Tikky want to read (All 981)
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I kinda feel like she's the child of Lucas. No way they make a point of him having vanished, despite the impossibility of it, and don't make him show up again. He's basically Chekhov's invalid prince.
I originally dropped looking for stories like this one, but reading »Mercenary Enrollment« yesterday invigorated my feelings towards this certain trope. I'm talking about the »What if a trained soldier / assassin / hitman / mercenary / whatever was thrown into a peaceful environment, where nobody knows about his abilities and has to lead a normal life?«
It doesn't have to be exactly like that, but something similar would be nice. Action is a most in a way, I guess. My favorite Manga of all time (except for Jojo's, but Jojo's doesn't count, as it is above any kind of rankin; it is absolute) »Dendrobates« is also that kind of story. A japanese kid, growing up in one of the worst parts of colombia, becoming an ace sicario (colombian hitman) and returning to japan as an adult, to become a police officer to hide his second life as a hitman in the middle of Tokyo. Mercenary Enrollment was even set in Highschool. I dig that. But I initially gave up on this trope, because I did read it here and there, but every time it was simply disappointing. So, if anyone knows a story that takes this trope seriously, I would love to hear about it. Might be too much to ask for, though, as most authors seem to think this is a premise where you simply can't take the MC seriously, as they want to have their cake and eat it, too (which means, in this case, they want a fun teenage story, but they also want to show a hardened soldier type of character at the age of 17 and I guess you know how that is a problem. You may to it, but it always seem like a parody instead of an earnest story).
So ... that's about it. Any ideas ...?
um the only type of story that i can think is kinda similar to what ur talking abt is called “history’s strongest manager” or smthn like that. personally i feel like the story honestly kinda shit lol i ended up dropping it after a while it rlly isn’t the best manhwa out there but u could have a look at it ig ??
not entirely sure if this is exactly what you're looking for but i can think of,
http://www.mangago.zone/read-manga/the_descent_of_the_demonic_master/ > cripple first life, demonic master second life, ordinary person third life; trying to live a normal life whilst holding all the experience he has in his past life
http://www.mangago.zone/read-manga/black_haze/ > strongest mage thrown into high school whilst hiding his identity (10/10 recommend)
http://www.mangago.zone/read-manga/master_of_gu/ > god in his past life, reborn & has all his powers still, hiding his identity while gaining more power
http://www.mangago.zone/read-manga/the_world_is_money_and_power/ > delinquent (no clue what his identity is) that enrolls in a gambling school not to gain power but justice
Demonic Master is good, but that one I already read. Master of Gu was something I had on my list, but I didn't really check what it was about, so it's interesting if it actually fits the criteria. Black Haze seems to be pretty much what I'm looking for, I guess that's what I will be reading next. The last one, I would have to check out, don't know if it's going to be interesting to me.
Anyway, thank you very much! :D
I'm gonna check it out anyway. Thanks a lot ^^
if you end up reading master of gu, i have to warn you; while it IS a good story, most of the characters there are dumb, like real dumb. it felt as though the author put no effort into making the characters, but it is refreshing to see a villain mc that does work. on the other hand, you will not be disappointed with black haze, it's one of the best action webtoons out there imo
I'm really getting my hopes up for Black Haze, ngl xD
And okay, thanks for the warning. Welp. I mean, I read stories with really braindead characters before, it's sometimes a little stressful to read, depending on how it plays out. But I guess I'm gonna see what happens. Can't be more than infuriating and in the worst case, I'm just gonna drop it.
Thanks again :D
Now let me be clear first: I don't dislike the story itself, nor the characters (per se), I also like the idea that they have a subplot of the Duke and the Duchess becoming closer, which is a plotline fit to spawn a separate Webtoon on its own, ordinarily.
But I'm now at chapter 23, about halfway into the story as far as it's available as of now, and with every passing chapter, the bitter aftertaste of the premise gets stronger, which is why I have to air my grievances here.
You see, the problem is that I don't hate any of the people of the Sheridan Duchy, unless they are meant to be hated, like that Bessie bitch (and don't forget about her yet, I'm not done with that yet, she's just not my main gripe here), which seemed to have a character design that screamed "I'M A VILLAIN" in the same way that awful Batwoman trailer yodeled "I'M A WOMAN". But I digress: I don't know if the current king is meant to be unlikeable at the beginning, as he even dishes out a dig toward our Duke, as he speaks about him being surrounded by "mongrels", while being in favor of killing a small child. While, yes, it is his "fault" that she has to die, because he could have spared her. Yet even the Duke himself didn't actually spare the MC, he simply couldn't break the law by killing a minor. The king said it was fine, and we all know: People shown to kill children are bad. Killing adults doesn't really matter most of the time, but children and animals means you are evil. Got it.
Like, I don't know if he improves as a character to be an ally of sorts, but for now, he's evil, right? But then you have to think again. While yes, the MC thanks the Duke for giving her a longer life expectancy - when she originally thought she wouldn't grow older than 12, as her brother had always said he was going to kill her, as soon as he was the one in power - one should never forget that those are the naive words of a child that is yet blind to the world.
10 years sound like a long time and she has had barely anything to live for until now. She didn't know anything but cruelty, was hardly old enough to even understand the reality of death and the worth of what it meant to be alive. At the same time, as soon as she was old enough to have a grasp of these intangible concepts, she was told she would die soon, so she never had any goals in life, no freedom to even find a hobby aside from talking to her rocks and playing in the dirt, and didn't even know what she can or can't do. And despite all of that, she still didn't want to die even now!
I know, the king never said it was "for her sake" that he wanted the Duke to just kill her, but you have to understand: you can't blame him for that, because the whole story wants you to forget that gnawing reality, because if you don't, the Duke suddenly becomes a wretched, cold, inhumane monster. For that, even Quentin, the one guy who openly states that he loves children and wants the best for MC, therefore she should be killed, does not, in fact, argue how cruel he is being to her, but instead goes on about how the Duke wouldn't be able to raise a child with his own hands and kill it a few years later with those same hands.
No one ever acknowledges the fact, that MC is now a child who knows nothing and killing her now would be, ultimately, mercy. In ten years, she will be older, no longer as naive, but still a child at the core. The difference is that by then she will have learned about the beauty of the world and life which she hadn't known prior to her life at the Sheridan Duchy; her thoughts and actions would then be informed by years of new experiences, filled with love and happiness, creating inevitable hopes and dreams for a future that would never come. Why teach her etiquette, when once she would be old enough to need it, she could only use it to kneel down gracefully, when the Duke cuts off her head? Why let her experience having friends and playing around, making the circle of people who would grief for her bigger by the second, when there was no one in this world who even knew her before that? Her entire world had ceased to exist when her blood related family was murdered. But now?
Even if the author would have portrayed her as that kid that wouldn't make a fuss - even though she made a bit of a fuss even when she had nothing in life and knew nothing in life, so it's unlikely she wouldn't beg for her life later - to make it easier for the Duke or to thank him for giving him this grace period of ten years, it wouldn't change the fact that it would be the cruelest thing you can do to someone, especially a child.
There's a reason why children with incurable and ultimately fatal illnesses are exempt from their duty of attending school. Or why there are foundations to have children experience their last wish in the real world.
Because when you are sick, there are things you cannot easily do, as you are withering away. But MC isn't sick. If she wants to climb a mountain, nothing can stop her (aside from the Duke and her Prisoner Status, of which the latter is mostly for show if we are honest). She is fully healthy and knows it. The world is open to her, but as soon as she would be old enough to just set foot in this world, she will lose her head.
There's a saying that the older you get, the more you cling onto life and that isn't only true for old people. The more things you have experienced, the more things you wish to experience. Once she experiences some form of love and gets to be a teenager, she will wish for romantic love, maybe a family of her own. All the things she knows she will never be old enough to have and it's not because of some inevitable circumstances that are beyond anyone's means, but because of a decision that was made by someone deliberately. Even illnesses are usually cursed and seen as unfair, but what will she think this is? She never did anything to anyone, she was simply unfortunate enough to be born as the daughter of a useless King.
I get it – I know, and you know, and I know that you know she won't actually die at the end, because this is her story. The author won't just cut off her head at the end. But here's the thing: The characters in this mess aren't supposed to be aware of that. They don't know they are part of a trope-y RoFan story. To their knowledge, Clarisse is going to die on the day of her 18th birthday and that's a fact.
It would have been way better for the Duke's integrity, had he been the one to want to kill her and the king, who knew about the law, had been the one to say she shall be kept around until she's of age. It wouldn't have mattered, since they didn't seem to want him to leave a good first impression anyway.
But knowing this is the backdrop of everything we see, it makes all the people in-the-know about her fate seem more cruel than anything. Acting cold toward her just barely keeping her alive would be more than enough and it wouldn't make her want to keep living, if she has to be kept alive only to be killed in the end anyway. Showing a child love, just to kill her off, that's a lot more inhumane.
On the matter of her being kept barely alive, I also have to mention how odd it felt that it seems she had no noticeable health issues. Playing in the dirt all day and being hated, but apparently well fed and not otherwise mistreated – that doesn't seem to be in character at all, for the people who had raised her to this age.
And about that Bessie bitch: First off, why is nobody in this house communicating with each other? Like, the knight who just heard something outrageous didn't think of going to the Duke right away to inform him? Why? He didn't seem to hold a grudge against his lord, in fact, he seemed rather loyal. Why WOULDN'T he warn the Duke of a potential fraud, a spy at worst, who slept in a room adjacent to him? Instead he just takes her words for granted, that it's because of the Duke's suspicions toward the Duchess, that they have such a distant relationship. And when he sees them interact with each other in a way that barely seemed close, he throws away everything he had seen for three fucking years and forgot all about anything he had heard in the dungeon, about the Duchess not being who they thought she was. It makes no sense to turn around and just forget all about it, without even discussing it and even if he discussed it in a chapter after the part I have already read, it would mean he simply delayed talking about this to the Duke for an unnecessary long time. Why have the bitch say that shit in the first place, basically stabbing her real employer in the back, just to do fuck all with it?
What I want to say with all of this, especially with the two additional points: Of course, I did mention everything I was annoyed with - I was at it anyway – but they kind of go hand in hand, in a weird way. It's like the author had an idea and they were doing well with portraying the characters themselves, but beyond that, nothing was particularly well thought out. She sees the family she was with for her whole life die brutally in front of her, but it barely shows any repercussions on her psyche. Her brother had his throat cut next to her, she would have bathed in his blood. But nope, nothing but a few tears, because she thought she had to die as well. Which, btw, would have psychological repercussions on its own. Yet in the end, she doesn't even suffer from nightmares or any other sign of trauma.
Another example, which isn't a plot hole in and of itself, but speaks to this issue as well: MC is very thankful, because it's her shortsighted way of being happy about having more time (when obviously, that would introduce hell to her, as soon as the day of death would actually approach) and goes around saying she's a prisoner with no problem. But when she speaks to Noah Sineth, even asks him to be her friend, she doesn't even mention that they wouldn't have to be friends for very long anyway. Like, she explains that she's a prisoner, but I don't get the feeling that he understands what it means for her to be a prisoner of war and why she was even taken as a prisoner. He doesn't tell her that she shouldn't speak about her ability because he thinks it's dangerous to her per se, but that she wouldn't have a peaceful life, likely recalling all the tragedy he must have heard about his own mother's life, as she had the same ability and MC would be the only one with that ability now. But that is also why it would likely serve as leverage to save her life – it's at least a power valuable enough to attempt using it that way. But instead, they use that halfhearted way of communicating in a situation in which they were already talking about things kids wouldn't normally talk about, in order for him to give her the shittiest advice imaginable, considering her desperate need for some value to her own life.
Again, I'm well aware she's likely not going to die and end the story that way. But that's me – or you, fellow reader, by extension. Why do the people IN THIS story seem to know that, when it shouldn't be that way? They treat the fact that this girl is going to die so fucking half-assedly, it makes me mad. On that note, I want to add that I am someone who also says you shouldn't read and complain when you have a problem with a premise or something else that is obvious, because it doesn't make sense to read and complain then. But the problem isn't the premise itself, even if the title of the thread might suggest otherwise, I know - it's as I said: The way it is treated is simply shit. But with that irresponsible treatment of the matter at hand, the whole premise turns into a table of shit irreversibly.
sorry, this is so long I'm not reading it -- but I really respect and commend you for writing such a lengthy comment lol
Yk what, if Im procrastinating my english hw. I might as well not procrastinate this HERE WE GO.
OKAY IM BACK, yeah all fair points overall I do think this is just flawed writing that can be seen in many stories of this kind where MC just dont suffer any kind of trauma cause they MC thats not important to the story. If I had any story to recommened where the MC still struggled with PTSD if what they went through in the past I would.
The other point you made, I do believe that the king isnt a bad guy he is rather pushing the Duke, I do want it to be the King just wanting to push the Duke out of his "I will follow you forever" mentality rather than HAHAHAH fight me bitc if you wanna try nonsense. Cause the way they are writing the king is just...not evil enough? Like he states in the recent chapter in a way he is like a puppeted king, he does everything his mother wants and he chills, maybe he is tired of it and wants the Duke to make a move. I really hope they dont write that just to forget about it later. Thats why he wants to see the Duke raise the girl like a chiken and hesitate when having to serve her in a platter.
You wrote 2k words and that is f'in impressive
Took me a good 5 min to read that and I think I forgot some stuff you said already so forgive me if I say something you already brought up lol. You're right logically, but at the same time, you're kinda wrong about certain things too.
The duke is the one that wanted to let her live longer. Is that cruel to her? Yes, but remember the duke is a human himself. He probably felt guilty killing a child that didn't do anything wrong and therefore brought up the laws as an excuse.
He probably never realized he'd get attached and assumed that since he'd have shown her as much kindness as he can (by being nice and treating her well), he'd have made up for killing her family, and he'd have the (selfish) satisfaction of doing everything in his power to make things up to her.
It's cruel to HER, yes, but it doesn't make the duke a bad person. He was simply being selfish for his own sake so he doesn't have nightmares of killing off an innocent child for the rest of his life, if that makes sense? He just didn't think it through.
As for not telling Noah about her death, that's actually already addressed in the manhwa itself if you got that far yet (don't want to spoil).
Next, about her psychological state on her family being killed. I didn't go back and read the first chapter and most stories have a similar premise so I may mix some stuff up and this may not be fully accurate, but remember her mental state was already bad before her family was killed. If anything, the duke SAVED her from abuse by killing her family.
Sure seeing someone wave around a sword and your family becoming corpses around you is traumatizing normally, but what if you're already so accustomed to abuse that you assume everyone will be scary and treat you badly?
Atp, no matter what they do to you, you think it's normal and if they show you a bit of kindness, they're the best person in the world. It's weird that she doesn't have nightmares of her family tormenting her after that past ofc, but I wouldn't call it strange that she's not afraid or traumatized by the duke.
And afaik, SHE'S the one asking to go to school and learn things, the duke didn't force her to do anything so it's not like she's being forced to learn etiquette
Since I didn't read on any further yet, I can't make a point about the current King and his true motives, but I never ruled out that he would become someone who "allies" with the Protagonist, that's why I even mentioned it. He didn't come off as that evil from the get go, he just displayed the "obligatory" villain traits superficially. Thus, I questioned if he was the bad guy at all. Again, I cannot judge it though. And I would love to say that would be great, but to be honest, the author just "forgetting" about it, would literally tie into the things I have listed, which all shared that exact phenomenon. So I wouldn't get my hopes up.
When it comes to trauma: Once you get used to a situation, your mind adjusts to protect itself. So a lot of times, I agree in not showing heaps of trauma, because it would seem forced, since their traumatizing moment wasn't something more or less swift, but something they grew into, in most of the stories I have read. But this one is very special, because there are very, very few stories in which the protagonist is actually just a little kid.
They are usually transmigrators, reincarnations or regressors, and therefore a lot older than they look. In this case though, she's literally just a child and had something horrible happen to her, but nah, why bother with it, right?
I do see where you are coming from, but there's little in the story that carries this theorie. Theorizing about logical outcomes from given settings is one thing, but theorizing things that HAVE happened, when neither show nor tell support it, doesn't quite work.
But what do I mean? If you read the chapter in which the Duke "spares" Clarisse, you see none of the things you mention. He doesn't seem to have any thought of sparing her per se, because he will kill her either way, and it doesn't seem as if he actually had that type of empathy toward her that you claim he did.
Yet if we say you are completely correct about his motives, with him trying to do this in order to "make up" for the family he killed, that would actually make him even more cruel. The notion of him getting attached isn't the problem, someone else would likely kill her instead if she has to die by royal decree; again, the whole story seems to try to make you forget that it's cruel to her, way more than it is to him. But if he actually did all of that because he couldn't (or wouldn't) think that far, that just makes him cruel by virtue of being thoughtless on top of being selfish.
You see, unlike common believes, most people in this world aren't cruel because they love seeing people suffer. Most cruel people just don't see what they are doing to the people that are suffering because of them, because they don't spare the thought. Saying he just didn't think of something that would take a single brain cell to conclude, doesn't make him less of a shitty human being.
Especially since your throughline is that he doesn't want to kill an innocent child. But an 18-year-old is no less a child, and if he doesn't raise her as some sort of assassin or thief, she will likely be no less innocent at that age either.
As I mentioned in my original post, they didn't give it any thought to show her having wounds or anything, it didn't even seem as if she was especially haggard or anything. She wasn't constantly beaten or witnessed constant brutality. Again, this is also thanks to the author not thinking things through, most likely, but that's what we ended up with nonetheless.
I have mentioned this in my earlier answer to @*Clover*, but it's one thing if you are used to extreme circumstances and have to adjust and also, if the protagonist is transmigrated into the body, regressed or reincarnated, so they are older in mind. But here, she's really just a kid and nothing at all suggests that she frequently witnessed blood baths first hand. Even being being beaten - if that even happened to a great extent - or, as a child, being told "I will kill you", is something entirely different from seeing the only people you knew as family slaughtered right in front of you and having a bloodied sword directed at you. Ignoring that as if nothing happened simply doesn't fly. At that moment, he wasn't her friend and she didn't thank him for killing her family either. She simply didn't react at all, which seemed completely weird. At no point did she think the Duke was her friend, when he came and killed her family. She was one of them, so he was her enemy as much as he was their enemy.
And yes, I'm not saying he's forcing her to do anything. I'm saying he's the adult and he shouldn't let her. Because, again, the more experiences you have made, the more experiences you will want to make. Of course she WANTS to make all of these experiences; she WANTS to learn about the world and the beauty of life, but that is exactly what's going to ruin her the most at the end.
I actually went back and reread the earlier chapters just to check, and the Duke's actions are definitely ambiguous at least.
He says cold things and claims that he'll never sympathize with her, but his actions, including treating her well, and removing her shackles amd helping her up instead of just imprisoning her and waiting until she's 18 to kill her (like why would you leave someone to roam free if they're really a threat as he claims she is)
While it could just be the author not having braincells and me reading too much into a shallow attempt at making us think the duke is actually a good person, if someone irl did or said what he did, this is exactly the conclusion I'd draw about them - that they're trying to rationalize something they did on emotion.
And I'm not saying the duke is empathizing with her either. He's clearly not. He doesn't give a shit about her own feelings on the matter. He selfishly chose to spare her, and I think it's bc he felt bad killing an innocent person. Note how he doesn't actually agree with the emperor telling him that he has to kill her on her 18th bday.
And I'm not saying she's suddenly any less innocent as an adult or he thinks that she suddenly will be a threat when she's 18 when she's not now.
He probably will feel bad having to execute ANY innocent person. If they dragged in innocent adult servants and tried to get him to execute them, if there was a law that might pardon them, I'm pretty sure he'd recite those laws too.
It's like what the duke feels is more like a selfish desire to not spill the blood of innocent people that aren't soldiers. Kinda like a moral code that he doesn't want to break? He won't actually want to kill her when she's an adult either. there just won't be a law to protect her then so he'll begrudgingly have to do it bc he can't refuse the order anymore wo going against his oath.
So what I think is happening is that he's selfishly trying to make it up to her rn so he doesn't feel as guilty killing her later "bc I at least let her live the happiest life possible and protected her as long as I could".
It's extremely cruel towards her bc making her happy means she wants to live more, but that's probably his (very selfish and not empathetic) logic.
Don't get me wrong, I don't like the duke at all. In fact, I rather dislike him. I genuinely want the story to end with him trying to kill her on orders, then her escaping bc he wavered and couldn't pull through and her friends want her to live so they saved her from him, and then him regretting not breaking his oath for her sooner forever bc that mf made her live her whole childhood making her think she would eventually die at his hands to the point that she couldn't even fathom having hope for the future. Bro should def suffer for that
But again. The duke himself isn't cruel. It's true that thoughtlessness and selfish "good intentions" can cause more misery than intentional cruelty, but again, it doesn't make the duke a bad person. It just makes him stupid and incompetent.
Like I said, it's cruel to her, but he's not actually cruel himself. You can hate him for being dumb or not having enough empathy to realize that he's doing something wrong, but you can't hate his intentions, if that makes sense?
Also, while you're right that there isn't enough info about her past to draw a conclusion about her treatment other than "She was abused", we do know is that her brother wanted her to die and didn't even treat her like a human being.
From that, we can infer that she was already expecting to be killed off sooner or later so to her, the duke wouldn't be any scarier than the average person she met, since to her, they all want her dead anyways.
Also about having someone else kill her, what difference does it make? He's still the one who consented to it after all.
And ironically, I'd think that being a kid would make it so she's less traumatized by people dying. Idk if this is TMI but... I've seen someone drown to death in front of me while they were being rescued as a 7-year-old and I wasn't even fazed. But if that happened now, I'd at least feel horrible even if it's not outright trauma.
Kids don't really comprehend death very easily, take it from me lol.
So when the duke killed her brother instead of her and then immediately said that he couldn't kill her + freed her from being a prisoner, to her, he'd have become her savior after that first moment of fear that she was going to be executed. Her brother being killed also wouldn't really have hit home as cold blooded murder to a real kid.
So I think she has much worse traumas than a fleeting moment of fear that she'd be executed by the person that "saved her" (he didn't actually but from her perspective, he did) or him murdering her family.
The duke has also never explicitly said that he will kill her. It was the emperor or his aide telling him to kill her to which he simply doesn't refuse. So it's not like he himself has ever shown hostility towards her.
As for letting her have what she wants (education and the like), I mean.... Would you like it better if he refused and restricted her freedom and forced her to do only what he allows or locked her in prison to kill her when she's 18?
It seems we are talking at cross purposes here, so I will start with this: I didn't actually mean he doesn't treat her nicely with some intent of just not wanting to treat her wrongly, I meant the moment he "spared" her, before he took her in. All of that felt rather whimsical, just treating her well, because she's now in his care and he doesn't comprehend treating a child badly. But as he spares her, all of that intent you are mentioning isn't there, he just states that it's against the law to kill her right then and there.
The fact that he "doesn't agree" makes no difference, because he's inherently someone who has been loyal to him until now, obviously, and wouldn't simply stop over a child. He himself doesn't understand Quentin's notion of him getting attached to Clarisse. When the Emperor decrees she's going to die, obviously she has to die, unless you kill or otherwise overthrow him, and that is certainly a bit of a stretch in that moment, don't you think?
And again, even for an adult, "sparing" people, just to ultimately kill them later, is cruel and thoughtless. Literally "Hey, I'm not killing you, but ya still on death row. Too bad, eh?"
If he feels bad or not, killing any type of innocent person, is not something we can confirm from him coldly spilling blood and then saying "But I can't break the law that nobody before broke". I'm not saying you are wrong about this point, just that there isn't enough conclusive evidence to tell.
He doesn't let her live "the happiest life possible", it's obvious he just has her live a moderate life, as I stated above, whimsically wanting her to be healthy while under his surveillance. Like Quentin having to tell him she needs to get fresh air in order to be healthy. There's simply none of the things you see in him in this story. He gives her thinks he sees as nothing special, while he's a noble and only knows noble children - compared to those, she's a commoner even with the things she got from him. That's hardly "the happiest life".
I know what you are saying, but that's not correct either. You say it doesn't make him cruel, but stupid instead. Do you remember the point I made, about how most cruel people just don't think about what they are doing to the people that suffer because of them? So, are you telling the people suffering: "They aren't cruel people, they are just stupid"?
In the end, being stupid doesn't exempt you from the things you end up being because of your stupidity. But I do agree wholeheartedly that he's thoughtless and thus an idiot, as that is what I argued in the first place. And yet his actions - informed by his whimsical, thoughtless attitude - remain cruel and inhumane nonetheless.
I took all of that into account. In my original post, I mention that her brother told her he would kill her on two seperate points I was making (if I remember correctly). Once when I said right now she already didn't expect to live past the age of 12 and once more, when I mention how a child being beaten and told they were going to die soon is entirely different from having people slaughtered in front of you.
And while I don't want to speak on your trauma, or lack thereof, I have to say that seeing someone drown is not a spectacle in and of itself. To the person who drowns, it's one of the most agonizing deaths imaginable, but watching it can be almost tranquil. I also mentioned how she was just old enough to start understanding the concept of death.
While you're a child, your mind and body undergo constant change. That stops once you are around 20, where your brain reaches its peak and starts going moldy again. During that time, especially the earlier part of it, you change with every year and just from 7 to eight, your brain leaps miles. Adding to that is the fact that she was at least verbally confronted with the notion of death and would have a better understanding of it than you likely did at the age of seven. I also explain that, even though I certainly didn't have to, because outside of logic, we can tell she knows what it means by how stressed she gets. SHE doesn't want to die. There's no way you can argue that "death" didn't sink in with her.
Still, in conclusion: MC is more mature, by age and circumstances, in addition to witnessing deaths way more graphic than the one in your example, which is why they are incomparable.
Again, he didn't free her. She's still a prisoner and he constantly tells her she is. He also came in with the soldiers and likely gave most - if not all - of the orders to rally the royal family together and shackle them. She is only thankful when he doesn't kill her, because of childish shortsightedness, which is fine, because it's normal - that's why I blame him. But overall, she would have had a horrible experience, on top of having a damocles sword above her head, because she was there when they said she would have to die and the story makes it clear that she is fully aware of it. If he himself holds the sword, though it would likey be his duty, or if someone else kills her instead, doesn't change the fact that he would have to approve of it and hand her over to die. He doesn't need to show hostility toward her in order to be her enemy in that moment, she simply chose not to see him as such. But she didn't feel like she was being saved, when her brother was cut down and she seems to understand perfectly well that she's a prisoner of war as well.
As for your last point: Indeed, that is what I even said in my initial post. It would have been ultimately more merciful to either kill her right away or put her in a prison where she didn't gain hopes and dreams for a future that doesn't happen. I'm not saying he has to beat her on the regular or starve her, but don't give her what she wants, let her learn and do all of that, if you are aware that she's going to die. None of the story, especially at the beginning when all of those choices were made, suggest that he would overthrow the trone. But that is what he would have to do, if, at any given moment, he thought of saving her, because the Kind made it clear that she had to die and he will want him to show some proof when it's done.
I can only repeat myself here: "I'm well aware she's likely not going to die and end the story that way. But that's me – or you, fellow reader, by extension. Why do the people IN THIS story seem to know that, when it shouldn't be that way? They treat the fact that this girl is going to die so fucking half-assedly, it makes me mad."
I also just randomly thought of something and checked what I wrote in my initial post:
"But nope, nothing but a few tears, because she thought she had to die as well. Which, btw, would have psychological repercussions on its own."
You say she wouldn't feel traumatized, for some reason, because she wasn't old enough to understand. And I know I did mention in my last post that there's clear evidence she understands and in that quote from my initial post, I mention that. The moment her brother dies and only she is left, she is TERRIFIED. Every situation that gets you terrified is sufficient to cause you to have nightmares, ESPECIALLY if it's a fleeting situation that still effects you very deeply. If she was used to it enough to be just fine, she would also not have shown how much sheer terror she was in at the notion of dying - same goes for her not understanding the situation, because why would she react like that if she didn't know what it meant?
That scene alone shows us that she's far from empty inside, and not at all used to being told to die in a truly menacing way - she's absolutely afraid of dying and the moment affects her deeply. She also knows this is what's going to happen inevitably in a few years' time, but we are supposed she won't care in ten years or feel pressured by her status as a literal death row inmate.
I usually forget to mention details here and tehre, but this was such a clear cut situation, I organically brought in everything I noted in my mind during reading, in order to sort and consolidate my opinion. So, yeah, point still stands and I've already made it clear originally.
Ugh it deleted my reply and I'm not retyping.
I agree with some of what you say and not the rest let's just agree to disagree bc I don't have the patience to type all that again lmao
Fair enough, it happened to me before. I pre type in Word, because it sucks to lose a lot of text and I never re wrote it either.
At this point, there isn't much that can be done but agree to disagree. To me, the story makes itself pretty clear, whether that's involuntary or not, but if you see it differently, nothing more can be said.
I still enjoy discussing things like this in stories, which is why I write comments in the first place, because I'm interested in how they are viewed and simply saying things are this way or that doesn't make it true, if there's no logical throughline for it that could be followed and pinned down by certain facts or evidence.
In short, I enjoy having had this type of conversation, because it broadens the mind and begs to question, re-evaluate, or consolidate opinions.
Good idea, I'll probably start doing that for longer comments too lol. Agreed about the comments and discussions though, it's not about who's right, and there's multiple ways to look at a story no matter how obviously it's spelled out in the plot.
What I'm saying is not completely baseless, bc there have been a lot of scenes where the dialogue can be interpreted in multiple ways.
For instance, in the first chapter, the duke pauses to consider something when she begs for her life and THEN kills her brother.
It's very possible that he made his decision to protect her in that moment after seeing how the brother treats her and realizing that she's not evil rather than it being a pre-made decision based on the laws of the empire (esp bc why else would he even drag her there in chains with his soldiers just to release her immediately after? Could have just told her to follow him and that she'll be safe from the get go instead of leaving it for after her bro started blabbing.
This is backed by how in chapter 3(?), he thinks that she was not considered to be part of the royal family "based on how she was treated", implying he didn't know until before he saw the way she was treated by her brother.
As for her trauma, you can see in the flashbacks how abusive her brother and the queen were to her, with the prince hitting her for simply being in the same space, also implied to constantly tell her that she would be killed the moment he ascends to the throne, and the queen saying "a member of the royal family doesn't need to be one to discipline her", implying that she would make someone else punish the princess instead. At the very least, you can tell that she wasn't treated like a human and she was used to regular death threats already.
She's basically already prepared for death and while you say she was terrified until it was revealed she wouldn't be dying, I think her reaction is actually very mild for someone on the brink of death. She doesn't even try to escape or struggle despite her feet not being bound.
She was clearly either sane enough to realize that running away wouldn't help (not very scared) or she was abused so much that she didn't even realize escape was a possibility. In either case, what the duke did to her wasn't scary enough to cause major trauma when he wasn't even hostile towards her in any way unlike her brother was to her.
That's just a few shorter examples and I had a lot more that I typed before but I'm still upset that it was all deleted and don't want to put in all that effort again.
But I think we can both agree that Mr. Duke guy is a selfish thoughtless asshole that wants everything to be done his way but can't take responsibility for anything be does from how he was so callous that he just pushes her onto his aide (after ignoring said aide's opinion on how to deal w her even) at first until he starts getting attached instead of properly treating her like his ward from the get go xD
He's a very unlikable character and I doubt I'll ever forgive him for being a horrible guardian at the start. It's not ok that he's being a good dad now that he likes her, bc he's a horrible human being that can't consider what's best for someone and treat them with the respect they're due right from the start.
On that note, yes, I'd call people that cause problems for others unintentionally "stupid" or "thoughtless" and not "cruel".
It's like manslaughter vs murder really. The result is the same but they're classified separately for a reason.
I would call a murderer cruel but not someone that committed manslaughter. Ofc it doesn't excuse it and it doesn't mean they shouldn't take responsibility, or that they shouldn't be punished for it, but there's an inherent difference in the two.
Carelessness and thoughtlessness can be just as bad as intentional harm, and the victims have every right to hate them just as much even if it's an accident, bc they DID cause irreparable harm, but that doesn't make them cruel, if that makes sense.
It's kinda hard to explain but I hope that makes sense lol
Besides the point of this discussion. Personally Im enjoying these essay reads, didnt expect to do this this weekend but Im loving it.
Right, I considered that hilarious scene with the brother being killed first for a second too, initially, but chucked it, because: The Royal Family of Grezekaiah had fallen from grace in a way you would rarely see, with the enemy basically getting their victory handed to them, because the soldiers were begging for food instead of fighting. The royals had no foot to stand on and pretending to be high and mighty, even thinking of getting granted one last wish in that position, was, ultimately, too arrogant. Bro, even if Rachel Zegler had happened to sit next to him, I would have killed him first, just because he pissed me off that much. Like, where do you get off asking for anything, dude? xD
I meant that as an actual point, not just a simple joke, because it makes sense to kill him for his proud attitude, because he deserved the punishment for how poorly him and his family reigned over their country. They were not even worthy of being called nobles, let alone royals. So it's hard to read much more into it.
It's also the King who mentions that she was clearly not treated as a royal, as far as I remember, and it was mentioned because of the dirty clothes she wore. She was hit, yes - with an open handed slap. Again, no mentions of any scars or health issues in particular, aside from her taking vitamins, which would seem like a reasonable thing to give a child growing up in the north, since they were making a point of looking after her health. I already acknowledged the fact that she would have been beaten now and then, but slapping someone around and telling them to die, again, is something entirely different from experiencing gruesome murder. Which is also why she's visibly terrified.
It's impossible to argue that she isn't completely frozen in fear from what she looks like. If this was my story, we already know there's a few things I would have changed, but this wouldn't be one of them. That's also the reason I singled this moment out as the best to kill her, instead of dragging it out.
I will try explaining it this way: When writing a story, the best you can do to write certain characters somewhat organically is to "get in character"; to "feel their emotions" as best as you can.
Now put yourself into this position: You sit there, with your arms shackled, just a small child against a room full of adult men with swords and armor. Your brother, who's much taller and physically stronger than you, who was a source of your fear, had been cut down easily; your parents, whom you were afraid of, who never acknowledged and seemed much bigger and more powerful than you could ever be, untouchable, were killed without much hassle; everyone around you wants to see you dead as well and you are nothing. You have never left this place, which is now in shambles and drowning in blood. You have nowhere left to run, and nobody to turn to. Where would you go? Why would you even bother? That said, you still don't actually want to die.
You would simply feel the dread of the situation, making you unable to move, while your natural instincts of survival make you beg for your life, because even people who WANT to die would feel their survival instincts kicking in as they take their own life - it's simply human. If anything, that she didn't run would have made it clear that there was nothing to run toward, though I can't tell for sure if the author realized that's what this action claimed to be true.
Running or crawling is something people who think they have someone left to protect them would do, or maybe someone who feels they still have something to do, so they desperately try to move, even if it's futile. In her case, there's nothing like that. That doesn't mean she's not utterly horrified, or that she's totally prepared to die here. The only thing to highten the appearance of someone in terror even more would have been to show her piss on the floor, which was likely not done so she could keep some dignity, not to tell you she's not that afraid. In fact, it's made clear that she was afraid, otherwise she wouldn't have been so happy to hear she gets a few extra years (again, it's shortsighted - common sense tells you this is not a good idea).
And, again, he didn't have to show hostility toward her in particular to be part of the enemy. He's still the one who brought the knights and called the shots, as the King only meddled at the end. So he's the embodiment of that moment of fear, even if the author, again, wants you to forget or not even realize that, because it would get in the way of him being her savior and dad later on. That's why this is terrible writing.
The author wants all this to happen, but didn't go the extra mile, which is why the child shows no fear in front of the man who just cut down her family and revealed the intent of keeping her alive, just so he can kill her when she's old enough. Everyone in this room is her enemy, she shouldn't take kindly to any of them, even though most of the people in the room didn't even have the chance to show her hostility, as the Duke had her shackled and dragged in front of the enemy King.
Also, she's an actual child, not an adult in a child's body. A child would always yearn for their parents - "A mother is god in the eyes of a child". Even with all the fear she likely had, she would have had a part in her that wanted to be acknowledged; that wanted to be loved and cared for. Especially since she's not shown to be callous enough to just wave the only family she ever knew off, since she has no points of comparison. That she doesn't give a shit about them at all, even as they treated her badly, is simply unrealistic. From an adult's perspective, especially someone who is uninvolved, that might be the case, but this isn't an uninvolved adult. It's a very much involved child, so you have to treat it that way. In another story with a child, which has endured more hands-on abuse than shown here, especially since the child is 4 years older. That child only realizes they are never going to love her and therefore cuts ties with her family in terms of emotion, after being thrown into a fire pit by them. That was from "The Monster Duchess and Contract Princess" - btw a really great story. Clarisse is simply written badly, so the author doesn't have to go through the trouble of establishing how she got over her fear for the dude who basically symbolizes death to her.
We do agree on how we view him, but I think the root cause is a different one. xD
Because, you see, I don't judge him at all for his earlier behavior. The reason for that is that I still don't believe he ever meant for her to be anything but a prisoner waiting for her death, which would have been dealt by him, obviously. Since she's a prisoner and he's her warden, so why would he give a shit? It was never meant for him to be a foster parent of any kind, she's just someone who's sentenced to death with temporary delay.
In fact, my critique was that he was still having everyone act too nicely, giving her too much freedom. Again, nobody has any reason to treat her like a normal person, as she's a prisoner of war, coming from a hostile royal family, who's also going to die as soon as legally possible. Nobody has any reason to doubt that's what's going to happen, because the King wants it to happen and the Duke doesn't originally act as if he wants to overthrow him. That would have to be his intent, if he wanted to save her, which he never hinted on wanting in the beginning.
We can't judge later on, where he inevitably starts liking her (I didn't read that far, but c'mon, it's obvious, she's the MC after all), because that's not what he set out to do, it simply happened to end up that way. Just clearly from the beginning, he simply wanted to keep a law intact. If we take your version, he didn't want to kill a child, but thought it's fine to kill her as soon as she's 18, which is basically still a child - that's also why I don't really believe that's it, but that he really just thoughtlessly insisted on that law, because he can't have thought that far, and then just stopped at the fact that he would still need to kill her. Especially since the King kept reminding him and he doesn't seem to care at all. He just cares about the fact that she doesn't die before her 18th birthday - because law.
I mean, I know what you are trying to say and I partially agree. There's people who aren't cruel and do things that are cruel to others for different reasons. But this guy literally said: "Yeah, I'll kill her when she's 18, cause then she's legal." (I'm paraphrasing. xD)
It could be that he's just putting up a front, but he knows he would have to kill her anyway, so why drag it out? I say it's thoughtless behavior, but it's thoughtless in a weirdly deliberate way. There's a word for it, I swear (or maybe I'm imagining it), but I don't remember it right now. You know what I mean? Like, "reckless endangerment". You kind of know the risk, at least you are warned, but you're sure it won't apply to you, so you drink and drive anyway.
He knows he has to kill her, so he takes her with him, giving no shit about what she thinks about it or how she feels when he makes that decision. Quentin's warning, though not the one I would have expected, but a warning no less, is being ignored. He decides her life and death on a whim, and however he sees fit.
I'm btw not saying the Duke was intended to be this way. I didn't say I believe you aren't wrong with your point just to appease you before, or anything of the kind. Seeing as how he's portrayed afterward, I'm actually very sure you are correct in how you read the story, because that would fit the narrative way better, so it was likely meant to be understood that way. But when writing a story, you can't just "tell" me things are true, or expect me to just come to a conclusion based on well-known tropes and "reader's logic" (like, when we all know she's not gonna die - that's reader's logic), you have to "show" me those things as well and let the story speak for itself. All the show tells me that he's cruel, because he doesn't care what happens to others and that is, in fact, what true cruelty is. Other forms of it - the deliberate ones - are quite rare in reality. On the other hand, this "I want that to happen, therefore it happens" no matter what the outcome for other people is, is far more common. That is why I earlier said that most cruel people aren't cruel on purpose - I'd rephrase and say "they aren't cruel for the sake of being cruel". There's people that want others to suffer, or maybe just one person in general, yes - so they do things that would hurt them on purpose, to gleefully roll in their despair.
But those who simply do things, not particularly because they are laughing at other's pain like Dr. Evil, but simply because they don't give a shit about whether others suffer or not, THAT is the nature of most people who are cruel. Which is why the Duke "shown" in this story is cruel, because he simply does what he thinks is right by him, not paying any heed to the wellbeing of others involved (not just the kid, but everyone who comes to like her, as mentioned before - he deliberately widens her horizon and the circle of people who care about her). He doesn't spare a thought, because he simply doesn't care, because it's none of his concern - until he likes her, and suddenly it becomes his concern.
As much as I call him thoughtless, he's not actually shown to be particularly stupid either. I'd love to say "If his brain exploded, would it even mess up his hair?", but that wouldn't be true to what is shown. He's thoughtless, even though he's not normally this thoughtless, which can only mean he really doesn't care, as long as she doesn't die before her 18th birthday, so the law, which nobody broke before, would remain unbroken. And that is, as a premise, quite bleak... and pretty shitty.
lol
Slight misunderstanding there. My version isn't that he thinks it's suddenly ok to kill an innocent person when they're 18. It's that he no longer has a legal ground to keep her alive after 18 so he "has" to kill her and he's resigned to it.
I think if he had a choice (like say, the emperor pardoned her right from the start), he'd make the choice to let her go off to another country when she's an adult and live her life, even before he got attached.
He's shown to not care about her yes, but he's also shown to have moral standards, and killing innocent people wo isn't something he seems to want to do.
Again, it's quite selfish. Sometimes killing someone is actually merciful compared to letting them survive after what they've been through, but again, and I think you'd agree with this statement, he just wants everything to go his way and he doesn't give a shit how someone else actually FEELS after what he's done.
He doesn't want to give up his own morals so he'd force her to live even if she begged him to kill her, probably.
I don't think he wants to actually kill her at all right from the start (or at least after he found out she's innocent), but he still made the decision to kill her anyways when she's an adult out of loyalty and obligation for the emperor bc he no longer has the ability to defy the order when she turns 18 and she's both classified as a threat to his kingdom and not protected by law.
So what I mean is: "He just doesn't want to kill someone innocent for as long as he has the justification to save them instead". Again, it's incredibly cruel towards her to explicitly tell her that her life has a deadline and be forced to live under threat of death counting down her days on someone's whim (while she's happy bc she's just a child that doesn't understand that this is bad), but why does he care, right? He's just doing what's "ethically right" to him, the consequences she faces and her feelings be damned.
Basically I'm saying he's a coward that doesn't want to take responsibility for making the decision to kill someone when there's still grounds to keep them alive at this point. So is she dies after she's an adult, it won't be "on him", bc he couldn't save her wo going against his oath and loyalty. So it won't be his fault anymore if he allows her to die.
You say you're not judging him for his earlier behavior and your logic for why you don't care is solid, but I'm judging him for his behavior bc he's a horrible person before she's the center of his world. He doesn't even treat her like a human being, but rather more like a project.
Like I understand she's a prisoner and he shouldn't fawn over the enemy princess from the get go, but that doesn't mean what he did to her is justified. It's not even just to her.
He ignores the opinions of everyone around him and forces them to do whatever he wants and shirks his own responsibilities and pushes them onto the people around him.
HE forced Clarisse to live. And yet he's making his aide take responsibility for everything about her at first and doesn't give a shit about her. You'd think that after he basically forced the emperor to spare her, he'd at least take responsibility for her, but nahhh, let's just make my ~~slave~~ subordinate do it instead
It just irks me that AFTER he starts liking her, the author expects us to start liking him bc he's suddenly acting nice when he's such a pos that doesn't have any sense of responsibility or consideration for the people around him unless he likes them....
He's not "stupid" in terms of intelligence, I agree, but he is very dumb when it comes to street smarts or understanding people. He basically jumps to a conclusion instantly and sticks to it regardless of what others say. He doesn't take their perspectives into account AT ALL. He's so arrogantly convinced that he's always right that unless he likes them enough to make an effort so they don't hate him, he won't even listen to someone. Asshole
Haha thanks lol, I'd love to hear your opinion too
Oh forgot something: You're right that I would have killed the prince first anyways, but the point is that there's a moment of clear hesitation and consideration where the duke looks at Clarisse instead of judging the prince for his arrogance.
He's clearly thinking something related to the princess, which is why I brought it up.
If the duke had responded sarcastically to the prince before killing him or done it wo looking at the princess, I'd agree that it's bc he wanted to put him in his place.
But he didn't. Whatever the prince said clearly made the duke think something about the princess despite how arrogant or enraging his words were. And the only thing that the duke could logically havebeen thinking about Clarisse at that moment is something related to the prince's words.
Like for example, "He called her a mongrel. He clearly doesn't care about her."
And then Clarisse begs for mercy and you see after a slight pause, he kills the prince and sheathes his sword.
Compounded with the fact that he even brought her in and chained her in the first place, and didn't release her IN FRONT of the prince to humiliate him further, like, "Yeah, she's not going to live a second longer than you, she's going to live a whole 10 years longer than you, bitch," you can see that he very likely made the decision to save her after killing the prince in that pause before he said that he can't kill her.
He knew the law the whole time. if I was him and the prince pissed him off enough to make me want to get him back for his arrogance, I definitely would free Clarisse right in front of him if I was planning to save her anyways lol.
So what that implies to me is that him saving her was a decision made instantaneously and he brought up the law as an excuse, bc he'd have executed her regardless of the law before he decided to save her.