The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by My Fiancé and Sold To Another Kingdom

Episode 9

There's just something delicious about a despot getting his comeuppance. It doesn't happen often enough in real life, but fortunately, fiction is here to soothe our souls, and The Too-Perfect Saint delivers the beauty of a downfall for Prince Julius. I'm not sure if it's better or worse that he can't fathom what brought all of this about. In his own mind, he's different, he's special, and by that, he means that he's better and smarter than everyone around him. But the truth is that what makes him different and special isn't that he's better, it's that he's worse. He has no morals, no compassion, and no empathy. The only person he's capable of feeling for is himself, and because he's so self-absorbed, it never even occurs to him that he might be wrong. He's drunk his own Kool-Aid, and it has well and truly poisoned him.

From both the king's reaction and Prince Fernand's, I don't think it was anything that anyone did while Julius was growing up that made him this way. He's just a narcissist, and he probably always has been. Could interventions have been made to at least temper his narcissism? Maybe; I'm not a psychiatrist. But Julius has always and was always going to interpret everything in a way that makes him look better. That he couldn't see his chickens coming home to roost is perhaps inevitable, but that doesn't make it any less satisfying to watch.

It's an interesting statement that Philia is the one person Julius perceived as seeing through him. He got rid of her because she was a threat to his egocentric view of the world, one person who was undeniably stronger and better than him. Meanwhile, poor Philia had the opposite view of herself – she never thought anything she did was good enough or that she was worth much of anything. They're two sides of a spectrum, and Mia falls squarely in between. Many of the other characters also fall along that same line – on a scale of Philia to Julius, the Adenauers are closer to Julius' end, while Osvalt is more in the Mia middle. The idea is to pull Philia forward and to push Julius back, but the use of this spectrum makes the story's underlying themes very clear: there needs to be a balance. That's what the Saints do, keeping their kingdoms safe, and they're meant to work with the monarchs to make it work. When that doesn't happen, you get the disaster that is Girtonia, where the monarch gets rid of the saint and then takes everyone in the kingdom down with him.

Potentially, at any rate. Mia's desperately trying to bring Girtonia back into balance and disposing of Julius (may he rot in prison) is the first step, or at least the first public step. While Philia is just gliding ahead without thinking about herself, which I think we can all agree is an unhealthy way, Mia is trying to fix as much of Julius' mess as possible. That's actually a pretty good counterbalance to Philia's actions. Erza says this week that Saint Fianna's soul has been reincarnated in Philia, so there will be things that only Philia can do. Mia is laying the groundwork for them, and poor, puppyish Osvalt would really like to be doing the same from the Parnacorta side of things. (I'd argue it makes sense for Philia not to get that he likes her, since the poor woman can't understand that anyone would, romantically or otherwise.) Knowing that she's Fianna reborn isn't likely to change anything for Philia, although if Asmodeus really is coming back because he's in love with her, that could gum things up. But that's why it's so important that she has Mia. Everyone else may come and go, but the Adenauer sisterhood is forever, and even Philia knows that.

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The Too-Perfect Saint: Tossed Aside by My Fiancé and Sold To Another Kingdom is currently streaming on Crunchyroll on Wednesdays.