You put every thought I had about the novel down perfectly. I kept reading hoping-praying- wishing that there would be character development. Instead I read about how the male lead seems to be adapting and getting used to her behavior, finding ways to appease her or work around her tantrums. At some point, the past isn’t a justification- it’s only a means to explain why she is the way she is.
It almost feels like the author despises Talia sometimes. I’m trying to figure out what the end goal is or what the message the author is trying to convey is supposed to be but ngl, I’m struggling.
Hi could you let me know where you accessed the novel please !!
No because same I kept waiting for the story to actually let Talia grow, but it felt more like everyone else just learned how to survive around her moods instead. Like Varkas “understanding” her better isn’t the same as her actually healing or changing.
And yeah, her past explains why she’s like that, but it doesn’t excuse everything forever. It’s like every time she gets close to any kind of peace, the story throws something even worse at her. After a while I wasn’t even crying, I was just tired lol. I still think she’s interesting, but the novel really made her exhausting to read.
Hii, I read it on KakaoPage/KKP! I used the Korean raws and read-ahead spoilers/summaries to follow along since I don’t think there’s a full official English novel translation.
This. Word for word.
SPOILERS FOR THE NOVEL / READ-AHEAD SPOILERS
I’m not hating on this series btw. The art is gorgeous and the premise is actually interesting, which is why I even care enough to rant. But the more I read ahead, the more mixed I feel about the story and especially the main couple.
Talia is a very hard FL to like, and I don’t mean that as “bad writing.” I think she’s meant to be hard to like. She’s jealous, bitter, emotionally unstable, and honestly kind of exhausting sometimes. I understand WHY she’s like that because her whole life was basically neglect, humiliation, and being treated like she was born wrong. But understanding her trauma doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything she does.
That’s where I feel like some readers go too far. They act like because she suffered, every ugly thing she does is automatically fine. But for me, she’s both sympathetic and unlikeable. Both can be true.
Varkas is also frustrating. I get that he’s duty-bound and emotionally repressed, and from what I understood his protection/engagement with Ayla came more from a promise/oath tied to the late empress, not because he was madly in love with her or anything. But even then, the result is still messy. He’s engaged to Ayla, Talia is already spiraling because of him, then the injury/marriage situation happens and suddenly the whole relationship is built on guilt, duty, shame, responsibility, and trauma.
That is not romantic to me in a normal way. It’s interesting, but not exactly something I can happily root for.
The intimacy/coercion spoilers are where I really started side-eyeing the story. I know people argue about how to interpret it, but when a scene has that much pressure, pain, obligation, and lack of emotional safety, I feel like the novel needs to handle it more seriously. Dark stories can have uncomfortable scenes, but then the aftermath should matter too. It shouldn’t just become another tragic thing thrown into the pile.
And that’s kind of my biggest problem with the novel spoilers overall. Talia suffers, then suffers again, then suffers even more. The pregnancy/child-loss part sounds genuinely heartbreaking, especially because she was starting to believe she could love her child differently from how her own mother treated her. But then the baby dies, she can’t have another child, and the marriage loses political value. At some point it stops feeling cathartic and just feels like the author is determined to make her miserable forever.
I also don’t like how Ayla gets talked about sometimes. I’m not saying she’s innocent or perfect, because she has ugly moments too. But she was engaged to Varkas first, and in that kind of setting, a broken engagement is not a small thing. It affects her reputation and future. So when people act like she has no right to be hurt or bitter just because Talia is the FL, it feels unfair. Talia’s pain is real, but she’s not the only person being damaged by this whole palace/political mess.
I think that’s why this story is so frustrating to me. The characters are interesting, but they’re also draining. Talia is compelling but exhausting. Varkas is not boring, but he feels passive and inconsistent sometimes. The romance is intense, but I don’t really feel the love in a satisfying way. It feels more like obsession, guilt, duty, and tragedy all tangled together.