The Holy Grail of Eris

Episode 12

In a perfect world, The Holy Grail of Eris would have had a two or three-cour adaptation. Even though the source series is only three volumes long, they're three dense volumes, more in the “Victorian three volume novel” tradition than anything else. This adaptation did, more or less, cover everything important that happens in the books, but it didn't have the space to go into the depth it deserved. It takes some of the fun out of figuring out that the Farisian lady with a sword was actually Princess Alexandra when three-quarters of her scenes and lines have been trimmed, if not outright excised.

But I think this episode shows that the series did the best with what it got. The past can't be changed, unfortunately – Scarlett will always be dead because her father and the king sacrificed her. Lily killed herself because she couldn't cope with what she knew. Enrique will never truly be able to forgive himself for what happened to his childhood friends. In some ways, only Cecilia truly escaped, and she did it in the same way Lily did: suicide. But in her case, it was because it was the only way to rejoin her beloved Cess, although like Lily, I think you could argue she went out trying to make amends. She wasn't living a life that Cici could be proud of.

I use Cecilia as an example here because the episode does a remarkable job of making her sympathetic, or at least more so than she has been otherwise. Cecilia's story is about losing your way and how easy it is to do so. When she tells Enrique this week that if she'd wanted him dead, she would have killed him (something I still maintain he was hoping for), that's her drawing her line in the sand. The fire at the orphanage is at the root of everything she did over the course of ten years, and in the end, I think she realized how empty that all was. She remarked to Connie that she knew the dead couldn't talk because she'd never heard the voice she longed to, but in the end, she realized that maybe that's because she wasn't listening. Cess was Cici's moral compass, and when she finally allowed herself to acknowledge that, she did the right thing – freeing Ulysses and Lucia. It's the last thing she ever did, and it suggests that in her final moments, she finally returned to being Cici, leaving Cecilia behind.

Of course, it's tragic that she couldn't have figured this out earlier. Her death was ten years in the making, put into motion by Scarlett's execution. That moment on the scaffold, when Scarlett cursed the audience and ensured that her future with Connie would exist, is the source of everything in this story. It's interesting, too, that it's not a moment of discord or strife when you get right down to it. Remember, Eris is the goddess of discord in the Greek pantheon (Discordia in the Roman), and the title of the show certainly implies that all of the actions, from Cess' death on, are her work. But Scarlett's declaration is actually her fracturing the goddess' grail. Because of the drink she was given, she saw a world ten years in the future, and her speech was her effort to ensure it would happen – so that it would stamp out the strife that led to her own demise. Scarlett, when paired with Connie, is Harmonia, Eris' counterpart.

It's important that Harmonia is both Scarlett and Connie. It's tempting to say that Connie alone fulfils that role, but in the context of this story, it works better if they're twinned. All of the Daeg Gallus members, the villains, were working for their own selfish interests. They may have temporarily allied with each other, but Pamela, breaking free to try to kill Constance, is the perfect example of how, in the end, they all just are focused on themselves. But Connie is working to help Scarlett, who is working to help Connie, and Randolph is working for both of them, while Kate, Mylene, the ladies of the night, and others are all banding together to do what's right. Harmonia can't be just one person in this case, just as Eris can't be many. People are selfless together and selfish alone.

Scarlett returning to Constance's side may seem a bit anticlimactic. But it was never actually about her getting revenge. Scarlett was larger than life, a social butterfly. In going to the afterlife, she'd be giving up many of the things that made her her. And Connie may have Randolph and her friends, but I think she could use a little more Scarlett in her life to remind her that sincerity doesn't always look like self-sacrifice.

So yes, this could have been done better. It did need more space. But in the end, I think it still made its points about strife, harmony, and political machinations helping no one. If you enjoyed it, I strongly recommend that you read either the original novels or the manga. Either way, it's going to be hard to go back to plain villainess fare after this one.

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The Holy Grail of Eris is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.