Y'all always think back stories are made to make you feel sorry for someone, sometimes they're done to give insight into how a character thinks and why they do the things they do. The backstory was not meant to make you feel sorry for her, it was to show you why she is the way she is.
Yeah, this also stood out to me. There's a real "oh no you don't" vibe to a lot of comments sections of stories where the arc in progress goes "female character in male-demo-target work -> that character is made hate-worthy and does bad stuff to beloved characters -> that character is shown to have a tragic backstory -> ...?" Seems like experience has taught some % of readers that the next step is "instant forgiveness and redemption, and now you're supposed to root for and love that character."
Kinda suggests that authors should take that expectation into account if they're working in certain genres where it's become the norm.
Playing a pseudo devil's advocate (tl;dr at bottom). There's nothing wrong with Ruby's backstory in regards to her resentment and hatred. The bigger issue is the way the character is written and the way her backstory was introduced in conjunction with the pacing of the story.
Ruby is very clearly the main antagonist of the story as she's shown to be the direct foil to Lloyd since the very beginning of their lives. In this chapter, we're seeing that she's grinded just as hard as Lloyd for the success that they've attained but because she's the foil to Lloyd, she can't be grateful for how far they've come and instead sees the success as a means to an end instead of an end to a means. While Lloyd is a cartoonishly good person, like you often see in these kinds of manga, Ruby is a cartoonishly bad person, also like you often see in these kinds of manga. This leads to her seeing every problem as not her fault and/or in her power and every success as hers and hers alone; she's a super 1-dimensional character just like pretty much every other character in the story.
As for her circumstance that brought her here, there's very little room for nuance and when it comes to a topic as complex as extreme poverty and the trauma that comes with it. Looking at the situations in a vacuum, I understand her resentment from the fact that she feels like she's constantly been looked down on from the act of charity at the orphanage feeling disingenuous to actually being taken for a fool for a minor ding on a decoration on a potion. These are legitimate gripes to have since being powerless in a desperate situation just sucks ass.
With all this in mind, we're given her dreams and ambitions as well as her short comings, albeit fucking GINORMOUS shortcomings, in the span of 25 pages. That's not enough time to fully dissect a character's back story and especially a villain's backstory. In a story like this, if you want to legitimize why a good person is a good person, it can be as simple they're just built like that (Lloyd). But when you want to legitimize why a bad person is a bad person you have to take the time to layout everything that brought them there. There has to be a clear cut reason why a villain is doing the wrong thing if you want the reader to sympathize even a little bit (I think 'Magilumiere' does a good job of this with Manao in the current arc).
Does every manga need to have well written fully fledged out villains that truly make the reader question whether or not they have a justified position? Hell no. Is it nice when it happens? Hell yeah. At the end of the day, it's just another fucking manga and not every manga has to be kino. I'll slurp up trash almost any chance I get.
Tl;dr Ruby is cartonishly evil because this is a cartoonish story. Just revel in the schadenfreude of watching someone who has always been a bad person get their just desserts. Also, don't be surprised if/when Lloyd forgives her completely vis-a-vis
Readers are not seeing Lloyd's character deficiency here. Ruby all but tells him a run down abandoned atelier is better than the funded and maintained orphanage. Lloyd also couldn't see that it wasn't his fault during the potion sale. She had to tell him it was the buyer tricking them. He has no critical thinking skills whatsoever and it directly affects their relationship.
Is she perfect? No. She's not even good I'd say considering she turned her resentment onto Lloyd. But Lloyd shares blame for not having the emotional maturity to recognize that his partner and someone he's spent his entire life around does not share his carefree attitude toward being looked down upon by people born with a silver spoon in their mouths.
Their main problem is simply lack of communication. One is having high ego and too matured for her own age while the other is too pure and carefree. They don't have the capacity to talk it out or to notice the circumstances they were in. I kinda understand what author is trying to show here, but I can't expect much considering most manga i've read with this similar troupe didn't bring "satisfaction" for its resolution.
Ruby was the one looking down on the nobles helping the orphanage and giving them food because of her pride.
The nobles taught the kids how to use magic and even gave Lloyd a career path option to aim for if he dedicated himself enough and showed results, something they might have never had access to otherwise.
I don't see this chapter as the author wanting us to sympathize with Ruby, I see this as the author showcasing how out of touch with reality Ruby had ALWAYS been, despite her immense talent and dedication for alchemy.
This chapter annoys me on so many levels. Not only do I hate the habit in manga of making a terrible person and then trying to instant redeem them through backstory or a "change of heart" without them having any repercussions. But this backstory is absolute garbage. Like not only is everything 100% her fault. (Sell your potions to the guild or someone legitimate, not some back alley merchant) but it doesn't even make sense. Calling it 'half-assed' would be too much praise.
Readers are not seeing Lloyd's character deficiency here. Ruby all but tells him a run down abandoned atelier is better than the funded and maintained orphanage. Lloyd also couldn't see that it wasn't his fault during the potion sale. She had to tell him it was the buyer tricking them. He has no critical thinking skills whatsoever and it directly affects their relationship.
Is she perfect? No. She's not even good I'd say considering she turned her resentment onto Lloyd. But Lloyd shares blame for not having the emotional maturity to recognize that his partner and someone he's spent his entire life around does not share his carefree attitude toward being looked down upon by people born with a silver spoon in their mouths.
i too like blaming the victims of abuse for not avoiding the circumstances that led to their abuse.
he should have been a perfect adult capable of guiding her resentment towards a more productive output.
I think it's more about Ruby starting to realize, in the pot-au-feu moment, that the only person in the world she can be herself around fundamentally does not understand what drives her. Like, not just "doesn't understand her," but maybe "by his very nature, cannot understand her." She loves that part of him, but what if... what if the only reason Lloyd hangs around Ruby is because he's too sweet and naive to see her for the hateful creature she is? That's not a comfortable thought.
Because Ruby knows she sucks. She's easily able to justify it because the same things that make her awful are the ones that keep her safe, physically and emotionally. The world sucks, so why shouldn't she? But that doesn't mean she wants Lloyd to think she sucks. After all, Lloyd became powerful without compromising his morals or even having to be angry to begin with. Hates herself, loves him; shows the latter in a way that's consistent with the former. Has always been able to become magically and socially powerful enough that she never needs to confront this or change.
And so it's in that way that Lloyd's innocent and sweetly sentimental offer of a dinner she's ashamed to be reminded of is a rejection of Ruby, because it makes the conflict in Ruby unavoidable: He doesn't get me, maybe he never can, and if I try to make him understand he might reject me like everyone else.
That's super fucking sad, and really clever writing because it sets up a charcter to answer the question, "Who would be hurt the worst and driven to madness if their only friend gave up on them and left them behind?"
You don't understand. I was poor and mad about people being not poor and looking down on poors so I worked hard out of spite so I can be not poor and look down on the poors. I'm totally different from you who was poor and worked hard so you could be happy. Obviously I had to make you miserable because you don't get it
Readers are not seeing Lloyd's character deficiency here. Ruby all but tells him a run down abandoned atelier is better than the funded and maintained orphanage. Lloyd also couldn't see that it wasn't his fault during the potion sale. She had to tell him it was the buyer tricking them. He has no critical thinking skills whatsoever and it directly affects their relationship.
Is she perfect? No. She's not even good I'd say considering she turned her resentment onto Lloyd. But Lloyd shares blame for not having the emotional maturity to recognize that his partner and someone he's spent his entire life around does not share his carefree attitude toward being looked down upon by people born with a silver spoon in their mouths.
This is wrong. Lloyd has critical thinking skills. He lacks self esteem, but Ruby is the reason for that. The reason he is saying it's his fault is to deflect from teh possibility of it being Ruby's fault. And it is Ruby's fault. Look at the scene immediately after they sell the potion. They're in a shady part of town selling potions. "The merchant was bad" sure, but Ruby clearly picked him. Notice that Lloyd said "Yeah" to being frustrated for being "taken for a fool" he KNEW the guy was taking advantage of them. To add to this Ruby arrogantly says "I know how to handle people like them" clearly she doesn't. Lloyd isn't dumb or flawed, he's protecting Ruby's frail ego.
He also 100% knows she's not carefree, hence the fact that his personality changed when he left her. He knew. He tried to get her to lighten up, but she's literally CRAZY. Like when things were getting stressed he made a COMFORT FOOD for them. But that went wrong because she hated it. But Notice how she NEVER SAID THAT OUT LOUD before that incident. There is zero way for Lloyd to know she hated it. But Lloyd is VERY alert and aware, but he is not a mind reader.
Also no one with a 'silver spoon' is looking down on them. Literally only one person is looking down on them in teh entire flashback, and it's a merchant in a shady part of town. The nobles are just gloating about themselves, they are not diminishing anyone there. They're even eating the same food. They didn't pull a "We already ate" or something like that. They sat at the same table and ate the same food with them. How is that "looking down on them"? Ruby just has a victim complex and is literally crazy.
She didnt even suffer, girl got salt at everyone all by herself and now we must think she was a missunderstood soul?
I really hope this is just a exposure chapter, but knowing some shit japanese authors try to pull...
I think it's more about Ruby starting to realize, in the pot-au-feu moment, that the only person in the world she can be herself around fundamentally does not understand what drives her. Like, not just "doesn't understand her," but maybe "by his very nature, cannot understand her." She loves that part of him, but what if... what if the only reason Lloyd hangs around Ruby is because he's too sweet and naive to see her for the hateful creature she is? That's not a comfortable thought.
Because Ruby knows she sucks. She's easily able to justify it because the same things that make her awful are the ones that keep her safe, physically and emotionally. The world sucks, so why shouldn't she? But that doesn't mean she wants Lloyd to think she sucks. After all, Lloyd became powerful without compromising his morals or even having to be angry to begin with. Hates herself, loves him; shows the latter in a way that's consistent with the former. Has always been able to become magically and socially powerful enough that she never needs to confront this or change.
And so it's in that way that Lloyd's innocent and sweetly sentimental offer of a dinner she's ashamed to be reminded of is a rejection of Ruby, because it makes the conflict in Ruby unavoidable: He doesn't get me, maybe he never can, and if I try to make him understand he might reject me like everyone else.
That's super fucking sad, and really clever writing because it sets up a charcter to answer the question, "Who would be hurt the worst and driven to madness if their only friend gave up on them and left them behind?"
It would be sad if there was some real reason for this. But there isn't she just is this way. Like literally the first thing we see is her being mad at people doing a good deed. Regardless of if they are gloating some, they're not insulting anyone or anything so it's still a good deed. It'd be another if the flash back SHOWED someone being terrible behind the scenes and no one else saw it so she's become jaded and skeptical, but literally we see none of that. We see the nobles doing a net positive and it pissing her off cause she doesn't like the way they talk. She's just delusional and all of her suffering is her own fault.
It would be sad if there was some real reason for this. But there isn't she just is this way. Like literally the first thing we see is her being mad at people doing a good deed. Regardless of if they are gloating some, they're not insulting anyone or anything so it's still a good deed. It'd be another if the flash back SHOWED someone being terrible behind the scenes and no one else saw it so she's become jaded and skeptical, but literally we see none of that. We see the nobles doing a net positive and it pissing her off cause she doesn't like the way they talk.
But like, that IS the reason. She's the only kid at the table who is smart enough to see that they're all just props to be humiliated and forced to thank a smug girl of the same age for teaching her the "value of mercy" when they could be doing rather a lot more for those orphans than pot au feu. The noble and his daughter didn't cook the meal, but their money paid for it; they're there for dinner to take credit. Even if what they're doing is totally defensible, like "oh, I want my daughter to see first-hand the effects of her charity," all the subtext is "we're up here and you're down there."
You and I and the orphanage director have made our peace with the facts that pride doesn't pay the bills and that the powerless need to grovel and beg and be happy for "net positives" from those with means. But Ruby, despite being the smartest girl at the table, is still just a little kid, and her childish sense of justice understands that that's just not fucking fair. She can sit there and suffer indignity like human debris, or she can leave. And she chooses her pride and leaves, alone. And so yeah, that's a moment that sets her resentment and insecurity in stone.
More denial than delusion, but yes, that is her character. That it's all her fault makes it both more sad, and more funny when karma arrives in ways both predictable and un-predictable.
