SIDEBLOG!! no.002

The gist is, I think removing the "bride candidate" context from Flora's character does her a huge disservice and is actively detrimental to understanding her dynamic with Hershel. Even without that line, her father absolutely intended for her to be rescued by a suitor, not another father. (He would have made a robot version of himself if he wanted her to have another dad.) She's a literal princess in a tower. And even if none of this is ever explicitly stated, because we're dealing with polite gentlemen and young ladies, I think Flora *knows* that, and I think Layton knows that too.

The fandom-standard Doylesian explanation for Flora's writing and treatment in the games is, yeah, classic gamedevs misogyny, nothing inherently malicious, just the harmful understanding of Flora as The Girl who isn't cool enough to come on adventures unless she's being kidnapped. And this is definitely true. But it's been driving me crazy since like 2017 to come up with an in-universe answer that felt satisfying, to try to square what I saw Hershel's character to be with the way he handled Flora. (To put it plainly: he simply was not giving dad enough for me.)

And better men than me have tried! Explaining it, I mean. Dude's comin' hot off of Azran Legacy, he just died a little bit, now he's accidentally acquired a charge, and he's feeling the weight of being a capital-G-Legal Guardian as opposed to the temporary guardian of his best friends' kid! And he's treating her like glass because three of his four previous companions betrayed him or sacrificed themselves or Both?? and also, frankly, we can give him a little bit of overbearing, gendered chivalry. It sucks, but it's in-character. All of that adds up to Flora Stays Home just fine. It works.

But like, it's just, it's funny how no one can decide how old Flora is. I think that's so, so perfect for her.

If you understand her holding and subsequent release from the village as an entrance into adulthood, an engineered coming-of-age, it tracks surprisingly well. Here are all your dolls, my dear. And here is your dowry! If Flora takes her inheritance, all her father's gold, she must in turn sacrifice the givings of childhood– her robots, her caretakers, her playmates, would fall silent. The world zips her second mouth.

And Flora, Flora says no to that. She says, listen, I want to leave, but I want my childhood to stay. I want it to stay right here, and you and I and he will all three of us drive away from it, happily ever after, and on the first night of my wonderful new life I'll peek my head out the window and imagine I can still hear the clockwork.

She's such a beautiful character. As a real life person, what she's feeling and thinking is like, super normal, and something I think most of us contend with somewhere between 14-19 (Flora's most common age range in fanworks, from what I've seen), but as a character in a narrative, it's such an interesting way of presenting this character as a disjointed confusion of adolescence and adulthood. And she has so many fairy tale motifs in her story. That's what fairy tales are all *about,* man.

And THEN!! Stripping away all of that symbolism schlock leaves you just with this LONELY lonely girl who is interacting with flesh-and-blood humans for the first time since her father died. And she's expecting someone who'll be kind and brave and take care of her for the rest of her life, happily ever after, but listen, she's been in this village so long that she'll take that in whatever form it comes. Daughter, wife, whatever, just don't leave her alone again.

and what the fuck is hershel supposed to do with that. really. he didn't sign up for this. he's got his own psychosexual family and relationship garbage to work through, as previously mentioned, and he's truly doing his best with all of that but. the past three years have really started pulling at the sutures on this bad boy and there is ONLY SO MUCH that journaling can do, realistically.

But he is a Good Guy so he is obviously Not going to wife up this imprisoned girl fresh out of the slammer and he Is going to provide her with a roof over her head until she can figure out her next steps and he Will support her in figuring out those next steps once she feels a little more settled and doesn't feel like she needs to attach herself to him and Luke so much. And he Does Not Intend to be dragging her around on haphazard London adventures, because honestly, taking everything else into consideration,

well, I could see him viewing this as the most appropriate arrangement. He wants the best for Flora! And this is..... the best way to go about it. Probably.