#this was going to have a better conclusion but I forgor. :skull:

[birdmenmanga]

well okay but Miorine Rembran has got to be one of the most well-written tsunderes I've ever laid my eyes on. It works not only because of Miorine's background context of being a dueling trophy and a slave to her father's desires but ALSO because of how it bounces off and interacts with Suletta's complicated baggage of social anxiety and being manipulated by her mother.

based on her past it makes sense that she has trouble connecting with other people, because she's only ever been objectified and her own desires and wishes were never respected. of course someone who grew up like this is going to be prickly towards others, is going to be reluctant to trust them and constantly suspect ulterior motives. it makes sense then, that even when she falls in love with suletta she never explicitly makes it clear. not only is she not used to expressing affection at all, in some ways being true and honest about her feelings just makes her easier to manipulate.

Exhibit 1: Prospera knows that Miorine genuinely cares about Suletta, and that's how she's twisting her arm behind her back to get her to become the president of the Benerit group.

Miorine isn't stupid. She knows that her love for Suletta is a glaring weakness of hers. To advertise it, when her place in the power struggle is so precarious, is idiotic. It's much safer to pretend that she doesn't love Suletta, that it's all just a marriage of convenience, because they won't be exploited so easily that way.

(Check it out!! A solid, in-universe justification for tsundere behavior!! Instead of just some woman randomly being a bitch to the flawless main character because the scriptwriters needed to check off the "tsundere" box on the list of harem tropes!! [good video on the flanderization of the tsundere trope])

Then, of course, there's Suletta's whole deal with Prospera's manipulation. Suletta's social anxiety is probably her most easily exploited weakness— while she's a superb pilot, she feels like a fish out of water when it comes to social interactions, and her experience with El4n, when he suddenly makes an about-face and starts calling her annoying after being extremely courteous towards her, sows the seeds of doubt in her mind.

Uh-oh! Miorine, are you sure about that last line? Not that you were thinking of "betraying" Suletta at this point in time...

When Suletta starts feeling useless towards the end of season 1, she even explicitly articulates the thought that "everyone was nice to me, but it's really just all in my head" to her mother.

If you recall, Miorine confronts Suletta right after her phone call with Prospera, saying that she'd heard everything. So she knows that this is Suletta's weakness, and believes that this is the key to freeing Suletta from Prospera's grasp. If Suletta views all the good things she has in life as a by-product of obediently following in her mother's teachings, the link of causation must be broken. Even if she follows in her mother's orders, she should not be allowed to find happiness. And when she realizes these two things aren't connected, only then can she truly start to live.

It's no easy feat, but Miorine knows that she has all the cards in her favor. The earth house's initial distrust of her when Suletta had full faith in her bride, for instance, will be confirmed (the interaction she had with Ojelo, when Miorine was gone for 2 weeks to figure out what she wanted to do with Gund-ARM, and he went "who knows, maybe she just left us behind!" and suletta goes "she wouldn't do that" and he goes "oh yeah? you haven't known her long enough to know that." stands out to me in particular). What Suletta had perceived as apathy from Miorine (entrusting her greenhouse to a third party, and overall trying not to rely on Suletta) can be pushed further.

it's just such a lovely subversion of the typical tsundere trope where the takeaway viewers often get is "yes means yes, but no also means yes"— I said it right from the start, Suletta, you were just a shield to me, so why did you distort the sparks of kindness and affection from the sea of my apathetic behavior into something more when I never explicitly said anything about that? why did you think that "no" would magically turn into a "yes"? didn't you learn anything from el4n? from everyone?