Keen Intellect?[]
Camilla gets a lot of bad press from her siblings, and part of what follows might be too speculative, but I believe that Camilla is actually pretty smart (to the point she probably wanted her siblings to underestimate her). Below is something along the lines of what I'd like to write (with the proper references oc):
Keen Intellect. Despite her reputation among her siblings for being impulsive and spoiled, Camilla appears to be quite shrewd and to have prepared for the succession contest for a long time: she secured a cadre of highly loyal underlings with the power to cast deadly curses by lifting up the Have-Nots, and she successfully hid her status as a Nen user from Benjamin as well as, seemingly, her own soldiers. Although she eventually revealed her ability in what was perceived as a reckless offensive, fear of her ability ended up serving as deterrance after she was subdued, and the ensuing trial created an opportunity for Moswana to curse Benjamin as well as to prevent him from sending other spies to her room. She was also able to destroy all evidence that her act of aggression was not an expression of self-defense. Her plan to assassinate Benjamin was rooted in an awareness of his violent and volatile personality, and if it was intended to succeed in the first place, it failed due to a chain of coincidences (Musse possessing a surveillance ability that he was able to activate immediately before her own ability manifested, and Benjamin immediately inheriting that ability without it deactivating after Musse's death).
I'll leave it to someone else to decide what to include and what to leave out. Martialmaniac (talk) 09:07, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
Leaving my personal thoughts on Camilla aside, I think saying that she has a keen intellect in this case boils down to the degree of intent and planning behind her actions. Her actions could indicate a good level of intelligence, and depending on your personal perspective could be framed as a very smart play, setting up many scenarios and removing many obstacles, but seeing as we continue to not have any insight into her thought process in an arc rife with unreliable narrators, I don't think you can completely dismiss the idea that she acts selfishly and things just happen to work out (e.g. your point about the trial, I find it hard (but not impossible) to believe at this point that she challenged Benjamin knowing that failing would allow an opportunity for Moswana to curse Benjamin, or even knowing that in the event that she failed, the fear of her ability would serve as deterrence, instead of the to me, simpler reason that attempting to kill royalty is more or less heretical in Kakin serving as deterrence).
Me saying this is not to dismiss your opinions or try to make a stand against it being included, I just want to raise points that I think should be considered before it is included.
Fandowone (talk) 09:31, 11 September 2025 (UTC)
That's perfectly fine, I brought it up precisely because I wanted someone else's opinion on it!
The fact that all the bad press she got so far is due to unreliable narrators is what prompted me to look at her actual feats, which paint the picture of a pretty shrewd tactician who has constructed a very convincing façade. It's just weird how differently she is perceived from Tserriednich, when the latter has done very little to prove his strategic abilities but is hailed as a genius, while she is treated like a vapid child when her actions so far would potentially make her the smartest (or second smartest, after Halkenburg) prince.
But, again, I've posted it here first because I agree that at this stage it's too speculative. Martialmaniac (talk)
It could just be an instance of that Michael Scott getting an award from his boss meme :) If she intended to get this current outcome, there's quite a lot that could be speculated about her ability to strategize and think, and she would definitely be way up there near or at the top of the intelligence ladder, but I'm personally waiting for inner thought confirmation on that. You could make the argument that she's doing this instinctively and that makes her talented, but her current situation seems so disadvantageous that it's hard to call it a clear good move for now.
Tserriednich is a different matter though, it feels like you're conflicting genius in the strategic sense, which is what Camilla would be, with genius in other senses. It's much easier to attribute Tserriednich as having a pretty high level of strategical acumen; beyond the characterizations of him as a genius by both Theta and Salkov in terms of his rate of learning Nen and ability to think of possible motivations for people's actions (e.g. when he asked Danjin if teaching Nen could be a condition for Kurapika's Nen), he's also managed to conjure a Nen beast without any clear intention to do so, and additionally for some people you could consider the characterization of his Guardian Spirit Beast as a reflection of his high level of distrust and doubt.
In short, the "genius" of Camilla depends on the intentions behind her actions, which are debatable, but Tserriednich's "genius" is transparent to both readers and in-universe characters.