Responses
Anyways. Typical isekai historical manhwa. They did it for cash grabs and its mostly fluffy after the first act. The art is really good! I love the color pallette but at some point they changed the artist and it downgrades from the initial artist. Worth a read for your commute if you want something fluffy.
Pretty solid manhwa. It gets a little irritating at the beginning bc Fabien is obviously NOT the prince that saves Larissa after we see Richard, who has blue eyes like the image from the picture book shown to the readers. However, the art direction and character appeal makes up for the unfortunate stupidity given to the main character.
The stupid thought process definitely wasn't intentional especially after the author shows multiple times how Marcia/South Korean reincarnater uses their fairy powers of hearing malicious thoughts to their advantage. After I got passed that, the other issues I have are with the flat 2 dimensional villain characters. Marcia's father is obviously just supposed to be a man drowning in greed, which is flat, but whatever. At least its intentional and done with purpose.
Marcia's older brother however is painted to be some kind of sympathetic character (?) Or a sad attempt at one. He explains that he is the way he is because their fairy mother left after she finished her contract requirement of having Larissa. There are many flaws to his argument, and the author/manhwa is honest about this. Marcia responds with disgust and does not waver at her brother's stupid monologue.
At the end of the day, Marcia's older brother's motivations are flat and at the end of the day just greed. I would have liked there to be more depth, especially since the angle of their fairy mother is SO interesting. How did their mother get trapped into such a crazy contract with their father? Where did she go after having Larissa? Is there a fairy haven? A fairy kingdom?
On another note, why did we not explore the implication of wizards and witches? It was given a watered down attempt at tackling gender discrimination but at the end of the day they gave up after like a couple episodes of explanation. Male magicians are only able to affect inanimate objects, while female magicians are able to affect living beings.
Obviously even with the advancement of technology, female magicians would still be SUPER useful to society. I mean Ivan is still really involved with developing technology with the support of his magical powers. Who spread this kind of agenda in their society? In human society, it was a group of higher class white men who wanted to maintain their staying power. It would probably be the same in this story for the same reasons.
The manhwa dips its toes in the idea of discrimination vs greed, but quickly cowars and runs away as soon as they have to go any deeper. They have a great setup for Marcia and Fabien as marginalized people in positions of power to tackle this theme. Instead they defaulted to typical isekai historical fantasy cliches and had a death grip on it.
It makes for a fluffy piece, once you get past the first act, disguising itself as smart and righteous. Wow. Good job, you stated that discrimination is bad! Now get back to the writing board and dive deeper into the story! The interesting part is the contrast of Fabien and Marcia being marginalized but also privileged!
Fabien has red eyes, but quickly is given the second highest position in their society (first being royalty). Marcia is a woman, basically homeless, but has powers to hear malicious thoughts. Plus, she gains more status and money after her contract marriage to Fabien (also a great parallel to Marcia's fairy mom, but the story didn't give two shits so they never explored that! ( ´_ゝ`)).
It's a perfect setup to explore the theme of marginality vs greed. Fabien and Marcia have been impacted negatively by people's greed which resulted in prejudice. Now Fabien and Marcia are in the positions of the people who harmed them. Will they fall to the calls of greed? Will they not? What is more important to them? Greed, or righting the wrongs?
They explored this best with Marcia choosing Larissa's happiness over greed (initially it was so that Marcia wouldn't die, but later she truly just wants Marcia to be happy. They used the reincarnater's past life of her little sister to make it seem more deep than just not wanting to die). Marcia actively chose the wellbeing of Larissa over greed (diamond tears). But then they drop the ball once Larissa is healed (when she can talk). Then it just became a fluff piece.
Now the Fabien, Marcia, and Larissa family are just like any other rich upper class family near the status of royalty. Yes they are marginalized, but also INCREDIBLY privileged. Why not explore that intersectionality more?
Anyways. It's a good fluff commute piece that trys to cosplay as a "wow I'm so good because I talk about discrimination bad." Like OKAY. Good! Discrimination bad. Let's dive in to it now. Bruh.
Fabien passes an anti-discrimination law but like puh-lease. Ya gotta do more than say on paper discrimination bad. There's discrimination visually for magicians, gender wise, and I also bet you, class-wise (seen with the nobles not arriving at Fabien's class blind party). Why use this topic as a costume to show how righteous Fabien and Marcia are when it's done so loosely?
It's like driving in a lambourghini past a homeless camp to pass a law on anti-homelessness to help homeless people become housed, and then driving back to your mcmansion in your lambourghini to tell your wife and daughter how great you are for doing so. Like clap clap clap. You passed a law. I bet you it's going to stink like shit but because it's painted in gold, it's not shit! Well guess what, shit painted in gold IS STILL SHIT! it's just painted in fucking gold.