I see based on the replies that this is a much more contentious manhwa than i realised lol.
I haven’t read much beyond what’s here now (c30~) but I can already tell that this manhwa has some pretty clear-cut themes about class and power that aren’t really addressed in the criticism i’m reading. Which is a shame because I think this is probably one the most accurate depictions of landed gentry and nobility from a commoners perspective.
Something I like about this comic is how human the common people are compared to the nobles, from a narrative perspective. The commoners life is warm, lush, harsh, but they have actual friends and relationships. The nobility in comparison is sterile, jaded, deeply stagnant and manipulative. They’re not free, they’re stuck in their ways, and you’d almost feel bad for them if they weren’t so blood-chillingly unempathetic.
The male lead is the pinnacle of nobility, but the comic doesn’t go out of its way to paint him as having some throughline of deeply repressed empathy or tragic backstory. Instead, he’s unsympathetic, he’s never been truly tested by the world so his confidence and arrogance is clearly based on nothing but his own title. He extends a gentlemanly hand to his fiancé and then pulls the wings off the butterfly MC and never once thinks of what this means of his character because he believes he is above criticism.
I’m not surprised he resorts to (novel spoilers) sexual exploitation, it’s part of his character in the text to assume the MC isnt a person but rather an extension of his garden. Something he owns, that lives in his backyard to visit when he comes home for Summer. Something cultivated and cared for by someone else that he can enjoy at his leisure, it’s only natural for him to assume he can exploit her body as he desires.
I find him repellant and i’m not looking forward to the SA, but I appreciate where this story is going 100x more than any of the glossy, romantic stories that smooth down the unpleasant edges of aristocracy in order to make it more palatable (or god forbid, outright espouse propaganda like Enlightened Guidance). I deeply appreciate a critique of class systems in romance, and considering how much the nobility show up in rofan they get through it depressingly unscathed.
I see based on the replies that this is a much more contentious manhwa than i realised lol.
I haven’t read much beyond what’s here now (c30~) but I can already tell that this manhwa has some pretty clear-cut themes about class and power that aren’t really addressed in the criticism i’m reading. Which is a shame because I think this is probably one the most accurate depictions of landed gentry and nobility from a commoners perspective.
Something I like about this comic is how human the common people are compared to the nobles, from a narrative perspective. The commoners life is warm, lush, harsh, but they have actual friends and relationships. The nobility in comparison is sterile, jaded, deeply stagnant and manipulative. They’re not free, they’re stuck in their ways, and you’d almost feel bad for them if they weren’t so blood-chillingly unempathetic.
The male lead is the pinnacle of nobility, but the comic doesn’t go out of its way to paint him as having some throughline of deeply repressed empathy or tragic backstory. Instead, he’s unsympathetic, he’s never been truly tested by the world so his confidence and arrogance is clearly based on nothing but his own title. He extends a gentlemanly hand to his fiancé and then pulls the wings off the butterfly MC and never once thinks of what this means of his character because he believes he is above criticism.
I’m not surprised he resorts to (novel spoilers) sexual exploitation, it’s part of his character in the text to assume the MC isnt a person but rather an extension of his garden. Something he owns, that lives in his backyard to visit when he comes home for Summer. Something cultivated and cared for by someone else that he can enjoy at his leisure, it’s only natural for him to assume he can exploit her body as he desires.
I find him repellant and i’m not looking forward to the SA, but I appreciate where this story is going 100x more than any of the glossy, romantic stories that smooth down the unpleasant edges of aristocracy in order to make it more palatable (or god forbid, outright espouse propaganda like Enlightened Guidance). I deeply appreciate a critique of class systems in romance, and considering how much the nobility show up in rofan they get through it depressingly unscathed.