The One Within the Villainess - Ch. 24 - Inferno

[Nekotofu]

I know Pina can't read the room.

But did she just suggest that she is the one who should be the queen of Demon king, infront of her fiancee and his father?

Like. Man, can't wait for her downfall.
And since the curse already lifted, I doubt anyone willing to be on her side.

 

[Booppoot]

Hilarious degenerate aside i wonder if that 'loophole' was just her own delusion versus her actually losing her power if she gave up her 'maidenhood' lol

I think she wanted to keep herself "pure" for angel, that's just my theory tho 😅

 

[Fuhgeddaboudit]

the outfit is actually cute, it gives off magical girl vibes esp if some of the patterns where toned down and uniformed.
Its just hard to see that bc p*na's tacky ass is wearing it.

 

[Wyrm]

Technically though, there is a question that could be raised by a suspicious individual here.
The king of a foreign nation just admitted to serving you a drink with a secondary effect to "lift a curse" that was creating false affection for the Star Maiden...
How are you supposed to know for sure that it wasn't actually afflicting you with a curse to make you disklike her?
If feelings can be pushed one way, can't they be altered the other way too?

Imagine a Demon King coming at you, all smiling and such, only to make sure you reject your national anti-demon asset?

We, as readers, know the full story, but how are the in-story characters supposed to trust that?
There were others hints earlier, such as the witnesses retracting their testimonies, but how can you be sure that they didn't get cursed either? (Which they were, btw... Remilia plagued them with nightmares.)

 

[Khazar123]

Technically though, there is a question that could be raised by a suspicious individual here.
The king of a foreign nation just admitted to serving you a drink with a secondary effect to "lift a curse" that was creating false affection for the Star Maiden...
How are you supposed to know for sure that it wasn't actually afflicting you with a curse to make you disklike her?
If feelings can be pushed one way, can't they be altered the other way too?

Imagine a Demon King coming at you, all smiling and such, only to make sure you reject your national anti-demon asset?

We, as readers, know the full story, but how are the in-story characters supposed to trust that?
There were others hints earlier, such as the witnesses retracting their testimonies, but how can you be sure that they didn't get cursed either? (Which they were, btw... Remilia plagued them with nightmares.)

Well one theory would be, that Pinas favor was already on it's lowest point, even people affected by the drug did not really like her all that much anymore. Maybe in the Novel it was described how the people affected asked themselves sometimes, why they even still support her as much as they do.
They were basically neutral(with forced positivity) towards her and the drink just broke the wall that led into negativity.

Going from clear to haze and going from haze to clear, should also be a pretty distinguishable feeling.

 

[Oodori]

LET US FUCKING GOOOOOOOO

 

[eminyan]

Technically though, there is a question that could be raised by a suspicious individual here.
The king of a foreign nation just admitted to serving you a drink with a secondary effect to "lift a curse" that was creating false affection for the Star Maiden...
How are you supposed to know for sure that it wasn't actually afflicting you with a curse to make you disklike her?
If feelings can be pushed one way, can't they be altered the other way too?

Imagine a Demon King coming at you, all smiling and such, only to make sure you reject your national anti-demon asset?

We, as readers, know the full story, but how are the in-story characters supposed to trust that?
There were others hints earlier, such as the witnesses retracting their testimonies, but how can you be sure that they didn't get cursed either? (Which they were, btw... Remilia plagued them with nightmares.)

good q, i assumed drinking the potion elicited feelings of lucidity (as if becoming sober, or having medicine fully come out of the system) rather than “dislike” towards pina.

they didnt necessarily feel dislike for pina, but rather than their thoughts no loner felt clouded or amplified. if they did like pina, they may still have those sentiments, but dont feel like theyre on a high with her, as caused by the drug.

its definitely true that it could have been a viable scheme by the demon kjng, but id argue its the feelings each individual felt in that room (that we can only imagine unless author gives us a direct answer) that they fully believed in, not just dk’s words

 

[eminyan]

Well at this point,

Spoiler

she already lost most of the star maiden power because it come from original Pina's soul. So there's no point in trying to stay 'pure'.

is this revealed later on? and if so publicly or private realization

 

[pepinotomate]

didnt engage with audiences has nothing to do with quality and has entirely to do with advertising. You dont sell Lamborghinis to people who live paycheck to paycheck. the issue with Single Mother Adventurer is clearly that it has a difficult audience sell because it swings violently between diabetically cute and borderline-tortureporn gritty character drama. the Manga is explicitly getting around that by skipping the super dark shit for a reason.

the only thing that Raising Children in another world does well is market to an audience.

I didn't exactly mention anything about quality, but engagement have everything to do with quality, narrative, advertisement, attention, etc is a whole package anyway, if your story fail at one of these points or at everything while you were trying to get an audience or aiming at your specific one to sell it to, then is a failure, it didn't engage with whatever audience it was trying to get, and this apply to every other LN that have failed, Raising Kids played it fine and got its audience and have maintained it for years, MotoMusu didn't retain it because no one engaged with the story, LN world have always been more ruthless than manga as they are way more prone to getting axed, because most of these stories are basically coming from the equivalent to fanfiction or wattpad so there is a more fierce battle once they get published as LN (and while syosetu isn't the old jank website, they still try to bait with the titles), doesn't help that the author doesn't fully commit to its own stories, and aside LN are LN, and cars are cars, thats the dumbest shit you could come with

Manga is skipping around for more reasons than the story being "super dark" at some points, and that have more to do with the current status of the artist for some years now, long hiatus + condensed story kept her from getting exhausted, otherwise the story wouldn't move at all

 

[toapat]

I didn't exactly mention anything about quality, but engagement have everything to do with quality, narrative, advertisement, attention, etc is a whole package anyway, if your story fail at one of these points or at everything while you were trying to get an audience or aiming at your specific one to sell it to, then is a failure, it didn't engage with whatever audience it was trying to get, and this apply to every other LN that have failed, Raising Kids played it fine and got its audience and have maintained it for years, MotoMusu didn't retain it because no one engaged with the story, LN world have always been more ruthless than manga as they are way more prone to getting axed, because most of these stories are basically coming from the equivalent to fanfiction or wattpad so there is a more fierce battle once they get published as LN (and while syosetu isn't the old jank website, they still try to bait with the titles), doesn't help that the author doesn't fully commit to its own stories, and aside LN are LN, and cars are cars, thats the dumbest shit you could come with

Manga is skipping around for more reasons than the story being "super dark" at some points, and that have more to do with the current status of the artist for some years now, long hiatus + condensed story kept her from getting exhausted, otherwise the story wouldn't move at all

Market engagement is so significantly biased to advertising that it took 3 despised movies to completely destroy the value of Star Wars as a franchise and all 3 of them still turned a profit after their advertising budgets while selling no external media. Quality of Consistency, Characterization, and Narrative are important for retaining the market a product needs to survive but Advertising is critical to getting that market at all, and its very obvious that SMA never got advertising clicks that got it into the hands of people that would keep attention to the story.

Hell, looking at Amazon listings clearly tells me why the series failed in the hands of TO Books, and it has to do entirely with marketing. it doesnt matter if its technically one of the best Otome Villainess story, a pretty good Isekai, and a good Dramatic Sitcom, if your asking price is 50% higher then the standard. Sure theyre 100 pages longer then normal but Amazon doesnt give you Price per Page listings.

Your argument is of the same level as equating Dragonball to be perfectly written because its the most influential single story written in the last 50 years.

 

[Wyrm]

good q, i assumed drinking the potion elicited feelings of lucidity (as if becoming sober, or having medicine fully come out of the system) rather than “dislike” towards pina.

Possibly.
But you know the amazing thing about feeling like you're right when you are? It feels exactly the same as feeling that you're right when you're wrong.
In this case, the previous state of mind was "having feelings of affection amplified to extraordinary degree while doubts were clouded." Their new state is "having feelings of affection muted while doubts are clear." How do you know what feelings are true and which ones are manipulated? Because of another feeling of "clarity of mind"? How do you know that this feeling itself isn't induced? Even in real life, there are drugs to induce a similar feeling... while still putting you in an altered state of mind.
After all, liking someone and still having some vague, undefined doubts about them is not necessarily an abnormal state of mind.

Mental manipulation (emotion control and memory alteration in particular) is, in my opinion, one of the most evil powers. Because your own sense of identity becomes untrustworthy when faced with it. Because the person you can trust the least at that point is yourself. How do you know that you were manipulated then? How do you know that you aren't manipulated now? You can only try and trust someone else to answer that for you.
In contrast, body manipulation is bad, but at least it doesn't deprive you of your sense of self. Though it can make you suspicious to others, at least you can still trust yourself.

(For reference, the series "Jessica Jones" illustrated this pretty well. The Purple Man can induce suggestions to his victims who take these suggestions as their own thoughts and initiatives. Many of the people who live past the point where the order expires have a nervous breakdown because they don't know if they can trust themselves to not do something murderous or suicidal again. Because they don't know what is their own will, and what is his.)

 

[OneDoesStuffs]

I CAN'T STOP LAUGHING. GO RIP HER TO SHRED, EMILIA!

 

[AzzoleOddone]

ik there are 16 pages of comments here and i've only read the first 2 but
am i the only one who thinks remi looks like a fish in that dress?

 

[XxREEKSxX]

The horror on their faces when they realize they were brainwashed by Pina. Have to feel sorry for them somewhat.

NAHHHHHH NO MERCY!!!!! THEIR ONLY ALLOWED TO LIVE BECAUSE EMI ALLOWS IT!!!!

 

[XxREEKSxX]

Oh man I can't wait for another month 😭

LOL, Nothings good to read all at once. You really learn to savor it when it comes slowly one at a time. Even rereading to get a refresh on what you have lost or even forgotten is a must. In the end we must never rush things. BUT GAWD DAMN A MONTH??? BRUH IM DYING ON ASURA WAITING A WEEK A WEEEEK BRUH!!!

 

[pepinotomate]

Hell, looking at Amazon listings clearly tells me why the series failed in the hands of TO Books, and it has to do entirely with marketing. it doesnt matter if its technically one of the best Otome Villainess story, a pretty good Isekai, and a good Dramatic Sitcom, if your asking price is 50% higher then the standard. Sure theyre 100 pages longer then normal but Amazon doesnt give you Price per Page listings.

Your argument is of the same level as equating Dragonball to be perfectly written because its the most influential single story written in the last 50 years.

Imagine using Amazon listings to say why it failed and blame it on marketing and price, while completely ignoring that the price for Novels have always varied depending on the publisher and labels, TO Books, Futabasha, Alphapolis, GC Novels, Kadokawa Books (label) between many others tend to be in the higher scale which is around 1200-1500 yen, sometimes even higher, if the work failed because it was "50% higher" according to your "standard", then any work on the higher scale would be failing miserably, but thats not the case at all, LNs fail whether they cost 500 yen or 1500 yen all the same, all that matter is whats inside and if it caught up enough people to keep reading independent of the price this is being sold at, if a work isn't making any difference in a saturated market even with the help of the publisher by giving it a manga adaptation, promos, CM, etc etc, then a price is the least of your problems

If you got no idea what are you saying, then better not say anything at all instead of coming with the dumbest takes

 

[Cobaltzero]

I'm sitting here reading this and I'm trying to not die laughing.
Pina is FUCKED. And she doesn't even realize it.

 

[toapat]

Imagine using Amazon listings to say why it failed and blame it on marketing and price, --- all that matter is whats inside and if it caught up enough people to keep reading independent

and do you know what price perception does? It doesnt help that apparently for book 1 at least as i havent checked the others, TO Books didnt assign an editor.

 

[Ratentaisou]

Technically though, there is a question that could be raised by a suspicious individual here.
The king of a foreign nation just admitted to serving you a drink with a secondary effect to "lift a curse" that was creating false affection for the Star Maiden...
How are you supposed to know for sure that it wasn't actually afflicting you with a curse to make you disklike her?
If feelings can be pushed one way, can't they be altered the other way too?

Imagine a Demon King coming at you, all smiling and such, only to make sure you reject your national anti-demon asset?

We, as readers, know the full story, but how are the in-story characters supposed to trust that?
There were others hints earlier, such as the witnesses retracting their testimonies, but how can you be sure that they didn't get cursed either? (Which they were, btw... Remilia plagued them with nightmares.)

1. All the other stuffs people have said here.
2. Everyone knows Angel is capable of nuking the whole nation all by himself from first glance, no one is gonna want to doubt what he's saying.

 

[Wyrm]

2. Everyone knows Angel is capable of nuking the whole nation all by himself from first glance, no one is gonna want to doubt what he's saying.

This is not a reason to trust. It's only a reason not to raise an objection to his face.
Fear and trust are not the same, even if you behave the same on the surface.