User blog:DeltaHorizon020/PE Proposal: Lady Charlotte Ermengarde

Proposal time. This time is from a Visual Novel that I actually know the most.

What's The Work
The Letter is a 2017 visual novel from the Philippines Indie studio, YangYang Mobile. It tells us the story about Isabella Santos, a real estate agent who works at the Briar Reality Company and her friends who are haunted by a ghost after Isabella sold the infamous mansion of Luxbourne, the Ermengarde Mansion, towards the rich couple a.k.a. The Wrights. And yeah, judging by the title, you know things are going to get downhill from there.

Anyways, if you ask me. Well, you could argue the ghost is the heinous standard of the game. But here's the thing, the ghost doesn't count at all due to her being a vengeful spirit of an abused Japanese slave named Takako and her master? Hoo boy...She will be the person that I will talk about today.

Who is She/What Has She Done
Alright, so let's talk about Takako's master, Lady Charlotte Ermengarde. Basically she's actually the ruler of Luxbourne during 16th or 17th century iirc and the owner of the Ermengarde mansion back then. At surface, she is a respected ruler towards her own people and to the point she shows a sympathy by saving Takako from slavery and seemingly had a good relationship towards her cousin and fiancee, Eduard Godfrey. But on the inside of it?

Hoo boy...

See here's the thing about Charlotte, after Takako accidentally discovered Charlotte's affair with another man, Charlotte responded by having Takako getting raped by her own men which Takako responded it by watching sadistically. After Eduard discovered the horrific deed that Charlotte had committed, their relationship fractured as a result and Eduard had every right reason to abandon Charlotte because of it.

Except...Charlotte's atrocities didn't end there.

You see, after being dumped by Eduard, Charlotte herself tries to torment Takako even more by ordering her men to kill Eduard and Takako's cat while forcing Takako to watch the horror by making an example towards her. After the incident, Takako was framed by Charlotte and this result on the former getting burned on the stake and become a vengeful spirit that haunts Charlotte. Unfortunately, after Charlotte seemingly committed suicide, her spirit was fused with Takako, preventing her to move on to the next life and essentially kickstarts the whole conflict in the present day.

Heinous Standard
Obliterates it with country mile. This is one of the few cases where a villain having only one victim but the excessive burst of cruelty that she inflicts towards said victim goes too far to the point she is worth discussing at least in my book. (Gang Rape+Brutal torture? You named it) And not only that, Charlotte's cruelty is the utter reason why Takako becomes a crazy, vengeful spirit who kills everyone in her path so yeah....

Freudian Excuse/Mitigating Factors
Now here's the tricky part that I was stupid to include which resulted on it getting downvoted and got relitigated by another user in the future which shows not only stupid and useless I was but also having a missed opportunity on this.

Anyways, it is revealed that Charlotte herself fused with Takako after she died and of course, this resulted on me combining the atrocities that the ghost had committed and this caused the ambiguity issues on whodunnit. However, I guess I need to note that this Charlotte? Is a separate character and on it's own, she qualifies alright and has no mitigating factors to speak of and as far as her suicide goes, that's just her trying to save her own skin from Takako so yeah...

Final Verdict
Unsure, but I'll let you guys decide on this one.