Thoughts?

cardboard*

Hey, you just reminded me a girl I see on tiktok. Let me try to rephrase her:

"Pretending to be happy because it WAS the end of the word when I got class consciousness and now I can't see anything in peace"

Lol
I got you

this describes my thoughts and feelings so well!! literally at first, or at least for me, rashta wasn't dislikable. she was literally just a former slave who got the admiration of the emperor. like she wasn't antagonistic, just a girl who was uneducated who suddenly became a concubine.

like i guess it's normal for her to have some character development because of all the things that happened, but it definitely feels like the author made her worse on purpose to make her more hateable.

I think it is a subversion, for what I see author is tired of the typical and nonsense Cinderella troupe when we all know that the "prince charming" has a wife who he was engaged or knew his whole life, whose marriage was political but was also about partnership, and to begin with no man is so crazy in love to the point of making a commoner a queen without some kind of circumstances, in Normal novels we all know she would turn up to be a saint, magician or suddenly missing NOBLE parents showing up desperate to claim her and I think it is very realistic that it was all fabricated.....cuz obviously
And of course a georgious and charming slave or poor girl reached adulthood as a complete virgin with no past or kid and was not noticed by no man.....but she somehow was well kept enough to be "fragile"(meaning she didn't do manual labor)
And of course a SLAVE GIRL who suffered her whole life ACTING LIKE A KID is no mental health issues and even if it is obviously she will only have the adorable parts of infantilism and be a kid in her heart....but she will also be smart enough to out of nowhere to "find", "plot" things.....in q place where no one has no reason to like her, she had her charm as a poor girl, author makes really reference other stories like "she was a bean of fresh air" and trying to be close to the with the one she just stole the life partner
To me remarried empresses is almost relieving cuz it makes sense of all the others Cinderella stories and "angel like" MC
PS: I do not hate Rasta cuz here her actions has consequences, even if she try to not deal with it, yeah she is a traumatized girl with infantilism but the point of this story is exactly "does it excuse her behavior?" Because of that the whole world should bend for her to be happy? Should people like her?

I don't know if you are that young or is not a romance reader for long but remarried empress was a pioneer in that sense of "why does this woman who studied hard and had endless etiquette classes is suddenly acting crazy?"
The truth is if both woman where satisfied with what they have and stayed out of each other way (like queen was trying to do) this story wouldn't be any different of the history of European nobles and their wife's and mistress, and everything would end like the man wishes,
queen showed her ambitious when she chose to marry Henry, her ambitious and what she wanted was being a queen, in this world there is no greater woman job, rasta being bad at something that demands a lifetime of dedication is obvious, there is no way she would be good at it

It's a subject def worth bringing up, this wouldn't be the first author who (unknowingly?) added this kinda subtext into the story. Like Sid said, more than anything they prob wanted to put a twist on the whole innocent/saintly peasant concubine trope, but int the end it does give "dumb peasants should stay humble"-vibes. Mangas with villainess MCs often stumble into that aswell, honestly someone (ME) could write whole essays about this. It's like a whole thing, pointing out the suffering of upper-class women while invalidating issues of lower classes.

Either way, they def missed out on making Rashta an interesting villain regardless imo. I was also hoping she'd have more bite and personality bc of her history, but in the end the story's focused on 100% indulgence by making the bad guys vicious dumbasses. I feel like she gets the most bad guy points than the Emperor, and I feel it should be the other way around, he's the main cause and issue of all this.
At the beginning of the story I was actually trying to relate and understand her, like ofc she'd try to gain the upper hand with the Empress after being powerless and abused bc of that powerlessness all her life.

I think rastha is a really Interesting character, and the story tried to show that, her conflict with her first baby, the second one, her relationship with sovieshu, Duke Ergy, her first lover, Henry and empress, she is a victim, even when she is also a vicious bitch a victim is a victim and BECAUSE she is a victim she is unstable, vicious, clingy and abusive
The truth is most victims does not fit the perfect poor victim imaginary and I think it is interesting how like in real life when rastha was not fulfilling everyone's ego they had no use for her
I even like the social dynamics where it is also very common that the lowest in that chain when "climb up" think they are so much better than everyone with a meritocracy mind set "what I got was fully my efforts but what I couldn't get was fully the words fault" the same way everyone above this people are inferior cuz they didn't had to climb there while the ones bellow are inferior cuz they couldn't get there, cuz rastha didn't get a face to face help from other commoners who she knows doesn't had enough to help her she failed to see the path they made so she could get there, like the commoners journalists, assistants, maids and magicians because someone before her made that climb first the distance between commoners and nobles where not impossible to reach.
Actually I see that both the people totally hating on rastha (with reason) asking themselves why they have to show her and her "drama" so much and the people pitying her claiming she was not well done or didn't have a personality both failed so see why remarried empress is the fingerprint that other basic soap opera comics try to copy
The only way rastha could ever had a better life was staying forever as a mistress....but just as you and other readers, rastha herself had her prejudices and pride to keep, no one beats a system alone not even empresses that without help would also have to make the same decision of letting all she ever believed, her pride and humiliation go or risk to lose everything
And I liked sovieshu end not one more tyrant dying while being tortured but as a forever remembered

+as a foolish education infertile emperor who died pathetically after being declared unfit to rule for nobles and commoners alike

I mean, all the things that happened to Rashta made sense and were deserved in my opinion, and I side with Navier more for mostly one reason: their personalities. I personally feel like if you were to switch their backgrounds/situations I'd still root for Navier because of the type of woman she is.
Because yes Navier is an aristocrat who got a good education, a loving family and all of that stuff but she still took her job seriously. She took her lessons seriously and studied and she made sure she was up to date on the affairs of her country. She did her best to be respectful to everyone even if she didn't like them. She went above and beyond in those aspects because she knew her position came with certain responsibilities and she took pride in the work it took to maintain herself to a certain standard.
Meanwhile, Rashta takes pride in her *position*. When she was a slave she was resentful because she was of the lowest position in society, but once she climbed up to Emporor's mistress what did she do? She started thinking less of the people that used to be "above" her and abusing her power. When she was told it would be difficult to become Empress, her top priority wasn't learning about the country she was going to be leading - all she cared about was spending time with Soveishu. And her not learning how the country operates ends up being the thing that tears her down a lot of the time: her not knowing how the promissory notes worked, her not knowing the significance of her dealings with Duke Ergi, her not knowing that she can't just cut a maid's tongue out willy-nilly "because she's the Empress", all of those occurred because she didn't make any attempts to learn or check on what the laws or affairs of their country had to say.

Now obviously their upbringing played a major part in shaping who they grew up to be, but I definitely think if the roles were reversed Rashta would still be a stuck up noble and not a very good Empress given how impulsive/rash (and sometimes bratty) she tends to be. Whereas Navier would probably be a quiet reserved slave girl, and might even have made her own attempts to learn how to read/write or try and find her own way to pay off her slave debt. I honestly doubt she would even have wanted to get with Soveishu. Because if she went through what Rashta went through (being abandoned by Alan iirc, cuz I think he promised to free her and then didn't) then I doubt she would want to be the reason another man betrays his wife in some way, or would at the very least understand why a woman in the "wife" position in this scenario would probably dislike her.

So yeah I don't think it's classist.

I think we can say with certainty that like 90% of shoujo writers don't even consider bringing up classism. I personally agree with you on that, 0 doubts.

But, wouldn't it make the story and especially Rashta as a character not much better if it came up? As you said, this story is more so character-driven, imagine Rashta as a Marxist villainess who's still very egoistic and dumb but at least she has a point to make. At least I think that would've been nicer than a powerhungry bimbo with no substance.
You have to admit, at the start she was certainly a bit smarter than in later chapters.
She becomes solely dumb and powerhungry, yes perhaps bc of her personality, but I felt it was written more so to satisfy the readers, if you get what I mean. For the fun of seeing her dig her own grave.
The story's STILL fun regardless, but it's a missed opportunity imo, like in many shoujo stories.

It's worth looking at, how unexpectedly classist some shoujo manga/manhwa are, the subtext is almost always there, even if unintended, especially your typical villainess reborn plots fall into it.
It's almost a reflection of how slowly the public thinking is becoming less liberal, like the female nerd parallel to the sigma male grindset content on tiktok and so on. We could also bring up how shoujo content is very white-women coded, thus eliminating the struggles of discriminated peoples aka lower classes again. Don't even get me started on the way peoples with any amount of melatonin are coded in most shoujo content.
And so on, and so on- You get the gist, it's simply interesting to take a closer look and over-analyse.

I agree with you rastha would still be a bitch but she would surely be a smarter bitch, as I said in my comments she has infantilism, it is a disease where when presured and in stressfull situation the mind "regress" to a children behavior(I think author says she has botherline sinse she lets her emotions control her...my mother has it and she does also act like a child sometimes) this behavior was surely "rewarded" with sympathy, rastha was abused, used and traumatized as well as deprived of education and a uneducated person don't know the power of education, a person with her background would have trust issues, she can only depend on thirsty man cuz until now it is the only way she got anything, she hates everyone at the same time wants everyone's approval, without considering the difficulties of a late alphabetized person, that in real life most after years can't read fluently a single page imagine a old book about politics or laws
Rastha is a fast and adaptable learner, we see that when she tries to imitate Navier, she is also sensitive to her surroundings, has good intuition(in her mind most of the time she is right but it doesn't translate to her actions) and is highly sociable these kind of things shine on her even in the situation she finds herself, as a noble she would probably be satisfied with her position (as she was in the beginning of being a adored mistress, she would know that higher positions would demand a boring life style and she clearly is a outgoing and bratty person) she is a attention seeker so she was going to be the most annoying kind of pick me, white flower for sure but she would most likely be a winner, having a stable circle of bitch friends and casually creating small scandals for diching a lower class person or for flirting with a guy, popular girls are good marriage material(politically for connection with oner nobles) even more a pretty one (who is a status) and have the luxury to choose a partner so she would be set for life even more if she direct her ambition to being a envied prize(getting a good marriage) if we believe her goals to be the same as now "living in luxury and leisure, receiving attention, being in center of society"
still a bitch, most likely would ruin lots of people life's for dump and vain things, surely be a cheater, a warfull mom (most likely use them as status and extensions of herself a narcissist mom for sure besides not wanting to deal with the harsh parts of motherhood) and a commoner hater

I can't with you rashta defenders. the problem isn't her being "poor" the problem is her being a hoemwrecker (Sovieshit is a cheater too ik but so is she no matter her status, WHICH DOES INDEED MAKE HER A SL*T). also her leaving her baby daddy was her making her own bad choices. i truly don't understand u guys acting like she could never do no wrong when she littlerly killed someone without a second though meaning she always had it in her. And just because Navier is rich and high class doens't mean she doesn't experince her own hardships. She got publicly umilaited and heartbroken

I AGREE

"Rashta at the beginning" was worse than Trashta now lol because she always seemed so rash (as her name sake) and stupid. Also have you seen official art? In an official art there was Navier laughing with trashta as she petted trashta's head at the western castle gardens, showing that if trashta wasn't so vain Navier would have taken her under her wing (even though Navier, more than any one deserves her happy ending with Hienry).

I can't with you people with smooth brains who can't see any sort of nuance in the media you consume. Imagine being this unintelligent to write something like this "the problem isn't her being "poor" the problem is her being a hoemwrecker" that's some clown shit.
Anyway I'm not a "Rashta defender" but I guess for someone like you my post may read like one. I was actually really interested in other people's opinions on this matter but I forgot there are people like you.
Here I'll give you what you want:
OH MY GOD YOU'RE SO RIGHT Rashta is such a stupid HOMEWRECKER and her being "POOR" has absolutely nothing to do with this. THANK YOU THANK YOU for making me see reason HAIL OUR QUEEN NAVIER!!1!!!
I hope this satisfies you now you can go on and continue with your brainless consumption somewhere else <333

"OH MY GOD YOU'RE SO RIGHT Rashta is such a stupid HOMEWRECKER and her being "POOR" has absolutely nothing to do with this. THANK YOU THANK YOU for making me see reason HAIL OUR QUEEN NAVIER!!1!!!
I hope this satisfies you"
That does satisfy me thank you :D
Also something tells me u wouldn't be willing to listen to other opinions because of how u replied to me as I don't care how you replied to others lol. Ur yapping about this story being "classist" tells me all I need to know about every comment ur gonna make and the brain rot angry comment ur definately gonna make to reply to this one. Also, just cause u don't agree to my take on this doesn't make me "smooth brained" lol

At the end of the day she is a homewrecker and her stupid descions led her to where she is now. If she would atleast been decent towards navier no one would be nearly as angry. But she is a stupid, homewrecking, murderer at the end of the day stay mad :)

So reading comprehension isn't your strong suit ig? No one is or was trying to defend her actions or character, it's more so about how she was constructed by the author.. since yk, this all ain't rl or whatever. Just making sure the gears ain't getting rusty. By taking a closer look at the story, it's lowkey classist even if not intended, that was the whole point, that's it. Who the fuck reads this and defends Rashta's in-universe actions? No one, so sit down child.

You know that I wouldn't be willing to listen to other opinions because of how I replied to you but at the same time you don't care how I replied to others? Yhm that makes sense. I know it's hard to accept that we're stupid sometimes but what can you do?
People here made some really nice and thought-out arguments about why they like the story, Navier, why they hate Rashta and think she deserves what's coming to her, and most importantly why they think the author wrote this the way they did then you came here and wrote your "me vs those Rashta defenders" completely lacking any depth "take". People like you are annoying and ruin nice conversations with your lack of understanding of complexity. This is going to be my last 'brain rot angry reply" I'm going to give you since you're clearly looking for some mindless fight. Please go somewhere else because it's embarassing reading whatever next rubbish you write. I'll be "staying mad"

That official art was from rastha delirating while dying in jail, that was all she ever wanted