Episode 7 – The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by My Fiancé and Sold To Another Kingdom

Three of four Girtonian characters in The Too-Perfect Saint don’t believe in themselves. The fourth? He’s a malignant narcissist who believes in himself too much, to the point where he’s fully delusional. Since the Parnacortan characters don’t seem to suffer from this problem nearly as much – Reichart is carrying a lot of emotional baggage, but that’s related to the death of his fiancée rather than his ego – it’s safe to say that this is a symptom of Girtonian culture’s decline. Let’s look more closely: Philia believes she’ll never be good enough and has to keep trying even though she always goes above and beyond. Mia worries she’s never going to live up to her sister. Fernand is convinced that he’s better off sick or dead, because there’s no way he’d ever be able to stand up to Julius. And, of course, Julius is too busy squandering money on a vanity project to care about any of this, up to and including the warning about what’s coming. It’s an untenable situation that could very well doom Girtonia.

Part of what makes this show so interesting is the way it deals with these issues. Look at Fernand – we’ve been told he’s sickly, and has been since birth, with no hope of a cure. But this week, Mia learns that Philia actually found a cure…it’s Fernand who stopped taking it. He tells Mia that’s because he was (and still is) afraid that if he gets better, Julius will really turn on him and possibly destroy the kingdom trying to take the throne for himself. Since Fernand believes that primogeniture is stupid anyway and doesn’t want to be king, he takes the path of least resistance, even though he has to know at least a little bit about how terrible Julius is as a prince and would be as a king. While he acts like he doesn’t care, he seems more afraid to care and doesn’t believe he could triumph over his little brother.

Is this similar to Philia? A little bit; her reaction to familial rejection was the opposite – she became hypercompetent but convinced that she wasn’t doing enough. When she’s called to meet the Parnacortan king this week, her first thought is that she must have done something wrong (I relate to that) and that he’s going to punish her. How dare she construct a magic circle around the kingdom that keeps her trapped at its center instead of carrying out her other saintly duties? Never mind that she technically doesn’t have other duties: her main purpose is to protect the kingdom from demons and monsters. She’s done that. Anything else is just a bonus. She’s utterly shocked when the king says this and offers to fulfill any wishes she might have, and even more stunned when he (gasp) follows through on that. She’s still going to go above and beyond, teaching Grace and her sisters how to make an even bigger circle of protection to guard the entire continent. At this point, that feels more like Philia taking care of her sister rather than paying back the king of Parnacorta. She’s learning that she can trust others at least a little bit and that she can do things because she wants to, not because it’s expected of her. The jewelry she’s making for Lena and Osvalt is proof of that.

Mia’s probably the most complex character in the story right now, because she’s making the most discoveries that impact her worldview. She’s beginning to understand what happened to Philia, what the political situation is, and what her place in all of it might be. The way she, in his own words, wears Prince Fernand down shows that she’s clever in her own right, but her thoughts don’t show that she understands that. Philia may need to learn to believe in herself and trust others, but Mia’s not even entirely sure what she needs to learn yet. Watching her simultaneously discover that while also helping Fernand and Philia is rewarding. I can’t wait to see how Julius reacts.

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The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by My Fiancé and Sold To Another Kingdom is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Wednesdays.