After listening to falecia's reasons for why she joined the club, I couldn't help but say she might be the most intelligently dumb person one could ever come across saying "she was afraid that her husband could find out about her having a hand in saving that school" (like he would care as long as it's not his money or considering how dumb he is being portrayed in the game as of now at least, that he would attach that school running again to her wife who got fucked by The MC in his office)" but she isn't afraid of her husband getting a hand on those photos that Edwin took at his house (even a patron can easily leak those photos out of envy/hate towards ellais ford to hurt not even his feelings/ego but also hurting his reputation/respect in the city which eventually can cause him financial damage or just for the fun of it, the world is full of leakers) or if you take the realistic approach of this game into account someone like Elias should already know about an exclusive club for the rich and powerful in the middle of the city and will eventually find out that a familiar face has joined it, it's just a matter of time.
So she basically endangered everything that she has built so far, for what? A chance at success (again) from another Asshole other than her husband, out of anger?, up to this point I thought she was wiser than that.
It really seems like she has made a terrible mistake taking this step and if it isn't the case in future for this game and she really cash on this choice of hers without losing more than what she gained, I would say at least her storyline resembles a poorly written harem game where everything happens with no reasons and no consciousness whatsoever.
I think it's all about power dynamics with Felicia. The "ladder" she keeps talking about. I also think the school is more complex than she literally said. It's basically all her trying to square this circle of being a self-described gold digger and a human being, simultaneously.
If she's part of the club - she wins and becomes a patron - she's at an equal plane as all the other patrons. Even while competing in the contest: she's a potential patron the whole time in her eyes, not just a carnation. In her marriage she's pretty much a disposable asset and Elias has all the power. This is particularly depressing to her because Elias is so dumb, in a way. In his mind, something like the MC & the photo shoot under his nose would never even occur to her to do: he believes Felicia is beyond happy, because who wouldn't be happy in her position?, being married to a rich genius & etc. Ego makes people far stupider than desire (far more blind spots). Felicia is almost all desire & he's almost all ego. And as an aside, people can be highly egoic and beyond competent in the socioeconomic realm. It is always one's personal life where ego takes its biggest toll.
I genuinely think she didn't 'try harder' with the school because she was trying to convince herself to take everything in stride and be happy with her marriage. This required repressing how much she actually cared about the school & art in general (really, self-expression of any kind). Thus, this outburst of self-expression from her with the club & the contest. She is resentful of Elias like she says, but that level of resentment doesn't come simply from the school thing; she just made it about that in order to understand it better herself. She also had nothing to materially gain in saving the school. The reward was intangible & the risk was losing all her social currency. At least in the contest she stands to gain something she can trade on. The risk/reward are both way higher, for sure, but people who put their unconscious desires in a pressure cooker for years will naturally gravitate towards such high-stakes scenarios.
But I will agree that she's both intelligent and dumb like you said in your first post, lol. I think she is slightly over-estimating how much social currency being a patron of the club will afford her but, at the same time, she is correct that she has to do something. Her life before the club was obviously not doing it for her. And generally speaking, if anyone wants anything they tend to over-estimate it's importance.
I'm also not saying this to argue with you. You like what you like & I like what I like, which is what makes the world go 'round. I also think I'm in the minority of people who like Felicia particularly. Almost all of it is subtext and, even still, she's not the most sympathetic character of all time, nor is she the most mature. This is just my caffeinated take.
I was one of those who was strongly arguing Felicia's case/motivations the last time this came up. I am admittedly a fan (which is weird, because she's not my normal type of favorite LI at all, so it's really a testament to TD's incredible writing), so naturally I'm biased.
I wasn't wanting to get back into these trenches, so I was going to just say "Yes, this;
Wilhelms and
Ahreahl88 nailed it" and leave it at that, but then:
I have raised this exact issue in the past in this thread but the Felicia fanboys started to give the reasons that she is bound to succeed with her plan which were as unrealistic and unfeasible as the Felicia's decision itself. When I didn't agree with them they tried to eat me together with all my shit
So, be careful when you doubt Felicia's wit and wisdom. Some people think only with their dick instead of their brain and get very angry when you start arguing with them
So far, for me it is
the weakest part of the plot, the rest of which is mostly great, I believe. Because her plan is suicidal, but the rest of what we know about her personality implies her being a clever, calculating woman.
In my opinion this is... a pretty big mischaracterization of the last battle. Nobody was seriously saying that Felicia's plan isn't incredibly risky and possibly catastrophic if it fails. It is. Rather, we were saying that
for her, in
her mind, the risk is worth the potential reward. Especially since she actively gets off on the competition and the exhibitions, and double especially since she didn't feel like she had any real skin in the game. If she lost, so what? She would still be a privileged trophy wife.
Of course, that attitude is one of the things that makes Kathleen particularly keen on breaking her, and that has to be a fair chunk of why Elias is invited to the club in the first place. Because now there are real stakes for Felicia,
plus Kathleen gets to indulge her sadism.
There was also a lot of argument about how, even if Felicia wins, the other club members could take her seriously and respect her after witnessing her being degraded and humiliated, and how she was a
dirty filthy tainted whore for allowing these things to be done to her, which (again, in my opinion) was missing a whole lot of things.
But I don't really want to rehash that whole argument again. Anyone interested can go back a few dozen pages and find it
