tired and thinking too much about things in my mind askew but also suddenly wondering what annerose was supposed to represent in reinhard’s entire worldview. even though she’s been freed from the tower she must exist only as the proof of reinhard’s noble act: without him she would be living among the vengeful and gluttonous nobles, unlike now, where she is still living with the same trappings of royalty but it’s ok because the people don’t have bad ideologies i guess. was she even a person before reinhard’s career really began to take off. every time she’s on screen it feels like we’re looking at the madonna, some otherworldly presence unspoiled by the grime of human history (prime example is when hilda first meets annerose in her secluded cottage, the place is so romanticized it feels unreal, even unnatural). and the stiltedness i think comes from the fact that we know that none of this is true. annerose was essentially sold into being the emperor’s concubine. in its most literal sense she isn’t a virgin, isn’t some “untouched, innocent” woman who must not know of the world’s wrongs, because she’s lived through them already. perhaps her otherworldliness comes from her compassion, her moral virtues, her devotion to her brother. but would anything have changed if she had died instead of kircheis. was her grace and kindness so central to guiding reinhard’s character that her living being would have successfully overshadowed any impact that would have accompanied her death. yet even with the benefit of hindsight the narrative/narrator never truly speculates on the other half of it. because ultimately annerose exists as a concept---the justification used by “good” and “just” rulers, the sanitation of individual trauma to turn history into an epic. the longevity of reinhard’s reign in the narrative sense is premised upon the purity of his intention. what if annerose hadn’t been a victim “in the right way,” choosing anger as her reason to encourage reinhard instead of the mute graciousness superimposed by the narrative. does it even matter if the results are the same---the framing suggests that “yes, it does matter,” because the optics of saving a damsel are vastly different from saving a witch, even if they experience the same injustices. imagine the prince dying, not from the illness plot screwdriver purposefully used to remove him when he has fulfilled his purpose in the story, but because he chose to do the “right” thing for the “wrong” reasons.