English Dub Review: Ascendance of a Bookworm “Trombe and Battles”

Overview:

Main has a new trouble this time; not just with a new group, but with someone of higher status than her.

Our Take:

Main’s issue is not the trombe, but that one of the noble knights takes a disliking to her. He is in charge of guarding her, but sees her as not worth his time.

By this time, Main has gained knowledge of nobility, and how the nobility has an absurd amount of freedom in this society. Even though she has been granted blue robes, she is an anomaly, not the norm, and that isn’t enough to protect her within the walls of the church. If it isn’t enough to protect her on the outside either, where we realize that most of her protection isn’t from her achievements, but from Ferdinand’s good will. In this case, she can’t use her mana to attack even her aggressor, like what she did with the high priest. All she has to do is sadly, take the abuse. Even the knight who recognizes that the noble’s actions are wrong still is powerless to take action, because he isn’t of the authority to even say something.

However, there is someone with the authority above even the noble knight; Ferdinand himself. Ferdinand, who vouched for Mine, brought her in at his own request. So while Mine is still a commoner, even with her blue robes, she has essentially received the protection of a fairly high-ranking noble. Harming her isn’t just unnecessary, but it also shows rebellion against someone who is both the leader of the knights, and someone who far outranks him.

Here we see a good point of how in this highly structured society, it’s status that governs all. Mine, the common soldier, and Ferdinand all have the moral high ground. Mine is a child, and she doesn’t deserve to be beaten for doing absolutely nothing wrong, commoner or no. Assaulting a priestess for simply being a commoner is not just in bad taste, but shows a lapse in morality. However, only Ferdinand has the authority to hand down punishment and chastise the person in the wrong, but his entire argument is framed as going against someone of higher status. It’s not that the situation is immoral, it’s that doing so goes against the grain of the societal hierarchy. It’s unfortunate that Main would have been in a far worse position had she not been under Ferdinand’s goodwill.