Rant

Well said!(๑•ㅂ•)و✧

I totally understand why you're confused and honestly I'm frustrated with the plot more than I am with the characters. I'll try my best to explain to you how I interpreted the situation and why I think people feel more sympathetic towards the male lead rather than the female lead. So his family clearly hated him. I mean he got black magic because he was born with his parents hatred of him. This is in addition to his relatives abusing him and even trying to assassinate him for the majority of his life. Therefore, he assumes that people are automatically going to be hostile with him as that's his only experience of others. Then enter in Valrose who is (although with ulterior motives) acting kindly to him, and he cannot believe this. Hence why his heart hurts and he has difficulty understanding what he's feeling when she gives him the jewel. To rationalize this behavior in a way that makes sense in his world, he assumes she must be under a spell because otherwise she wouldn't be kind to me, along the lines of she is being used to get to me, but she's still a genuinely kind person so he fell in love with her. To get her out of the spell, he does things to "shock" her out of it, like being mean. Of course, this comes across to Valrose as malicious, but the ML doesn't realize that, and thinks he's helping her. Basically, he has trust and communication issues due to his abusive family. This also explains why on the balcony, when she asks for an explanation, he thinks that she'll hate him if she knows the truth. It's a result of his unhealthy thinking from surviving his horrible family. This is why I feel for him more, he doesn't understand what he's doing is wrong or how his actions lead to misunderstandings as he has never had a healthy relationship with anyone. He doesn't have that base of what is good and wrong as hes only dealt with the wrong. He always had to be on edge for his life, and expects Valrose to understand that as she's the only good person in his life. This expectation is obviously unrealistic and Valrose is correctly bothered by this. She misunderstands his actions as he doesn't explain them, and when she asks, he doesn't answer. I think the frustration with her started because 1. ML is a victim and FL isn't 2. it's not clear what FL knows from the story. I think the first reason is not a good reason to hate the FL as she's technically responding how normal people would respond to toxic behavior, my frustration lies more with the author than anyone else. However, I think the second reason makes more sense, but again in the end, this is still the fault of the author. I found the story quite confusing and couldn't really decipher how much Valrose knew about ML's backstory. Assuming that she knows, I would understand the aggression towards her as she's not considering his situation properly when communicating with him. However if she doesn't know, then her actions make perfect sense as his actions aren't that of a person with healthy relationships. I hope that makes more sense and I would love to continue this convo if you want!

Thank you so much! This makes a lot more sense than it did while I was reading the manga. His behaviour is a lot more understandable now. I did feel bad for him when they were talking on the balcony but it was mostly overshadowed by my frustration at his lack of communication, although considering how close he is to losing Valrose anyway I wish he could just tell her how he feels but I understand why he doesn’t now. Also I’m regards to why people dislike the FL 1. I see this a lot on stories like this and I think it’s so irritating. Whenever I see stories where the FL puts up with the ML’s toxic behaviour the comments are always ridiculing her and telling her to stand up for herself and get in stories like this where the FL doesn’t want to deal with the ML’s toxicity anymore people get annoyed because their ship isn’t together or something. I’ve seen a few comments of people hating Alice as well because she keeps warning Valrose away from Nocton but she’s literally just doing it to be a good friend I don’t think this is one of those cases where the 2nd FL is lowkey evil. 2. This one is a lot more understandable but I don’t think it matters what she knows from the book anymore considering she’s changed the plot so much that she can hardly rely on what she knew of the former plot, all she can really go of is Alice’s premonitions. I personally just assumed that she doesn’t know much of Nocton’s upbringing because she doesn’t mention anything about it in the beginning chapters when she wants to befriend him since her only reason is that she doesn’t want to be executed. I also don’t think she’d know about his childhood from the original plot either since even in that book he was the “villain” and the book is called ‘Alice and him’ so I’m assuming the beginning was largely told from Alice’s point of view when she was in Earnhardt(?) so the readers of the original book may not have known much about Nocton’s childhood either. I hope what I said makes sense and thanks for replying!

Yay! I'm so happy that I was able to help! Honestly it's neither Nocton's or Valrose's fault, I understand both of their perspectives, I think this is just a messy story in general. When your main conflict is a huge misunderstanding readers are bound to be extremely frustrated, and thats why my main gripe is with the author. And yes in regards to why people dislike the FL, I totally agree with you. In the end you can't satisfy everyone. FL is in a catch 22, if she's submissive she's weak and boring but if she stands her ground she's annoying. The thing with toxic males in these stories and how the readers react is so weird too. Like on one story where an ML is legitimately toxic somehow there will be people who still love the ML and praise him however, on another where the ML is not actually toxic (like they were toxic in one timeline but it brought them back to when they were kids so ML hasn't done anything bad yet) readers will somehow find a way to shit talk a child. Readers have double standards and it shows. Also I get your point with the second part I guess it's just the backstory of Nocton that really matters. Again this is just the fault of the author. I don't know how they managed to make it so confusing because it took me a sec to realize she didn't know much about his past. However, for others that don't read as closely, I bet it's easy to misunderstand how much she knows hence the dislike towards the FL. Also yeah idk I don't really get the dislike towards Alice. I think she's a bit boring, but other than that she's just being like be careful bruh. Honestly, she's the only one who's able to pick up on the fact that Nocton is literally in love with Valrose so readers should like that about her lmao. Im prob gonna continue with this story for a bit longer but honestly if they don't hammer out this misunderstanding in the next few chapters I may just drop cause it doesn't seem worth it.

Also do you have a discord? High-key enjoyed this convo and would love to keep in contact ヾ(❀╹◡╹)ﾉ~

Thank you! I feel like some people just didn't consider this part about Nocton's profile in the story. This is a wonderful summary.

I've critiqued this series on different topics and discussions stating that the WRITING is flawed (time-skips are involved with no significance attached, communication is a two way street yet the author keeps setting it up like a one way lane, and the actual dialogue tends to be useless or of low quality) and how the characters are being portrayed by the author makes them incredibly frustrating because there's very little to no development and/or meaning in their interactions during critical moments. Yet, I've been perceived as someone who dislikes the MC for trying to protect herself, or favors Nocton despite him being toxic when it's neither of those. Your summary does THE job of summing up his character and his role thus far.

Now, I would like to piggyback off this and go on to state that the FL has also been flawed in how she was written to the same point Nocton is. She's presented to us as someone who has past knowledge about the setting and the cast (although she's encountered certain outliers such as Alice having prophetic dreams). She has the capability to make better and smarter choices, yet doesn't. Her reactions thus far are normal, which is fine if she weren't someone with otherworldly knowledge (such as Alice's reactions, Aaron's attempts to keep up etc). The author has written her to be too normal for who she currently is and it's frustrating. If anything, she could easily be as inquisitive as she is normal since this is no longer the story she once knew. Despite this, she closes herself off and communicates in what's arguably a half-assed way with Nocton which makes their conversation in the last few chapters meaningless.

The author certainly provoked us into feeling frustrated because it's like watching people you are acquainted with make an issue worse because they can't find the balls to talk it out properly.