying the figure of the traitor
I'm really going through it now. Okay you know that unconsolable dread one is afflicted by when history goes lost. Ancient libraries burning, historical art pieces being destroyed; it shakes to the core, because to destroy books and art and historical artefacts means to destroy the last items that carried the memory of people long gone; and doing so means killing them again, once and for all. Because if there's one thing more scary than death, that's the thought of being forgotten forever; then, you won't just be dead, but you'll cease to have ever existed.
I needed to preface that because no sane person would do that of their own will; it's going against the natural emphaty all humans share and that is ineherently human; it's going against one's own humanity.
But that's what Cecile did when she threw the sisters' embroidery to flames. The history of sister after sister who fought against the system, a legacy of trainees hoping in a better world, hoping that even where they failed, someone else could still succeed. Young, abused girls who still believed escape was possible, that a world of freedom could be real. And Cecile threw all of that away. She killed those girls again, and that makes her ruthless. And she did that because she loved another person.
And to do that because you love another person. To do put everything, everything on the line to grant their survival. To go against your own humanity just because your love for them is stronger than anything. To selflshly (can I say that?) condamn every. other. person if it's to save the person you love. To be willing to have them hate you till they're alive, as long as they stay alive.
Like idk I don't think we talk enough about Cecile as the figure of the traitor. Because she intentionally made herself guilty of betrayal thrice at least. She betrayed the system; when she put Krone's survival over hers, going against all the principles the mama system is based on. She betrayed all the sisters that came before her and that had entrusted her with the embroidery as a way to escape; to make Krone appear innocent. She betrayed Krone, by framing her; to grant her survival. And all of that- all of that, she did for Krone.
It's funny- in Dante's depiction of Inferno, the deepest circle of hell is where traitors get punished. The circle is divided in four rounds; on the first round are punished the traitors to family. On the second, traitors of the nation. The third is for hosts who betray their guests. The fourth is for traitors to their lords / benefactors / masters. It's curious, Cecile kinda fits every category: she betrayed her family (Krone), the nation (the system), the guest (the mama structure that gave her a new place opposite to sure death, though this one is a stretch); the benefactors (her seniors, the sisters that came before her and gave her the means to escape). The last round is dedicated to the punishment of what Dante deems the worst sin a man can commit: the betrayal of your own benefactors. The people there - Judas, who betrayed Christ, and Brutus and Cassius, who betrayed Caesar - are forever damned to be incessantly eaten by Lucifer.
Cecile is the epitome of traitor. Not a traitor like Minerva Norman, who tried to kill Emma's friends when she was away in order to pursue the greater good; she's probably a closer traitor to GF Ray, who gave the lives of other children in exchange of the sole survival of the people he loved because he thought there was no other way. Who was willing to be hated by them for that, as long as they would have survived.
If after dying she was sent to Dante's Inferno, she would end up in the last rounds of hell. She tainted herself of sin, and she did all of that for love.
