wahh

Agreed! unfortunately some people are not mature enough to understand that *sigh

"He was broken so he made her fall in love in desguise, betrayed her and killed her whole family, kidnapped her, psychologically tortured her and led her to suicide, but they grew together so you have to understand. Grow up and be mature :c "

It's disguise btw. And he never was in disguise. She knew he was a soldier for her father. She just didn't know he was a child slave soldier. He never kidnapped her either. Nor did they grow up together. Starting to feel like you haven't actually been paying attention

Love is messy, and in the midst of war, esp that of an aristocratic girl who's never experienced hardship and a boy who was tortured for 20 years.
Yes he did fucked up shit, he absolutely deserves to be criticized for that. But nuance is incredibly important in a story like this.
They also didn't grow together. They grew as individuals. They separated and healed and grew on their own.
This actually exactly what we want them to do. Otherwise it's just trauma bonding and codependency

If you want a cookie cutter story there are thousands to choose from.
But this has been a story meant to have nuance and it's been obvious since the beginning.

Bro. He really did fuck shit up. And he was wrong for that. What I wanted to convey was how people like you dont even bother UNDERSTANDING the characters. You guys like depth and drown when given it, he IS complicated. So complicated he made her suffer for every day of her life. It's so beautifully written how they both faced and overcame tragedy, but SOME PEOPLE ruin it by not diving deeper and giving two darns in ACTUALLY READING THE STORY and mumble shit about not wanting how it ended.

Replying to me with ts is like saying I was disregarding shit he did because he was hurt, NO. I would never EVER indicate that. He was wrong for doing that. Nobody should ever go through what the fl went through. And the same goes for him. It's two sides of the same coin, got it? they both didnt deserve the fuckass situation they went through.

But they already did, and THEM growing out of it and outgrowing their selves was a huge fucking accomplishment and they deserve to be happy.

"you guys like depth then drown when you're given it"
holy shit you flamed them lmao

Nah, there are somethings that are not to be forgiven. Had she been succesfull in her suicide, would you say he DESERVES to be happy because he grew and eventually regretted? The only reason she even is alive is because of luck. Anyone that corners a person through psychological torture is literally unforgivable and DESERVES nothing. Wether they eventually are at peace with themselves is on them, but not because they deserve it. Accomplishing not having killed his loved one and feeling bad for almost doing so is not something that makes him deserving of happiness.

Not because we saw his arc and empathise with him and his past means we should see him through anything more than the dark reality of a vicious abuser. Imagine this in real life with any man that did the things he did, specifically to his lover, and dare to say he deserves to be happy because he let her go and said sorry after she failed at killing herself.

You need to understand that understanding the reasoning behind evil does not mean it stops being evil, or DESERVES to be seen as just part of a journey to be forgiven. Victims becoming abusers is a real thing, and they need to be punished for the cruelty they commit.

"he never was in disguise. She knew he was a soldier for her father." -He met her, made her fall in love and married her in order to facilitate a coup d'estat, that is literally disguising himself to the max so this is stupid af. Not putting on a costume means he is not disguising.
"She just didn't know he was a child slave soldier." Irrelevant, just the coup d'etat in course was important at this point, not his boography.

"He never kidnapped her either." -He refused to kill her as should be the case to all relatives of the head of estate during a coup d'estat, and didn't send her to jail or labor camp but kept her by her side to torture her emotionally. He literally admits he kept her for selfishness in his love/hate mindset. What term would you like to use, then? Forced entramptment for torture?

"Nor did they grow up together."- You gotta be kidding, you do know "growing up" references maturity, right? The way the comment you first responded to meant it.

"Starting to feel like you haven't actually been paying attention" - Sis with this parragraph alone I'm not even reading the rest. You need to learn to read both the comic and my comment.

You're right he was an absolute trash, driving her to death. And probably not even deserving of the fl's love, an abuser, if you must. His love was twisted and in many ways leads to a destructive relationship.

And that was why they separated and left the hellhole they both got stuck in.

As for your question, we also have to ask ourselves, if he died while being tortured senseless, did he deserve it? did he deserve being beaten and raised to kill? did he deserve being used as a weapon? And most of all, does he deserve to be happy?

No one could afford to live a healthy life after living like that. Now, let me ask you a question, if you had been on his shoes, day and night devoid of peace, even in dreams you cannot escape madness, could you guarantee you would not have deteriorated as worse as he did?

What he did to her WAS UNFORGIVABLE.

She became his salvation because he knew nothing else. And because he didnt know better, he DESTROYED HER.

And they both saw that.

We hold him accountable for doing shit just like we would an unstable person commiting murder. We don't kill them because we know they arent in their right mind, we take them to psych wards.

Amidst his twisted nature he truly did love her. We cannot remove that, granted his love became tainted. And we see the development of that when he was willing to give up seeing her happy, to which she responded by going after him because she knew he loved her, he just didnt know how to.

p. s: I absofuckinlutely love you for what you replied omg!!

AND IM NOT JOKING like what you said SHOOK ME girllll i love you i even questioned myself if i was just romanticizing torture because they got a happy ending in the end

happy ending* sorry ahhh remove the "in the end"

He married her bc he loved her lmao. He didn't do it for the coup. He decided to do that separately. He met her by chance as a child, he didn't seek her out. He discovered her and fell in love with an idea of her and happiness. He clung to it as a broken tortured child and it eventually became a twisted hope for him.
Ofc he wasn't go to go about it right, or know how to be healthy in a relationship.
Especially since the war and those in charge that used him are still in charge.
And ofc considering the hell he escaped was his relationship with her going to fracture.
He still saw her as this golden figure, incapable of anything other than being happy and pretty. And because of that unresolved trauma the love begins to sour with jealousy and pain.

He couldn't kill her bc he loved her. Yes he wanted to keep her alive to hurt her but it was because he still loved her.

I also literally mentioned in my comment that they didn't grow together they grew individually. By themselves, away from each other. You seem to only be nitpicking my comment to things that are easier for you to shoot down lmao.
It is also incredibly important to the plot that she doesn't know until way after the divorce he was a child soldier. Bc it emphasizes they both are people who are struggling and aren't good at communicating. It is a huge turning point in their relationship that he bares all and shows her who he was and is. She finally gets to see the true him, scars and all, so she can truly look at him, talk to him and decide how their relationship will proceed.
That scene is one of the MOST IMPORTANT ones!!!

Nowhere did I say that it is excusable or that this is a "good" love story. It's meant to have nuance. It's literally about war. And the people who suffer under it.

Also paragraph only has 2 r's not 3.

I think ppl unfortunately forget this is fiction. Ofc he should go to jail irl. But this is a story. It's intended to say how would two people going through this still find their way back to each other. And how would they do that in a way that helps them grow as people

FRRR!! i really enjoy stories like these because it sparks up debates, and thats when u know the author did a good job. The story's really great, and ithink you're right about what you said, at the end of the day this is a story and it's supposed to reach a conclusion whether or not we like the results.

Same!! I love dark romance and stories of people that feel real.
I love a story like this where it shows people suffering and doing the worst and then says ok how do we fix this.
There's so many that try this and never do it right. This author has done a beautiful job of not shying away from the things he did but still showing he's a person capable of growth.
It doesn't excuse but it does help him as a person for their future as people and a couple

"As for your question, we also have to ask ourselves, if he died while being tortured senseless, did he deserve it? did he deserve being beaten and raised to kill? did he deserve being used as a weapon? And most of all, does he deserve to be happy?"

The thing is, no one has said he deseved cruelty or death when he was a child. Nor when he was a soldier. Not even for doing the coup. He and all his soldiers deserved the freedom and happiness he was robbed of by the royal and their supporters, and by his own hand he took action and killed all those that opressed him.

Things took a turn when he then selfishly took a woman whose only sin was ignorance and tortured her into suicide, against any tradition of coup d'etat, against the advice of his team, and against the wishes of her. That's why no matter how much nuisance he has, how much he regretted and how much he changed, he does not suddenly deserve forgiveness or hapiness, as he literally was never punished by anything but his conscience.

Just imagine if the story decided that his old partner, the red-head desertor, whose background is literally the same and had the same desire to have a normal happy life after the war, was to be forgiven for his evil desicion to burn the Church full of innocents just because he felt regret after the fact. No jail, no punishment, just his consciense. It could be claimed that he is just as insane as ML was, so does he now deserve to be happy? No he doesn't, mental illness, past trauma, even being a victim doesn't absolve you from the evil you do. He was not sent to a psych ward, nor any of his fellow soldiers, he went straight to jail. Or what, ML should be given a pass because he did it out of a twisted love? May I remind you that he had already put a ring on her, he had already trapped her at his house, he was the only ally she had and the only person she tried to rely on even after the massacre of her family and feeling guilty for being her daughter, yet he tortured her, and that was not done out of love, it was done out of hatred of her ignorance regarding the actions of her family, and he fucking knew it all along and still went and broke her.

It's not like people don't UNDERSTAND, we understand and he doesn't deserve a pass just because love and trauma.

The funny thing is that I'm not even upset with the story and how it unfolded, it makes sense basically a King would never be punished for doing whatever he wanted to a member of the old regime he destroyed, he could've raped and killed her no one would've batted an eye. Even MC forgiving him is understandable as it is her personal journey to deal with all the things that had happened and her abundant love and pity.

It's people pretending that he should be given a pass on torturing an innocent because love or trauma that pisses me off.

I also love theses stories, but damn if people get blinded by romance, fictional or not, in weird ways.

"He married her bc he loved her lmao. He didn't do it for the coup. He decided to do that separately." - Except he didn't. He had a crush and idealised her to the extreme, but he ultimately only entertained her for his goals. Being in love (and hatred) was an extra of his plan, as shown by the way he ultimately treated her when the coup was succesfull. His hatred was bigger than his love. He did not know the way to love her, but he willingly decided to torture her, and he more than anyone could recognize the pain was in and still kept going even after she tried to kill herself. Loving her is just the reson, which EVERYONE UNDERSTANDS, but it never was, is or will be an excuse to forgive him.

"I also literally mentioned in my comment that they didn't grow together they grew individually. By themselves, away from each other. You seem to only be nitpicking my comment to things that are easier for you to shoot down lmao" read the only paragraph I responded of yours. You are the one that brought up the meaning of growing up in childhood as I never once said anything of the sort. I was responding to the main comment where the word is used as "mature", so it's not exactly nitpicking when you were the one confused. Responding to your arguments one by one is not nitpicking, it's staying on the topic of the disagreement.

"It is also incredibly important to the plot that she doesn't know until way after the divorce he was a child soldier. Bc it emphasizes they both are people who are struggling and aren't good at communicating. It is a huge turning point in their relationship that he bares all and shows her who he was and is." GIRL. THAT'S. THE. POINT. He was NEVER genuine with her when he honey trapped her. The point of grievance was that he did it to advance his coup, so he disguised himself as a considerate loyal soldier and hid everything about himself including that, but the main part of the disguise was to use her!! That's the topic we were talking about. I never said it wasn't important, or that it was filler to the plot. It was beyond the point of you saying that he didn't disguised himself when he obviously did!

"Nowhere did I say that it is excusable or that this is a "good" love story. It's meant to have nuance. It's literally about war. And the people who suffer under it." And nowhere did I say it isn't. But EXCUSING evil just because you understand how it came to be is crazy.

Literally no one said he should get a pass. Everyone is saying that he deserves the chance to heal and if she chooses to keep him around he has the opportunity to be better to her.
You're just assuming bc we're saying that we're saying what he did before doesn't matter. When we're saying is bc of what he did before and what he's doing now he deserves a chance at happiness.
As does everyone who experienced something horrible and it led them down a dark path before finding the right path.

Are you fighting ppl over something you made up??

No way you think we're excusing it. No one is doing that. Literally no one.
Again, the coup and him marrying her were just two things that worked out together.
His goal for most of his life until they got married was just to be with her. She was his only goal and reason to be alive. He didn't care about the coup until around they were married. He just wanted her.

You genuinely have been missing key story points no wonder you're so uppity about this shit. Chill out kid.
He didn't hide behind a good solider facade, he was literally apart of a child solider program that was hidden by that current government. According to the public at that time the child soldiers didn't exist. It's actually her father's fault he had to hide that stuff. He also didn't tell her for personal reasons bc he didn't want to burden her with his trauma. That's why he didn't ever let her see him undressed either.

You're acting like he was rubbing his hands together coming up with a cover story to get into a fake marriage just for the coup. Which just didn't happen. He couldn't have been honest with her then even if he wanted to.

You need to reread from the beginning for sure. And maybe not get so heated over a fictional story or the people who are enjoying the story

Hey so all of us here are enjoying the nuance. You have this thread of mostly you going off on people enjoying the nuance.
It seems to be you that is being weird about this. Perhaps you should switch to a different genre