There's a bit of a dichotomy that isn't quite shown but a huge issue with this that doesn't change anything about what you said and makes it deeper: Old money vs new money.
If you're OLD money, you have entrenched views on society which can then turn you into a major, extreme, self righteous prick that makes you insufferable as a noble in said society. That's Kathleen. Judge for a husband, always been higher class, etc.
For Elias, he's NEW money. Inheritance is a part of it. He's running a studio business, so at the very least, he's needing to see how someone lives. New money is Silicon Valley, Hollywood (though that's old now), and game businesses just as an example. You aren't railroad, oil, or insurance. You're the newest industry going which has millionaires and billionaires pop up outside the system. That's why Elias can be very unique because his background links up in certain ways to a lower class. And of course, remember Felicia's background. She started from the bottom.
Now she's here.
Apologies for late response.
New money is actually often more vicious SPECIFICALLY because it is new: it is the original greedy fk who wanted more money than God, and was willing to do any evil deed to get it.
Inheritors are not innately so greedy, tho they will carry some of the stamp. This is, I suspect, part of Elias's personality.
Properly old money (more than just 2 or 3 generations, so has an experiential insulator built in) does often have an entrenched class divide built in, but can also bring a sense of "noblesse oblige" with it. It was exactly this which had FDR (a 5th gen) so socially focused, he was accused by his detractors of being communist, despite his actually saving capitalism from overthrow with his efforts, and being the guy who broke up the Bonus Army protest camp with tanks.
You really think she would snub a guy with "just" couple millions when the alternative is literal decades of getting exploited and fucked at a brothel with nothing to show for it? *
NGL, it feels like a pretty wild take. "If i can't dine at 5-star restaurant i'd rather eat shit from dog bowl than have regular, 4-star meals".
*) not like this is actually a serious alternative in the first place. Unlike other Carnations, Felicia didn't join the contest because she was in dire straits financially. Similarly, if she doesn't win it's not like she owes the club anything or needs their assistance. She can go and do anything else with her life, whether this is looking for a millionaire to charm or a basic job and taking up painting in her spare time.
Again, apologies for late response.
Yes, it is wild, but so is Fel. She is a VERY irrational individual prone to highly emotional decisions, despite her pragmatism.
Consider: she knew enough abt the club and competition (despite full disclosure apparently not really being given) to realize she would be humiliated in front of, and probably fucked by, the very misogynist social clique she intended to join as an equal. Does that make ANY kind of sense to you? She made a MONUMENTALLY unwise decision in signing up with that specific goal in mind.
Fel is a little girl permanently FRANTICALLY and OBSESSIVELY running FROM HERSELF, to become a glowing golden image of always-increasing wealth, status, and general success: an image ultimately measured by her being able to live the highest of the high life, but with the built-in caveat that "enough" is still never enough to feel safe from the memory of her past endlessly haunting just a step behind her, so with a neurotic kneejerk response to anything that could drag her backwards on her fearful flight from her impoverished childhood. Even her massive infatuation w/the MC (if he's been doing her right) isn't enough to derail that monomaniac train; tho she clearly recognizes him as a possible future of bliss for her, she still can't bring herself to jump the tracks.
If she fails, and loses it ALL, she won't just be facing a reduction in wealth (in fact, she will certainly still have more than most folks; almost guaranteed she will still be a low-lvl millionaire, despite pre-nups and Elias likely having much better lawyers) but she will be seeing herself as an abject failure for having wasted a decade or more of degredation, humiliation, and repression of her own person, just to end up back where she was from likely even earlier than when she met Elias, as her social circle will get reduced once he starts distancing himself from her.
Again, she makes EMOTIONAL decisions based on her neurosis. She may well decide she deserves whatever is coming/cumming for her, should she fail, as she may then see herself as being a loser who never really escaped being that poor little girl she so hates herself for having been. If she loses, and is back at near square one (more like square 3 or 4, but she might not see it that way), it will be a fight between her pragmatism, and her self-hatred telling herself she was always just lying to herself, and that she deserves whatever she gets. Do NOT expect 100% rational decisions from our girl, if that happens.
Add to this, the specter of ending up as house girls is seemingly dangled for all girls in game, so never count that fate out.
