@Sumatose there has only been one Empress. This was a big characterization backstory reveal whereby we discover that the Big-Bad went bad after having been forcibly adopted by the Parlam family after her parents died separating her from her kid brother (who is now the head of the Parlam family, the
other Big-Bad).
She was
then sold effectively as a sacrifice or slave to become the "Empress" of the male chauvinist Emperor who then got jiggy with it with a maid—unlike as typically happens in judeo-Christian western cultures, the Emperor
aknowledges said child, making him the rightful crown prince—effectively
destroying any purpose or meaning to the sacrifice the young woman went through.
In other words, she went Hera—the Emperor is atotal womanizing dick like Zeus and since the Empress (like Hera) has now means to punish her husband for his actions, she instead attempts to get her revenge on either the women he slept with or their children such that she can place her own child on the thrown out of bitterness due to her humiliation and loss. She lost all her freedom and joy, to be made a pawn and slave of some jaggoff, only to have her very purpose usurped.
If she were raised for this job, then it
might have come to a slightly lesser blow, but because she was free and wanted only to live with her brother, maybe meet a guy, and start a family, or
something, because the Emperor and the Parlam family took everything from her, now even taking the responsibility and the honor of the crown away from her son, she
kinda snapped, along with her brother, who have set out on a path of revenge (at least, the brother certainly has).
The irony here is that she/the brother lashes out at the wrong person. Instead of lashing out at the maid or her stepson, she should have done like her own son and learned to love him as he does, if only because their
true enemy is the Emperor's thing, his personality, and the society/Society's laws and customs that were permit, let alone enable/enforce/deem valuable the sort of Sacrificial offering that became of them.
Basically, if we take the Hera story, instead of punishing the women whom got raped by Zeus (yeah, despite what folks might think, the women got raped) because 1. She had no means to harm Zeus, and 2. Because Hera was the goddess of family and motherhood, thereby making a filandering husband an insult to her pride (which I find odd because as said matron of women & motherhood, one would think that protecting her husband's rape victims would be of central stage—but, I digress)—instead, Hera should have recognized that the best way she could humiliate her husband was to raise & protect the throwaways—demigod children—and protect their mothers who were Zeus' rape victims, thereby enabling those children and her children to learn how
not to raise children/parent and thus fulfilling her role as a goddess of family & motherhood (families don't necessarily fit the nuclear model nor does motherhood). Secondly, there is a possibility that in doing so, her children and adopted stepchildren could well rise-up against their father's tyranny and put and end to it (and possibly him) as the rapist tyrant of thebsky that he's described as in myth, story, and legend.
In this case, the Empress could have gotten better revenge against her slave master by doing right by the princes. In so doing, she'd have made things easier for her son and ultimately doomed the legacy of the Emperor as a tyrant and monster. Plus, his sons may well have conspired together to off the Emperor for being a dirtbag to their moms. 😂😅
It's been known to happen.
Anyhow, hopefully that clears up any misunderstandings! :3