Reminder: according to the Spoiler policy, there should be no spoiler tags on moments pages. Those reading without being up to date on the story are doing so at their own risk.
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Part 1
- From Effa's POV chapter in Volume 1, we find out what original Myne was like. Her life sucked so much she preferred the dream world she experienced during her Devouring-triggered fevers (implied to be Urano's modern day Japan) because she could walk and get out of the house normally and taste delicious food. The only things Effa remembers about her was Myne constantly talking about her fever "dreams" , her jealousy towards her healthy sister and guiltily apologizing to Myne for giving birth to unhealthy her in the first place, as if it is Effa's fault she was born unhealthy. The memories Urano can access once she takes over are mostly of the bed, the bedroom and sometimes the other rooms in the house because Myne was so sick that she could only get out of the house maybe once or twice a month. And just from the comments the Urano version of Myne gets to hear, the relationship was basically "You are useless. You'll always be useless. We don't expect anything from you. But we still love you." from her family and "She might die any day, so I better treat her okay so I don't feel bad when she finally dies." from the neighbors.
- Myne needs to clear up her family's misunderstanding about the Devouring and in the process announces that she's choosing the option that will only give her an extra year to live, but let her stay by her family's side. Gunther seems to take things relatively calmly all things considered. Later in the night, Myne wakes up, notices there is light coming from the kitchen, peeks through the doorway, sees Gunther in the middle of solitary Drowning My Sorrows session and decides to leave him to it.
- The anime makes it even sadder, as it skips the "Myne waking up and noticing" part, instead having her, Effa and Tuuli asleep while embracing each other while it's happening.
Part 2
Volume 1
- In retrospect, it's sad to see how Delia's dearest wish is to become the High Bishop's mistress, especially once the reader learns that she was groomed and manipulated by others to think this way. What saved her was her beauty, so she doesn't know any better way to live a better life and is naïve about what it entails to become the High Bishop's Sex Slave. As Word of God states in additional material, the other gray shrine maidens are just as clueless about this. They all want better lives, but many come to regret serving a blue robe, and getting pregnant leaves them unable to work, which has dire consequences.
- The way Benno treats and worries about Myne after she collapses is very similar to how he treated his deceased fiancée, Liz. Seeing Myne in this state reminds him of how Liz died.Mark: Master Benno, Myne is not Liz. She will be fine.
Benno: ...I know that. I know that, so don't say she'll be fine. It's not that simple. - Myne is abruptly saddened by a reminder from Tuuli and Lutz note that she's still so small and weak compared to her peers, who are growing and doing things for themselves more each day."I wanna grow, too..." My sad murmur reached the ears of only Benno, thanks to him carrying me.
- Gil is a prime example of how bad orphans in the temple without masters are treated:
- He expresses his happiness when he learns that he gets to go outside with Myne and visit the lower city. Before that, he was never able to leave the temple.
- Orphans never get personal gifts unless they work for a blue robe. The clothes Myne gifts her attendants are the first personal gifts Gil (and later Delia) received.
- She also notices that Gil must be malnourished after she sees how Lutz (who is three years younger and also doesn't get to eat his fill) eats much more than Gil despite them being of similar size, possibly due to his shrunken stomach. Eating warm food in general is new to him, due to the trickle down system of divine gifts in the temple. Even attendants only get to eat once the food has gotten cold.
- Like the rest of the temple, orphans need to look clean at all times, but they don't have access to warm water, unless they work as an attendant. This is especially problematic in winter.
- In the manga, while Myne is trying to make natural yeast, she is reminiscing about making yeast with her mom back when she was Urano. She realizes that she is slowly forgetting these days.
- Delia attempts to get back to Myne after she is kicked out of the High Bishop's room for failing her job as his spy. Fran informs Delia that she is not needed, and Myne doesn't fall for her Puppy-Dog Eyes and informs her that her "job" to entertain male guests like Benno is the last thing she wants. Delia's haughty behavior quickly crumbles and Myne sees that she is genuinely crying. She must feel needed, and her desperate plea to not abandon her hurts Gil and Fran, who can relate to her.
- When Myne visits the orphanage with Gil for the first time:
- The pre-baptism children are locked in a dark room, starving and with no one to look after them or provide things like clean clothes or bedding. Myne is horribly affected by their plight, to the point where she can't even enjoy reading books while knowing what's going on for the children (Gil is just as shocked, since he was baptized before things got that bad).
- Delia is young enough to recall living in squalor there with nothing to do but wait for her baptism- noting that many grey shrine maidens left the temple at the same time, resulting in many children dying around her with no one to take care of them. note She's attached to the idea of polishing her beauty and becoming the High Bishop's mistress because when she was baptized, the grey that washed her said she'd grow up to be beautiful, and she was picked out of several other young girls to serve the High Bishop as a result while the others were sent back. In her eyes, her cuteness and ability to please men are the only things that saved her from that room.
- Myne disappoints Gil by telling him that she can't get help from the High Priest. He rejected her proposition, as it's not worth it to save children who are aren't legally people since they only attain that status at their baptisms. In fact, their deaths would make things much easier for the higher-ups in the temple. The cold rationality makes Myne sick and close to tears.Myne: High Priest, why is the orphanage here if not to raise children without parents?
High Priest: You misunderstand. The orphanage exists to train abandoned children into servants for the nobility.
Volume 2
- When Urano sees her mother during the memory search and finally, far too late, realizes just how much she meant to her. It comes to a head when she relives the experience of eating her favorite food, made for her by her mother.Myne: "I'm sorry, Mom. I'm sorry for dying before you. I'm sorry for being so dumb I only noticed how much you loved me after I died. You always took such good care of me, you always let me do what I wanted to do, but I died before I could pay you back at all. I'm sorry."
Volume 3
- Karstedt thinking about Ferdinand:Ferdinand seemed vigorous and expressive, perhaps for the first time since the death of his father, where he had said "I have grown tired of resisting the pressure of those around me. I no longer care what happens in the world." before giving up on everything and entering the temple with a dead expression.
- Effa gives birth to the family's third child... Actually, their seventh. Her first pregnancy ended in a miscarriage, their second child died before his first year, the first one after Myne didn't last the winter, and there another miscarriage after that one, before Kamil. And that is why Gunther treasures his girls so much.
- Then the Drowning My Sorrows scene from Part I comes back, harder than ever, as you realize that Gunther was contemplating losing yet another child, this one he has spent so much time with and seen grow so far.
- There is another scene that can either come back or become much sadder to reread after finding out that Gunther and Effa lost children before: the one in which Myne preemptively tells Gunther that she needs to tell him something about the Devouring while he's carrying her home from the south gate and still under the impression that she got cured at the beginning of the volume. During the scene proper, Myne describes Gunther's reaction to the information as him speeding up his pace as if running from something.
- The anime has this as one of the chibi-styled ending skits, which shows Myne’s increasingly horror-stricken expression as Gunther recounts the Long List of their children’s fates. The combination of the subject matter and the Played for Laughs presentation comes off as almost schizophrenic in the contrast.
Volume 4
- Because of Bezewanst's scheming, Ferdinand and Sylvester have to accelerate their plans for Myne, and that means she has to be adopted by them immediately. This includes severing nearly all ties with Myne's family and Lutz, save for those pertaining to her businesses. Furthermore, to sell the deception Myne’s family has to fake her death, claiming that she was murdered and her body stolen.
- The anime has a montage of Myne's lower city family life that is shown with the flames of the burning adoption contract as a backdrop.
- Myne's funeral. There is no body and they bury her things (with the exception of anything of value) instead of her. It's a very small box. Lutz notes that the funeral procession is moving much faster as a result and the funeral is over quicker.
- After the incident, Lutz goes to Myne’s house purely out of habit, only for Tuuli to remind him of everything. Then it finally hits Lutz that he will never pick Myne up from her home again, never accompany her out to the woods or help reign in her impulses. The next time he sees her, there will be new rules and codes of conduct forced between them. She will have new lessons and new experiences, and will be changed by them. His friend may still live on as Rozemyne, but the girl he knew, and their relationship as they knew it is gone forever. Lutz breaks down crying. Tuuli comforts him the exact same way like she did Myne before.
Part 3
- After being Forced to Watch her first execution, Rozemyne returns to the Hasse monastery, where Gunther is among the people welcoming her back. Because of what she just witnessed, she really wants a hug from him and to call him 'Dad', but can't have one because they are no longer father and daughter.
- During a discussion with Rozemyne, it's clarified that due to the timing in Ferdinand joining the temple and his father's funeral, he wasn't allowed to attend the latter as his son. At the beginning of that same discussion, he does Verbal Backpedaling from calling the man "Father" to calling him "the previous archduke". Rozemyne catches onto the significance of that when it comes to Ferdinand's attachment to his father and can't help thinking of the fact that she won't be able to attend her commoner parents' funerals when they will die, and in the worst-case scenario, may not be informed when it will happen.
- Rozemyne uses her commoner story collecting operation as an excuse to speak to Gunther. Gunther tells her a story involving three close siblings in which one is kidnapped by feybeasts and the two others save her. The siblings are named Tuuli, Myne and Kamil. Myne is the one who gets kidnapped.
- Right after Rozemyne takes part in her recently introduced younger sister Charlotte's baptism as the High Bishop, Charlotte is kidnapped. Rozemyne rushes after her to save her, but in doing so gets kidnapped and poisoned herself, forcing her to enter her jureve early and entering into a long coma. Charlotte is devastated by this, and blames herself for getting snatched by the attacker.
Part 4
- The reason for which Schwartz and Weiss were able to last for a year after the archnoble librarians that used to power them left, when Rozemyne needs to top them up at least once every three days, is quite heartbreaking. All three put themselves on the verge of death to give the magic tools as much mana as possible, because they knew they were leaving to be executed because of the Family Extermination aspect of the purge and that mednoble Solange would be left all alone to manage the entire library, and she'd struggle to manage without the shumils' help.
- Solange's chapters in the Royal Academy Side Stories make it even sadder- the librarians to be executed almost certainly didn't commit the crime they were accused of, and they didn't protest the injustice or try to escape, asking only for a few days to settle their affairs.
- Gunther and Effa are told by Lutz that Rozemyne has woken up but then they realize that they can no longer talk about Myne as if she is a part of their family anymore even in their own home because it would be dangerous if Kamil learned about Myne and didn't keep it a secret because he is so young.
- Rozemyne's last meeting in her orphanage director hidden room with the Plantin Company finally comes, and all parties involved are told it will be the last one too late for anything more than psychological preparation. Since she appears to be holding herself together okay when explaining that this is the last time she can speak to them freely, Lutz tentatively asks if she's really okay with it- which she disabuses him of in no uncertain terms, telling him how much his support over the years has meant to her.Rozemyne: "I understand why we can't stay together more than anyone, but I don't understand it either. Why did I need to sleep for two whole years? Why wasn't that enough time for me to become fully healthy? Why do we have to say goodbye already? They say it's because I'm too old now, but to me, nothing's changed."
- After the meeting where the contract between Myne and Lutz is nullified, Rozemyne dreams that night about happily walking together with her friends and loved ones from the lower city, but their paths start to diverge. Soon after, she loses sight of them entirely and is left alone as she struggles to even see them again, crying for them to not leave her behind.
- The mention that a significant portion of the Royal Academy students from Werkestock died to the civil war. From the perspective of the professors, those students were attending class one year and didn't come back the next one.
- The conversation about promises to fathers that happens after Ferdinand tells Rozemyne the secret about his past gets sad quite quickly. If the fact Ferdinand is leaving soon didn't truly hit the reader before then, it's the moment where it's most likely to happen. Ferdinand's mention of the fact that this is the last time he'll be able to praise her for her good grades in the Royal Academy is an extra nail in the coffin.
- Rihyarda stops calling Ferdinand 'my boy' as he'd asked her to many times, since she'd promised that she would once he was married- but the circumstances surrounding it result in both of them wishing that change hadn't happened.
- Kamil's wish to join the Plantin Company is mostly heartwarming, but when he announces to his parents that that's where he wants to work rather than be a soldier or follow his sister Tuuli to the Gilberta Company, his parents react by getting teary-eyed and he doesn't understand why. It's left to the readers to imagine what they're thinking in that moment, and the look on their faces is almost indescribable.
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Part 5
- Rozemyne being blocked by a magic barrier at the last step for getting her Book of Mestionora, at a point of the story where she has come to think of it as her only means to save Ferdinand. Not only that, but the earliest point at which she can potentially fulfill the conditions to go through the barrier is three years away, while she's under the impression she only has one to save Ferdinand. The ensuing breakdown, during which she is trying to brute force herself through the barrier, is very painful to read through.
- Both Dirk and Konrad make decisions that will separate them from their respective sisters within the next few years. The preemptive farewells are just what one would expect from the series at this point.
- Rozemyne and Hannelore have a late-night tea party due to both being unable to sleep at the thought the war's casualties and finish it by praying for them.
