Girls, what do you think of The Rose of Versailles and Operation True Love?

Last night I was talking to Guilty about the theories and parallels that the Eunstans draw between the characters and plots. Like how the author draws a lot of parallels with The Rose of Versailles in her story, how her characters are reflected in those of Operation True Love, how it follows the same line of events but with a modern twist, and so on. But I have my own opinion about that, even though you can find some similarities.

I wondered about that for a long time too. I haven't read The Rose of Versailles yet, but is a classic. And I think that at this point, OTL is very independent of the manga, because I can see the dynamics mixed up.

For example, Dohwa is someone who was originally poor and had to struggle to survive. In contrast, Girodelle is a noble knight, well-respected and with a comfortable life. His love for Oscar is not reciprocated because he doesn't share a personal connection with Oscar. Furthermore, Girodelle is someone Oscar did have feelings for (at the beginning), and this is one of Oscar's motivations for considering whether to reveal to her that she is actually a woman.

But Dohwa, for Suae, was always an unattainable prince, someone with whom she never even considered having a chance, even though they shared a very close bond, and Suae was unaware of his feelings until he confessed them to her, after Eunhyuk. That makes me relate him more to André than to Girodelle. And also, André is a knight, And is there an official illustration of Dohwa in a "knight"(? style from the Joseon era, made by the artist. (I remember someone here bringing up that illustration a while ago, but I can't find the conversation 😭). He is Someone who must strive to get ahead and accompany and protect, as equals, his lady in question. That best-friend relationship, a close relationship, Dohwa knows Suae's secrets just as André knows Oscar's, but not vice versa. Girodelle, on the other hand, doesn't know Oscar very well, just as Eun has no idea about Suae's situation and the romantic points, or at least, the fanfic novel she was attached to.

On the other hand, André also shares things with Eun such as the theme of tragic destiny and backstory, being dark-haired, and his eye disability, while Eun's disability is related to her hearing. Also, the way he represses his feelings for her as much as possible, and something external always has to trigger them to explode so he can express them.

I'm sure the author is definitely a fan of ROV, and what she's doing with BROV within True Love is more of an homage, but from what we know of BROV and Suae's fanfic, BROV has more in common with Candy Candy than with ROV. I'd say that this supposed fictional manga is an allegory for classic romance manga, since there's also a disruptive aspect to the Candy Candy ending. There are like two or three versions of the ending: one where Terry and Candy are together, which was made animated specifically for Italy; another, which is the ending of the novel, where Candy discovers that her "man on the hill" (something like the man of her dreams and a mysterious entity whose identity she never knew until the end) was the man who had been with her since childhood, who was also a nobleman and much older than her; and also the ending where her love story with Terry ends tragically because he doesn't stay with her, and Candy ends up alone.

That reminds me that BROV doesn't have a true ending because the original author died, according to Suae, so she took advantage of that open plot to fill in the gaps as she likes The three endings of Candy Candy aren't drastically different, but they are three different ways of concluding the story. Terry and Candy's happy ending occurs after the "official ending" because the woman who threatened Terry died, so Terry is free to return to Candy. The other ending, which I believe is the "official" ending, is where Candy discovers her man from the hill, and it's implied that she stays with him, but it's actually more of an open ending, and it's the one from the novel. The third ending is where Candy and Terry simply end up separated and only communicate through letters occasionally.

In conclusion, I believe ROV is merely an influence on the author's reading, but I highly doubt that, as a creative person, she would replicate the same plot and make it predictable and obvious by simply copying the situations and overwriting them for a modern world. That would be disrespectful to her own work, to the readers, and to the original work that inspired her.

And in fact, this seems more like a meta-story about us finding our man on the hill, just like Candy trying to figure out who Gray is absjdnfnfcngk And the critique and parallels between Suae's fanfic situation, or Suae reading theories online (something like Reddit) about Marang and her idol development plans with the Black Rose of Versailles theme, and us here looking for parallels between stories and scenes, hidden messages in the official art and chapter panels, and trying to connect present dialogue with past dialogue, etc. It's a meta-story at this point, and all this only reinforces my belief in the Soohwa ending. Because if we're in this meta-critique, using clichés to make the story predictable and then shitting on them to slap you in the face, and the author screaming, "Why are you believing this so easily? Only for the typical cliche?"

But thats only is my opinion. What do you think?