Seraphim's manga / #villainess(9)

Perfect. Chef‘s kiss. No notes. Well, maybe only to greedily ask for more. More after story, more sidestory, i want to live with these characters just a little longer.

This goes beyond your regular reborn into another world manhwa. I’m very satisfied with the ending. What sets it apart from other manhwa is that it’s more than your typical villainess who changes everyone’s mind about her or perfectly orchestrates revenge behind the scenes. The core themes are nurture, sexism, female camaraderie and at the very end devotion. All of the main characters suffered from being neglected or abused by their parents in one form or another. The ones who could overcome it would eventually find the strength to better themselves, the ones who didn’t fell victim to their childhood complexes and became twisted. It also gave the characters dimension, especially the male leads. They weren’t just guys who fell for the pretty and kind fl they had their own issues they needed to heal from. For example the priest, it seems very silly to fall in love with a girl just because she gave you some baked good until your see his backstory and realize he has been looking for a kind maternal figure to latch onto. This leads to the next point of sexism. All of the male leads excluding Anahkin falls in love with her in an unsettling way. While it doesn’t really get explained why they fell for her it may have been the world’s way of trying to adapt to the changing story. Eris originally was motivated by jealousy so maybe the world wanted her to fall in love with the prince again, or maybe the world wanted to pin these dangerous men on Eris rather than Helena. Regardless, they fall for Eris and idealize her as they wish for her to be and not who she is, or even was. The priest sees his mother in Eris to the point of pursuing her despite finding out that they are half siblings and even going so far as reveal his twisted plan of manipulating the situation so that Eris will reincarnate as someone unrelated to him. The dragon slayer sees his past self in Eris. He wished so desperately that instead of being trained harshly that someone would have protected him. The prince begins to feel a sense of loss at realizing Eris no longer has feelings for him, even before it is revealed to him directly. He was neglected as a child and only then figured out he had lost a source of unconditional love, it was honestly stronger than even Helena’s since she is kind to everyone. Eris was only kind to him. These men were all selfish in their motives for “loving” Eris; the priest wanted a maternal figure (literally says she reminds her of his mom), the dragon slayer infantilized Eris and wanted to be the protector he never had whether she wanted that or not, and the prince wanted her love and attention even if he would never reciprocate. They selfishly try to block her one wish of dying and going back to her world so that they can keep taking from her whatever they wanted. Even their attraction to Helena is selfish, they feed off of her kindness the only difference is the book’s will made them useful to her. All of the women in the story are pushed around by the men’s will. The empress's son was killed by the emperor just to keep her chained to him (that part honestly kind of made no sense. I’m thinking there must have been more to that like maybe she was paying more attention to her son and being more mother than wife and that’s why he killed him?). Even in death he wanted to reincarnate as he husband again after all he made her suffer through (what is with these weirdos stalking women even in death. Leave them alone jfc, also maybe if you got over your weird reverse oedipus complex you could’ve lived happily with your wife and not made your sons dead and fucked up). Helena is isolated by everyone around her, not quite nobility, not quite a maid she doesn’t fit in anywhere. It’s all due to being pushed around by the prince and being the softhearted girl she is she didn’t want to hurt Eris either but is forced to follow a man’s whims. (Side note, I like that they made Helena complex as well. She wasn’t just a dumb, happy, lucky girl who grew up poor. No, her mom literally tells her to be naive and kind to capture people’s hearts, even if she did seem naturally inclined to have such a nature she does have a backbone when given the chance to prove herself.) Lastly, our poor girl Eris. Her engagement and the rest of her life is laid out for her by her father and the emperor, she is hated by others for her father’s actions, she is ignored by someone whom she has shown nothing but love for, threatened by a childhood friend, and betrayed by her only sibling. Even when they meet outsider Erin they still push her around for their own selfish gains. Onto female camaraderie. Eris is only able to change her fate by helping and receiving help from other women in the story. It all begins when Emma wishes for Eris’s wish to come true, it was incredibly sad but she was set free by Emma which set of an even bigger chain reaction. Eris then sets the empress and Helena free. For the empress she helps her exact revenge on the men she hated the most, even if they were enemies their goals were aligned and the empress even sees herself in Eris and tries to save her. Helena is set free from her own ignorance. Could she have lived happily ever after, blissfully ignorant and peacefully in love? Absolutely. But that wasn’t the point of this manhwa, she became an outstanding character who helps to lead an empire to greatness. The false love of a man who only loves for the sake of being loved is a small price to pay. Medea gets to remake the world by raising a goddess who is ultimately a high level witch that will make the world safer for all women and witches. It just makes sense that only women can become witches like they explain. Men have all the power and all the rules fit their needs, why would they ever need to bend them? It also makes sense that the witch of revenge is the strongest besides Eris and Kintia. (I do feel like we really missed out on witch Eris, I bet she would’ve been sick.) Kintia ultimately set herself free. Anahkin does the part of sending away her oppressive father but she is ultimately the one to decide to change her fate. Most of these women wouldn’t have been able to achieve their goals without each other. Finally, devotion(aka Anahkin glazing). The first instance of devotion is Emma. She wishes for nothing but Eris’s wish to come true, not for her to be healthy, or happy just for her deepest desire to be realized. Wishing for anything else wouldn’t have made it possible for Eris to leave. And the second instance is Anahkin (Anahkin, the man that you are…) He is so devoted to Eris (as he should be) he is never interested in what would make him happiest, or what would be best for him, only what Eris wishes. Even when he is faced with the most gut wrenching task of not only watching the love of your life die but physically making him stop any chance of her being revived by barbecuing her remains. That’s a crazy ask. And he did it all without knowing if he could follow her or if she would even want him to (thank witches they could reunite). That’s true devotion. The other men were busy making pawns out of the women in their lives that they claimed to love while Anahkin was out here devoted. Even with no love for one another the women of this world did more to help and understand each other than most men. So overall the complex themes and gender dynamics make this story so good. Some other things I think are worth mentioning: At first I thought Eris was being too hard to the dragon slayer and the priest. Before they revealed their true colors they show you their backstory first. I think this is so clever because it evokes pity and empathy for the characters but at the end of the day it doesn’t absolve them from their abusive antics. I also think the way their portrayed outsider Eris and novel Eris getting on the sewer slide was…kind of dumb and annoying. Im not saying they didn’t treat both like they’re sad but one is much more serious. Novel Eris literally made that wish and went poof from all of existence because she was so sad and alone. Outsider Eris just wants to go home. And at times it felt like they were being treated at the same level of tragedy, like no outsider Eris will still be alive just somewhere else.