Call me princess...

Call me 'Broken Cinderella'

Welcome to another long post.

This time it's about Cinderella Phenomenon!

This is a post I never thought I would make. Honest.

But after this happened... I figured I had to...

Before we start let me preface this by saying that I won't be talking about Evermore, but I have played and done all the routes and achievements. Dont worry though, I will definitely talk about it on another post, so stay tuned! Anyway, without further ado... Let's start!

I say without regrets or take-backsies that I like Visual Novels and... Otome Visual Novels at that, and that I spent almost a hundred hours replaying Cinderella Phenomenon for no reason at all.

I love Cinderella Phenomenon. I love Angielle. I love Lucette. I love Rod, Klaude, Chevalier, Fritz, and Waltz. I love all of them.

I don't know how to explain how this even came to be, but, I will say that I do not regret this turn of events. I enjoyed it, all of it. Every single route, every single choice.

But before anything... Let me get you interested in the first game. (If you haven't played it)

You are situated in an alleyway, dirty, in rags, and haggard. You have been cursed by "The Fairytale Curse", and you think back to how this all started...

You are Lucette (Firstname can be changed) Riella Briton, crown princess of the kingdom Angielle. For all your life you have been feared and hated by your people, even your father, King Genaro, seems to care nothing for you and what you want, possibly more so now that he remarried and brought two step-siblings into your life. You always adored your mother more, your real mother.

Mother... Mother always loved you, mother always knew best for you, and mother always cared for you. She taught you to be strong and to be smart. She always knew that the people of the kingdom were evil and uncaring, and she always protected you from them. She knew best. Mother always knows best.

You've lived a life of solitude, isolation, and resentment. No one cares about you so why should you care back? No one loves you so why keep love in your heart? And not to mention, your step-mother, Ophelia... A commoner turned queen. A disgrace, an insult, a travesty against your late mother. Her children, Rod and Emelaigne, always prying into your life, and of course you are certain that the latter wants your place as crown princess.

Speaking of prying, your personal knight, Sir Fritzgerald, cannot stop himself from being nosy, annoying, and frankly irritating. And to move on to another problem the royal advisor, Sir Mythros, is endlessly suspicious.

Everyone judges you silently, everyone wants to see you fail, those you live with can't stop prying or interrupting you in one way or another. The only things you have are yourself, your dolls, and the memory of mother...

Dolls... You have always liked dolls. They are pretty, they don't judge you, and they make you happy. One doll in particular, a doll named Delora, is your favorite one. She is beautiful, more than any of your other dolls, who are very beautiful in their own right.

One night, after another day of the same, inane, mind-numbing, and awful, talks, one of them being about a god forsaken ball, and another about a useless visit to the town proper, you return back to your room to find comfort in your dolls... Only to find out Delora, your darling doll, is actually a witch.

Witches. Magic. Fairytale Curse. In he world revolving, magic exists in a balance between witches and fairies, dark and light. Witches draw power from the Crystallum Tenebrarum. Fairies draw power from the Crystallum Lucis. The Tenebrarum and Lucis are overseen by their respective bearers. They are both located in Angielle.

Witches, as you've been taught to believe, are bad, malevolent, and only wish to cause chaos. Fairies, on the other hand, are good, benevolent, and exist to spread happiness. And why wouldn't this be the case? Only a few years ago, a war took place between witches and everyone else. In fact, your mother died in that war, no doubt to a witch. And even in fairytales, witches only cause pain... Fairies always make things better...

Now a witch is in your room. It can only want to harm you... And it does. It curses you! It curses you with the "Fairytale Curse". Fairytale Curse, derived from the fairytales which paint the witches as evil and the fairies as good. The witches, evil as they are, formed a curse related to those tales. The curses and their conditions vary depending on the fairytale they are based off. The curses do not completely follow the tales, but they are related deeply to them.

You are cursed with the Cinderella curse, put into a deep sleep, and awaken... On the streets. No one remembers nor recognizes your birthright, your title, your authority, you. You try to gain access to the palace, your home... You are denied entry. A stroke of luck though! the King is on an outing, he approaches the gates, surely he recognizes his daughter... Not. He doesn't remember you. You plead to him to remember, in pity he offers you gold, and sends you away.

Welcome back to the alley.

That is the state of affairs you start in. Of course... Not everything is as it seems... This description of everything is steeped in what is basically Lucette's point of view of her situation and she, like most people, is an unreliable narrator. Like anyone she has bias and she has likes and dislikes. 

Immediately many questions arise. But... I'll let you experience their answers when you play the game...

Spoilers Ahead! (Play the game or risk being spoiled!)

Now to actually talk about the game. In this part, I will assume that you, the dearest reader, have played the first game, and have knowledge of, or even better, have played the second game. Okay? Okay.

Many parts of this game made me tear up. There was many a time the game made me think deeply about the situation and it's implications. I really felt bad for Lucette. She never really could choose the path she took growing up and the life and destiny to bear the Tenebrarum. Her loneliness and resentment were products of things out of her control, and while she could've made a change earlier in life, she was already deeply twisted by a person who should have nurtured her.

My favorite route is Waltz. He, to me, is the best fit for Lucette, because he knows her better than even her parents. Hell even better than herself in some ways. While I don't really see Lucette naturally going to Waltz for help in breaking her curse, in fact I see her looking for Fritz, or turning to Rod to be more likely. I still believe that Waltz is the best match for her. He knew her when they were both children and actually gave enough of a shit to get to know her and her interests at that time. (Not that the heroes of the story don't get to know her in their routes, just that he knows her and what she's like for longer than any of them.)

Hell, Waltz was her only actual friend when she was a child. Her mother only wanted to turn her into an apathetic and evil successor, her father couldn't even get close to her, and anyone who even tried to get close to her, whether it be a maid or something, was fired on the spot. Waltz though, he was able to do just that. Get close and become a true friend when no one was able to. And of course... There was losing her too, the price to pay to see her live happily. Betraying Hildyr and leaving Lucette to give her a shot at a life.

And you know, he's fucking devoted. He waited god knows how long just to see Lucette again. And even in other routes, the fact that just seeing Lucette happy is enough for him speaks volumes for how great a guy he is. He understands that his time is probably over, that Lucette shouldn't really feel indebted to him, and that he shouldn't expect her to. And though that truth hurts, he is kind, he is reliable, and he for all intents and purposes, just wants to see his little star be happy. Respect Waltz.

Speaking of Hildyr, I have sympathy for her, yes, she is evil, she conditioned her daughter to be a carbon copy of her and her malevolence, and she uhhh.... Basically assaulted Genaro to bring Lucette into the world. Even after all that... I still cannot help but feel pity for the fact that she, out of her control, had to feel every single death of every single witch who was killed, all because of a few stories. Just imagine having to feel the pain of dying over and over and over whilst also being made aware by that pain that more and more of your kind, your people, are being killed. 

But I digress.

There is a certain part of the game in Rod's route where Rod tells Lucette that everyone in the palace is happier without her. And yes, while she was rude, unfriendly, and unlikeable in the palace. That part made me cry, I thought about it. At this point in time, she doesn't know her mother was the evil witch queen, she doesn't know why people hated her, and she can't reconcile why her father didn't seem to love her and mother. And just the fact that in addition to her father not recognizing her--even if due to the curse that still hurts like hell--she is also made aware that the everyone else is now happier without her. And god... that implication fucks with me to no end. She was uncharitable, but no one deserves to be kicked down when they're low like that.

It evokes a certain feeling in me that I can only relate to that one Emperor Lemon video where he talks about a lone hate comment that said:

"Why the fuck are we stuck with you?"

Just brutal. Everyone is better without you, why the fuck were we stuck with you in the first place? As if it was her fault that her mother gave birth to her and stuck her with them. As if her existence, her lot in life that she was simply born to is her fault. As if it was her fault to have to endure seventeen long years of being emotionally manipulated and hell if that wasn't enough to have her memories altered and erased. It just makes me hurt inside. That all that, and she believes wholeheartedly she is the sole one to blame, that everything is her fault at this point, that she was just evil, period. I'm reading too much into it, but damn, I cried. I did indeed cry at that part.

Of course, Rod, is not a bad person. He is quite vindictive, sure, but you can understand him. His sister, Emelaigne, tries her hardest to reach out to Lucette, his mother, Ophelia, is understanding and patient with Lucette, his step-father, Genaro, tolerates Lucette being how she is, and has been for a long time, longer than them, and Lucette still decides to be difficult, still decides to ignore their kindness and effort, and still decides to insult them greatly. He is angry and understandably so. At least he sees the error in that statement later, and while not completely vindicating Lucette for her bad faith attitude and approach, he apologizes for his words. 

Another tearjerker for me was in Chevalier's route. There is a part in his route where you begin to uncover his past. And it's revealed that he was too kind, and still is too kind, for his own good. He is revealed to be a doctor that gives basically everything to save his patients and his fatal flaw, he never accepted any kind of payment for his efforts, for he was too kind, for just saving a life was enough for him. And it all comes crashing down on him. His wife ends up cheating on him with one of his patients, in an attempt to get some kind of money, I'll say it, he was at fault for this transpiring, he sold off their ring in a deal with a witch to save a patient, but again, too kind, so much so that it seemed nothing mattered to him when a patient fell seriously ill. And evidently that mentally backfired... Insanely badly.

After all that debacle his wife becomes ill, and when I said he gives EVERYTHING to save a patient you better believe it, in this case, and many more before it, he paid big prices to cure his patients... He made deals with a witch doctor, the same one he sold their ring off to. And if he was willing to do it for strangers, of course he was willing to do it for his wife. But the price he paid this time in particular was an ultimate one. His memories. 

Look, I don't believe cheating is justifiable in any way, period. Divorce and separation exist for a reason. Don't shatter someone's soul for quick pleasure on your part. And in fact, I believe that they should have divorced. But let's not lie, Chev made a lot of shit decisions even if they were in kindness... But I just can't blame him for his kindness either. He is truly too good, too kind, for the real world.

To juxtapose, I'll share a part that made me smile, even more so on replay. In Klaude's route, by the end, by the conditions of his curse, which is based of off 'Beauty and the Beast', he turns into a beast because Lucette falls in love with him. Klaude is vain, he is at fault for his curse, and while his despair is his own doing, I couldn't help but sympathize with his hopelessness, and while his plan to get close to the princess just so he could be first in line to be cured of the curse is evil and would certainly fuck with her mind and trust. I get it. You've suffered for two years under a curse, your family thinks you are dead, and you've all but given up hope. Then you meet the daughter of the queen of witches. I get it. I do.

But back to it, normally. The scene where Lucette recognizes Klaude, even in beastly form, is already very heartwarming, especially after she declares her love, beast form notwithstanding. But in replay, knowing all that context. It is vindicating. Simply vindicating. After Lucette has experienced a depressing, lonely, and draining life of perpetual distrust and paranoia, she falls in love so deeply that even a beastly form does not dissuade her. Because it is true love, she finally found someone who cared about HER, not the fact that she was the 'Ice Princess' or some shit. (And this part is true for all the routes, she finds someone who cares about her.)

But it's also more vindicating in this case because of Klaude. Again, two years, despair, presumed dead, no hope, no love. Yes, while he did plan just to get cured and then fuck off, he also found himself actually falling in love, which actually made him scared of his curse for the first time in a long time. Which made him rethink his plan. Which lead to them actually falling in love. And I have to say, I'm happy for these two fictional characters.

Since I've covered all the routes except Fritz, we'll do that now. 

Fritz is my personally least favorite route. I do not hate his route, in fact I like it, love it even. I love all the routes, I just loved this one the least. But I will admit. It has the most interesting ending and events. The most interesting part of it to me being the duality of Varg and Fritz. The pain in finding out someone you trusted is not as they seem. And especially going through that break of trust a third time and also, if that wasn't enough the threat of losing even the memory of that person as they are consumed by their dark self. In Fritz' route, there is a part where in Varg and to an extent Fritz all but confirms that they are one in the same. That Varg is just another piece of the Fritz puzzle, that the noble knight that Lucette unknowingly came to depend on, is not as noble as he presents.

Now at this point Lucette is doubting the Marchen, Delora, and whatnot, she has found out of her mother's true identity, and is simply waiting for her eighteenth birthday, and in turn her mother's resurrection. Now, I'll just say this, Lucette is feeling the most betrayed and hopeless she has ever felt in any route. Now, imagine. The only person you feel like you have left, Fritz in this case, is starting to feel like another name to add to the list of people who have betrayed you. Varg, the cursed Fritz is utterly terrifying to you, you feel unsafe by him. Fritz seems to deny all and everything about being cursed, or knowing about Varg. Varg on the other hand is claiming that Fritz knows about this part of himself but is too afraid to admit it, and it's driven further when Varg is aware of Fritz to an extent but strangely not the other way around. You cannot predict either of the two. You cannot feel safe with either of the two. You feel like anything you do will set one or the other off.

Lucette is wary of the Marchen, of Mythros, of Hildyr, of Fritz, and her only solace are the words of Hildyr, who is as aforementioned, not as well trusted anymore. She is confused, lost, and completely vulnerable. Confronting Fritz is really the only choice now. So Lucette does, even if she feels like nothing will come of it. She, whether she likes it or not, has already fallen for Fritz, and while wary and suspicious of him, desperately wants to find something to hold on to. Fritz, is the only one, and has been since her memories of Waltz were taken that has hope to understand her, to care for her. So this part is genuinely tense and depressing to me. Of course like all routes, in the end it works out. And, I'll say it again. I'm happy for these two fictional characters.

Hell, I'll say it for all the routes. I'm happy for all versions of Lucette.

Now... This post is damn long haha. And to end it I'll just say.

Be kind, have a soul. There are people who need someone like that, and you can be that someone. - Z