Though I Am an Inept Villainess

Episode 8

It was only a matter of time before people started figuring out the swap. Not that they necessarily know that it was a body swap, although I'm not quite sure how else they'd quantify the marked changes between Keigetsu and Reirin. Both girls are remarkably bad at playacting each other, although Reirin is arguably a worse Keigetsu than Keigetsu is a bad Reirin. Tougetsu and Leelee are the only two who definitely know, but I don't think the prince and Shin-u are far behind.

But more important than people getting a clue is the fact that Keigetsu and Reirin finally have a true heart-to-heart. I suspect that Reirin always wanted that – a piece of her seems to have known for a while now that Keigetsu's life must not be easy or happy; why else would she have attempted something so risky? But I'm not sure that Keigetsu herself fully understood the depths of her own misery. At some point, she was told that she's not worth anything, and enough people repeated that through words and actions that Keigetsu began to believe it. She's not so much a villainess as she is a victim herself. That doesn't excuse her behavior, but it does explain it – and it equally explains how it was so easy for Shu Gabi to get inside her head and make sure that she did precisely as she wished.

I said a few weeks ago that there are no villainesses in this story. The better way to phrase it would have been that neither Keigetsu nor Reirin are villainesses, although Keigetsu puts on a very good show of it. The real monster, though, is Gabi. She's the one who made a show of taking poor Keigetsu in and training her (minimally) as a Maiden. She's the one who planted the idea of the body swap in Keigetsu's mind. And she's now the one attempting to murder her way through the Maiden Court. As the girls realize this week, Gabi must have been counting on both of them dying shortly after the swap was completed: Reirin would be eaten by the lion, and then Keigetsu would die of disease aided by Gabi's venomcraft. What I'm not sure of is whether or not killing the empress was always part of the plan. That's a much more drastic step, and one that, if traced back to her, could have serious repercussions.

But, interestingly, killing the empress has basically the same excuse Gabi gave Keigetsu for swapping bodies with Reirin: the affections of an imperial man. This is the toxic nature of the inner palace system brought to its most harrowing conclusion – the women were brought in to be set against each other, generation after generation, told that their greatest worth was in their ability to catch the eye of the crown prince. While technically they're all his wives, only one of them can become the empress and have her child secure a lasting legacy that will affect their family's long-term status. While some women can work within this system, perhaps recognizing it for what it is, Gabi (and presumably others before her) cannot. Her sense of her own value is so tied to being the emperor's favorite that when she's not the one picked, it plummets. Gabi's every action is driven by her need to prove that she's worth something, and the only way to prove that to herself is to win the emperor.

Keigetsu's actions are therefore an extension of Gabi's. She's acting out Gabi's fantasy for her, and that completed, Gabi no longer has any use for her. It's almost as if Gabi was testing her hypothesis by having Keigetsu switch places with Reirin, although it might better be said that she was honing her venomous curse by killing Keigetsu in Reirin's body. What seems to have tripped her up is that she never expected Keigetsu and Reirin to bond. It's not something she believes in after what she probably terms the empress' “betrayal.” Kindness, true and genuine, isn't something she's prepared for.

That's about to come back to bite her, if her necrotic leg is any indication. You know what Hell Girl says: “Curses always come home to roost.”

Rating:

Though I Am an Inept Villainess is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.