Irina

Vanitas no Carte is honestly full of fascinating relationships between characters. From Vanitas to Luna, Jeanne and Ruthven, Chloé and Jean-Jacques, and as of chapter 55 which fucked me up presumably Teacher and Luna - this manga is honestly filled to the brim with both complex relationships and fucked up ones.

Dominique and Veronica's relationship to me is interesting because Veronica was the first glimpse into Dominique's family without the inherent bias of Noé's perspective and from the start it doesn't paint a pretty picture to what kind of environment Dominique possibly grew up in. Based on what we've seen so far, and Domi's confession to Louis how she was jealous that he could grow up in Teacher's place without the pressure to excel, it's pretty much implied that she probably grew up in an environment with high expectations and most probably suffered verbal and emotional abuse.

I'd first like to discuss the pressuring environment Domi grew up in. This sort of environment seems to be the norm for nobles. We see some sort of pressure even with Luca, who has this expectation put upon him because he is theoretically the most powerful political player besides Queen Faustina herself. He is a child expected to compete with adults with hundreds of years of experience on him (considering these guys are vampires) and somehow survive the viper's pit. Bearing this in mind, I think that both Veronica and Antoine had pressure put upon them as well. Antoine as heir to the De Sade family and Veronica to be an excellent noblewoman or maybe she was even trained to be a Beastia from an early age. Considering how powerful Beastias seem to be compared to the average vamp, no matter how talented someone is, that would take a lot of work.

The thing with Antoine and Veronica is that while they most likely had to succeed, they probably didn't have the extra pressure Dominique had. Why did Dominique have extra pressure compared to her brother and sister? Well, that's because her brother and sister excelled at their respective fields and this creates a sort of shadow on Dominique and she might have had the good ol' comparison phrase uttered to her "your sister/brother could do this in (insert low amount of time), what's taking you so long?" Or the whatever Dominique can do, they do better scenario. This tends to destroy a child's self-esteem, and paired with the fact that Dominique is trauma buddies with Noé with regards to Louis and also has a very low sense of self-worth since she thinks she should have died instead of Louis - you get someone with very low self-esteem and self-worth.

(Kudos to Jun Mochizuki honestly. When Dominique first debuted as a character, based solely on her air of confidence, I would not have expected her to be someone with such low self-worth that she very much contemplates suicide. It was fun getting to know the real Dominique under all that bravado and for her to begin overcoming her issues, because years of depression, survivor's guilt, and low self-esteem ain't gonna disappear overnight. But she's made peace with herself and can now move forward. Domi, I love you bby)

Now moving onto the abuse. The only one who openly does it seems to be Veronica and what's curious about it is that Veronica seems to actively go out of her way to verbally degrade Domi and/or humiliate her. I mean, she says Domi is "dull" because Domi doesn't want to know what she and Machina are up to (ever heard of tmi, Veronica?) and during the Bal Masque she wanted to kill Vanitas and Noé (?) in front of Domi, presumably just to get a reaction out of her. Let's not forget that she tied Domi up in a compromising position and hung her on a fucking chandelier where everybody could fucking see her and that's presumably why Domi got summoned by her family later on. Because for a family that seems to care about image as much as the De Sades, having a member of your family hung like that in public is embarrassing.

Oh and, that fucking brutal speech she gave to Domi after Louis died. Yeah, okay, be callous about your brother dying but of course she has to tack in the fact that Domi was chosen to live out of a fucking whim, their dad just didn't give a shit. Oh and maybe if Domi had been chosen to die instead of Louis, Louis wouldn't be as much as a dissapointment.

But the thing that I wonder about is, why is Domi considered a 'dissapointment'? Probably because her position as a palace guard isn't as glamorous as Veronica being a Beastia and Antoine as a Senate member? Oh, and her formula rewrite is not as powerful as theirs? I honestly don't understand it because based on Luca's remark Domi's ice is probably just as powerful but manifests in a different way than Antoine or Veronica's which is presumably violent. Or maybe because as a result of her trauma and abuse, she's been sort of repressing her abilities? I'd welcome anyone's thoughts on this.

Going back to Veronica. Despite her abuse of Dominique and frankly viewing her sister as trash, she seems to care for her in a fucked up way? I mean, Domi herself said that Veronica was overprotective of her that's why she didn't interact much with men. This is probably an extension of Veronica's misandry, but she'd have to consider Domi as 'hers' in some form of way to sort of want to shield her in that manner. This inconsistency with Veronica is interesting because she's an emotionally abusive ass to her sister but at the same time protects her from outsiders?

Personally, I'm also very curious where Veronica's misandry originates from. I mean, people aren't born a misandrist. And also despite this misandry, she's alright with having a sexual relationship with Marquis Machina. I find it interesting that it seems to be strictly sexual in a way. She's alright with being with men to fulfill her sexual needs, but anything other than that seems to be a 'no'.

(Also Marquis Machina is probably a hottie underneath that suit. I mean come on, Veronica lives with Antoine and worked with Loki, she's also damn gorgeous and a girl's gotta have a certain standard)

I wonder if her misandry emerged from the fact that her father is well, a womaniser. I mean, growing up and seeing your father hook up with a lot of different ladies who are not your mother tends to do something to your mindset. Antoine and Dominique so far seems to ignore this (I say so far because we haven't seen the De Sade kids around their dad), but it could be possible that Veronica was exposed more to this side of Count De Sade than the rest of her siblings. AND NO, I AM NOT SAYING THEY DID INCESTUOUS FATHER-DAUGHTER SHIT. WHAT I MEAN IS THAT - the real life Marquis de Sade had a thing for, well surrounding himself with women whenever he visited a brothel (did he die from an STD? I can't remember. But if he didn't then wow man) and considering the word 'sadist' originates from his name, maybe Veronica just saw their father pulling this kind of shit and her opinions for men just:

But I find it curious as well that she hates humans as much as she does. I had expected a casual disdain and arrogance, but the hatred with which she hates humans is brutal. She practically suggested hunting Vanitas like an animal during the Bal Masque. And yes, Veronica is a sadistic person, but this hunt she tried to incite felt almost savage in a way that I didn't think was her kind of thing especially since a Bal Masque is a luxurious and very social event, not one for wrecking Marquis Machina's estate just to hunt down a single human.

This makes me wonder if - and this is based on the speculation that Veronica's misandry is rooted in the excessive exposure to her father's proclivities - perhaps Count De Sade's inclinations was not only vampire women, but human women as well.

Again this is only one speculation, as we know next to nothing about Count De Sade, it would be unfair to 100% blame him for how screwed up his kids ended up being. Except for Louis. That was a dick move.

Another speculation is that Veronica once had something inappropriate done to her by a human male. But that would lead to the question; where would this happen? Veronica is a noblewoman and I don't think she goes traipsing out into the human world often nor do I think humans waltz into Altus every day as they seem to require a vampire acquaintance to do so.

With regards to Veronica, I'm kind of hoping Mochizuki shows us another side of her beyond well, verbally abusive asshat. However, Mochizuki did mention that in Vanitas she'd like to give characters 'meaningless deaths' i.e characters who do not get to achieve their goals or have their character arcs resolved before dying. Now, I'm not saying Veronica is going to die but based on this it's possible that we will not get a complete character insight with Veronica.