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See lots of comments mad at the parents and tbh I agree but also… I feel bad for her mom idk imagine your child just starts hating you out of nowhere. They should’ve explained it to her from the start instead of just leaving her ignorant but I don’t blame her mother as much as her father. He basically interrupted any chance for them to talk and made things worse by locking her up. I can understand why his wife didn’t really stand up to him I imagine she was super shaken up by her child hating her and probably couldn’t come up with something right away. I imagine every interaction between them would quickly become hostile. They definitely should have told her from the beginning and planned ahead of time how they would explain things to her, or even brought her to the dark plains so she could see for herself the empire was misunderstanding things. I feel the most bad for Ilyana and Magnus though… they both were hurting so much. Ilyana definitely did so many things wrong like… beyond wrong but she was so extremely mentally not okay and filled with so much self hatred and self destructive behaviour I can’t really HATE her old character? Girl needed therapy so bad. Magnus didn’t deserve any of it though I just feel bad for him until the end… I kind of wish the story was a bit darker and we explored Ilyana’s character a bit more but I did enjoy the lightness as well… mixed feelings but it was worth the read for sure
SPOILERS
Eckles…
I do like Penelope as a protagonist but I think I just got kind of frustrated with her because she didn’t develop or change until the very end so it was a bit hard to read the same thing again and again and watch her refuse to trust anyone, constantly assume the worst, and take advantage of people. I know she’s just desperate to survive, I understand that, but I could place ch 1 Penelope in ch 170 and I think she would make the exact same choices. I also just don’t love stories where a person comes into an abused household and fixes everything because now they’re doing it “right” when the original didn’t do anything but be a victim of abuse. It’s one thing if they genuinely did love the OG but we have numerical proof that they hated her enough to kill her. And I just can’t get over that— it’d be one thing if we learned the percentages are a misrepresentation of the feelings or if they started out a bit higher? Like Reynold… negative affection? Really? That’s a bit much esp since later we see that og Penelope and Reynold had moments where they acted like siblings and clearly cared for each other. (When Reynold pretended to fall out of a tree and og Penelope cried). It just always made me sad to see our Penelope succeed, like the story is saying “don’t be like OG Penelope” or smth when OG pen was only acting out because she was being extremely neglected and abused.
The only reason original Penelope was hated by her family was because the OG fl was brainwashing *everyone*. From what I know, before the OG fl shows up in the household, the most abuse she got was from her maids. Yes, she was neglected by her father and was disliked by her eldest brother because he held guilt; her youngest brother was a bit complicated in my opinion. This section of the story was from the first life of Penelope, who was unfortunately a little girl who didn’t know better, was taken advantage of, and made herself feel better by bottling up & exploding — she got rage baited easily.
OG Penelope couldn’t because out of the thousands shattered souls of Penelope, there was bound to be only one who was strong-willed enough to break said brainwashing; this Penelope suffered the same fate as story Penelope and was emotionally mature enough to bypass every obstacle the game passed.
I think what the overall story is saying is that experiences make us stronger and mentally mature; at first we’re going to be weak, but every jump from an obstacle that makes us expect the worst, and every fall that becomes a scar, helps us overcome. This is also why the eldest brother stays brainwashed and was the easiest to brainwash compared to the father who accepted the death of his daughter , and the youngest brother who apologized and also accepted the death of his sister—the eldest brother did not overcome his guilt, drowned , while everyone else did!
I agree that a lot of the hate was due to brainwashing but we see here even before the brainwashing/Yvonne show up her family treats her very poorly. Reynold actually despises her and her father neglects her until she acts a certain way. I understand what the story was trying to say but I just mean if they showed that her family was actually nicer before Yvonne showed up it would feel more like “oh most of the hate was the brainwashing” and not they hated her even before the brainwashing. Not to mention in this version they were still brainwashed but less susceptible because Penelope raised their affection, which implies that the reason they were easily brainwashed in the first place was cause og Penelope didn’t do it right and I get it’s not the intention but it’s just how it comes off to me and it just kind of prevents me from enjoying it as much personally.
In my personal opinion, going back to what I said before, original Penelope was not necessarily *hated* by anyone in the household ; an example, if I even remember clearly, the elder brother mentioned that it’s not that he hated her, he just couldn’t see her as a sister & eventually grew to have feelings for her. Like I said, the youngest is complicated, he’s angsty and mad, but he still showed genuine concern for Penelope (in a pubescent way). The father just couldn’t push himself through the lost of his daughter, but he still cared for Penelope “in his own way that he thought was okay” as he said. You also have to remember that before she reincarnated, original Ophelia had a terrible personality because of that one instance with her younger brother, since then she acted like she *thought* they pictured her to be—but obviously this just disappointed them more.
I understand why you can’t enjoy the overall story, and I’m not trying to defend her family for their actions & their negligence. The story does not only point its finger to original Penelope, but to everyone : the mls, the brothers, the father ; because they *all* didn’t do it right. That’s why the wizard turned back time, he knew that they made a mistake . No one realized the way they tried to be nonchalant with their sisters and daughters replacement would make her mean, Penelope bottled her emotions, and the mls were just easy to brainwash
See I see exactly what you’re saying I think the problem is that they actually put hard numbers on their affection for Penelope instead of leaving it ambiguous. There’s a direct correlation between the numbers and their affection for her so that one aspect unfortunately really tanks all of the GOOD characterization there is for me. It would be okay if it was revealed at the end that the numbers aren’t really a measure of their affection or that they meant something else but to the end we see that the numbers are actually incredibly accurate to the point where Eckles’ love for Penelope can never go to 100% because it’s so dark and twisted it can never be “true”. That’s the part that always bothers me a bit even though I like everything else and I agree the characterization is good, but the fact that they put a hard number on their affection and that number is accurate… I think it’s just a plot hole that really bothers me personally