| Summary: | This article examines the friendship between Oscar François de Jarjayes and Queen Marie Antoinette in the anime version of Riyoko Ikeda's the Rose of Versailles. Oscar is born female but is raised male and becomes Commander of the Queen's Royal Guards. The intended shōjo (young girl) audience identifies with both characters. Current scholarship mainly focuses on Oscar's character, but this study places equal emphasis on Marie Antoinette, since the anime humanizes her character and demonstrates how the Queen's interactions with Oscar bring out the noble elements of her disposition. The characters grow together and then apart against the backdrop of the French Revolution, with the Revolution standing as a metaphor for the internal struggle Oscar faces when grappling with her gender identity. Marie Antoinette supports and validates Oscar, but the friendship ends when Oscar identifies with the Revolution and the Queen refuses any compromise to the power of the Crown. Oscar's ultimate rejection of her class and her alliance with the Revolution corresponds directly to the questioning of her gender identity and her ultimate self-acceptance. By contrast, Marie Antoinette's final self-affirmation comes not through rebellion but through staunch confirmation of royal authority. The process of self-definition is what leads to the downfall of both Oscar and Marie Antoinette, with the former meeting a noble death in the taking of the Bastille, and the latter dying at the guillotine in tragedy and disgrace but redeemed slightly by her friendship with, and memories of, Oscar.
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