Sora no Woto – Episode 10
Last week on Sora no Woto, a rainstorm assaulted the town of Seize, and the town mobilized to save the day. We also learned about Courier Klaus’ backstory, and he finally became a hero. This week, we meet the old woman Jacquotte, and through her explore Rio’s life. This wraps up a lot of points rather than providing much fodder for speculation, so let’s get underway.
A lot can change in just six months.
The episode starts with Rio burning a letter, presumably the one she received from her father. At the same time, Noël and the girls have almost finished the tank. Kanata wants to look into Iliya’s past, but Filicia’s records are “missing.” Kureha fills her in on the details instead. Yumina shows up and asks for help finding Jacquotte, and Kanata drags Rio off with her. The two find the woman building a house for her long-lost son, and decide to help her with chores around the house. While Rio chops firewood, Filicia remarks that the Roman army has redeployed troops. Kanata and Rio leave to gather supplies, and Rio talks about how she first came to the town. Then they retire to the old woman’s house, and she relates her past to them. Afterwards, she goes out to die, quite literally. Rio plays Amazing Grace again, and then entrusts her trumpet to Kanata. Under her tutelage, Kanata has become a fine trumpet player, as well as a fine young woman. Content with her work, Rio has finally decided to leave and carry out her task to protect the family she loves.
Kanata has been the eternal optimist, to Rio's pessimist.
This episode finally puts Rio’s whole story into perspective. She is the illegitimate son of the Archduke. Her father never came around to see them, and he resents him for that. However, Iliya did visit, and Rio loved her elder sister. Iliya allowed herself to become engaged to the emperor of Rome to end the hostilities. Unfortunately, a tragedy cut the Princess’ life drastically short. While on a morale building tour, she tried to save a drowning child. She lost her life instead. The war dragged on for yet another year until the two armies struck a truce. Of course, Rio never got over it. She still hated children because of the one who took her sister away from her. She fled to the town of Seize, which she symbolically views as a dead-end for her life. In the process, though, she met Kanata, which allowed her to slowly grow as a person to become more like her sister. With the help of Jacquotte, she finally finds some means of closure.
Rather, until we meet again.
Jacquotte fell in love with a wealthy man, and became pregnant with his child. However, this man had a family and a wife who could not bear children. He took her son and left for his home, promising to return one day. The story curiously reflects Rio’s own, so she asks how the woman can deal with her grief. Rather than allowing the past to drag her down, she always looked forward with hope. She remembered the good times she had before the man left her, and focused on his promise to return one day. As a result, she has lived a long and largely satisfying life. The point of this story boils down to how you should view loss. You’re always going to suffer loss, whether by your own power or because of unforeseen occurrence. You can’t undo it, so simply dwelling on it is not going to help anyone. To get through life, you have to focus on the good in your past, live your life in the present, and always aim for the future. Life is short, so live the best life you can. This realization finally snaps Rio out of her depression.
In many ways, contentment is the most we could ever ask.
At first glance, this episode wraps everything up into a nice package, and to an extent, you would be correct. However, a few plotlines still exist for the final episodes. First, Noël has almost finished rebuilding the tank. Since they already put it to use to save Klaus and Kureha, I doubt they would spotlight it again unless it will see another use. I think the second DVD bonus episode will focus on how they got the parts. Second, they still haven’t resolved the fire maiden plotline that started in the first episode. The story shunted the legend off to the side for quite a while, but in this episode, they bring it back into focus. However, this has served its purpose by reflecting Rio’s character, so we can safely live without a blatant resolution. Finally, we know Roma fought Helvetia and that they’re mobilizing the army again, but that nation remains an enigma. We don’t know their motivations in all this, mostly because we have never met anyone from there. The next episode will introduce a wounded soldier from Roma and address that issue. I’m looking forward to it.
You'd best not get yourself killed any time soon!
