YMMV / 1789

• Base-Breaking Character: Ronan: A relatable everyman character, or a whiny pissbaby? Be VERY careful about which option you choose.
  • Ramard and the Secret Police. Not helped by the huge differences between the French and both Japanese productions.
• Broken Base: Between whether the French, Toho, or Takarazuka productions are better.
• Designated Villain: Lazare, since all of the negativity towards him stems from the fact that, as an officer, he's just doing his job. Both times he actually plays a role in someone's death (Ronan's father at the beginning, and several revolutionaries in 'Nous ne sommes') were approved by the law, and he never shows any personal hatred towards the revolutionaries, just frustration at the way they behave.
• Karma Houdini: Although Lazare is the Designated Villain and probably doesn't deserve that much against him, he does serve as an anti-hero, and so you'd think the heroes (especially Ronan, whose father he shot at the beginning of Act I) would get revenge. Nope.
  • Inverted with Ramard. You think he's going to kill the Count of Artois and therefore get away with all his transgressions (and become a Karma Houdini), but then the Count kills Ramard instead.
  • Artois in the Takarazuka Revue version, the show's Big Bad, gets off scot-free. In Real Life, he later becomes Charles X of France as well.
    • SLIGHTLY made better by the fact that, historically, he will get kicked off the throne in 1830.
• Strangled by the Red String: Ronan/Olympe. One second, they hate each other. The next, they're declaring their undying love for one another.
• Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Given how controversial the French Revolution is to this day, it's only natural.
  • Some audience members found Ronan's desire for blood after his father's death to be whiny and immature, given that he escalated the situation with Lazare to an all out brawl, causing his father's death.
  • Others find Marie Antoinette's complaining about being away from Fersen annoying, given that other characters suffer much more and her attempts to hide her affair with Fersen directly endanger Olympe. Not helped by the Japanese productions upping Fersen and Marie Antoinette's screentime so they're on par with Ronan and Olympe, the alleged leads.

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