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The premise of these stories never makes sense. A vital political marriage is arranged to another nation, either for support/resources necessary for survival, or to ally with a potential invader to spare the kingdom. The princess is promised. Extremely delicate political dealings with major consequences for both success and failure. The princess runs away or elopes or refuses to go, so they send the bastard/younger prince pretending to be her.
It’s completely insane, tf do they think is going to happen on the marriage night, or if the groom tries to get with his bride before the wedding?! The logic that it will be less scandalous for the powerful king to find out he’s been scammed with a male bride than to try to make up an excuse to delay the marriage. And in this scenario, they’re basically throwing their prince to the wolves.
I just wish authors would put a little more work into figuring out a genuine premise for this trope. I read one where it was reversed, and the princess actually transformed into a man to impersonate her brother. There either need to be solid mechanisms in place to hide their identity or a truly ruthless family that are discarding them for profit.
This is so insanely risky for Kiran and it doesn’t really make sense for his supposedly loving family to so readily endanger him in that way.
I’m only on chapter 4, but I’m kind of over it. The (probably) ml who appears on the cover was introduced, and I am thoroughly underwhelmed. I dislike the common narrative where the main male love interest completely transgresses the fl’s boundaries, inconveniences them, potentially or actually puts them in danger, and acts like a nonchalant asshole. In the very first scene, he interrupts her hunt, grabs her and refuses to let go despite multiple protests, ignores her obvious and voiced anger and irritation, and then leaves without so much as an apology.
And of course the powerful confident girl boss just rolls over because wow a few minutes of protest didn’t get him to adjust his behavior so she guesses it’s just her life now. Never mind her being an S rank mercenary, who apparently can’t/won’t try to fight off an armed stranger who started manhandling her out of nowhere. It’s just lazy writing. I’m tired of authors pretending to write strong female leads, only to use them as accessories to the male lead.
It’s an insidious trope that glosses over a lot of toxic behavior on the male lead’s part, and dehumanizes the female lead by overriding her personality and character by forcing her to tolerate the ml for the sake of pushing an incompatible romance with a self centered, arrogant, toxic, disrespectful and/or abusive partner.