2/4

2/4 Elizabeth loses her parents before her marriage, then loses her children while they are young. When she discovers that Gerald was responsible for those deaths, her search for an answer becomes a pursuit of revenge. Baba Yaga offers the bargain that turns that pursuit into something much larger and worse. Elizabeth sacrifices hundreds of women to the Dark One before she is sent to Wonderland and remade as Rose. Gerald is sent there too, to suffer in her garden for what he did to her children. The grief explains the opening that Baba Yaga exploits. It does not make those other women expendable. By the time Elizabeth reaches the form associated with Red Rose, she has helped create an enormous number of victims herself. That is the cruelty built into the origin. The punishment she obtains for Gerald comes through extending violence to people who did not cause her loss. Becoming Rose preserves her vengeance, while making the damage spread far beyond the marriage that began it.