You’ve probably heard Dolly Parton’s “Jolene”, or her apprentice Miley Cyrus’ cover of same. It’s a gorgeous, song full of pain and longing, and reminded me of Rae’s situation here. She cannot hope to compete with Princess Manaria’s beauty, charm, ability, or even confidence.
Manaria could be with anyone, man or woman, but she is taking Claire from Rae “just because she can”. She’s all over Claire to the point Rae doesn’t get any time with her. She complains to Misha, who tells her that if she can’t take it anymore, the only thing for it is to fight her.
Now, it is abundantly clear that a fight is exactly what Manaria wants. But I don’t think she quite wants it for the reasons Rae thinks. While poor Dolly had to beg Jolene not to take her true love away, this feels to me like tough love: like Manaria is forcing Rae to get off the sidelines and act for what she wants.
The thing is, Rae is so sure she has zero romantic shot at Claire, she’s settling for being happy that she’s happy. She recalls from the game that Manaria helped the Heroine (i.e. her). I think she still is, but Rae can’t see it. And then the flunkies ask Rae to protect Claire from Manaria, whom they’ve learned has a “reputation” among the ladies of the night in her kingdom
The prospect of Manaria hurting Claire has Rae on edge, so when Manaria is just outside Claire’s door after Rae bids her good night, she accepts her invitation for a chat. Manaria doesn’t mince words: she has been provoking Rae on purpose. Rae declares that she doesn’t mind if Claire won’t look her way, while also insisting her love for her trumps everyone else’s.
Manaria calls her out on this, saying wishing for her happiness without bothering to consider if she’d make her happiest is nothing but running away and giving up. Manaria even says she feels bad for both Rae and Claire. At the tea party, she says “love is blind” when Claire, who is clearly thinking about Rae a lot, voices her concern with her odd behavior.
Manaria manages to get Rae to agree to a duel, even though they both know Rae can’t beat her. The next day, that’s borne out, as Rae doesn’t mess around and launches her most powerful attacks, which don’t even put a scratch on the quad-caster. Rae fights valiantly and hard, and then Manaria brings the hammer down: Domination. For once, the magical battle animation not only looks good, but packs a genuine punch.
The vicious attack leaves Rae bloodied and unconscious, and who is the first to rush to her aide? Claire, just as Manaria knew she would. Rae isn’t the only one running away from their feelings. No one has known Manaria longer than Claire, so when Manaria continually states that Rae means something to Claire, I believe her, even when Claire denied or deflected.
One need look no further than the faces Claire makes after Manaria yeets Rae: intense concern for her welfare, anger at Manaria for going too far (though Manaria does heal her), and unbridled joy and relieve when Rae opens her eyes. But Rae is so caught up in losing Claire, she doesn’t bask in the rare gifts Claire is so earnestly presenting to her.
Rae believes her loss to Manaria means Claire is now hers, and she no longer has any right to stand beside her. But if my theory about Manaria is correct, she succeeded in getting Claire to be more honest about how she feels about Rae. When the three are assigned to a team and Claire runs ahead, Manaria tells Claire to let her be; she’s fine on her own, but it’s Claire who isn’t fine with Rae on her own.
Claire isn’t acting by the game’s script anymore; she is who she is in large part due to the time she’s spent with Claire all this time. Now that Rae is acting completely different, she wants to know why. She doesn’t like how Rae’s not being herself. Then Rae tells her: she and Manaria dueled over her.
Claire, channeling Princess Jasmine and says she’s “no prize to be won”, which is true, but this is the same Claire who’s fine with her kingdom’s legend of a bunch of guys fighting for a woman’s hand via the Scales of Amour.
Then Rae, now no longer having any fun playing the real-life version of the only thing that made her happy in her past life, continues her steady retreat from Claire’s side, and does something she’d never, ever do before all this Manaria business: she’s mean to Claire. She tells her to go off with Manaria, who was her prince and first love anyway. When Claire tells her she’s not fit to be her maid right now, Rae quits.
This wounds Claire worst of all, and you know it because while she maintains her aristocratic composure in officially accepting Rae’s resignation—she even calls her “Miss Taylor”—she also tears up in the process. Rae knows she’s fucked up badly, and wants so badly to unsay what she’s just said, but also believes she can’t take it back, so she walks away.
As she does, Claire doesn’t stop smiling her sad, sad smile, for even the Commoner has left her, even though she promised she never, ever would no matter what. Rae has gone and made herself a liar in the eyes of the one she loves. It will not be easy to recover from this, but I think I know one person who will do all she can to help both her and Claire make up, just because she can: Manaria “Jolene” Sousse.
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