And I guess I also wanted to say I love it when the horrible family is believably horrible and this is believable. Like he's not favoring one daughter because that's his favorite daughter, he's a horrible, money-hungry noble that only sees his daughters as things to be sold. I can get behind a plot that makes sense
Finally someone else with sense! XD
People really LOVE to disregard a person's struggle and their own issues just because they did wrong.
Newsflash: People can be a victim AND perpetrator at the same time. And it's fine to pity them for their problems and even forgive their actions due to it, if that is in the VICTIM's interest.
Especially for women in those times, you simply had no choice but to do as the men said, even your own son sometimes. And that's why women likely often banded together, forgave each other easily and simply understood the other side and hence forgave the person easily.
The neglect of her was acknowledged and not glossed over. So the author did VERY well dealing with this aspect of the story.
I know younger readers might be on the hypetrain to cast everybody remotely not good into hell and agony, but not every villain needs or deserves that kinda treatment. That's simply how it is and how human relationships work irl. Even if people may not like that.
Alright just hear me out for this one... I think this story treated the mother's actions right and I say this as the kid of a woman who married someone she didn't want to and stayed married to him, it's a lot easier to think you would break a cycle then actually break a cycle. Like the fact that the margrave mentioned that it doesn't absolve her of blame for her actions feels like it's a good understanding of what the mother did and just kinda how these things happen im real life
She's also a victim of the situation and the systems in place made it hard for her to go against that. But she's complicit to all the things the dad did, she definitely could have fought harder to save the kids