How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom weirdly went soft on Souma following through with dealing with the two rebel dukes with Carmine’s death having apparently been grossly exaggerated last week and this week finding a creative way of not sentencing either Carla or her father to death in the end. I mean, they did just lead two branches of the military against Souma’s army so why follow through with actual consequences when they did it for such a noble cause.
Yet the nobles who were clearly there to provide advice to the king were cut down in more or less an instant with the explanation that they had been having dealings with other nations. Only two survived the blood bath. All of this is ‘explained’ through a rather simplistic explanation of Machiavelli’s works and Souma is more or less just getting all of his horrendous acts out of the way and cleaning house.
Where that falls down as an explanation is two dukes who lead branches of the military actually turned those forces against the king and his army. They fought an actual war openly against their own king and yet both have survived the fall-out. I mean, they do have the advantage of not being mob-background characters unlike all those human nobles who can barely be distinguished from one another, and yet I somehow think if Souma was going to fully follow through on this philosophy he’d have thoroughly tied up any loose ends.
The joy of being a named character vs a background mob character I guess.
Our Realist Hero gave himself a headache.
As much as I wasn’t sold on the solutions our Realist Hero, Souma, employed this week feeling that the decision not to just fully commit to ruthlessly clearing the slate is going to set him up for further challenges later, I was sold on his performance. For once he actually looked the part of a king in the throne room and maintained a relatively formal air during the hearing. His actions clear and decisive with no doubt that he was fully in control.
This contrasted then with the Souma who left the room with Liscia and Aisha. While Souma had rationalised his choices and steeled himself to make them, deciding to fill your own throne room with the blood or traitors and actually having it carried out while you watch are two entirely separate things. That Souma was dealt a serious psychological blow by the experience actually made it far more believable.
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Likewise, I feel How A Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom found an appropriate outcome for Carla. While her father was undeniably the leader of the air-force and should wear the punishment, his daughter really didn’t need to be executed even though she stood by him. The role Souma has placed her in seems to fit only I wonder if he really trusts her judgement that much given she blindly followed her father previously?
Either way, it is clear no one else in Souma’s harem will actually stop him even if he did start going too far so having Carla on board might be a good thing for Realist Hero in the future. At least unless she decides to jump on board the Souma-harem as well.
And can we talk about that harem? I still haven’t quite understood why all these girls seem to be so into Souma. The guy has almost zero presence most of the time and while he’s doing a decent enough job as a leader one could argue that Hakuya is doing a lot of the leg-work and getting very little of the credit.
Anyway, as Realist Hero puts these events behind us, it is starting to have the Princess of Amidonia move. She’s unimpressed at the deal her brother struck to return Van and clearly has her own agenda. I guess we’ll just have to wait to see what that agenda actually is.
Images from: How a Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom 2nd Season. Dir. T. Watanabe. J. C. Staff. 2022
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Karandi James
Dude has Machiavelli memorized. I still don’t have a clue why Carmine had to be executed. Celebrate him as a hero instead.