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Spoilers from the fourth episode of _Utawarerumono - Futari no Hakuoro_ (since
it's airing now).

In this episode a princess just returned from another country with a memory
loss; the country she returned from is now in political upheaval, and the
princess' country plans to invade it.

After regaining her memories, she tries to get back to that country to help
her friends, but towards the end of the episode her father and aids stops her,
saying to look at the big picture; she then asks her father to appoint ther as
head of the invasion forces, and while asking this she changes voice from a
soft one to a more strong one, and shifts from わたくし to われ.

I tried to understand the implication of this shift in referring to herself,
but I wasn't able to understand it; so I was wondering, what kind of
implications could have shifting from わたくし to われ?
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2022-07-16T19:00:22.310
95430
2022-07-16T23:44:14.207
2022-07-16T19:48:31.580
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question
word-choice words pronouns
Context for わたくし and われ
Short answer is that われ indicates she is speaking as a princess while わたくし is
a (very) polite _I_. So the shift exactly expresses that her memory is
recovered.

In terms of real usage, われ as a first person pronoun is obsolete. I cannot
imagine anybody of any class using it in modern speech. In modern fictions, it
is often used by noble people. わらわ is a feminine version. The choice of われ in
the particular case may suggest that the character has
assertiveness/strength/masculinity.

われ is a standard pronoun in Kanbun-style writing, and as such it may be
possibly used today in such texts (which are rare anyway).

On the other hand, わたくし is simply a polite reading of 私 and it is not
surprising that someone uses it in a formal enough setting.
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2022-07-16T23:44:14.207
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2022-07-16T23:44:14.207
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answer