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“Then let’s say you were the one who did it. Understood?”Harriet couldn’t br...

The demon lord's daughter Yurisina was living a normal demon's life when she was summoned ...

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.

Kaiden - A mysterious ability user who hides inside the body of a street cat. He is later picked up ...

When I opened my eyes, I was inside a novel.[The Birth of a Hero].[The Birth of a Hero] was a novel ...

There are over 240 chapters of this novel and still ongoing. I'll give my honest thoughts on it after pausing at chapter 72.

I want to say this is a case of very serious lack of communication, and that there is more to the situation than is let on. However, Varkas is still a piece of shit to me for a number of reasons.

1. While I understand it is beyond difficult to reign in Thalia and her attitude, the way he throws her over his shoulder and publicly disregards her words ultimately damages her status, which is something she has had to fight for from a very young age.

2. After Thalia becomes disabled from the monster attack her mother [strongly suspected to have] staged and has to struggle through the pain and the drug addiction from the pain killers (and the total destruction of her self esteem which was her one remaining strength) the plot finally opens up about the Duke and how what we are seeing might not be the whole truth. Meaning it's highly likely that Thalia is meant to be an unreliable narrator to some degree. She'll doubt herself at times, ask questions like 'have i ever really read his expression correctly?' I guess to hint that she is also putting up barriers that limit progression of their relationship, even outside of her difficult attitude (which is a trauma response).

The issue is, even accounting for that, Varkas is a literal piece of shit. Sure, his nonverbal communication might be misunderstood by both Thalia and the reader, but this man literally tells her she should indeed kill herself and it'd be a weight off his shoulders.

When things like that are established, it becomes difficult to not be wary of his more recent words and actions just like Thalia is.

3. Very important piece of information, there is hinting done that his clan's ancestors possessed a range of abilities with mind reading being one of them, but that Varkas was stated to have shown no signs of having them. HOWEVER, he does this thing often where he gazes deeply at people's faces, or turns towards them when they're in thought about him and it makes characters feel as if he's reading their minds so I ASSUME that's foreshadowing that he can indeed peer into people in some way.

That's cool and all, but for how much he looks at Thalia and still goes out of his way to speak to her like a cunt, I'm not at all impressed.
I understand that I'm definitely speaking with strong bias because this is all from her perspective, but even when there are cracks in the narrative, it does not do much for his image.


I do recommend reading the novel, I thought I would have dropped this story but I do still hold out hope because while he is unbelievably frustrating, his care for her does seem genuine if we overlook some of the unforgivable.

It's still difficult watching her struggle, though. You will constantly see her have to demand and even beg "Do not touch my body" (which could be a mix of her history with sexual assault and harassment, and her crippling self esteem stemming from the state of her damaged leg) and watch persons berate her for it. Varkas is by her side during this, but she feels more like he's pitying a patient than anything else.

My honest opinion? Every single character of age in this story has failed her.

This novel better get better so help me fucking God.

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