WARNING: SPOILERS ARE UNMARKED FOR THIS PAGE. ANIME ONLY FANS, BEWARE OF SPOILERS FROM THE LIGHT NOVEL AND MANGA.
Fridge Brilliance
- Announcing Rishe's engagement is broken at the party where it should have been formally announced seems on the surface like just a way to humiliate her as publicly as possible with a great many witnesses. But after Dietrich's father shows up in episode 2 and makes it clear that he neither knew about nor condoned his son's plans, it starts to look like a diplomatic flub - and Dietrich's examples of Lethally Stupid on and off screen makes it unlikely that he could coordinate and pull off such a plan on his own without giving it away. So why wasn't it a diplomatic flub in the previous loops?
- The answer may lie with Marie and her planning. Dietrich didn't just announce his breakup with Rishe: he offered a fictitious list of crimes (provided by Marie) to justify why the engagement could not continue, and then presumably announced his new fiancée, who would seem much more appropriate by comparison. With a number of foreign guests at the party, the fact that everyone was still gathered together for celebration would make sense. Marie's status as the new betrothed would be confirmed before Dietrich's father ever found out about it, and he would then have the choice between either contradicting his son (and revealing how out of control Dietrich was), or going along with it and pretending everything was above board and the new fiancée was approved of beforehand. In loops where he had the choice between admitting his own embarrassment of disunity with his son or saving face without consequence, the king likely chose the former.
- However, in the seventh loop, when Arnold's aide complains of his master not being properly greeted at the party (and draws the king's attention to everything that happened at said party much sooner), the King needs to wash his hands of all his son's mistakes as fast as possible and make apologies to avoid war. That includes apologizing to Rishe publicly and making it clear she is not at fault for the breakup, lest Arnold take offense on her behalf. At the same time, because Arnold has proposed, the King does not want to force Dietrich to repair the broken engagement; he wants Rishe to accept Arnold's proposal, because if she doesn't, the king is afraid Arnold might choose war anyway.
- Rishe receives a letter from Arnold, asking her to meet close to midnight at a nearby chapel. She goes, only to be met with Prince Theodore instead. Only, Rishe knew it was him; the signature was different, but met him anyway in order to hear Theodore out. After Theodore warns Rishe about Arnold supposedly killing his own mother, Arnold walks into the chapel, sending Theodore away. Turns out Rishe wrote a reply to the letter and sent it to Arnold himself, alerting him of his brother's trick.
