the empress inevitably becoming the cause of her own downfall due to wanting to protect he...

I do agree with her being her own downfall and her being a well written villain. But I do think it’s not really because she wanted to protect her house that’s she did those things. She doesn’t care for the people under her, blood clearly doesn’t matter with how she will discard them the moment they are useless. If anything, it is more about the fact that she came from that house that’s pushing her to make Angenas prosper. A true narcissistic egomaniac. The one thing she might care for may be her son but even then that’s limited to if he is useful to her. Like look at the way she doesn’t even care about him as a person outside of becoming the king one day. No interest in what he wants and doesn’t want and mostly just focus on how it affects her as a queen and him as a crown prince.

Got me thinking and she’s quite a foil to Florentia, actually. Both involved with men from the royal line, both came from Ducal families, both ambitious. However, while one focuses on building the people in their house and caring for them as a way to make their house as a whole prosper the other wrings them for all that they could give just to make the name of the house, and therefore her by association, prosper. The way they deal with people from their own house going against them is also very contrastive like how Tia would still support her uncle’s family vs how the queen would order for her brother to be disfigured .

this is a very interesting analysis.. thank you so much for sharing your thoughts about her character!!!

I very much agree with the sentiment that the empress is a direct foil to Florentia's character too. both of them are ultimately fueled by their ambition (as you've mentioned) and have the end goal of success. unlike Tia, however, the empress doesn't necessarily care about those she has to hurt to achieve that. more than protecting her Angenas family and fulfilling her duties, I wouldn't be surprised that her only goal now at this point in the story is solidifying her power. She views Florentia, Perez, House Brown, and now the emperor himself as obstacles to her exerting her full imperial authority. on top of this, she also views her own family as a threat to her plans which is probably why she ordered for her brother's tongue to be cut off.. but if she didn't want him snitching it would've honestly been better (and more intimidating from a reader's perspective) to have him killed right then and there.

because of this, I suspect that she's the one behind the emperor suddenly falling into poor condition after drinking the wine. possibly poisoning? but only future chapters will tell. one thing I absolutely think will happen though is her throwing a tantrum and taking out her frustrations on all of the subordinates she can get her hands on LOL

Honestly, I didn’t even think about how it would probably be easier for her to just have her brother killed vs getting his tongue cut off. I guess she might care in some sort of twisted way.

I do suspect her as well regarding his sudden ill health but I didn’t really see much clues in the scenes after confirming if it was really her. She’s still my number 1 suspect but I would be really shocked if it was someone else who caused it via probable poisoning. I do look forward to seeing that tantrum though. I bet it’s gonna get even crazier soon.