jaeha's Topics (6)

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uwu, if u don't mind, could you spoil me plz?

Sure!! [SPOILER]
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It's generally a fluffy novel with a huge angst in the middle (though there needs to be more chapters in this manhwa for me to explain the angst). The novel took a lot of chapters to transition from childhood to adulthood, but Ancia will get along with everyone including her sister, Diana. Blake is fiercely loyal to Ancia and instead of falling in love with Diana like the original novel, both of them competes on who loves Ancia more. Richard is actually the reincarnation of King Philip, so they're both obviously the bad guys. Anyway, the novel is finished with the angst currently back to being fluffy ^__^.

I completely agree with your standpoint on Ruve. If other readers were arguing against his male lead status on the basis of Tia’s trauma and the difficulty she should realistically encounter in loving and accepting the man who had betrayed and killed her at his own hands, I could understand their qualms. But some are taking a moral stance against him—rather than one about a lack of literary logic—because of his past/future actions, or more accurately, his past timeline’s future actions. Actions which could essentially be attributed to an entirely different character and should be acknowledged to some extent as the products of his toxic environment, in both senses of the word.

Regarding Tia, I think I have a more flexible viewpoint of contradictions between word and action and everything in between. Humans are complex creatures, who are ruled by constantly fluctuating scales of their logical and emotional faculties, their rationalities and irrationalities.

Tia is traumatized, frightened, and confused; she’s come to question the approach she’d adopted from the start of her second chance. She’s battling with the guilt of inconveniencing or hurting those she holds dear, in order to protect herself from falling into the same despair she had experienced in her previous life. Still, she wants to justify that the path she took and the decisions she made were ultimately for the best, that they held value for a brighter future to make up for what troubles they did bring to others and what heartache they still managed to bring to herself. If she gives up her resolve for living as she’s done so far in this life, what then does she have to guide her and reassure her that this time, she’s doing right?

And yet still, she cannot help but long for love. She told herself that she was stronger without relying on the fickle and fleeting affections of a significant other, but as she’s developed her interpersonal relationships and learned about the strength of relying on others, she’s also been given a taste of everything she had craved for in her past life. And this comes as a horror to her who was been doing everything in her power to ensure that by bringing about changes in her external reality, she would never revisit the internal realities of her previous life. She fears what she desires, and desires what she fears, as well as the happiness and heartache it brings, and she between letting these two emotions guide her actions. When she grows weary of suppressing her love, she allows herself to indulge, but in the aftermath, her fear leads her to take an even harsher stance to curb the growing emotions (as evident in her blood oath...)

Of course, I agree that this doesn’t make Tia’s actions any less frustrating, and I sometimes believe the curbing of such contradictions is necessary to craft a character with a sufficient degree of “continuity” to follow throughout a story. Honestly, the amount of patience I extend to Tia in her internal turmoil and the consequences of it astounds even me, as I don’t afford nearly that level of understanding to my own episodes of emotional paralysis.

EDIT: She fears what she desires, and desires what she fears, as well as the happiness and heartache it brings, and she *vacillates between letting these two emotions guide her actions.

Also, I’d like to clarify I’m not trying to justify or excuse the atrocities the previous life’s Ruve committed. I don’t expect or agree with Tia forgiving what was done to her. But it’s been made clear that she doesn’t believe that her past life’s experience has bestowed her the right to condemn this life’s Ruve (though she can’t help her hurt and fear and distrust of his nature despite this understanding on a logical level). She recognizes that this Ruve at this time in this worldline is innocent, and that if she were to exact revenge, she would be punishing him for actions that he has yet to commit...

And I see this as a really intriguing and tragic aspect that could be further explored in rebirth stories. When a character has been redeemed before they’ve had the chance to condemn themselves through wrongful action in this rebirth, how then should one deal with the undeniable suffering and pain their “past self” had inflicted? Is it “justified” or “correct” to exact punishment on this version? Maybe even more importantly to the characters contemplating this, will it even be able to bring closure or satisfaction? Or just more turmoil?

Also, regarding Tia’s contradictions, I think Carsein brought up a good point. She takes a lot of passive defenses, and I think this comes in some part from her belief that she was mainly to blame for the fate she was sentenced to... Tia didn’t dwell so much on how she endured injustice, but rather turned within and determined that the problem lay inside... with the fact that she desired her love to be reciprocated from someone who would never give her that. And while it’s amazing that she focused on what she could control versus what she couldn’t, I think it’s important to acknowledge how this way of viewing and navigating her surroundings and experiences has influenced the way she treats Ruve and those around her.

To her, it’s not about what he did, about how he was a horrible person who did horrible things, but rather about how she hurt from it and how caring about him gives his actions the potential to hurt her. Like with Allen and Carsein as well, they haven’t done anything to make her doubt their affections, but due to her trauma from how her love opened her up to hurt, she views it as, if not an inevitability, then a constant possibility, that love will bring hurt, and that’s a risk she is no longer willing to take... with anyone. (Thanks a lot, previous Ruve and sh*tty political machinations and intrigue.)

There were very good answer to this, but this is mine. I don't hate Ruve as a character anymore, but I felt extremely disgusted by him in the beginning, even when it was revealed that he was manipulated. I think the reason is that he raped Tia, and the scene where he made her lick his boots.

As a woman, experiencing something similar is a very real fear, and so my emotional response to it is stronger than to her and her father being killed. Even for readers that don't fear rape, humiliation is still something they can deeply relate to. We see something similar in Harry Potter. Many people hate Umbridge, an evil teacher, way more than they hate Voldemort, an actual mass-murderer. It's because we're more familiar with her terror, we have to some degree experienced it. Doctor Elise was brought up as a similar example to Ruve, as someone who got a second chance, but we know little of what she did, and we never experienced her from her victim's point of view, so it's hard to hate her. There's no pain from the victims, it makes it less real.

So yeah, although Ruve is not the same person in the second time-line, it's hard to let go of those incidents, even if one feels its not justified to punish him for crimes he has yet to commit. I think it's the same for many readers. I'm getting there though, idk how it happened.

Thank you for sharing yours and others’ perspective of Ruve.

As a general clarification and address, if any of my comments seem insensitive or undermining of the experiences that many readers may have gone through that form the lens through with they view Ruve, I deeply apologize. That is definitely not my intention, though I recognize that the lack of malicious intent doesn’t negate the fact that an action can still harm. I’m grateful that the original comment has received a response that expands more on “the other side” of this discussion. (I use “other side” loosely at this time as my words are currently escaping me, but I don’t mean it in its polarizing and antagonizing sense. I don’t believe that trying to understand this timeline’s Ruve has to be mutually exclusive to acknowledging the validity of the feelings of disgust and fear that people feel when thinking about what Ruve had done.)

I’m not entirely sure how I’ve come to sympathize with this timeline’s Ruve to the extent that I have, as I was and am definitely still disgusted by what he’d done in the previous one. Perhaps the passage of time since I first started this work and as I’ve waited for updates has dulled the visceral emotions that he had once been able to evoke as a result of his association with the previous timeline’s actions.

Unfortunately, we live in a reality where women are disproportionately subjected to humiliating and dehumanizing acts, sexual or otherwise, and are taught to navigate this “inevitable darkness of the world” with greater caution and tact so as to protect themselves. I can’t count the number of times my friends and I have half-jokingly brought up how we carry mace around or hold keys between our knuckles or scan the interior and surroundings of our cars in an attempt to offset the discomfort we feel about having to do such things because of the very real fears and dangers we live with. I have been fortunate so far; at this time, I can understand to only a small degree the feelings that those who have experienced many more horrors of this world must feel manifold when they see a reflection of these horrors in the character of Ruve.

Thank you for so respectfully explaining why it is that such hatred towards Ruve is understandable and justified in the emotional impact his past actions have had on Tia and have on readers now. At least for me, it helped me gain some more clarity and understanding.

Aside from the fears of a physical assault previously mentioned, there’s also the fears we bring up about the workplace and what positions of power have the potential to do... and the episodes of catcalling and humiliating sexual comments/ harassment we have experienced.