Ore Igai Dare mo Saishu Dekinai Sozai na no ni "Sozai Saishuritsu ga Hikui" to Pawahara suru Osananajimi Renkinjutsushi to Zetsuen shita Senzoku Mado…

[BestBoy]

blaming the victims

No where did I do that. In fact I said she wasn't a good person because she turned her resentment onto Lloyd.

They're in a shady part of town selling potions

None of the art implies it is a shady part of town. In fact the opposite is implied as the store has a sign indicating it is an alchemy shop.

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.

This scene is occurring before Ruby has started abusing him. So any self esteem issues he has are his own at this point.

Lloyd said "Yeah" to being frustrated

The issue is that Ruby had to pull that out of him. We don't know if those are his true feelings or he's just agreeing with Ruby. Also, why isn't he mad at all for his partner and childhood friend being hit in the face?

"I know how to handle people like them" clearly she doesn't

You are misunderstanding what she means here. This statement is a reinforcement of her world view. That "handling people like them" is becoming more powerful and important than them. Showing them that you aren't someone to look down on.

Ruby's frail ego

Sorry but I completely disagree that shifting the blame from someone that just insulted and physically struck your partner to yourself is protecting anything. If someone yelled at me and hit me in the face and my friend said "sorry it's my fault" I'd only get angrier at the offending party. Ruby was right to correct Lloyd here. It's not his fault.

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.

A comfort food for himself. He has no idea what her comfort food is and clearly didn't bother asking. In Ch. 6, a figment of Lloyd's imagination reveals that Ruby's favorite food is curry, and that he knows she hates pot-au-feu. We also see Lloyd romanticizing and rationalizing the orphanage. Lloyd calls it "the best food in the orphanage" and "the physical labor brought out the flavor" while Imaginary Ruby reveals it was vegetable scraps cooked in water they brought themselves from a far away well. A food they ate simply because they were poor.

Granted, we don't know when Lloyd found out she hated pot-au-feu, but she didn't really make it a secret that she disliked it. A child refusing to eat something is really obvious.

Also no one with a 'silver spoon' is looking down on them

They quite literally live in a class based society with nobles and peasants. The alchemist reveals it wasn't his idea to do any of this. Meaning he never would have helped the orphanage if his daughter didn't want to have praise heaped upon her by orphans and peasants. The only reason they are there is to gloat about how great they are and demonstrate how far apart they are in society.

You are making it sound as if it were Lloyd fault that Ruby is terrible

What? No I'm not. Lloyd's oblivious nature is just one contributing factor that I wanted to point out. The other would be Ruby's class rage.

I shouldn't have to mention all of Ruby's obvious flaws when pointing out a single flaw in Lloyd's character. Even though I already did that explicitly in my original comment to stave off replies exactly like this.

Ruby is too damn cynical (because no one is looking down on her that we've seen)

You missed the point of the nobles visiting the orphanage then. A wealthy noble's daughter is not visiting an orphanage right after convincing her father to donate money out of the goodness of her heart. She's there to gloat and demonstrate class disparity.

a bitch to everyone else

On the contrary, prior to her argument with Crowley, Ruby is a highly esteemed alchemist well loved by the entire kingdom. So the only person she's mean to is Lloyd.


I totally get why so many readers dislike her. She's mean for no apparent reason. I like that the author is (hopefully) going to be giving us the reasons for why Ruby is the way she is.

We're missing a huge part of the story where Ruby correcting Lloyd that it isn't his fault changes to Ruby doing the exact opposite and blaming him for her (unstated) deficiencies in alchemy. We see the start of it in this chapter. Ruby realizing that Lloyd romanticizes a part of their lives that she is angry and (most likely) ashamed of.

A good analogy that came to mind is that Ruby probably sees herself, Lloyd and the other orphans the same as that pot-au-feu. Unwanted scraps of families dumped together.

 

[lordb1]

Another author trying to justify the shit villain character's dickatry and like all the other failing.

 

[Darkshade13]

I kind of respect that they didn't make her totally sympathetic and are still more or less demonstrating that regardless of her circumstances in the past her attitude in the present is still selfish garbage. Too often the character like her would've talked about all this past pain, the others would've gone "I had no idea..." and then forgiven her for her actions. But here it's not really excusing anything. Tragic backstory or not, desire to be recognized or not, she's still awful for treating Lloyd the way she has and for refusing to admit she did anything wrong and they haven't really brushed past that.

 

[_idiot]

What if showing Ruby's backstory is just meant to set up her eventual punishment -- a lifetime of eating nothing but pot-au-feu.

 

[AtomikCactus]

Ok, but this background doesn't explain from where come the "she is my lover" of chapter 1. It's only Lloyd who had feeling for her and it was one-sided or at a very brief moment when they were getting on really well, they became a couple?

 

[erintesden]

but doesn't matter much because it get looped back to the start

Are you saying

Spoiler

she got redemption but all the nice character development got deleted because of timeloops shenanigans?

 

[lolfacesayshi]

Welp, still gotta put 'er down.

 

[lolfacesayshi]

Honesrly Lyold mistake wirh Ruby turns out to be that he qas just to kind in teying to help her when he should told her off earlier huh. Hard to rly truly feel bad for Ruby but we now get why she became what she did and honestly. No for real thou the one thing ahe right on thou is how the Rich ppl sucks lmao

Eat the rich, public charity/philanthropy isn't kindness etc,

but this all stems for Ruby's deep inferiority complex.

She managed to become the best alchemist and it's STILL not enough, because what she really wants is an insane thing to have: the respect and adoration of everyone ever, to never again be looked down on. Which is difficult because her mind is stuck in that inferiority complex.

Especially when she couldn't even accept the respect of the one person who stuck by her. She kept looking at that castle in the sky, and refused to acknowledge how she's already gotten everything she needed.

 

[shakukukuku]

yes, pot-au-feu

 

[Lewd_Beast]

I really hate when the break away from a fight to tell a boring arse back story. Is there a word in Japan for "pacing" as they don't appear to comprehend its meaning? Plus it was such a boring waste of time. There are many poor disadvantaged kids who grow up normal and happy. Hey, look at Lloyd! So sorry, no, none of my heart strings have been pulled. I still want her to suffer until she breaks. Then when she apologises, he can still transport her to hell.

 

[elrorro]

is that even sad lmao

"You made me the food I didn't like way too many times, that's why I verbally and physically abused you for years "

 

[arcsalvo]

These two were fundamentally incompatible because they didn't understand each other, and were both insensitive to the others' needs and wants. Even worse they didn't know how to communicate with and listen to each other to know what each was really talking about.

Both were / are immature and should learn to see things from different perspectives and understand that people have different values. Neither of them had enough empathy either, but Ruby in particular was too in her own head to really talk to Lloyd to make sure they were on the same page.

 

[Wolvenworks]

The flashback proves that she’s an unredeemable bitch since day 1

 

[tekkenshu7]

Me after seeing Ruby's backstory and motivations (and considering that pacing):

 

[SciFiMisc]

Go FUCK yourself author.

Oh boohoo, oh how sad, oh let's have her run off into the sunset, don't you understand the MCs abuser was only consistently violently murderous abusive because of how sad she was!

FUCK. OFF. Fuck your writing, fuck this manga.

 

[WillLi]

No where did I do that. In fact I said she wasn't a good person because she turned her resentment onto Lloyd.


None of the art implies it is a shady part of town. In fact the opposite is implied as the store has a sign indicating it is an alchemy shop.

This scene is occurring before Ruby has started abusing him. So any self esteem issues he has are his own at this point.

The issue is that Ruby had to pull that out of him. We don't know if those are his true feelings or he's just agreeing with Ruby. Also, why isn't he mad at all for his partner and childhood friend being hit in the face?

You are misunderstanding what she means here. This statement is a reinforcement of her world view. That "handling people like them" is becoming more powerful and important than them. Showing them that you aren't someone to look down on.

Sorry but I completely disagree that shifting the blame from someone that just insulted and physically struck your partner to yourself is protecting anything. If someone yelled at me and hit me in the face and my friend said "sorry it's my fault" I'd only get angrier at the offending party. Ruby was right to correct Lloyd here. It's not his fault.

A comfort food for himself. He has no idea what her comfort food is and clearly didn't bother asking. In Ch. 6, a figment of Lloyd's imagination reveals that Ruby's favorite food is curry, and that he knows she hates pot-au-feu. We also see Lloyd romanticizing and rationalizing the orphanage. Lloyd calls it "the best food in the orphanage" and "the physical labor brought out the flavor" while Imaginary Ruby reveals it was vegetable scraps cooked in water they brought themselves from a far away well. A food they ate simply because they were poor.

Granted, we don't know when Lloyd found out she hated pot-au-feu, but she didn't really make it a secret that she disliked it. A child refusing to eat something is really obvious.

They quite literally live in a class based society with nobles and peasants. The alchemist reveals it wasn't his idea to do any of this. Meaning he never would have helped the orphanage if his daughter didn't want to have praise heaped upon her by orphans and peasants. The only reason they are there is to gloat about how great they are and demonstrate how far apart they are in society.

For the building look back at Page 10 that is where you can see the streets outside the building. Compare that to their "dump" in page 9 and then compare that to the nice building on page 6. You can LITERALLY see the cracks in buildings on page 10. How is that not the shady part of town do you think merchant shops in teh shopping district would have that kinda exterior?

No the scene doesn't occur before she starts abusing him. Literally the scene in on page 10 and 11. Page 9 she's calling him bratty offhandedly for no reason Page 8 he references the incident of page 7 where he used bread to bait him into becoming an assistant mage. PHYSICAL abuse had not started but she was already verbally abusing him.

You can say "had to pull that out of him" but just cause he doesn't express it doesn't mean it's not there. As pointed out he does other stuff like the food and even the fact that he can gather these ingredients in the first place solo, that suggest that he is intelligent and has a pretty high level of awareness. Also the hit didn't knock her off her feet. What is getting mad going to do? Also she's not his childhood 'friend'. As noted he was tricked into this position and following her. In fact him not being mad is even more of an indicator he's aware of what is going on. Because it means he might not be that fond of her. But even still it means he likely knows getting mad over it isn't gonna fix anything and if they do something it'll be even worse.

I'm not misunderstanding anything. Because even her world view was wrong. She didn't 'handle' anything. She got powerful, so what? They didn't change as people, they just moved on to someone else. And honestly? Based on what we saw of her? She is still SUPER unaware of the status quo for things so it's likely she was STILL being taken advantage of by other people, just in different ways.

You disagree with the ego statement because all you're thinking about is the aftermath. Who's idea do you think it was to go to that merchant? What do you think the conversation was? We can't know for sure. But do you think Lloyd suggested it? Likely not. And if Ruby suggested going to that shop she probably talked big about getting the best deal there or something of the like. Imagine talking up this "great place you found" and then it turns out to be 100% a scam. That hurts your ego.

A comfort food for both of them. "A child not eating something" is clear if they do it a lot. Read what Llyod and Ruby say. "We used to eat it a lot" not "I" or "The others". He included her in that we. She always says at the start "I hate this Pot-au-feu" and when she walks off she says "you can have my portion" not "I don't like it" she gave it away. None of that indicates she doesn't actually like it. Because again, there is no indication that she kept not eating it. Also the figment in his imagination in chapter 6 is AFTER the incident that happens in the flashback in this chapter. How can you even remotely bring this up. However even that PROVES YOU WRONG. Because Llyod straight up says "You always took my sausage" So rather than telling him she didn't like it. She tried to stop him by taking teh best part of the meal, and likely eating it. Yeah that's a great way to convey you dislike something. And there is no "We never know when she told him" because she straight up says "I hate Pot-au-feu! You never caught on to that!?" not "I told you" this means she never told him and is instead upset he didn't "catch the hints". That means the flashback we see if the first time she says to him that she doesn't like Pot-au-feu

It literally doesn't matter if he only helped because his daughter came up with the idea. Because HE DID HELP. If he didn't help Ruby and Lloyd would've never learned the skills they had and the orphanage probably would've shut down and they'd be on teh street. And there we go another person trying to ascribe motives to them. The only thing shown in the flashbacks is that they were gloating. You do not know their REASON for doing this or if they were trying to humiliate them. you are literally making things up with zero evidence to support it. This is not like trying to ascertain Ruby and Llyod's motives, where we have lots of panels of them and character development. We have literally only those pages at teh start of these two plus like 2 panels of the daughter later in the chapter. If the author wanted us to believe these were bad people don't you think they would've actually shown them doing something bad? Like the merchant?

 

[Digidestined701]

You know, I MIGHT have actually felt bad for Ruby if they showed the nobles actually looking evil, or making more snide remarks. Instead it's just "My daughter wanted to donate to you orphans! Isn't she so wonderful?" all nice smiles, and that set her off on a several year long rant about them looking down on her. Even meeting the noble girl again, she was perfectly kind to Ruby. A backstory that's meant to give sympathy to Ruby just makes her look even worse.
Not even MENTIONING that she also turns on Lloyd for... wanting a reminder of the loving orphanage he grew up in, but eating food that he likes? he offered it to her but never tried to force her to eat it, he just said "Hey, we've been eating some pretty heavy things recently, want some of this?" And she immediately smacked it out of his hand and threw a tantrum.

 

[Nemo2342]

is that even sad lmao

Nope

 

[Sifr]

bruh just kill her already

 

[SleepyDemon]

So...this could've all been avoided if MC made Nikujaga instead that single evening. Crazy.