The Wolf Lord's Lady - Vol. 2 Ch. 9

[Tadamori]

@Pokari Your analysis is spot on.

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).

Impossible grief - couldn't have said better myself - is what it looks like and I think they've done well portraying that kind of contradiction in her character. The fact that she has retained any sanity and ability to live and communicate in those circumstances is already a great feat. I haven't read the novel but I imagine it will take them a lot of time and character development to deal with all the grief and contradictions, and the conflict of whether they should be paying for the wrongs of their past lives or just get on with the present. I want to see this resolved, I want to see a future in which they are liberated from the past.

Edit: Scratch that. I read the next couple of chapters in the novel. The character development was... let's just say it was anticlimactic.

 

[Penge]

Please tell me is he actually dead??

 

[SmartHeart]

Since the beggining of the story, there are some things that I can't find the sense.
IDK, she probably feels responsible for everything bad that happens, and that's why she plays the villain, and I kinda like it (I dont know why). She probably feels like the main culprit of that assassination attempt and also she probably doesn't want wilfred to be acused, or she just implores and appeals to him in that away, just to see if he changes his mind and finds some way to give her the antidote. She probably doesn't care about revenge for kaid's death. That's the only way I can find sense. (In the end she has got to know the other culprit, but at what price. The risk of being killed by him. He's such an idiot to let 2 living proofs alive.)

 

[Draziti]

This has come to a point where I empathize more with Wilfred than with her. Maybe her family really deserved to die, but she did nothing wrong, and yet, is this selfless and contradictory, longing for a traitor who sentenced an innocent to death, herself at this. This chapter was great, though I think I will be disappointed. I'm quite sure they will come up with some shenanigans to make Keid come back.

 

[mbs0059]

I really like Wilfred as a character. He was reborn as 'Tim' and want to live as 'Tim', but was constantly reminded of 'Wilfred' and all the evil history. Really, who would be able to move on like it's nothing? At least with Shirley, he would be able to live as 'Will' who was just him and not the evil 'Wilfred' that everybody cursed.

 

[Svelandria]

@Draziti I think it's because their circumstances were so different that there is such a disparity between how they have both lived their second life. Wilfred never loved her and as far as we are aware he never loved anyone, but she loved Kaid and couldn't get over that love. She acted on her love for Kaid as well as her guilt from not knowing anything, and the pain of being betrayed by the one she loved most as well as there being a justifiable reason for his betrayal that she herself understood caused her to basically shutdown emotionally. Wilfred, on the other hand, was simply driven out and lost what he himself built up. He figured he could rebuild what he lost in this new life as Tim, but the thought that the one who caused him to lose everything living happily and well while he still drew breath frustrated him to no end. She gave up and shutdown, whereas Tim tried to keep moving forward. The problem they both faced and currently still face is that they reincarnated too soon, forcing them both to endure the barbs that everyone has been throwing at them their entire lives. As Tim said, if their downfall was a story from long ago he'd be fine, which makes a lot of sense. If they had reincarnated a hundred years later, then the resentment the people still have for them would be miniscule.

I don't think I explained myself very well(feel as if the words don't want to come to me, for some reason), but to put it simply it's easier to feel for Tim because he is actually sharing his feelings about and acting on his own determination to make things right(or what he believes to be right), whereas Shirley is emotionally shutdown and refuses to share her pain, pushing everyone who tries to approach her away without explaining why. There's more energy and purpose behind Tim's actions and words compared to Shirley who just wants to be left alone so she can die quietly in some corner.

 

[Aria321]

Thanks for the chapter !

 

[NamelessSoldier]

I can't feel that much hatred for Wilfred/Tim. He may have been scum or affably evil in his first life, but he at least should have had a chance to be better in his second life.

However, he was never truly given the opportunity to do that, being burdened with his own sins and being celebrated as an avatar of evil constantly by those around him. How can one feel that they can live meaningfully if everyone despises the core of who they are (for reasons that may not even be fully valid)?

I feel like both of these characters truly had the same problem and took different approaches to it with both being perfectly understandable outcomes (though not necessarily morally justifiable, at least understandable to the point of empathy).

 

[Mai_loves_icecream]

Oh gosh I feel so bad for Will. Like I didn't tear up reading the novel but its truly heartbreaking when you look at it like this

 

[TheGodEmperor]

Something great about this story is how the “villain” is no evil or villain... just a tragic person that has suffered like our heroine... but chose a path of anger and revenge. And, tbh, I don’t blame him. Imo, Kaid and the people of Reius haven’t suffered properly/enough for their evils of their own.

 

[Sylviapa]

😭😭😭 i got heart attack after read the last page

 

[Lumine_iris]

😢

 

[Miming_]

Woah... The wall of texts on this comments... For real though. Wherever her story goes I will still enjoy reading this. And then probably forget this manga exist after a week.

 

[Crossoverlover232]

Oh please, we know he's not REALLY dead. Any time this happens in a manga.. the person whose dead is just letting it -seem- that way to draw out the enemy

 

[TheDragonLord]

@Svelandria @Draziti

As a reader, I find that I can relate better to Shirley because of her types of trauma. She recognizes her wrongdoings/perceived wrongdoings, and holds herself in some ways to an impossibly high standard of ethics—she feels that she must be punished for her sins and thus sees that out via her constant efforts to punish herself/be punished.

Shirley plays the role of "villain" because the people needed something to hate in order to cope with their pain—they needed (Shirley felt) a conducting rod that could transmit their pain into something so that they could break out of their pain/hopelessness/helplessness.

Unlike many of the historical examples of scapegoating, she recognizes her own shortcomings and volunteered to be that scapegoat. She effectively became a villainous martyr who is reliving the last moments of her life over and over again because eshe can't break out of the guilt for the sins that she feels that she is responsible for (even though, quite reasonably, she isn't—she was largely kept in the dark and wasn't trusted even by the one person who should have trusted her, her secret fiance. He didn't even bother revealing the evils of her family or the suffering of the people to test if she could improve, so instead, she lived in ignorance, thus making his betrayal all the worse because it prevented her from her own salvation—he effectively helped doomed her to the role of "villain" that she took gracefully to the executioner's block, despite her being in some ways more virtuous a person than the man she loved—precisely, because upon learning the truth, she did what even the "hero" could not, offer the people a symbol of "justice" by being a grotesque monster that could be struck down.

In their gripping suffering, to pull themselves out, the author seems to indicate that Shirley at the very least believed that their traumas necessitated their deaths.

Would things have been better if she had lived and justice had been met out? Perhaps, but the ML failed to offer that option.

@Crossoverlover232 Honestly, one would hope that it's a ruse to lure the noble (and possibly Will) into letting their guards down. At the same time, this comic has been pretty willing to demonstrate brutal tragedy, so it's entirely possible that he does die. We hope not because we want a peaceful resolution, but then again, Shirley may well have to suck it up and solve this one on her own without a day knight to rescue her. W

 

[sylvacoer]

@Arkos - and what's even more fun, as far as we know, all his life Will was taught that what he was doing was right. How much of a mindfuck would it be to suddenly be torn apart, come back to life, and be told that you were the villain and deserved such a painful death and more?

@JWChibi - I agree on Will - he's very interesting, since we only know his (previous life's) story from Shirely's perspective. And I think Shirley's view comes from the fact that she only belatedly realized the truth of her life/family as a noble, and she no concept of how to make herself or anyone else happy. As for making herself happy, she convinced herself she'd been reborn in Purgatory, so what was the point?
As for myself, feth yes, I would have taken revenge on Kaid and burned the whole fief down, feth those stinking peasants. 😈

@Kuraiaku - Seconded on this assessment - she can't actively atone, so she seeks a passive means.

@Svelandria - I think you explained Will's motivations very well.

 

[Speak_Evil]

It seems like Will's only crime was having her as a fiancé.

 

[piapple]

I refuse!! F u Will he's not dead >:/

 

[Gicavana]

i cant blame Will, sorry.

 

[BrambleBee]

Thank you!😁