Opinion: No one loved the Kaiser as much as he - Reflecting on Reuental
Screaming, crying, and throwing up, all for this heterochromia eyed bastard. No spoilers past ep 98 of the OVA series, please!
Up until the Reuental Rebellion arc, if you asked me ten times whom I adored more between Oskar von Reuental and Yang Wenli, I would have answered Yang ten out of ten times. And yet, while I was heartbroken to see Yang Wenli killed, my heart was shattered and I wailed and whinged out loud in real life, as I saw the dominoes falling to artificially make Reuental rebel.
I haven’t been in this much pain with the series since I first saw Kircheis die. A pain so great that I actually inadvertently dropped the series in 2016, because the pain was so great, and finally came back to re-watch the entire thing 10 years later (I tried again in 2022 but didn’t remember where I stopped and was too busy to start over from scratch).
Because I made the mistake of perusing the reddit before I had finished the show, I knew Yang would die and that Reuental would rebel. Completely my fault for looking up the reddit when I was only 60 or so episodes in, but I believe truly great stories can never be ruined by spoilers.
I give all that rambling preamble to say that even though I knew both events were coming, I apparently did not know myself well enough to foresee the absolute grief the Reuental Rebellion arc would put me through.
After the attack on Reinhard and his entourage at Urvasi, I stopped my binge because my heart was beating like a jackhammer.
I tried to calm myself down by drawing, watching funny videos, playing with the dog, and even reading cute fanfiction of unrelated series, but it did nothing.
I would catch myself while giggling with the dog thinking, “Reuental is being framed into conflict with his beloved Kaiser and you’re here laughing?” I had this thought catch me constantly while in the shower, while cooking, while watching funny shorts on YouTube. I was haunted.
Reuental is a character for whom my thoughts on him are a character arc in himself. At first, I thought he was just aloof and relatively loyal to those he pledged allegiance to. He never seemed like he was all too passionate about anything, but was a stand up enough guy.
But soon enough, my mind changed again when the narrative started playing up the potential Iago potential of Reuental. Oooh, is he gonna rebel? Oooh, he’s a very proud and very ambitious man. After the death of Kircheis, when Reinhard invited Usurpation attempts, I thought it was inevitable. Little did I know this inevitability while it was delivered on, it would both be a promise and a red herring.
I’ve mulled on it for the weeks I’ve been watching the past few arcs of LoGH, the perfect word to encapsulate the depth of feeling Reuental holds for Reinhard. Loyalty, fealty, and admiration are all words that come to mind, and yet, none feel enough to capture enormity to the depth of Reuental’s convictions.
Love, I’d say love is best suited for trying to put the sheer enormity and intensity of Oskar von Reuental’s feelings for Reinhard in one word.
Note: I am not saying that Reuental was in love, like in a romantic sense, nor do I think Reinhard is whom he cared for most of all, that’s obviously his bestie Mittenmeyer.
It’s hard categorise what kind of love it is, but it is absolutely pure unadulterated love.
My hot (is it hot, I’m new to the fandom so lemme know) is that Reuental loved Reinhard more than Kircheis did. Okay, that’s a bit of a reductive and incendiary to put it, as it lacks the nuance I will follow up with.
I’d like to make a separate post about it, but the irony of Kircheis’ unflinching and unfailing love for Reinhard was that it initially started and was centered around his affection and infatuation with Annerose. Reinhard was ironically isolated by the love of the people who loved him most (to explain this digression further would take much too many words and this is about Oskar).
Reuental admired Reinhard, but he loved the Kaiser, whereas Kircheis loved Reinhard. But as stated, while Kircheis would grow to love Reinhard genuinely, he started and persisted for Annerose.
Reuental is here for Reinhard’s brilliance and that alone. Of course, even before Reinhard became Kaiser, his squad were more loyal to him than to their nation (for good and understandable reasons), but nobody could glaze and wax poetic about Reinhard like Reuental did, and he did so often. I swear Norio Wakamoto was purring into that mic every time he said “Mein Keiser”.
A man as proud and as ambitious as Reuental, who aspired to more often, vigilantly and diligently watched Reinhard. He was vigilantly looking for any slipups that might give him cause to take back his allegiance, but there was also a proud and relieved sort of glee when he found that back still worthy of gazing upon from behind.
His Kaiser was the only back he was happy to watch from behind and follow.
This is the biggest tragedy to me after Kircheis’ death, and I was in the throws of grief before I even saw Reuental die. I thought he would be put to death proudly in a court after the rebellion was quashed. That he would be able to face his Kaiser and the tragedy would be in his pride.
But he didn’t even get that. He didn’t get to test his mettle against his kaiser and he didn’t even get to gaze upon him before he died.
I’ll never forgive the fucking Terranists for this. Lang, Rubinsky, I’m just in the throes of grief over this man that doesn’t exist.
I never thought the complicated yet pure and simple relationship between Reinhard von Lohengramm and Oskar von Reuental would have my heart in a vice grip like this.
I fucking love this show.
If you made it all the way, thank you for reading this rambling, LOL.