What's wrong with Rowena?

[Anonymoose]

Rowena paying the -na in scrips is true.

Did I say that for every collectable you bring to me, I'll pay you in scrips redeemable at Rowena's House of Splendors? I did? Good! Because that's exactly what I'll be doing! Provided Rowena approves, of course. Which she will. I promise!

That's how Rowena pays her hardworking employees, after all. No gil, just scrips. Why, I can still remember her counting them out─one scrip, two scrips, red scrips, blue scrips! She'll be positively thrilled that Zhloe's following in her footsteps. I just know it!

I see the sparkle of curiosity in your eye! “But, Zhloe,” you ask. “Without any gil to your name, however did you purchase food, drink, and other basic essentials of daily life?” You weren't wondering that? Well, Zhloe will tell you anyway!

At Rowena's House of Splendors, you can purchase an enormous flagon of pineapple juice for the low, low price of only one hundred and thirty scrips! And who needs food when you have pineapple juice? Not Zhloe, that's for sure! Mmm, pineapples...

I think that in Rowena's mind, paying them in gil might complicate the debt management cycle. She bought out their debts with gil, she's recouping that investment in gil, and seeing as the girls have horrible pasts to match those debts, some being actively sought by people with ill intent, it might be seen as "safer" and easier to control if they were integrated into and dependent on the "company town" until such time as their debts were squared and they were able to go off on their own. (I would be amazed if they didn't get some kind of transition program / starter package, as well, though surely one that was "equitable", lol.)

Rowena believes that most power is derived from money (who would argue that), and takes that reasoning to its logical extremes. She often seems to impose onto people her own brand of justice, fairness, and what is for their own good. (Again, look at poor Gerolt, lol.) One would never mistake her for a proponent of individual freedoms, but the degree to which she is a villain is something I could see being the subject of many a debate at Sharlayan Studium history classes a hundred years from now.

EDIT: The logic might be similar with adventurers, now that I think on it. Collectables are worthless save for to the collector, with the true exchange between the collector and the House of Splendors. Adventurers are subcontractors. The House receives gil from the collector, the House spends gil on wares bartered to adventurers.

We might ask: Is this is a capitalist assuming direct control over all aspects of the transaction and being the sole gil-handler so as to preserve the precarious position of "middle-man"? Or is this a matter of enforcing a safe and mutually-profitable exchange of quality goods and services for the preservation of the House's reputation and protection of its subcontractors?

Rowena would say: "Why not both?"

Which brings us back around to:
If you're lax of business ethic or lax of grip on your affairs, you're arguably better off selling your soul to a voidsent than Rowena.