#wilfried

Rozemyne: Okay... but Ferdinand is fifteen years older than me, and did way more to raise me than Sylvester ever did. Why are you fine with us being married?

Wilfried: Aside from you being nuts about him? I just wouldn't wish either of you on anyone else. You deserve each other.

I think it was @rozemynelovebot who relatively recently made a post discussing their very complicated feelings towards Wilfried? Hopefully I’m right. Anyways, it was a post that of which I really enjoyed reading, and I want to add onto that discussion, if just a bit.

I really like Wilfried as a character, because more than any other, he feels like an actual child to me. Children in this series have a tendency to show a lot of maturity, even at really young ages, and while I do think that is reflective of real life (children irl are WAAAAY smarter than most adults give them credit for. they’re people too), I do think it goes a bit too far sometimes.

Ultimately that’s just my opinion, but it reflects my thoughts towards Wilfried. He’s impulsive, brash, naive, thick-headed, arrogant, and thinks he knows everything: which is exactly like many a teenager.

But that’s not all there is to him. Much like his father, Wilfried can be kind and thoughtful. Ultimately he wants to do good for the people around him, and he grows to understand the qualities of people that one should hold respect for. As the story progresses, he does grow and change, and it’s so great to see.

And yet…he’s so dumb. He’s a spoiled brat, who doesn’t understand anything about the real world. As far as I remember, he never comes to realize just how often he’s so easily manipulated by the people around him. He’s blind to the harm he often causes, and unlike his father, he never shows that greater judgement you’d want to see in someone who’s supposed to be a leader.

He makes decisions and says things without thinking, he forgets his place and orders around people he has no business ordering around, and he never truly understands either of his sisters.

It’s hard to blame him due to the damage Veronica’s obsessive love caused him growing up, especially since that damage is so difficult to see. But at the same time, much of his faults are, well, his fault.

How many times does he refuse to grow as a person? How many times does he accept when he’s made a mistake? He almost never comes to these conclusions himself, he only ever evolves when given external pressure and expectations. It’s almost like he has little to none self reflection, and what self reflection he does show is, ironically, inherently selfish.

Whoever drew it in the editors staff draws so well.

Here to drop a thought(im only parts way through reading part 4 though I've been spoiled by fanfiction and only picked up reading at part 3 when the anime had just ended season 3)

I had the thought that wilfried and lutz's coloring are kind of similar in the book illustrations

Though the anime has their hair coloring more discernible with lutz having a more saturated yellow(more noticeable pre season 4 before the changing of studios) compared to wilfried's more paler blonde we see for the first time in season 4

Plus slightly different shades of green eyes and their eye shapes are different

I feel like they could though be mixed up if only a bit

I had the thought that it would've been interesting to hear Myne's thoughts on a kid who's coloring is only slightly different but also oh so similar to her best friend who she can rarely see and misses. The similarities though only slight, bringing some expectation to her view on wilfried in comparison to lutz to only then have that comparison and expectation crushed by how different they are. Where Lutz used to look out for Myne's health and was aware of her ailments, in comparison to her first interaction with Wilfried who wasn't aware while dragging her along only for her to collapse(though i know wilfried feels bad afterwards and is made aware of how frail myne is) the expectation in comparison is broken from this one interaction. Where Lutz was her closest friend who she could be herself with, who tried to hold her gremlin chaos or worked with her, knowing she's not the og myne(the anime scene where she says she took over myne's body) but still cared for her (and if myne were a normal commoner who wasnt urano reborn, maybe there would have been expectations for them to have been a thing), in comparison to Wilfried who's her eventual fiance who she can't be herself around, who doesnt know her origins and i doubt could control her chaos. Both similar in looks but are so different from eachother, wouldve been interesting to explore.

Though she was taught how to behave like a noble, I feel like it wouldn't be farfetched to say she could accidentally mistake in calling lutz's name instead of wilfried's like how some people might call out to someone who looks like their friend by mistake, having lutz on her mind she calls out his name in mistake and then having to play off this accidental slip up.

On a similar vein/concept

Imagine if they were swapped

(idk how canon the aspect of Veronica raising Wilfried to fail as an ADC before baptism and blaming Florencia's background for it is, but i did come across that motive in fanfics, so going from that)

If Veronica truly wanted to blame background imagine if she swapped her "beloved" grandson with a mana less commoner who looked close enough to him. Play it off as due to Florencia's background/blood that is why Veronica's "grandson" has so little mana that he cant even be seen as a laynoble, whilst also having terrible behavior (when in reality the archdukes son is swapped with the commoner lutz and wilfried is raised as a commoner alongside myne where they both think they have the devouring ( i know theres an age gap of roughly one year between lutz and wilfried so it wouldnt make sense but its just a silly what if))