Quote:
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Originally Posted by dreamless
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Spoiler:
I'm pretty sure Altena never inferred anything about Mireille's "unsuitability"; in fact, she specifically said to Chloe "You know as well as I that the Daughter of Corsica is also fit". The ones claiming Mireille's unsuitability were the priestessess (during the Gladiator fight
), and Chloe would barely acknowledge that Mireille was even invited to the party.
I think everyone else was assuming Mireille was the "leftover" (even most of the audience, as many posts then and now seem to reflect), but there's lots of little clues -- especially in Altena's reactions to Chloe in the last few episodes, and including the
other symbol of Noir on Altena's wax seal and Remy Breffort's ring -- one maiden with the swords, the other with the Scales. The pair "in perfect balance" or something.
...or so goes another of my theories; more stuff you can read into it and project as much as you want.
Regarding the "cliche":
Spoiler:
Altena wants an independent "pure" blade to save the world from what the Soldats have become. Her tragic background has ingrained in her that "hatred saves" (another theory is that she shot the rapist -- she's staring at the gun, then there's a flash of red, and we all know what red means in this series, right?
) So she's engineered a team where the "brains" would be driven by revenge on the Soldats, and the "brawn" would devotedly follow along. At the end, when Mireille dropped the idea of vengance, Altena tries "plan B" (she likely may have anticipated it, nothing in her reaction showed surprise to Mireille's statement), so she goes to work on trying to guilt Kirika into it, provoking her devotion to Mireille.
But it's Kirika's final memory of Odette's "cliche" message, where you see the tears in Kirika's lil' eyes, that it "clicks" and she takes the unexpected action of taking the bullet (which, obviously, surprised Altena greatly). Essentially, it's the key to defeating Altena's plans for a vengeful Noir. It may have played into Breffort's plans for a "seeking the light" Noir, but that'd be reading way too much into it with little to no evidence. Heh.
I could keep going on and on about this show all night, but I'll spare y'all for now...
One last bit about the "suggestiveness" though; in my first exposure to the show as it was airing on INHD a while back, I only caught a handful of eps out of order, and at the time I thought I sensed that there was a serious sexual tension beneath it. Once I saw the whole series in a row (and then again, and again, and again),
I actually, honestly, don't see it. There's a strong devotion and attachment, a true bond that forms, but despite the fact that I like to tease about the more "suggestive" shots, I really don't believe that there's anything sexual about it either. And it's all the more wonderful because of it.
The ambiguity was the bait, though...
(Now I've gotta go rewatch ep 19 of Madlax! WTF!!)