PrePub - Ascendance of a Bookworm

That this whole meeting with the Leisegang elders was a trap, really caught me off guard. I never considered whether Florencia was a schemer or not, but even if I had, I would still have expected Florencia to be too preoccupied with the current overwork of the archducal couple, increased even more with Sylvester's absence and her pregnancy, to set up such schemes. And I didn't consider Leberecht at all. Now we know where Hartmut got his cunning and ruthless side from. I was quite sure that there was something wrong with Barthold for a while now, but now we have confirmation. I hope that Wilfried will pick up on the hints thrown his way, before Barthold can do any more damage, but I somehow doubt it. While I have confidence in Wilfried having a good heart, I don't have confidence in his ability to pick up anything other than the obvious... or even the obvious for that matter at times.

I'm glad for what Giebe Leisegang said to Wilfried. That was something that the boy sorely needed and that I wished someone said to him for a loooooong time. So much of Wilfried's failings could have been avoided by people telling him stuff directly, rather than complaining about his behaviour and lack of knowledge and consideration in his absence, including the very people who were supposed to raise him. So yeah, I really blame Florencia for his failed education (well, past the point when Veronica was imprisoned that is, before that she is clearly the culprint).

For starters, she didn't think to take back his education and care the moment Veronica was out of the picture, but needed to have Rozemyne provide the spark to finally get her moving weeks later, following him and Rozemyne trading positions for a day. And then after loudly proclaiming that she would personally take charge of her son's eduction, all we ever see her do is tell retainers to implement the changes Rozemyne came up with. While "under her care" we see Wilfried stumble and blunder time and time again and show barely any sign of improvement, with any noticable improvements in his behaviour coming from things Rozemyne did. What was she even doing all those years? She certainly wasn't too busy with taking care of Rozemyne's education to care for Wilfried, since we were outright told that she just assumed Elvira would take care of it, despite her fully well knowing that Rozemyne spent most of her time in the temple and Elvira did not (not to mention that she frequently met with Elvira, so she could have just brought the topic up with her, but apparently never did)... so she should have been able to see that clearly Elvira was not educating Rozemyne, not to mention that it would have been somewhat inappropriate for the baptismal mother to educate a daughter adopted by someone else.

Don't get me wrong, I am sympathetic toward Florencia, but when it came to Wilfried's and Rozemyne's educations, she really dropped the ball hard.