The funny thing is that she did not try to act as a victim, it is author's perspective that makes her look so, but Ariel was true to herself till the end, she loved the bastard ex-husband and wanted to be with him and was ready to do anything to make him happy and love her back and never questioned if her actions were good or bad as long as she achieved the above and never regretted what she did. Yes it is sad when someone choose to be like this not for oneself (then we could just hate her for being evil) but for someone else (that makes her look a bit like a victim of her feelings) but in general she personally did not accuse anyone of her misfortune and accepted the result of her actions.
So it is all on the author who for some reason tried to make her look like a victim. And you know it is not impossible, some authors did manage to show us the inner character of a villain and their circumstances in such a way that you kinda feel sorry for them too and wish them a happy ending of some kind but in this specific case i personally think the author failed to do so, the story was too rushed and did not show enough of Ariels background and inner struggles that we could start to emphasise with her, so the authours efforts to vitimise her felt so forced...
Idgaf about the mistress. They’re making her look all pitiful and have a whole sob story, but she was perfectly happy and shady when she was a mistress. She talked shit saying to the FL: Your misery is my happiness. Now she wanna act like a victim as if she also ain’t manipulating and putting witchcraft on others?? Puh-lease. Spare me the victim mentality.