@krzywasabi I saw the review on novelupdates and it seems to be getting a lot worse... It’s all because author seems to try too hard to force the romance between these two, so he/she tried to write ridiculous plot just for the sake of creating a romance. And author wholeheartedly love this type of self-sacrificing love, which is not healthy imo. Sigh, what a waste.
@JWChibi I think it's psychological defense mechanism, she's trying to make excuses to believe she's the one at fault to reason with the tragedy she went trough so she can ironically keep on living. She might actually chosen to not feel happy and wanted to seclude herself in monastery because she's actually afraid of living in society which condemn her after her death like Will. Both of them are broken individuals by the tragedy.
People are complaining but imo I'm kind of excited to read something a little bit different. It might be good or bad but there's already tons of Manga when only good things happen so this could be fun.
Lol.
He may be kinda crazy, but it still a dumb move of hers to actually leaving everyone and act like she's the one responsible.
She really didn't need to do all that.
Some messy things do need to be addressed, and this chapter nails it with the uncomfortable vibe from start to finish. For those wondering why she followed them, in the previous chapters Tim/Will threathened to poison everyone and she didn't know whether there was an antidote or not. Desperation does that to you, you can't think straight. She saw Kaid being poisoned in front of her eyes, what did you expect?
I don't know about you, but this is good. And this chapter that you guys said is going downhill is character and plot development, it's kinda fresh that it's not all flowers and sunshine and superficial muddiness. Fitting for a post-revolution setting.
It's not a typical love story, don't expect it here. I think most people couldn't really get their love was because we were not privy to how they fell in love in the first place. All we know is from unreliable narrators who has too much regrets.
I love this manga and the novel. The writing and execution do need some work, but it touched my heart anyway.
@beattreat I wont defend the writing, however I do think the concept is solid. It makes sense and I can buy that he attempted to live as tim but the constant reminder and praise of his death made him even more bitter and resentful over the years to the point that he snapped. I actually quite like that direction but I do agree the writing and execution were pretty mediocre.
This apparent development seems... unlikely. Simply as it wouldn't leave us with much of a place for the plot to go.
I mean, I suppose you could end everything tragically over the next chapter or so, but what would be the point? (Like, this story ending tragically was never out of the cards, but doing it like this, letting all that romantic build-up fall by the wayside in its current state, would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater...)
I suppose we could go for the long haul and bring in the guy's reincarnation, but that would be so messy and totally mess up the delicate character dynamics we've got going... >_>;
@JWChibi said:
It always feels like Shirley's character is being forced into forgiving and acting as a martyr even though it's written that's her own conviction. And her atonement was to not feel happiness in this life instead of idk, helping out that fief her family hurt, donating her time to something beneficial for them, or giving back to the people maybe?
There was a character in The Twelve Kingdoms (or the anime adaptation of it, anyway, I never read the novels) who more perfectly represented this conundrum.
Sort of same story—sheltered sweet summer child of a corrupt despotic kingdom, except even younger and more obviously blameless, gets spared by the hero of the bloody revolution (no reincarnation or lovers involved), and after a while totally internalizes and accepts the narrative that she was somehow responsible, in so doing garnering great credit to her once-horrible reputation with everyone else
The conundrum in that case being, more distinctly than here: There's no way in hell it was her fault, but it will certainly make her life easier if she thinks it is, and walks and talks as if it were, begging the question: If someone is in that position, what the hell should one want them to believe, for their own sake...? The gentle, sad truth, or the cruel lies which will allow them to construct a narrative that everyone else can accept...?
But, anyway, having said that: I feel slightly differently about this protagonist. The implication to me has always been that she'd have been in conflict regardless, between the horrible grief she felt at the betrayal and its tragic outcome, or the fact that that betrayal stemmed from her loved one who she probably at least half-wanted to believe in even after all that, or feelings that all this is unfair, or her guilt for not knowing what horrible things her lover and her countrymen were going through, or her love for her family, or grief-born doubts as to whether she could have done anything better...
...upon all of which, that narrative she met upon reincarnation, that her and her family's death was "necessary and good", became the imperfect foundation for rationalizing about her contradicting feelings about what happened, the framework upon which all those contradictory thoughts (which she still has more-or-less independently), come to an uneasy truce where the world at least makes sense. Or something along those lines.
Put differently, I've never been under the impression that she 100% believes the whole villification narrative in her heart of hearts. The self-punishment never felt so much like a spirited condemnation of herself to me, as much as a way of coping with impossible grief. And also at the same time that her martyrdom has not given her a feeling of redemption, but rather, absolute assurance she's doing the right thing, allowing an implicit rejection of the premise that she is one of the villains even as she claims to acknowledge it—the things she tells herself (and as of very recently, others) don't necessarily seem to always be the things she really believes, just the things she needs to tell herself to make things work (bad coping mechanisms though they may be).
Of course my reading may be completely off. It's all complex human stuff. (Which is, indeed, why Will's totally-different extremely-bad-coping is also quite tragic and relatable, even if he himself is nonetheless rather inescapably scummy)
(Uh, um... Apologies if any of this makes little sense, I didn't realize how late it was getting writing this. 😅 Late-night armchair psychoanalysis and philosophising, it can only end well! Sometimes it does though? >_>;