from the history they gave us, understandably the church would be the 'safest' place for Estrella if the circumcisions of the family dynamic were different. yes, the priest is hella selfish, wanting to use Estrella's eyes for the people leaving her worked to death but like... it makes sense in a world-building aspect ig,, but I'm glad to see him get told off by the emperor
I kinda figured something like this would happen eventually. the pattern to some / a lot of the bullies that I've noticed are that they have darker skin then everyone else. Like, yeah they are all still Korean, and some Korean have naturally dark skin, but It was very obvious when the main bully was made to be slightly darker then the rest. A lot of the male bullies had darker skin too. the whole situation is a yikes idk how they let this past to approval. Dropped.