Petite Princess Yucie: Episode 17 Commentary
How Annoying! The Fairy World is Full of Lies
It’s revealed that Arc—or rather, Arrow—does not believe his father is his real father, something the queen firmly denies.
The time has come for the next crystal flower, this time in the fairy world. Only Cocoloo’s home, the spirit world, will remain to be visited.
If Beth’s father is a tree, does that mean members of the royal family are dryads? This leads to other questions: Can Beth transform into a tree? Can Beth’s father, the fairy king, transform back into a human-like form? Or did the king one day transform into a tree as a one way transformation, something awaiting Beth in the future? Elmina claims the king transformed into the World Tree since the world’s creation, and it supports the world. If the world is over 1,000 years old (assuming so, due to one fifth of the Eternal Tiara being aligned with the power of the fairy world), this would place Beth’s father at over 1,000 years old, even though Beth is sure to be 17. She wasn’t, maybe, born from an acorn or something, was she?
Also claimed by Elmina is that the fairy world has no seasons. If the fairy king’s leaves are brown, he could be dying, which would fall in line with Beth’s prior dialogue about how she couldn’t attend the academy due to pressing matters at home.
Furthermore, Elmina seems to be educated on what kind of residence is found in what kind of area in the fairy world. Vast knowledge of all the worlds must be expected of the daughter of the king of the sky world.
Poor Glenda during the search for the flower. The princess of the demon world, with her elegant beauty and fantastic magic powers, should not have to be subject to such misadventures.
Cocoloo gets a good monologue. Beth certainly has trust issues.
Each world seems to have something rather unexpected. In the fairy world, who would expect Frere to repeatedly lie? Well, lie once, and it’s expected there to be another lie. Glenda had that much right.
Beth’s trust issues definitely stem from something major. In her time of need, with her father’s life in danger, all her people abandoned her. That’s got to be hard for someone to take, and it’s understandable why Beth is the way she is. That’s one of the nice things about this series: you find a character to be a certain way, then in time you learn why they are this way, and you can look back and say, “Oh yeah, it makes sense who they were in those earlier episodes.” Many shows don’t explore how a character came to be the way they are.
Seeing the determination of Yucie, Cocoloo, and Elmina should be the first in a line of events which will convince Beth to join them. Maybe.
Climbing the tree, Yucie and Cocoloo toss Elmina up to the higher branch. I’ve wondered for a while if Elmina is lighter than the other girls. Rather, I’ve wondered if her people are lighter than humans. I can see Glenda as being close to Yucie’s weight (maybe a small amount more). Cocoloo may be slightly lighter, although being from the spirit world I would imagine she could go ghost and fly up. She’s seen flying in the opening theme, after all. Elmina being from a race of winged, flying people, I would imagine her to be quite light. Where was I going with this? Never mind where I was going, now I want to know why Cocoloo doesn’t ghost her way up, unless she wouldn’t be able to get the rope up with her.
Elmina is opening up more to being friends with the other candidates. Not only do her observations of Glenda seem to be more based on Glenda personally, rather than being on Glenda as a demon, but she’s warming up to Yucie as well. And of course she always had a soft spot for Cocoloo: Elmina was always saying things like, “Cocoloo, Miss Glenda seems to be upset about something.”
While it’s expected that Beth can talk with the World Tree, and it’s known she can control wind either by her own magic focused with her hood, or with her hood alone, she can also run straight up the vertical of the World Tree. Does this mean she can also run up walls? Or just trees? Or just the World Tree?
I realize Cocoloo had to get blown into the air, and that it had to be her, so Beth could save her. And Glenda being gone means she couldn’t use any magic to try to save Cocoloo beforehand. However, I still see two openings. Even with the winds, Elmina could have tried to fly to her. That’s of course why she’s given the task of holding Yucie down, so Elmina cannot try flight. The other possibility would be for Cocoloo to go ghost and fly herself back down. Can you tell how much I want to see her go ghostly again?
After Beth dispels the wind, Yucie’s hair is a mess. Elmina’s is actually rather calm. And Cocoloo’s hair looks like she just went through a hurricane (although it’s more in place after she stands up).
The ending is perfect, with Beth’s decision. Especially with the cheerful reaction from Belbel leading up to it. Elmina gets a line about Beth at the end, which wraps up a very nice amount of dialogue for her in this episode.
