the ending was rushed & felt underwhelming, esp the court scene

Yeah it wasn’t even discussed after the first mention, though if Calcion had recognized what the prince had tried to do when he rescued Selena, the comic would have been much shorter.

The court scene made sense because they knew he was going down for treason, murder, and a ton of other stuff, so he was never going to walk free no matter what. It’s actually common in the US to drop SA charges if there is overwhelming evidence of a crime serious enough to warrant life in prison. It depends on the case, but the idea is that the maximum punishment is guaranteed, so why retraumatize victims and spend a ton of time and resources on it. Usually they consult the victims and prosecutor to ensure they make the right choice.

They specifically decided not to bring charges for Arielle because it only would have dragged her name through the mud considering that she ended up having an affair with him and pregnant afterwards. Even if they had perfect forensic evidence against him, the prince would have just used the trial to posthumously slander her into a mud pit. Unfortunately, she fell victim to a very sly predator, who was able to manipulate her vulnerability to the degree that she became severely compromised in a way that made it impossible to escape severe social and personal repercussions.

If Selena had raised her charges he likely would have been convicted, but again, he would just use that time to slander her publicly and try to spin a story that made her look bad. She was pretending to be a femme fatale who happened to show an inordinate amount of interest in the prince, so his accusations would have been viewed with some credibility and followed her reputation around.

For some victims, the catharsis of hearing the criminal admit to the assault, and have what happened be confirmed in the eyes of the law is worth the trauma of reliving and publicly talking about the assault in the same room as the predator, but it really depends.

It would have been nice if they had gone into detail about how and why she made that decision, but I do understand it. If we had more insight into her thought process it would probably feel less careless.