Red Rose- The Avatar Of Victory
The Lonely Survivor
A Lord Marshal rant regarding Amanda Lee state of mind
N.B As always this is all my opinion and is not canonical nor WoG , again, simple opinion
@Crystalwatcher
Question Corner: Some questions that popped in my mind while writing this rant.
How strong is Amanda in practical terms when you compare her to the others of the List? Because while she's in rank ten she seems also ridiculously specialized in 1vs1 combat....and Assassination.
Who could defeat her in a 1vs1 duel (Only UL and UD combatants)?
Will we know more about White Soul after the battle, specifically her reason for going murderbot?
As always, questions are just curiosity, can answer or not as you wish.
Now, let's start the rant.
Not completely happy with it, because it's less about Red Rose and more what the war did to her, but if i'll find something else to say about her i'll simply do another rant on her.
As always, sorry the
eventual inevitable typos, hope you'll like it.
Next One: The Four Goddesses "Four Obsessions".......Or maybe not.
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Red Rose is actually a pretty mysterious character for us.
She's one of the oldest veterans of this war in the human ranks, if not the oldest.
Maybe not in simple age, but in amount of sheer situations that she experienced no one come close from the human side.
Even the oldest soldiers of the Counter Force can't say to have fought what Amanda did...and the ones that can are probably incapable of expressing such opinion.
This means that we have no idea of who was the person that joined the war to become what we now know as Red Rose.
But we can still try to re-create the picture of how that girl became who she is now.
So let's try to pick up the pieces of this puzzle.
Joining The War.
We know that Amanda was taciturn and solitary by disposition, as White Soul kindly told us in our fight.
We know that Red Rose was a Magical Girl before the War, fighting the injustice in obscurity while no one believed Magical Girls existed before the Crusade.
This means that Amanda wasn't forced to fight by the circumstances, or at least not completely.
Little information, but still something to use as a base.
Living in War
The real problem start after Red Rose became a veteran MG, one that simply
did not die, regardless of what reality and common sense declared.
What happened to Red Rose is that...She simply became adjusted to living in war.
it's a such a simple phrase that explain neatly everything that Red Rose is.
She saw humans soldiers, angels, fairies, elves and other magical girls die.
Some faster, some slower...but in the end they all died.
While Red Rose survived, taking victory after victory for the Unified Light.
This is something normal MGs already suffer from, watching their own humans squads die again and again to protect them, some cope with it by refusing to take another squad, other by teaming with MGs, others simply endure it.
Red Rose probably was in a similar situations, but there is a important difference between a normal MG and Red Rose.
The former will probably die sooner of later.
There is a certain...peace? tranquility?Doesn't matter how you call it, but knowing that both you and your comrades will probably die is, paradoxically, helpful.
If you and the other person could both die every time a fight break out, in a certain sense you're on the same plane.
It make you feel...not alone, it gives you the courage to talk to the other person, the urgency to connect, because tomorrow you could simply disappear.
When everyone can die, it creates unity, because you're all under the same fear.
MGs will die a bit later, but will die all the same.
But what of Red Rose?
Yes, of course she could
theoretically die.
But who could believe it after she killed a Dark Lord and survived to tell the tale? After she killed Dark Magical girl after Dark Magical girl one on one?After she fought enemies that were strong to fight Divine Beings and wasn't splattered across the whole dimension?
There is a reason if Amanda is called the Avatar Of Victory.
After a bit, everyone realized it, even Amanda did.
Red Rose would not die, at least not in a long time.
Other magical Girls, even strong ones, could die in unlucky situation...but not Amanda, not Red Rose.
How does it feel, standing in a place full of people you know and painfully realize that you'll outlive all of them?
What sense there is in creating a deeper connection with a Magical Girl that just awakened? What sense talking about dreams with the commander that will probably be assassinated sooner of later?
It dehumanize the others, more for your own sanity than anything else, and it make you feel truly, completely alone.
Amanda's Hope
Of course this doesn't consider an important fact.
The Old Guard, Amanda most trusted friends and Comrades.
Magical Girls that much like her were considered the strongest, incapable of being broken.
Everyone of the Old Guard felt the same loneliness, much like Red Rose, and everyone else helped each other by simply surviving, simple being there, battle after battle, untouchable by the carnage that laid low everyone else.
White Soul, untouchable to the point of being considered immortal, must have been
exactly what Red Rose needed in a certain sense.
Amanda Lee,
the person, survived battle after battle not being crushed by Red Rose,
the warrior, simply by having such wonderful comrades by her side.
The Old Guard helped her thorough the losses, the sadness, the madness of war, much like a family.
...
In fact, the loneliness is probably something that she considered rarely when the Old Guard was alive.
It doesn't consider the Goddesses, that brought hope to a war where the only future was an endless fighting, immortal juggernauts even stronger than her that made clear that Red Rose wouldn't outlive everyone.
How could she outlive people so ridiculously overpowered?
Other people were untouchable by the war, not strange entities like Gabriel or Gaia,
but other Magical Girls.
The Goddess Four, The Old Guard and the end of the war in sight.
It was as if the universe itself decided that no,
the Avatar Of Victory will have comrades.
But everything returns to the same point, much like a sick joke.
Hope
The Fall of Hope
Amanda's Despair
When Hope came, aside from clearly spelling that all of Amanda victories were for naught, it brought another message with it.
Goddesses can die.
Grey died on between the ruins of Hope.
Gabriel, an entity so much greater and older than anyone else Amande knew died on Rexulus, protecting the retreat of the Unified Light.
Leaving Red Rose with one last pillar...White Soul and the Old Guard.
And that pillar didn't crumble,
it fucking exploded like the idiot that tried invade Rome.
White Soul went completely batshit insane and murdered the rest of the Old Guard in absolutely horrible ways, forcing Red Rose to put her down violently and messily, leaving her with absolutely nothing.
After years of war, the only thing that Amanda truly found was loneliness.
The goddesses were broken, leaving only Gold there, stretched thin to stop her own sisters from destroying the unified light, going on more for inertia than anything else.
She lost all her friend, her sister, and was forced to kill the only person
that would have always survived the battlefield to met her again.
As if that wasn't tragic enough, the point was proven.
She
survived.
Gabriel, the Goddesses four, the Old Guard... The Avatar Of victory stood alone again.
This time, no one would welcome her back from the mission.
Just like that, little by little, battle after battle....Amanda simply stopped investing in other people, accepting that everyone aside from Gold would die....suspecting in the dark corners of her mind that sooner of later even the Golden Annihilation would simply fall, or betray them.
In short, the girl Amanda left space to Red Rose, the unbroken warrior that would always without foul bring victory....alone.
Not completely, as she would still train a young magical girl that just lost her sister or take an apprentice.
But surely in the back of her mind the though that she would outlive them too became ever-present.
Everyone screamed her name in joy and awe when she fought.
"The Avatar of Victory that will never fail, will never die. Even if we all die she will bring victory"
How could they not? Her mere presence means no death will be meaningless, because victory is not only a possibility, but a certainty.
No one ever stopped to think that about the loneliness of standing alone in ever growing pile of bodies, outliving yet another battle.
Yet another person.
Not even Amanda, the girl, just relegated in some deep part of Red Rose, the warrior that simply accepted the reality of war.
A reality were she would always be alone.
But then...
Nepgear came.
She did the impossible.
Solid Core brought everything she lost back.
Red Rose,The Avatar Of Victory in this mission became Amanda Lee, Magical Girl of the Old Guard once again.
Someone that doesn't outlive her comrades, but complete the mission without casualties, and doesn't need to make horrible sacrifices.
And she will tear to pieces anyone that tries to touch her friends again.
