Wow I couldn’t have explained it better
Girl, readers keep leaving me dumbfounded every single time. One would think riftan was the actual villain of the story with the way some people react.
The hate and criticism directed at him somehow feel stronger than the anger toward the real monster in the story, the one who actually abused and traumatized maxi. Meanwhile, riftan is out here loving her, protecting her, and literally losing his mind over what happened to her.
It’s like people are focusing more on the way he expressed his emotions in that moment rather than the horrific situation that caused them in the first place
Riftan can be better than the duke, love Maxi, care for her, but still be toxic. Things aren't black and white.
So what? is that the issue right now, so him expressing his emotions is him being toxic, bfr, y'all will twist things just to pass your narrative that isn't even the main issue at the moment
In this episode he wasn’t being toxic he was expressing his emotions n being as human as one can b in this situation
i think what’s most important in this chapter too is that they’re actually communicating for once. This might not be the best way to get their feelings out, but atleast they’re coming out. Riftan is not the soft spoken male lead that some readers are hoping for, and that has never been his character anyways
Thank you, this is what I've been saying
A lot of readers are being extremely unrealistic here, and honestly it feels less like media literacy and more like people deliberately refusing to view the scene from an emotional or human perspective.
riftan’s reaction was completely valid and realistic. The man had just witnessed his wife being brutally abused by her father to the point she was nearly beaten to death, yet some readers expected him to respond with perfect calmness and soft-spoken logic in the middle of a highly emotional moment. That’s not how human beings work, especially not someone like Riftan, whose character has never been portrayed as emotionally composed under stress.
Did some of you even read their actual conversation, or did you only see him yelling and immediately decide he was wrong? His anger was never truly directed at maxi, most of it was directed at himself, his helplessness, the situation, and the years of suffering she endured. He was overwhelmed, horrified, furious, and guilty all at once. Expecting emotional perfection from someone who just witnessed severe abuse is far more unrealistic than his reaction itself.
And calling him “violent” simply because he raised his voice is genuinely watering down the meaning of violence. Shouting during an emotionally charged argument is not automatically abuse, especially when both characters are actively communicating and yelling over each other in distress. Readers keep ignoring the actual context just to reduce the scene to “man yelled = bad.”
What’s ironic is that people constantly wants “realistic flawed characters” until those flaws involve a character they do not like. riftan reacted like a deeply emotional human being in a horrifying situation, not like a robotic therapist carefully choosing every word under pressure. You know what, I seriously can't with some of this readers