PrePub - Ascendance of a Bookworm

I’m really relieved. It was like watching a train crash in slow motion but I couldn’t end up hating Wilfried. I’m glad I’m the end, his own sincerity at least has never changed, despite Oswald and Barthold’s best efforts. I wont entirely forgive him for turning on Lampretch just yet, but from here on I do hope he takes a more minor role in the story and becomes a good kid once again

Yea, it really puts things into perspective. I'm not sure it does much to improve my opinion of Wilfred, but it certainly provides more context.

This will be his moment to step up and choose what he wants for himself. I'm curious to see what will become of him, hopefully he'll become a bit less insufferable with this change.

What do you mean? Rozemyne even said it herself: She didn't actually negotiate, she just made some suggestions, while leaving the actual negotiating to Aub Ehrenfest. :P

But joking aside, he could technically have caved in the negotiations and allowed more of Rozemyne's terms to slip away, so I'm willing to let him have at least some credit for hanging on to all of them, except the bookroom. Though the main credit should definitely go to Rozemyne for laying the necessary ground-work for this to happen in the first place.

The execution magic is somehow tied to a specific aub, not merely knowledge learned in the AC lessons.

Isn't it also possible that the access to the medals is restricted to the Aub? You can only enter the room where the medals are being held with permission from the Aub who holds the foundation? It is one of the two (access to medals or the spell working) but I don't think we know which one.

What do you mean you did better.

Rozemyne remembered to tell that she had no power to make decisions. She "only" made Ehrenfest's desires known, it was up to Sylvester to negotiate on them, so I would give Sylvester credit here too. Most of their demands that got accepted were also Sylvester and Florencia's ideas.

This insert reminds me that

To be fair to Florencia, embroidery is one of the ways noblewomen defend themselves. They embroider their husband’s capes true, but also their own. We know Roz just brews charms for herself and her loved ones if needed but that’s a Ferdinand approach, a typical noble women would embroider magic circles, so it is quite important.

There is one caveat to Florencia's failed attempts to educate Rozemyne though: She laments that she couldn't invite Rozemyne due to her being so rarely at the castle... but does that really matter? Between Ordonnanzes they can communicate at any time and with her highbeast, Rozemyne can hop between the temple and castle in a manner of minutes, so her being at the temple should not be a hurdle to inviding her for dinner or the occasional tea party.

Even when prioritizing Rozemyne's temple work, surely there would have been time to meet once a week or something.

I feel like Florencia is a bit too stuck in the traditional noble thiking and a bit slow and inflexible in her adaptation to the new situation.

I don't think Sylvester is in danger at the funeral. Getting him there, would be far too obvious and risky for Georgine.

Not to mention she doesn't just want to kill him, but also take over Ehrenfest. Assassinating him, while he's in Ahrensbach or in transit to or from the funeral, would likely put her further away from ever gaining Ehrenfest's foundation, since it would put Bonifatius in charge and give him very good reasons to take steps against any possible incursion... like moving the entrance of the foundation for example, which would completely foil any chance Georgine has to rule Ehrenfest in her lifetime. If she's going to strike, it will only be when she's in a position to also take the Foundation at the same time as she gets rid of Sylvester. I doubt even she is able to put in replacements for the groundwork that the purge smashes in such short order.

I fully expect her to try to undermine Sylvester's position and further ruin his reputation in front of everyone attending the funeral in any and all ways she can, but I don't think his life is in any immediate danger.

Tbh after the archive I doubt he as any expectations from her aside gbook, mana, and temple stuff after getting burned on the coals.

Side note aren’t first wives manly responsible for embroidery?

To leak anything, he'd have to learn of it first, so the burden for the time being is on the archducal family. With Wilfried having risen out of his pit of despair, confusion and self-pity for now... I think he'd be well enough inclined not to give anything away willingly.

Even if they got the information, I don't see how it would benefit any of Wilfried's retainers to leak it, with one exception: Barthold. I'm still not sure whether he's just trying to ingratiate himself with Wilfried, to make his own life more comfortable and he ended up sabotaging Wilfried out of idiocy, or whether he's intentionally sabotaging Wilfried.

We know that Giebe Dahldolf for example is living freely, as if he had his own name, while his name is actually held by Veronica, so Wilfried being locked up in the Ivory Tower could be a rather attractive outlook for someone who only gave his name to him to escape punishment by association.

Alternatively, he could have hoped that should Wilfried be disinherited, he would be forced to give the names he got back. Not an entirely unrealistic theory, since they were meant to swear themselves to the archducal family, which in such an event Wilfried would no longer be a part of. Of course this carries the risk that Sylvester might insist that those who regained their names from Wilfried, pick a new archduke family member to swear themselves with, but with how much of a softie Sylvester is, and how the danger of the Veroncia faction is pretty much gone, there is definitely a non-zero chance he might just let Wilfried's ex-name-sworn keep their names.

If he wants to please Wilfried for better treatment, it would be in his own interest to keep quiet. But if he wants to sabotage Wilfried, he's sure to leak it, if he manages to glean the truth. To maximize the potential damage to Wilfried, he would need to rile up the Leisegangs, while they believe they still have a chance to keep Rozemyne in Ehrenfest, because those geezers very obviously have no clue how the nobility and royalty outside of their duchy actually works, as Rozemyne realized this very release.

*wrong name corrected

I had to double take to make sure his face wasn't the one under the title card 😅

I'm over the Wilfried hatred. I was upset because it looked like he was mad at Roz even after all she had done for him but he was acting that way he was because he was being forced into a situation he hated. He was aware of his situation enough to ask for Roz to be Aub. He doesn't know about her commoner origins so he couldn't understand why he was being forced to be the Aub. And I can't be mad at him for not wanting to be compared to Roz. She is just crazy out of his league.

I'm not saying Wilfried is a saint. There's definitely a lot of spoiled brat in his behavior. He could have tried harder to get along with Roz and done more to gain the Leisegangs' trust. But he's like, what, 14 or 15 now. It's a little much to expect him to able to manipulate adults who have been playing politics for decades but if he done less whining and more trying, he might not have been in so bad of a situation.

I think things are in a good situation for Roz's siblings now. Charlotte gets to try for Aub as she always wanted. Wilfried has time to decide what he wants to do with life and Melchior will get to spend time with his wonderful big sister and learn to be just as awesome as she is at being High Bishop. I'm rooting for Charlotte. She's always been the best candidate and I hope Wilfried is smart enough is realize that and decides to support her. He's much better off trying to Knight Commander, IMO. It's something he enjoys and he's good at.

Putting him on the same level as Detlinde is quite uncalled for in my opinion. Detlinde is soooooo much worse than Wilfried ever was. Wilfried has time and again shown small glimpses of having at least some decency in him, where Detlinde is utterly iredeemable in my eyes.

Just take the reward ceremony as an example. Despite having been involved in one of the two research projects, albeit in only a small manner, Wilfried refused to go up and take credit in front of the king, for what was primarily Rozemyne's accomplishment.

Detlinde on the other hand, had no issue at all with not just sharing in the praise for Raimund's accomplishments alongside him, but going up there and taking all the credit for herself and leaving Raimund completely out of it, dispite the sum all of her involvement being to chastise Fraularm a single time for getting between Raimund and Ferdinand's communcations and otherwise not even being aware of what exactly he was even doing, until right before the presentations.

Also with Wilfried, it's primarily his retainers that cause the problems, while with Detlinde, it's the retainers that are desperately working to prevent the troubles from happening, but being unable to contain that tornado of terribleness.

I think the Wilfreds' retainers will twist his wishes in worst possible way to drag him down. I am also curious how Rozmyne will "reapay" Charllote's kindness.