Part 3: “Who Wants to Live Forever?”
Read Part 1 here.
Read Part 2 here.
Andre’s prior confession to Oscar demonstrated the loss of control for love trope Ikeda has established, but the purpose of the scene was to show Andre’s mental anguish and instability rather than to prove to Oscar how much he loves her. The main theme of love in the latter half of the manga still relies on loss of reservation as proof of love, but when this trope results in a successful confession of love, it is because Oscar and Andre have begun to see themselves as equals, bringing in a new and complex element to the love story which sets it apart from many other shoujo manga.
One such crucial development is Oscar’s becoming more and more aware of her social position as a noble. As she sees how the other half—namely Rosalie and her soldiers—lives; reads Rousseau and other famous thinkers of the time who encouraged a higher degree of social equality; and meets the supporters of the Third Estate—the lawyer Maximilien de Robespierre, the journalist Bernard Châtelet, and the defector to the Third Estate Comte de Mirabeau—she gains self-awareness and begins to sympathize with the commoners. This puts her in direct conflict with her superior officer, General Bouillet, and her father, General Jarjeyes. Bouillet has been ordering the French Army, comprised of mostly commoners, to prevent the Third Estate’s elected representatives from meeting by doing things like barricading the meeting room’s doors (leading to the Tennis Court Oath of 1789). Oscar refuses to help, and then Alain de Soisson, the de facto leader of her troop, also refuses; Bouillet calls them traitors and sends Alain and eleven other of her soldiers to the Abbey Prison to be executed by firing squad. Thanks to help from Andre and Bernard, Oscar is able to free her men, which makes her a traitor in the eyes of Bouillet and her father.
Oscar returns home to find her father waiting.
General Jarjeyes: Take off your decorations and your rank insignia, you disgrace!
Oscar: I will not take them off until I receive an official discharge from His Majesty.
General Jarjeyes: Well, I won’t wait for it to be official, you traitor!
You listen here! I don’t care if all the nobility desert the king and become the allies of the commoners! The house of Jarjeyes—only the house of Jarjeyes will remain loyal to the king until the very end! We have a duty to protect the royal family!
General Jarjeyes: This house harbors no traitors. As head of household, I will see to your punishment personally.
General Jarjeyes: Argh–! Let me go, Andre.
Andre: I can’t do that, sir.
General Jarjeyes: I’ll say it one more time. I told you to let me go.
Andre: I won’t!
General Jarjeyes: Then I’ll run you through, too!
Andre: Fine! But before you do that, sir, I’ll kill you and run off with Oscar.
General Jarjeyes: So that’s how you feel…
You’re a damned fool..
Andre: I know.
General Jarjeyes: Do you think it’s possible to overcome difference in station?
Andre: Yes.
General Jarjeyes: There are some who have gotten permission from the king to marry into the nobility.
Andre: I know.
I know—but I’m not interested in marriage. Just—even if I had ten lives, it wouldn’t be enough–but please, I beg of you, take my life in exchange for hers.
General Jarjeyes: If I killed you, Nanny wouldn’t be able to go on living. You clever bastard…
Oscar! Get your orders from the king. Go to the palace and get your deed of military service.
General Jarjeyes: Understand? You won’t be punished.
(4: 153-163)
Andre has repaid an old debt to Oscar. In the first volume of the manga, Oscar saved Andre’s life when he was blamed for a riding accident at the palace by taking the blame and offering her own life in exchange for Andre’s—but she did so as his master. Yet, more than just repaying that particular debt, Oscar and Andre feel like they have equalized their status to each other. Oscar was willing to throw away her rank, title, and even her career to save her commoner soldiers and has sided with the Third Estate and the principles of the (early) Revolution. Andre has stopped looking at Oscar as a bride, an object to be possessed, and has decided that he just wants to be with her and love her for who she is. Their relationship has become one of liberty, equality, and fraternity, a phrase which enraptures Oscar from the first time she hears it at a rally of the Third Estate (Vol 4: 16).
From the “my Andre” incident, Oscar has slowly but surely confronted her growing feelings for Andre. Interestingly, Ikeda rounds out her feelings for Andre in a way that none of the other characters in relationships have—sexual desire. Although it’s safe to assume that Antoinette and Fersen are sexually attracted to each other, the idea is never explicitly voiced. The two spend a lot of time talking about soul mates and fate, but not about physical attractiveness. Andre has already (extremely poorly) voiced his feelings about his desire for Oscar, but Oscar, unlike the other women of the manga, gets equal sexual agency. After coming in from an exercise in the rain, she accidentally walks in on a half-dressed Andre toweling himself off (4: 87-9). Although she yells at him for being half-naked in the officer’s quarters, she is surprised to find herself thinking about how attractive he really is and how she had never noticed. Women are often encouraged to voice their attraction to men in terms of facial features, height, general body type, but there Oscar is, daydreaming about Andre’s bare chest. It’s refreshingly honest. She also thinks of how beautiful his remaining eye, his hair and his face are, but the bare chest is the focus of this new-found physical desire.
This desire, compounded with her memories of his passionate kiss and his lips, not only rounds out her “spiritual” desire for him (personality, interests, mental attraction), but, more importantly, serves to show the readers that women as well as men experience desire for others on multiple levels. This voicing of her physical desire for Andre is markedly different from the way her desire for Fersen was presented. Oscar is not an ordinary woman, of course, but I feel like Ikeda’s decision to include Oscar’s thoughts about Andre’s body not only makes her love of Andre seem more adult and more realistic, but encourages, in some way, the largely female audience to consider physical desire for a partner as normal.
"I used to be able to bury my face in his chest without a second thought, but now--"
To return to the scene, after rescuing Oscar, Andre prepares to leave the room without asking for anything in return for saving her life. This is not the same Andre who accosted Oscar in her room and demanded she love him back. Andre has realized that no one can possess Oscar; she has to give her love freely, as an equal.* He feels he can’t love anyone else, but he can’t make her love him with words or with force, so he has decided to wait for her to decide for herself.
However, his loss of control with her father—his own master, someone with control over his life and livelihood—and his behavior afterward—no awkward confessions, no demands—seals the deal for Oscar. She sees in full the extent of his love: that he would give anything for her, even his life, and ask nothing in return, and finally, she decides to tell him how she feels.
Oscar: Andre–
Oscar: I’m helpless. I can’t even protect my own men. I was spared from punishment because of the mercy of the queen. I escaped my father’s sword thanks to you.
Oscar: I–love you.
Oscar: I’m powerless! Surely you can see that. I can’t do anything by myself.
Oscar: My existence is nothing before the giant cogwheel of history. I want to rely on someone. I want someone to support me. Someone who will always indulge my heart’s desires.
Do you still love me? Can you still love me?
Oscar: Will you love me and only me for the rest of your life? Do you promise?
Do you promise?!
Oscar: Oh, Andre!
Andre: Shall I promise a thousand times? Ten thousand times? My answer will be the same.
Andre: (Holding you in my arms, feeling you breathe–sometimes with passion, sometimes shutting your eyes, trembling as you exhale.)
Andre: I’ve risked my life to tell you this. Shall I say it again? I love you.
Oscar: (How wonderful life is!)
Oscar: (In this unending dream, you’re frozen eternally, a sepia-colored fossil.
Those lips I know… Burning with passion, supple… Gently pressing against my lips, fitting together in a kiss… This familiar kiss—)
Oscar: (How wonderful life is!)
(4: 165-178)
In BeruBara, the way Oscar and Andre express love for each other is largely through losing control of their emotions, but the trope evolves as the characters develop. From their first inklings of feelings for each other to Andre’s mental anguish and depression at the possibility of separation, to equality, the circle ends, in a way, where it began. At nineteen, Oscar threw away all reservation and begged Louis XV to take her life instead of Andre’s, but she saw it in the capacity of her role as his master. Fifteen years later, Andre finally repays her by saving her from her father’s sword, but this time, it is as her friend and her equal.
I started this series with the intent of exploring Ikeda’s theme of the expression of love as loss of control, but what I discovered in the end was that, while this theme does influence every romantic and sexual interaction between Oscar and Andre, it does not bring them together until they have a more equal relationship. Oscar, of course, is still nobility and Andre’s superior officer, but their attitude toward each other has changed completely over the course of their lives, most notably over the course of the two years between the Black Knight Incident and Oscar’s confession. Ikeda, then, has taken the idea of “desperate acts are love” to a different level—desperate acts are still out of love, but the love cannot be fully realized without equality. Equality functions on multiple levels—not just the rejection of rank and class for equality, but the equality of Andre’s and Oscar’s participation in the trope and in their fully developed, complex feelings of love. Both Andre and Oscar lose control out of love, and both Andre and Oscar fight to protect each other at any cost. Both Oscar and Andre experience love on a spiritual level and acknowledge their physical desire for each other. Andre stops seeing Oscar as a bride, and Oscar stops seeing Andre as her servant or her soldier. When the trope “works,” resulting in a successful and mutual confession, it is precisely because the characters have been developed equally and have come to see themselves as equal: love without falling into the cultural roles of master and servant, of noble and commoner, of man and woman, or of husband and wife.
That is to say, this is love without a power differential. Although the trope of “desperate acts are love” and “rape is love” show up time and time again in shoujo manga, and despite the fact that many of them result in characters falling in love, I feel that BeruBara is a ground-breaking work on this front precisely because the desperate acts that lead to the characters’ falling in love don’t work until the characters see each other as equal. This is so easily overlooked in the narrative, and the anime completely ruined this point. However, the manga version of BeruBara stands firm on its stance about equal love. Liberty, equality, and fraternity, a phrase that captivates Oscar in the manga, is the message Ikeda has written into the romance of BeruBara. And this love based on these three principles is revolutionary in and of itself.
Notes
*See especially 4: 113-9. A very distraught Alain forcefully kisses Oscar; Andre pulls him off of her and prepares to punch him, but Alain doesn’t resist. Andre backs off—partially because he understands Alain’s feelings and partially because he knows that Oscar can fight for her own “honor”—she isn’t his to defend.)
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hi there, many thanks for your post! i adore andre grandier since the first time i know about this manga, more than 10 years ago..if you have anymore post about both of them, please keep on writing on this blog of yours, i will continue in reading them. domo arigatou!
~kartika
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Thank you very much! I’m glad you enjoyed the articles! 🙂 I hope to translate one of the fan essays about Oscar soon!
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Hi, thank so much for this, you are absolutely wright about the last point you argue about, the phrase: Liberty, equality, and fraternity, in the anime is somewhat overlooked, i think it is important in reference to the construction and evolution of these two main characters in the course of the story.
Also, thankyou for posting part of the manga, it is the first time i see part of it. I’ve been looking for this kind of material.
Thanks again
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Thanks for such a nice comment, and thanks for reading! 🙂 It makes me happy to know that others enjoyed this article. I learned about the manga thanks to the Internet, so I wanted to pay it forward.
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Dear Odorunara, good to know that you’re alright, i hope that you have everything that you need at this moment.
I kind of know about what you’re going through, I’m from Chile, from the VIII region of Bio-Bio, you know that last year on february 27th we pass through this terrifing experience, …it’s really a shock for me to see al this images on tv. Fortunatelly i didn’t loose any of my relatives or my friends, although a lot of other people did.
I can say anything more, or i don’t know what else to say, but i leave with a hug and only the best for you. It seems little and stupid to me right now to only give you this message, but it’s all the support i can give you.
Talk it’s good, so if there’s any need to talk from you , hi.
With all my heart i wish you the best.
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Thank you for the kind comment! We’re doing fine where I am, and I feel lucky to be in an unaffected area.
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Hi there,
Many thanks for the fascinating article! It is thrilling to be able to read an in-depth analysis of Ikeda’s wonderful work. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found your arguments to be very well thought out. The only thing I would tend to disagree on is your comment about the anime ruining the point of Ikeda’s theme of equality between the two main protagonists. I thought it was just as prominent in the anime as in the manga (I am a huge fan of the former!). Anyway, thanks again for your essay. I am currently working on my own blog about the series and was wondering if I could link it to your site? Let me know and take care!
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Thank you for reading and for the comment! 🙂
Regarding equality in the anime, it’s definitely a theme, but there are a few reasons why I think it’s stronger in the manga. First, the anime sort of rushes through a lot of the end of the manga, and while this is fairly standard, it means that a lot of the key moments weren’t included, particularly the whole thing with Heloise, Andre’s speech that I covered in Part 2, and the scene with General Jarjeyes that I covered in this section. (I do like the simplicity of 「ばらはばらだ！」 in the anime, but the speeches in the manga give more insight into the characters’ thought processes.) The importance of the scene with the general is that Andre tells him (and Oscar) that he doesn’t want to make Oscar his wife; he wants to be with her just as she is. Not to be forced into the position of wife, or into a role that is socially lower because of her sex, which is not discussed in the anime, is a major different.
The other thing that bothered me about the anime is that Oscar tells her soldiers that she’s Andre’s wife and will follow his decisions, whereas in the manga, she tells the men that they’re going to storm the Bastille and then tells Andre that they’re getting married afterward. The theme of marriage and power was more discussed in the manga, I think, and I like that Oscar decided that she could be in a relationship, even married, on her own terms.
So, yes, equality is an important theme in the anime, but I feel that the extra time that Ikeda spent on it in the manga really did the characters justice. I really wish there could be a remake of the anime with a bigger budget for animation and a couple seasons to cover more of the nuances of the manga!
Finally, of course you can link to me! That would be lovely. I look forward to reading your blog!
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Hi again,
Thanks so much for the reply! I admit that I am no expert on the manga because I discovered it much more recently. But I will definitely read it now with your comments in mind. Thanks also for letting me link up to your site. If you don’t mind, I’d like to quote a sentence from your blog, then include the link. For the moment, part of the site is in French, but as soon as it is translated I’ll forward it to you. Thanks again and keep up the good work!
Caroline
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Sounds good! Can’t wait to see it!
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Hello Odorunara,
I thought I would send you the link to my new website. It is:
http://www.ladyoscaroverview.com
The introduction is in French but there is a link to an English translation. The rest of the site is in English. I really hope you like it; if you have a moment, please let me know what you think of it!! You can email me : cl_drolet@hotmail.com
Thanks so much and take care!
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Thank you and thanks for the mention! It’s really interesting to see your take on the French version–there is no official English version of the anime, just some fan subs.
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Hi, I’ve read your essay and I wanted to let you know that I liked it very much: it’s so deep and interesting! The theme of equality reminded me of a scene from the Lady Oscar live action movie that I like very much. Oh, well, I’m one of those who don’t dislike the movie… ^__^ The scene is at min. 7:00 here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3W2Kvf6sJs
bye!
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I did find Oscar’s inability to explain why/how she and Andre are different very realistic and true to her character at that point in the story. It reminds me of some of her social blunders in the manga/anime, particularly the scene where Rosalie serves her soup and the one where she discovers the men are selling their weapons to feed their families.
I saw the anime first, watched the film, and then read the manga, and the manga is by far my favorite. ^^
Thanks for reading and leaving a comment! I think I’m going to watch the film again now that it’s on youtube!
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Many thanks for this, it’s been a great read!
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Reblogged this on compass on my field trip.
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thank you for the wonderful post. i have always loved the anime of lady oscar..only recently i discovered it was based on book series,or manga.
the story always made me cry in some of the scenes,in fact , a precious part of my childhood is connected with the anime..and you helped me rediscover it..thank you
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Thank you for this beautiful essay. I’ve watched the anime when I was a teen and it always remained with me and it is probably the only anime (and I’ve seen many) that remains an open chapter for me even after watching it again after so many years. It has so many layers. I will look for the manga now as some of the differences are indeed appealing. Hope you will do the social class essay sometime.
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Omygod a tear came out of my eye. My heart is beating fast. OMYGOD you enlightened me so bad! I mean WOW! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! YES. Equality on EVERY level. You made me realize how powerful Ikeda is. Omg! I want to study that ground breaking “genre” more! Do you know something similar to BeruBara? Or a manga portraying that ‘total equality’ theme? I want to build a story as marvelous; this is so deep. Thank you so much for your work! I was going to rewatch the whole anime again to study it, but I just read your 3 part article, and you have shed so much light. Things I probably would have understood and caught years from now, or maybe never! You are the best!
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Thank you for such in-depth review! I know this is an old post but I’m dying to comment. I found your view on how Oscar reacted to Andre’s outburst the moment it happened particularly interesting. I was under the impression that Oscar said “what are you going to do to me now?” was her gesture to bring him back to who he was, which was her servant. The fact that she did not seemed surprised that he pulled away was because she knew he wouldn’t do anything and that she had snapped him back to reality. So the result was temporary and even more miserable Andre came back with second strike (attempted poisoning, which I found way more disturbing). He finally came to his real self after he remembered that she had offered her life in exchange of his, that his goal in life was to die protecting her.
Important to note that it wasn’t what he confessed that shocked her, it’s the fact that he confessed at all, given their social statuses. I mean, she knew Andre loved her because 1) she had been awake when Andre kissed her 2) when she galloped on horseback due to her anguish having to witness Fersen’s devotion to Antoinette yet again, she said everyone had to endure unrequited love like Rosalie and Andre. So she knew. However, unlike the case with Rosalie, which she immediately tried to put some sense in the girl’s head by saying she was also a woman, Oscar somehow let Andre’s showing of affection slip. Even after Fersen blatantly said they should not meet again because Fersen could not bear to bring such sorrow to his best friend, Oscar did not do the same thing to Andre.
The answer was later explained by Oscar, in attempt to reconcile with Andre. She’s the one to apologize for being selfish, she realized that she could not do anything had she been alone.
I did not see the first violent outburst as ‘rape is love’, I see a lone man who’s terribly powerless, cruelly set aside finally got to the point where he wanted to hurt her just to make her feel. And it’s so random, it’s not like he blamed her for ignoring his feelings and fell for another man. Kind and sensitive Oscar was still born and raised noble. Social class would prevent her to see him as a man and Andre too were not capable to represent himself as a man.
In a way it’s a mini scale of what happened later in the revolution, the massacre of the nobles and the (alleged) gang-rape and mutilation of princess lamballe. When peple just had enough, they destroy everything they see.
I very much agree with you that this isn’t love story of Will and Kate, probably more like Victoria and Daniel of Sweden. In order to love Oscar fully, Andre had to let go his primal instinct to dominate female (at least off the bed he had to). Which we didn’t see in the anime.
I also hate Andre’s potrayal as a total helpless man in the anime. When the log hit his head and he collapsed and Oscar had to turn back to save him, I was like what the hell. He had to be saved by Oscar for one time only, when he accidently fell onto Antoinette’s horse and the scared horse got out of control. Arguably, she did have to turn back to Andre when they’re attacked by mob in Paris, but technically it was Fersen who saved them. And Andre had made himself target to protect her. The man prevented Jeanne from stabbing her, freed her when she was trapped in Palais Royal, saved her from further humiliation by her own men, lastly he shielded her when she coughed during the battle. That’s love, babe. That’s love.
Okay, so I’ll end my preach here. I just need to vent. Anyway, great review and I hope to see more from you.
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He’s the anchor to her ship so she could sail, the string to her kite so she could fly, the shadow to her light so she could shine.
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To Davy and Odorunara
Thank you for your posting, I am afraid neither you nor Odorunara fallowing this old post, however, I would say I am a quite agree with Davy which you responded …”I did not see the first violent outburst as ‘rape is love’, I see a lone man who’s terribly powerless,….Social class would prevent her to see him as a man and Andre too were not capable to represent himself as a man.” I felt a bit uncomfortable Odorunara pointed “rape is love” out, did not fit the case of Andred’s confession.
I once read the article which discussed the rose of Versailles (manga) in the journal of popular culture (which is the scholarly journal, not a magazine), written by a professor at the University of Minnesota (I believe) was misleading the story, I thought that I wondered this professor did not understand Japanese language?? Odorunara’s articles are totally made sense, and a lots better understanding the story than that professor’s article.
Hope, someone is still reading your articles.
Thank you very much for great reviews!
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Thanks for the comment. You know, I wish I had written this now, 8 years later, because the conversation about consent and abuse is so much more open.
One thing I was trying to articulate in this series was about restorative justice and also about shojo and romance tropes. Rape and sexual coercion were often used as a literary device to “allow” women characters to have sex without confessing to wanting it, which is, for a huge variety of reasons, neither accurate nor okay as it perpetuates rape culture.
Andre and Oscar both have to deal with classism and toxic masculinity. In Oscar’s case, she has to learn class consciousness. In Andre’s case, his taking out his class frustrations on Oscar’s body is the convergence of rape culture, toxic masculinity, and classism: he is disenfranchised, so he takes out his frustration (seems like too light a word) with not being able to tell her he loves her by hurting her. That’s fucked up, and he realizes that and stops. Which doesn’t make it okay, but makes him think.
Of course, instead of getting his shit together, he just ends up going deeper into the rabbit hole of toxic masculinity, egged on by Girodelle, and tries to commit murder-suicide because Oscar still isn’t interested. Again, WTF Andre.
But here’s the thing: Oscar doesn’t fall in love with him until he demonstrates that he’s been working on undoing the rape culture. When he tells her father to back off and that he doesn’t want Oscar as a “prize,” but if her own free will, THAT’S when she really reconsiders.
The Rose of Versailles is by no means perfect and this relationship seems very dated in some ways. But to show a way for a man to deal with his toxic masculinity and to learn that you can’t force someone to love you is a big deal, especially when you consider the role of abuse in other shojo manga.
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Very interesting point of view about the manga. Thanks for sharing!
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