What If?

Jeanette & Claude

Read or not, this will just be my opinions of Jeanette and Claude to kind of understand some of my decisions in this story of these characters. Honestly might be a bit of a rant.

My opinions on Claude are first if you don't really care to read that and only want Jeanette just scroll down she will be after the dashed lines.

So first i'll start with Claude. I know some think I let him off to easy and I understand why you think I did and the frustration of it.

And yes I agree I did let him off a bit to easy. But not where I'd change Athanasia's decision to forgive him.

Why I wouldn't change her decision isn't about Claude though but Athanasia herself because I felt like the forgiveness was a way for her to move forward in her life. She's past the age where she really needs that parental love she craved all her life, she doesn't need Claude's love as she would if she were a child or such and I take it as this for her mindset. She forgives him so she love others such a her future children and not being thinking how she didn't get that. But this isn't really about her now.

Claude even though forgiven by Athanasia, I don't take as he will ever forgive himself. He mistreated (mistreated is very much an understatement) her entire life and almost killed her the first time he even saw her, then again with the Jeanette incident(well he actually did just not in this fanfic). And I think we can all agree Claude is the type to hold grudges, and is hard on everyone and especially himself. So he'll forever have that over his shoulders and never feel worthy to be around Athanasia but if she allows him he will be by her side and cherish every moment. Also we all know he's gonna face the wrath of Diana after...

But also I don't take it as Claude's complete fault. I don't know how to word that really better because don't get me wrong it is still his fault. But but what I mean about this is that when Diana died because of Athanasia's mana Claude was so deeply hurt and filled with what would be greatest betrayal to him. And honestly before even that he had it rough as he was a child of the emperor but not the empress so he was mistreated growing up and all he had was his mother. And Penelope acted as if she really did love him and they'd be together and after his mother Penelope was the only other person we know that showed him love and Anastacius maybe in the novel I'm not sure m, in the manhwa yes and we all know how that turned out with Penelope and his brother betraying him. And that only leaves him with his mother who then is killed by Anastcius(maybe he didn't according to the manhwa, novel I don't know, but either way Claude thinks he did).

That leaves Claude with nobody till Diana. And we can guess that when Claude met her he had to have built quite the walls around himself to protect himself from betrayal and hurt again. And Diana we all know broke those walls, like destroyed them. I mean even after he tried to chase her away she stayed, and promised to always.

And Diana became his life. But then she betrayed him by leaving him permanently. And honestly I don't think it was anything close to a peaceful death. Like just seeing what Athasnias mana did to her, imagine it affecting Diana on top of just regular pregnancy, she probably became quite sick (puking blood like Athanasia) and was in a lot of pain(Athanasia was in a lot of pain due to her mana when it went haywire). And honestly if Claude refused to see her that way and let her deal with her pregnancy alone in the Ruby palace I doubt he didn't still get reports often and honestly I don't think he could just abandon even if he wanted to. So whether he said he was or wasn't gonna watch her die I bet he did see her a few times slowly dying. Literally watching the love of his life die painfully.

And Claude begged Diana to choose him. And he watched as she chose a miserable end leaving him instead. Then she went on to ask him to love the child that she was choosing over him, the baby that was killing her.