Ngl I read the novel and thought it was pretty interesting esp when you get halfway thru w...

agree, i love the novel! very interesting political situation, good plot, and the whole double identity stuff. it's so deliciously angsty
it's a shame the pacing of the manhwa adaptation is so choppy

U get it!! So far I think this manhwa kinda makes it seem like another typical toxic smut yaoi and while it has those elements since yk ML isn’t rlly a “green flag“ theres so much more to the story that made it special. I dont think ive read a story that incorporated reincarnation in the way this story did and it had me on the edge of my seat fr

I would love spoilers or the link to the novel

https://www.novelupdates.com/series/the-snow-queen/?pg=1#myTable I would spoil but id like u to give the novel a try first ! Lmk if u still want spoilers after

oh do u know what chapter in the novel if i want to continue the current progress in manhwa?

I believe its chapter 7

thank you!!

Can I get spoilers please? I don't want to read the novel.

here's an overview of the entire novel. it is very long and also still very barebones because of how complex the plot is. there's also a lot of political events and manipulation i'm leaving out of this, as well as a lot of moments betwen ray and messara and their relationship, bc im just focusing on the big plot points here

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this novel takes place in a fictional european country (i'm guessing geographically russia, based on the whitebirch legend and cold climate) where there is huge political instability, with two factions fighting for control of the country and influence over the throne following the death of the king. these two factions are the camellia (military arm, led by wulfsac and the geiger gang as his 'loyal dogs') and lotus (bureaucratic arm, led by manen) factions.

we follow the alternating perspectives of the ray and messara, who are both the real puppet masters behind manen and wulfsac respectively. they both keep their political identities very secret, with ray directing manen through phone calls as spiritus, and messara constantly wearing a mask as the leader of the geiger, snake. spiritus is a shaman and can read the thoughts of people manen shakes hands with, which combined with his natural intelligence and critical thinking, allows manen to navigate political situations and anticipate things that might affect manen's political power. snake has very good intuition and has authority as the leader of basically the military and armed forces in the country to manipulate political situations to be in camellia's favour. they both know of each other's existence as the real puppet master behind their opponents, but neither of them can figure out how to outmaneuver one another and find out one another's true identity. so there's a constant stalemate between the two factions

in their true, civilian identities, ray is a secondhand bookshop owner in the slums and messara pretends to be a low-ranking officer in the geiger from a middle class family. they both met at a gay bar. messara is a gay man with sadistic tendencies that scare most partners, and ray relies the pain of sex to take his mind off things because he fears he's going mad (more on that later). messara is drawn to ray and wants to find out more about why ray acts the way he does. the novel follows them getting to know each other and messara's feelings growing from curiosity but seeing ray as a convenient sex partner to falling in love with ray. ray seems less outwardly attached to messara, but he does see messara as someone to depend upon and eventually love, which is a new experience for him but also not exactly something ray needs at the time because he's going through his own hell.

ray is destitute. he owns a bookshop that was given to him but he doesn't get much income from it. he doesn't get paid by manen because he has formed a soul contract with manen because it is a way for him to reduce the intensity of his madness, but also means ray doesn't charge manen for his services (due to his own convictions or something, i don't quite remember the specifics). ray thinks he's going mad because he is haunted by whitebirch, a queen from long ago. whenever ray looks in the mirror he sees a dead woman with black hair (whitebirch) so he actually has no idea what he looks like, and is also the reason he hates people looking at him. ray also relives whitebirch's experiences and experiences heart attacks due to his connection with whitebirch - and when ray reaches the age whitebirch died, he knows he will also die. that's very soon for ray.

it's left a little ambiguous whether ray is the reincarnation of whitebirch. the narrative and ray's shaman teacher imply that, but ray is quite adamant him and whitebirch are different people. i'm leaning more towards believing the narrative here.

whitebirch is a queen from medieval times and a popular legend in the country. she married the king of the time (king daytanz) through an arranged marriage and they only met once during their wedding, which happened when they were very young. her family lost their political power almost immediately after, so whitebirch was left abandoned in an isolated tower with limited resources and one servant for years and years. one day she decides to sneak out and visit a festival, where she met daytanz while he was undercover. they fell in love and had a whirlwind romance but didn't tell each other who they were. whitebirch figures out who daytanz was but he doesn't know who she is. anyway daytanz returns to his daily life soon after and returns to another arranged marriage with a second queen, for political reasons. he approves of whitebirch's execution so that he can get married. after whitebirch dies, her belongings are returned to him as her husband and among them is a portrait of her. daytanz recognises whitebirch's portrait as the lady he fell in love with at the festival and according to the legend, he doesn't say a word at the time. but he chose to be buried next to whitebirch's grave under a tree on a hill instead of in the royal cemetery. the people of the country love this legend and love whitebirch (understandable, the story is so satisfyingly angsty), but ray hates whitebirch because of his unwanted connection to her.

back to ray and messara's stories. there's a lot of back and forth of political power between lotus and camellia, and both trying to find out who spiritus and snake really are, while snake juggles the spiritus investigation with falling out of favour with wulfsac and having arisa (the bearded noble guy who has a similar name to ray) vying for his position. in the meantime, ray and messara's relationship breaks down and messara realises too late he's in love with ray. ray starts taking on other jobs to keep afloat, including being a receptionist for a brothel and befriends sonia, a prostitute.

ray's illness continues to progress until one day whitebirch takes over his body and follows sonia to a party held by arisa for sonia's work. messara is attending that party too, as snake with the geiger mask on. whitebirch-ray asks snake to sleep with him, calling him her king, but while in the act, ray returns to normal and is terrified because he thought he was being raped by snake. ray has always been terrified of geiger. snake immediately withdraws and gets one of his men to check up on ray and give him a cheque 'for his services' but really it was to help ray financially. ray uses that cheque to check into a hospital in anticipation of his upcoming heart attack and eventual death.

snake gets rid of arisa, strengthens the power of the geiger while stripping wulfsac of his power, and figures out manen uses handshakes to read minds and gain political advantages via spiritus. everything is going well for snake. on the other hand, things are not going well with manen and spiritus because spiritus tells manen that he will be ending the contract between them as he's about to be hospitalised (and die). manen is distraught and soon after is kidnapped and tortured by snake and the geigar, after ignoring spiritus' advice about not investing in a power plant that was snake's trap in disguise. during his torture, manen reveals that he doesn't know what spiritus' real identity is but they will be at the cemetery on a certain day at a certain time because it is the death anniversary of spiritus' shaman teacher, who is also manen's old shaman contact, and the reason ray reached out to manen in the first place. manen describes spiritus as a young man wearing a shaman coat (which btw is what ray has been wearing this entire time and messara just didnt connect the dots lmao).

snake and geiger spring a trap for spiritus at the cemetery and stabs the person that shows up, who was wearing a coat with their hood on. after snake stabs spiritus in the back, spiritus looks up and his face is revealed - ray. messara is horrified and gets emergency treatment for ray. ray pulls through, which was pretty tough considering he had the big heart attack he was anticipating at the same time, and snake reveals that he is actually messara. ray leaves messara.

a year passes and things have stabilised politically. geiger is the real power now that wulfsac, manen, and spiritus are out of the picture. they install their own puppet king and all is okay, except messara and ray's relationship. ray is living life by himself without whitebirch's interference and messara is wistfully keeping tabs on ray but not reaching out, to respect ray's decision. ray has time to think about his and messara's relationship now and chooses to be with messara. happy ending!

then there's volume 2 that takes place after which delves deeper into the daytanz-whitebirch-second queen dynamic with a new character implied to be the reincarnation of the second queen who also upsets the political scene in the current day. volume 2 feels more like a side story and isn't really that important to the main plot

Thank so much for this very well detailed summary of what happened. I greatly appreciate

Thank you!!! The plot is interesting but I still don't get why they fell for each other? It made no sense.