This is a whole different genre from other historical romances and rofans, and more dark and toxic with a whole lotta drama. It's a tragedy, and expecting fluff is gonna leave you disappointed. This manhwa is toxic, and the manhwa doesn't ignore the ML's abuse and toxicity, and we can see it because FL is not unknown/oblivious to the ML's behavior, but she still goes back to him because honestly there is nothing much she can do in that situation and I believe she is very much aware of this because she would not get the kind of justice or any kind of freedom frankly (unless ML loses his feelings for her and lets her go from that cycle) in that day and age as a person on the lower end of society and also being a women.
One thing I don't really like is the supporting of ML's abuse, assault, and Sexual Assault(bordering rape) and forcing her into doing things she doesn't want to do. I also don't really understand why people are hating on Layla for her "weak behavior"; mate, she is in a toxic, abusive relationship. A toxic relationship is like a cycle; you slowly get addicted to it somewhat (speaking from experience). You hate them but keep going back because staying away is hard, and you go away and come back, which is FL's situation rn, so saying things like she has to go away from him might be easy to say, but it is very hard to do when you are in that kind of relationship.
The first time I came across this manhwa was on TikTok, where the creator was, I think, a Claudia fan, and in the specific TikTok, it was like Claudia is a confident and strong woman and that Layla should wake the hell up and leave Mathias because he is a scum on earth and a sexual assaulter, and Mathias can go die in a ditch. I remember thinking, well, good luck to her, and that the art was pretty. After that, my feed started showing me edits on the manhwa, and I was like, you know what, I'll read it because I saw this once and didn't want to read it because there were many things on my TBR, but now since some of my manhwas were almost completed and I was gonna read them after they finish, I thought why not give this manhwa a read and so I did.
First, let's get some things out of the way: the storytelling in the panels is REALLY good, and the way their emotions and everything are shown is pretty darn amazing. Props to the storyboarding team, artist, and author on that aspect because they went hard on those. The art is also some of the better art because I've seen some manhwas botch art after a season or 2, and it's always sad if the earlier art was really good, but this manhwa has top-tier art, and it's always good to see hardworking and talented artists get their cake.
I've also read some of the comments here and seen that some people hate on the people who give criticism to the manhwa, like calling out the characters like Mathias for his horrible behavior towards Layla and Layla for being "weak" and "pathetic". The people who hate on the criticism say things like Go read your vanilla stuff, If you don't like it, don't read it, green flags can get boring and cliche, It's a tragedy story, and people can't read genres, and that their lives must be so miserable to want high standards and stuff like that, along with insults and curses to the poster of the opinion. I really don't understand the need to curse at a person with an opinion that you don't like. If you don't like it, by all means go ahead and put your own opinion out and criticize the other opinion and fact-check it; that is the entire crux of a debate, not hurling personal insults toward the person who said their opinion.
I agree that this story is not meant for light reading and for people looking for a green flag or a drama-free or a fluffy story, and that this is a toxic and dark love story. It is also set in an era of class differences, and discrimination was everywhere. Looking at this story with a modern mindset and lens is going to make you angry about Mathias treating Layla like he does, but here's the thing: Mathias probably thinks he did nothing wrong with how he treated her, and nor will anyone else from that time period because Layla is a gardener's niece and Mathias is a high noble of the empire.