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- Jan 10, 2020
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[USER=399720]@howalonnie[/USER]100% agree with you tbh. like i think something everyone should keep in mind is that navier and sovies(c?)hu are literally royals and raised with stability so their worry is of optics and being dignified/etc, but rashta's primary worry is survival.
when people say "we don't hate rashta bc she's a slave we hate her bc she's manipulative" they're fundamentally misunderstanding that rashta is manipulative BECAUSE she is/was a slave. all of her behaviors tie to the motivation of making sure she never goes back to being a slave and making sure her child is well taken care of. besides that, she's not constantly wasting money or anything; she'd be content with her position IF she could feel secure in it.
and of course she doesn't feel secure in it, because navier freezes her out and actively (though subtly) antagonizes her. rashta in the very beginning wasn't trying to antagonize navier; she's uncultured but genuinely tried to befriend her. navier is fully within her rights to dislike rashta because sovieschu is the worst at communication, but she's the fucking empress. fucking around with rashta is literally the same as fucking around with a baby; rashta has NO power whatsoever, and at the start was pretty isolated from everyone who she was supposed to socialize with from that point on. and no one can say she doesn't fuck around with rashta - the ceremonial sword given to her was EXTREMELY unnecessary and spiteful. deliberately calling for roteschu's daughter JUST to get under rashta's skin is spiteful. navier isn't bad but she is a complex character with her own flaws and less than graceful actions and by ignoring that to blame rashta for everything people are missing out on the depth of character BOTH of these women have.
someone somewhere said here that rashta doesn't act like she's mentally scarred from being a slave, but she is. if you're clever (not smart) and you were a slave? if you know that you can get out of slavery using the only tool you have (your body) - if you know that the whole world is against you and you have to claw your way into the dirt to get even a little bit of anything, if you know how to avoid being punished by being as coy and innocent as you can be, if this is how you coped with the world and a longtime abusive relationship (which - it was one, regardless of how "BAD" the slavery is in comparison to chattel slavery) then you're not going to magically change into a different person that doesn't have any of the survival mechanisms you developed in that abusive relationship. and if your new, better life is in danger? your survival mechanisms are going to kick into overdrive.
(let's also not forget that some of rashta's ideas ACTIVELY CAME FROM another person who is DELIBERATELY trying to undermine the kingdom. rashta is clever, but she's not smart; she's also being used as a piece by multiple people.)
rashta is interacting with the world like her life (and her child's life) is on the line - that's what being a slave did to her. you can say, "but that's her whole personality" and that is to a degree true, because WE are a product of our surroundings; navier is an ice cold queen because she had to grow up into that. rashta is manipulative and deceptive because she had to grow into that.
no one has to like her, no one has to be sympathetic to her, but it's an insult to the author who worked hard to show the nuance of this story and of ALL of the characters by reducing a wonderfully fully-realized character into trash jokes.
when people say "we don't hate rashta bc she's a slave we hate her bc she's manipulative" they're fundamentally misunderstanding that rashta is manipulative BECAUSE she is/was a slave. all of her behaviors tie to the motivation of making sure she never goes back to being a slave and making sure her child is well taken care of. besides that, she's not constantly wasting money or anything; she'd be content with her position IF she could feel secure in it.
and of course she doesn't feel secure in it, because navier freezes her out and actively (though subtly) antagonizes her. rashta in the very beginning wasn't trying to antagonize navier; she's uncultured but genuinely tried to befriend her. navier is fully within her rights to dislike rashta because sovieschu is the worst at communication, but she's the fucking empress. fucking around with rashta is literally the same as fucking around with a baby; rashta has NO power whatsoever, and at the start was pretty isolated from everyone who she was supposed to socialize with from that point on. and no one can say she doesn't fuck around with rashta - the ceremonial sword given to her was EXTREMELY unnecessary and spiteful. deliberately calling for roteschu's daughter JUST to get under rashta's skin is spiteful. navier isn't bad but she is a complex character with her own flaws and less than graceful actions and by ignoring that to blame rashta for everything people are missing out on the depth of character BOTH of these women have.
someone somewhere said here that rashta doesn't act like she's mentally scarred from being a slave, but she is. if you're clever (not smart) and you were a slave? if you know that you can get out of slavery using the only tool you have (your body) - if you know that the whole world is against you and you have to claw your way into the dirt to get even a little bit of anything, if you know how to avoid being punished by being as coy and innocent as you can be, if this is how you coped with the world and a longtime abusive relationship (which - it was one, regardless of how "BAD" the slavery is in comparison to chattel slavery) then you're not going to magically change into a different person that doesn't have any of the survival mechanisms you developed in that abusive relationship. and if your new, better life is in danger? your survival mechanisms are going to kick into overdrive.
(let's also not forget that some of rashta's ideas ACTIVELY CAME FROM another person who is DELIBERATELY trying to undermine the kingdom. rashta is clever, but she's not smart; she's also being used as a piece by multiple people.)
rashta is interacting with the world like her life (and her child's life) is on the line - that's what being a slave did to her. you can say, "but that's her whole personality" and that is to a degree true, because WE are a product of our surroundings; navier is an ice cold queen because she had to grow up into that. rashta is manipulative and deceptive because she had to grow into that.
no one has to like her, no one has to be sympathetic to her, but it's an insult to the author who worked hard to show the nuance of this story and of ALL of the characters by reducing a wonderfully fully-realized character into trash jokes.
