Regarding the bath scene— The webtoon cut out a lot of the detail from the webnovel, pr...

Regarding the bath scene—

The webtoon cut out a lot of the detail from the webnovel, presumably to keep the comic reader-friendly. But it’s really not meant to be a “kyaa, pervert~!” scene.

1) Ebony, when she entered the mansion, was a disaster. The webtoon makes her look as if she were a noble lady who’d been starved for a bit, but she was malnourished, disgusting (i.e., oil dripping from her body), hunched, etc. She looked less like a poor girl but more like a wretched beast. In order to get her “clean,” Marsha had to wash her six times. When she was bathing, her figure wasn’t sexy or appealing. You could see her spine protruding, her wounds gaping, her flesh withered, etc.

2) Marsha’s acceptance was what pushed Ebony over the edge, and her crying was goddamn pitiful. It was loud and uncontrollable, echoing through the entire mansion as if a beast were in acute pain. In other words, it wasn’t just quiet sobbing from a touched maiden. It was justifiably alarming enough to make Schneider barge in. If you heard someone cry out from the bathroom as if they’d broken their arm, you’d smash through the door as well, right? Decency be damned, there were bigger things at stake.

3) In the webnovel, Ebony’s guard didn’t lift up her skirt. Her thighs were bleeding from prior whippings (to the point that blood colored her bathwater), and she spent the whole carriage ride keeping her feet to herself, because she was fucking terrified of even slightly touching the guard. This mentality of “I’m dirty, I’m filthy, I must not touch anyone, I must be aware of my status” stuck with her through the entire bath.

4) When Schneider barged in, Ebony’s bathwater was filthy— imagine gunk and blood floating in the water. As she was sobbing, he stepped into the bathwater and proclaimed that if she were filthy, then surely he who was plunging into this shared water with his shoes on, he who planned to wash her and break all notions of propriety, were the truly filthy one. Schneider isn’t some dense 20 y/o. He knew what he was doing was downright shameful.

5) When Schneider said this, Ebony didn’t truly understand what was going on. She continued sobbing into herself, face under water, and it was only when she looked up that she realized that Schneider was in the water with her. When she flinched away, Schneider embraced her, her unsightly figure be damned. And again— he knew he was acting improperly, and he told her that he was the one acting shamefully. It was after all of this that he confronted and talked to Ebony.

6) In general, Schneider is characterized as a 30+ y/o who’s cold and terrifying (e.g., he’s said to have the devil’s own eyes), and very much someone who does what he wants. This isn’t him being immature, but rather him knowing what he wants and being willing to break rules, norms, expectations, etc. to achieve his goals. The bath scene is an example of this personality. He needed to reach Ebony, and he could care less about acting improperly because in that moment, neither Ebony nor he were truly dirty. Their shame was just something dictated by unnecessary regulations— Schneider’s by common decency and Ebony’s by the country’s laws.

Disclaimer: I’ve only read bits and pieces of the beginning of the webnovel. There might be more that I’m overlooking or something I’m misrepresenting. That said, I thought this scene was poorly depicted in the webtoon (since I was ??? when I first came across it), and I wanted to provide a bit of context.