Rice Daddy's Topics (406)

This is probably the best comment so far

30 y/o Dorito took me out lmmmaaaoooo

i think you confused lyrica for lydia lydia is the blond mommy and lyrica is the sweet brunette girl

That is what's great about this story, because even in this life, the empress is not a good mother to Lyrica. The emperor is actually a better parent to Lyrica than the empress is. Sure, she puts Lyrica first now and doesn't abuse her, but she still neglects her quite a bit and has a plan for Lyrica's life that often does not take into account Lyrica's opinions at all and she gets mad when Lyrica deviates from that plan. She still twisted and selfish, and she clings to Lyrica now only because now she has proof that, regardless what she does to her, Lyrica will not forsake her and thus she can "trust" Lyrica. Her love is rooted in unhealthiness and codependency and the story doesn't shy away from it. She didn't magically become "good", she still the same broken person, only thing is, she now sees Lyrica as an extension of herself, and thus she seeks to protect her and keep her by her side.

i agree soo much i actually love the writing. she's trying but trying doesn't equal good now. the number of times she has thoughts of forcing lyrica into her plans without respecting or accounting for her wishes is crazy. abuse in a different form dressed up differently. i really hope lydia can become a truly good parent and understand what it really means to be one. at least the emperor and atil are there,,

I disagree, I'd rather she remained a flawed character. Reincarnation manhwas and especially childcare manhwas usually don't delve into complex topics and the characters are very black and white. Parents and family are usually 100% loving and dedicated and antagonists are usually 100% evil and mean. In the same vein, parental redemptions are forgiven way too easily. There is no in between and I think that is such a waste. Lydia is such a rich, complex character, I love her. She is twisted but she recognizes her own flaws and fights against her own nature. She doesn't deserve to feel good about herself because she was a horrible person, she deserves to always work hard, always suffer to overcome the part of her that is still twisted because that is the least she owes Lyrica after all the things she did to her. There are so few manga like these, the only one I can think of is Fantasy of a Stepmother, and maybe a bit Who Made Me a Princess since Claude retains his twisted nature as well, but the effect is kind of ruined by the brainwashing trope.

Yeah, I read this story for Lyrica. I don’t like redeeming such awful people

Well said

I’m glad she catches herself, she definitely tries, but it’s just not good enough. I hate redeeming neglectful or abusive parents. There’s too many stories that do thag

I agreed with you to an extent until you mentioned Claude. His abuse and neglect were never properly addressed, he was absolutely horrible father and was forgiven like nothing ever happened. If we are talking childcare manhwa, then he’s like 90% of fathers in them: neglectful/abusive, but with that aspect being completely brushed off or ignored. I absolutely can’t stand when those stories don’t address these topics and just make FL love and forgive their fathers. Thats why I like stories where bad parents aren’t forgiven and FL just leaves them instead, those are rare and actually address the abuse. Claude was such a bad example, he’s the typical “cold father, kinda turned into a fool for his daughter cause she literally had to beg for his affection, but actually a bad parent in a slightly different form”. He’s like 90% of those stories go

I agree but I also want to point out that she was a child raising a child herself and came from a horrible abusive background. I would expect her to be horrible just as her mother, and just as a 15 year old girl from that time would be.

She was groomed and *raped by a man years her senior at 14-15, forced to have a child and still endure and suffer endlessly at his and his families hands. She didn’t stand a chance in her previous life. And like you or someone here said, she can’t change that quickly because again, she never had positive role models in her life. It just sickens me our sweet little Lyrica is caught in the crossfire of this. Personally, seeing her how can you not want to be the best mom ever? Which she knows now.

Very good point. I think it’s a lot about do reasons justify her behavior. However the biggest villain in that story is this man. I wish this manhwa also addressed that this was indeed grooming/pedophilia and rape, not just a deadbeat father/husband.

That's why I said the brainwashing trope ruined the story, because it removed responsibility from Claude for his behavior which is not ok. It didn't allow him to repent and grow as a character like Lydia is doing. I enjoy flawed characters and complex family relationships because so often in manhwa and light novels characters are very one-dimensional. Most parents are not perfect, most relationships are not perfect, childhood conflict doesn't need to be either 100% horrible abuse or 100% super spoiled route and parents that give anything and everything the kid wants. There is so much nuance in between that is never explored. Lydia is nuance. She has hurt Lyrics a lot but at the end of the day she is Lyrica's only true family, the only one that has seen her suffering and somewhat shared on it, and now she is trying to change to be a better mother even if it goes against her nature and rubs on her trauma. That is nuance, that is being flawed and working for character development not having it fall from the sky. Claude could've been the same. It could have been so amazing to see him realize how much he hurt the child that at one point meant everything to him and see whether that knowledge would break him fundamentally or would push him to change himself and the core of his relationship with Athy, but the author bungled that by making it so "oh, he didn't have emotions or memories so its not his fault, lets all sit and sing Kumbaya together now". It took all the agency away from Claude and most authors shy away from plots like these (Philomel and Dorothea toed the line but none of those stories explore the parents POV as deeply as this story or WMMAP does, so I don't consider then successful).

Absolutely I agree! He is the ultimate villain. Unfortunately, with webtoons like these they rarely ever do because honestly, it’s extremely devastating and depressing.

Maybe it’s also cause of the era setting, since this was normal back then

I don’t think WMMAP explores parents POV all that well tbh. As you’ve said, the way it was showcased served more as an excuse to free him of accountability rather than genuine complex exploration of trauma and its affects. Also, brainwashing thing? Yeah, sure I agree with your points that it was kind of a “justification” trope, but I don’t really agree that he would be like Lydia if it didn’t happen. The bottom line isn’t just Claude being a bad father, but a bad person overall. If Athy wasn’t his daughter what would that mean? It would mean that he would mistreat an innocent child or even let it die just because. Cause he found it annoying or cause he wasn’t related to her. That’s my problem with this kind of manhwas, with those “cold father tropes”. They don’t change as people, they only stop mistreating (to a certain extent) their daughters cause their daughters MADE THEM care for them. They are still as horrible to other people, and as neglectful to their sons (if story has brothers). Also, didn’t Claude inflict all of that on himself purposely? That’s just as bad as fathers who abuse their kids cause they blame them for mothers death during birth. Even when he cared for her he still remained that cold “tsundere” demeanor. He was not a good father at any point and I don’t think lack of brainwashing would’ve changed that. He’s a very typical character for this kind of stories. Dare I say, he was a blueprint for them.

Like, if just loosing memories and your emotions towards your child causes you to become neglectful, abusive and borderline psychotic person then what does that say about you in the first place? Lydia was a bad person, because she was incredibly selfish and blinded by greed, but she wasn’t inherently psychotic like Claude. I think Lydia being a bad parent also has far more complex and deep reasons than Claude does. Abusive parents, being groomed and raped by a narcissistic pedophile at age of 15 and then left alone to fend for yourself at the same age, honestly I could not blame a woman for not wanting to raise a child in that kind of circumstances, which of course doesn’t justify her behavior towards Lyrica. I think it would be even more understandable if she actually realized what happened to her (grooming that they aren’t addressing), it’s a pretty strong argument in pro-life and pro-choice discussions (should woman raise a child of her rapist? What’s the psychological effect that causes). For her at least it makes sense why she was so horrible, as you’ve said, she is a very complex character. Claude? I’m sorry, but his reasons seem really shallow in comparison, and his actions absolutely absurd.

Not to mention the support and circumstances Claude had VS Lydia. Lydia had no one, was homeless and in-debt as a teenage girl in a sexist society. Claude? Claude was a man in a highest position of power with servants and trustworthy aides by his side. I truly don’t think their characters are comparable. Lydia was horrible, but Claude was a whole other level given their reasoning and circumstances. I do not think he could’ve turned out to be like Lydia, because his character inherently is on a completely different level of messed up.

I’d have to disagree with you, as Claude’s behavior was from the beginning described. As a magician he performed two curses on himself. One was to turn his heart into ice (or block emotion and feelings) so he wouldn’t be able to feel the pain of loosing his wife/lover. The other curse was to turn back time (on himself) so he would literally forget her (lover) and anything associated with her (hence their child).
In the story she is the original princess who was killed as she had met her father too late (the curse had already been finished and set) therefore he felt nothing for her and disliked the reminder (that he once had a heart and love (who he now believes betrayed him)).
In the present story, she actually meets him before the curse is finished and her actual magic interferes with it (breaking the curses or undoing it) and that is why over time he begins to warm up and actually behave like a father should (as the curse goes away). But blah blah spoilers stuff happens and yeah.
The magic stuff does get a bit complicated and complex so it’s hard to know. I’ve reread the story so many times that I was able to pick it up around the 2nd or 3rd read.

I don’t really want to repeat myself, so I will just ask you to read my other comments. I explained there in detail why I think that “justification” is nonsense and why I see him as a bad father and a bad person even with everything you said. You can check if you want or not if you don’t, but I just don’t have it in me to write another long response :)

Also, I don’t see how that could be a justification in any way seeing he CHOSE to perform those curses on himself and it’s not like someone else did it against his will. How does that make him less horrible of a father? I would say it’s even more. You willingly chose to be that way regardless of consequences this would have on your kid. Like, it’s such a crap excuse.

I wholeheartedly agree. She's still terrible, even now. And if you take into account that she was still terrible right before regression, that is Lyrica's current timeline, so she still did abuse and made her tender young child work for her abusive and alcoholic self.

And after regressing, she did not really atone for it. She made their economic life better and her abuse stopped but nothing else. The best thing she did in this life was be the root and bridge of Lyrica finding people who genuinely love, adore, and treasure her.

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.

We all wish... but the author wouldn't survive if he/she does that...

This is, "I'll die for you" mentality.

Exactly. He wants to atone for being happy with her while ignoring her suffering. In his mind, dying sets it right. He stays out of her life permanently and she gets to have her one true love and her baby boy again but that’s not how it really is. He’s fixated on what past ines wants and needs. He thinks that her dying wish is her eternal wish. Really, all he wants is her happiness no matter what form it is. He would do literally anything including mortal sins to make sure she’s happy.