wow

Nobody is arguing that he is a horrible father, even with all the justifications, what I meant when I said Claude is that, like Lydia, he is a morally gray character. We don't get a lot of those in manhwa, they either super good or super bad. They portray "morally gray" as just plain old violent (the duke of the north that kills monsters, or the bloody emperor that killed his backstabbing siblings and retainers), which is dumb because the violence is usually meted only to people or things that deserve it, hardly ever to innocents or collaterals (hell, in "Please don't kill me, your majesty" her dead family ended up being a crapshow just for good measures in case you were not sympathetic enough toward the ML and in "Villains are Destined to Die" the family turned out to be under dark magic). Nobody faces the issue of not-nice characters head on like this story does (not even WMMAP). You are right that Lydia went through an immense amount of abuse and that might justify her behavior, but on the same vein, many other characters go through similar abuse and don't become warped (ie. Lyrica who Lydia forced into the exact same position her mother did her). And even after she turned back time, she is still not a moral person by any means. WHICH IS GOOD. It's interesting. Claude had the POTENTIAL for similar growth (ended up squashed but wthv) because he was not a good father from the beginning. He is introduced to us as a negative character just like Lydia, but unlike other similar bad parents trope, Claude is in the same position as Lydia because he turned back time, not the MC. It was him who could have the introspective character development and fight his own twisted nature just like Lydia, maybe not to become good (because again, he was never good) but to make up to Athy for all his crappy treatment. Anyways, all this is to say this story is amazing and I was disappointed WMMAP didn't strive for more in its character development.

I think we have a bit of a different definitions of “morally grey”. For me a morally grey person is someone who could kill, but only those who deserve it. Neither Lydia nor Claude are like that. Lydia may be like this now, but before she was purely a villain, and Claude? As I’ve said, I see him as an inherently bad person if he’s willing to mistreat/abuse a kid (even let it drown) just because he doesn’t personally care about it. He’s not morally grey, he’s just bad. Just as you said, usually what manhwas wanna show as “morally grey” is just plain violent, I think the same case is with Claude (he just can’t really be bothered to go out of his way to hurt people, that’s how I see him). As for Claude overall, I guess we just don’t see the same depth to him. To me he is exactly the same as all those “cold fathers” Korean webtoons love to write, as I’ve mentioned before, I would even go as far as to say he was a blueprint for them. Did he have potential? Most characters would have potential with a good writing. I think writers here went for cliche more than in-depth characters like with Lydia. Indeed, disappointing. I used to like him a lot when I was just starting with webtoons, probably because I like angst and art style was pretty. Now that I look back at it, he really didn’t deserve a happy ending (sorry not sorry).

I just came to this comment section myself so I don’t know if I want to read everything I just skimmed through it

In response, seeing your justifications or it just being an excuse, that like all these characters what makes them so dynamic is that they are all well written and that is why we have so much to say about them.
You might say that the dad trope is just a cheap way of excusing bad father behavior but in Claudes case I wouldn’t jump the gun on it. You say he was raised as a royal but he was unloved and beaten by the queen almost everyday and the only ray of sunshine for him was his older brother later betrayer and also abuser. So what love should he have known to give a child when he didn’t receive any from his own childhood? People learn from the experiences they’ve received or if well educated by caring instructors they may learn how to break away from the chain of bad relationships and bad decisions… but in all honesty that’s very hard and takes huge amount of self control and objective reasoning to break away from. Claude didn’t have that. Plus he was a warrior and murdered his own brother to get the throne (even though they say he was a hero - he’s still a war hero). This man in general would have a hard time loving anyone. That’s why his lover/wife was so important to him and when he knew that the child would kill her (probably because of her magic powers) he told her to get rid of the child.
To most men the woman/mother is the bridge to the father and vise versa.
It doesn’t excuse him as a father just like it wouldn’t in real life, but he has a reason and it makes sense and is well written because it stems from truth. Many people are not ready or should never have kids but God made it possible because it’s the only way that as people we are able to change and fix ourselves. People don’t change willingly but having kids puts you in a situation where you are forced to or you break. Some break but most grow and become better than they were even at the expense of the child. Which is why the older children usually have it rough and the younger child is often spoiled because the parents learned to be able to love more efficiently, easily, and have more love to give.
Anyway, my angle is that Clause is a well rounded and written character and the whole story revolves around his actual development as a parent. I don’t see it as a common cheap trope - and I’ve read bad ones.

Let’s just agree to disagree. I know Claude didn’t have it easy either (What character did in all those stories tho? They all have tragic background), but I still don’t think his circumstances are comparable to Lydia’s. As I’ve said, his “reasons” aren’t much better than a father who blames his child for mother’s death. It’s essentially the same thing just achieved in a different way. If he was cursed by someone else then I could understand it, but he chose that, so I don’t think it’s an argument that can be used to defend him. Also, I just can never redeem fathers who only changed cause their daughters pretty much forced them to. If Athy didn’t beg for his attention and suit herself to his liking then would he ever become a better father? I doubt that. Furthermore, as I’ve said, it’s not that he’s just a bad father, he’s a bad person overall. Be it grief or lack of memories/emotions in no way justifies mistreating children. Saying “Oh he would let a kid drown cause he didn’t remember it was his daughter” what kind of argument is that? Same as when he lost his memories again by defending Athy, he straight up tried to hurt her, if not kill her. He’s just inherently a bad person to me. Sure, he’s had it rough, but there’s only so much your childhood can justify. As the other person said, Lyrica had similar circumstances to Lydia and didn’t act like her. Being through trauma doesn’t give someone a right to act the way Lydia or Claude acted. All those stories where fathers blamed their children for mothers death also stem from the truth and is realistic in some cases, as this happens, especially in that era. I don’t think that’s good writing though, not when you just brush off all the mistreatment and act like nothing happened in a happy father-daughter ending. I waited so much for them to actually talk about it after he regains his memories, and it was… underwhelming to say the least. The way he acted towards Athy was pretty much brushed off. I really don’t see how Claude is any different than fathers from those stories, be it revenge ones or family ones. How is he different? They all have tragic backstories and fairly realistic reasons for their actions. All the arguments you’ve made for him could also be made for them. There wasn’t any real address of the issue (there barely ever is), it all boiled down to “he was heartbroken and had it tough, so he abused his child and we should forgive him for it cause he didn’t remember it was HIS child :(“. So yeah, for me this will stay as a cheap trope/excuse. I could’ve had a different opinion if they actually addressed everything properly, if it wasn’t just forgiven like nothing happened and actually had some consequences in regards to his relationship with Athy and her mental state. That’s why I actually like “Philomel the Fake” a lot. It may not have as through dive into parents POV, but it shows actual consequences of that kind of behavior. It addresses the abuse/neglect, it shows the confrontation and real expression of such child’s feelings (not just neglect, but also that she had to win his affection and how suffocating that was), consequences on the said child as well as their parent-child relationship. That’s so rare in those stories. That’s what I want to see. So, we will have to end up agreeing to disagree.

Also, I didn’t say that Claude is a badly written character, he’s not. The story is poorly written for me. Not everything about it, but in particular their father-daughter relationship. It just does not address psychological aspects of such relationships well (neglect, abuse, having to fight for your parents affection, especially if the lack of it literally threats your survival), especially from children’s perspective. Even if children did decide to keep such a parent in their life (which isn’t unlikely, but should definitely not be shown as some kind of cute and wholesome relationship), there is absolutely no way they wouldn’t hold any resentment towards them. Their relationship should be shown as complex, with complicated emotions (that should be showcased), not a precious father-daughter bond. This was written have a happy ending, it wasn’t written to have psychological depth. That’s how I see it.