The Rose of Versailles follows the French Revolution, and the rise of Oscar, a woman who was raised as a man by her father who desperately wanted a son to succeed him. Besides dealing with her gender, Oscar is forced to deal with the contradictions of her loyalty to the French queen. Marie Antionette leads a carefree life, bathing in riches and other goods. Because of her decadent and expensive ways, her, alongside the nobles, begin to place harsh taxes on the the people.
In Oscar’s case, she becomes aware of this, ends up going down to the people, and sees their suffering. She had no idea that the extravagant 4 percent of the nobles were living off the 96 percent of poor people as parasites. She becomes conflicted as to where her loyalty lies, and struggles to try to accept this harsh reality while between both sides of the fence.
Thus the nobles live luxuriously off the backs off the miserable poor. But the people who care are angry
As Oscar continues to serve the Royal Guard, her own sense of justice begins to make her question what she is doing. Why serve a corrupt system that exploits it’s own people and kills anyone who has anything to say? She saw the deplorable conditions of the people, and as someone who stands for honesty, knows too much now, and can’t just turn a blind eye to it all. As she starts to wake up, she starts to wonder if all she is, is a tool for the rich to control the masses. Despite this, her loyalty to the queen, and their friendship, holds Oscar back. Oscar struggles to try to make peace between both sides, but the spark of the revolution has already been lit
The people had reached a limit. The rich continued to grow their wealth and happiness off the broken backs of the poor. The anger of the people became justified. The rebellion of the people became a last attempt to force the rich to hear them, after being ignored for so long. They woke up. They realized that they were doing the majority of the jobs. That the whole system was based on their labor, and they asked themselves, “ why then must we be slaves and servants when we can be rulers of the system.?
Diving into it, revolution is the giant spectacle of the series. I may not be an expert in anything I talk about, though I can tell that the constant struggle of humanity’s existence has been a wealthy minority of powerful people, against the masses of the poor. The balance that determines a revolution is once that last match of oppression is struck, and the people explode. The problem today is that it’s not organized. It’s not enough to rebel against the city with bricks, but to join and grow political organizations. The people in power, knowing this well, make sure they use their institutions of media and intelligence organizations to keep the people ignorant and put down. In this series, the people organized, and realized their political ideas into a reality they nobles were forced to accept and compromise with.
Our struggle to improve humanity against those who want to abuse their power is a struggle that never ends. It confuses me how people think today we’ve made it; that peace has been achieved. The majority of the people in the world are poor and miserable. Best of all, there is a common goal and a common enemy. The struggle is still there, and it will never end for as long as people want to find a better way for humanity. As much as all of you feel comfortable in your gamer chairs and Steam accounts, this way of life won’t last forever. The most violent era in our history is yet to come, in my opinion, and when it happens, they won’t be ready for it. Every civilization has fallen in history, and this will include America, where I live.
Love is painfully explored. Love that needs permission, that cannot be spoken, and that isn’t recognized. Love is cut short by time, and this series plays out a tragic way to show this. I look at characters like Andre, and wonder to myself. My own relationships have ended in break ups. At this point, I don’t care anymore. I have too many higher priorities to worry about that now. I am concerned about being happy with myself, then to break myself and foolishly make myself completely dependent on another person for my well being.
Marie Antionette, doesn’t realize that her way of being the Queen is destroying the poor. Of course, the nobles that could care less, manipulating her into making the issue worse. As a result, the nobles continued to grow richer, while the poor continued to get poorer. What did they expect? You can only push a people so far until they explode. They problem today in my country, is that many people don’t realize the situation. They blame the people for the problems, not realizing the bigger picture.
This all ties into Oscar, who thought the situation was fine. What split her apart from other nobles, is not just her sense of justice, but that she herself went down and saw the suffering. She saw children dying because they couldn’t afford doctors. She saw the families having to let their sick loved ones die because if they sold their cows or other high value goods, they’d all starve anyways. For Oscar, she grew up that her family must always be loyal to the royalty. The viewers will see a war play out in her head. As much as she wants to do the right thing, and that it is always right to do the right thing, regardless of authoritative position, she can’t break away from her traditions.
This series shows how power absolutely corrupts. When characters, even ones who were poorer and you’d think know better, gain some power and wealth, it goes to their heads. Enough is never enough, and it becomes their downfall.
As for the production itself, the art is beautiful. There are dozens of detailed shots, and effects added to improve a scene and to make it more dramatic and beautiful. Being a work from 1979, much of the animation is lacking. There is a lot of reused animation, and at times a scene could feel it needed to be animated better. For me, it did not prevent me from enjoying the series. I was still immersed with the characters and story. Some people care so much about animation, that it blinds them from everything else.
The music is heart wrenching. Many of the songs make all the precious moments better, and all the tragic ones even sadder. Though there is a complete soundtrack out there, it’s far from actually being complete.
There is no denying the influence this has had on anime. Revolutionary Girl Utena screams this, as well as Legend of the Galactic heroes, with it’s portrayal of nobles and autocratic life.
Lastly, Saint Just is an interesting character. Unlike the other revolutionaries, he believes in outright slaughtering the rich. Can you blame him? His methods may be extreme, but if the enemy, because those who we are against have to be our enemies, choose to ignore the people, this method becomes necessary. Revolutions are violent and overturn systems. The people who are involved in a revolution don’t become a part of the system - they destroy the system, they change the system. They aren't about turning the other cheek, loving your enemy, flowers, and holding hands over the rainbow. The people in power have shown that historically, they never cared about the poor, and that the people had to come together take their power by Don’t be so naïve to try nonviolence against an enemy that is a sadist, and that doesn’t know what it is. They won’t turn their cheek, they will turn your cheek twice over and destroy you, since you allowed them to. Trying to win the heart of your enemy, has historically been known to be an act of self-destruction. The nobles created a deplorable situation for the poor people of France. Out of their own anger, people like Saint Just emerged. They are products of this poverty the rich created, and are simply reaping that they sowed with him.
This series left me with a hole in my heart. It twisted my emotions, and left me thinking about it's story and characters a lot. It did to me what Space runaway Ideon did to me with fear, and Madoka Magica with agony. Oscar is a strong political moral force, and an inspiration to me. She dared to face this contradiction honestly, because to do the wrong thing with power, is never acceptable, and deserving of punishment.
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