aaliyahsgrandchild

For real. It’s getting annoying.

Hello, I've read to a certain spot in the novel. Would like a spoiler explanation? Or do you want to wait for, perhaps, 20-30 chapters? It's kind of difficult to gauge what they will keep vs what they will pass on for the sake of time and then how both the comic and the novel line up.

i don't mind a spoiler. might drop it from the way the storyline is heading

Okay, spoiler time...


Turn back now if you don't want to be spoiled....



Okay, that might be enough. So, let's rewind.
Riftan was born a serf and his step-dad worked really hard and used his connections to let Riftan become a blacksmith apprentice (let's estimate he's 8-10.) This allowed him into the castle grounds, where occasionally he would see Max playing alone with her dog. There are two interactions where they see each other and exchange a horseshoe for a flower crown by placing them where the other would see it but they don't talk to each other. Their third interaction is when a monster comes into the grounds and attacks Max. Her dog dies and she kicks the monster for taking away her only friend, to which it scratches her. Riftan saves her and takes her up to the main castle so she can be treated and he is rewarded with a pouch of silver.
We still don't know who Riftan's dad is but someone who knew his father came by and gave him a dagger that didn't belong to serfs like them. His mom thinks he's dead and hangs herself. This means she can't have a proper funeral so in the night, his step-dad has him carry her corpse on his back into the woods and they use farming tools to make it look like she was mauled by animals instead, thus letting her have a normal burial and not damning their entire household. Riftan decides to leave and sneaks onto a caravan.
Fast forward and Riftan is 16 when he meets Ruth for the first time. They're mercinaries and since he has nothing to live for, Riftan is a throw caution to the wind, crazy kamikaze soldier. He and Ruth end up being the only ones alive when they end up facing a dragon. Riftan gets injured and to take his mind off the pain, Ruth tells him to think of his happiest memories and he can amplify those feelings as he heals him to take him away from the pain. The only good memory he has is of Max. And because it felt so nice, he would occasionally ask Ruth to do it again. It starts to become like an addiction and Ruth tells him he can't keep doing it because it will drive him mad, not knowing the same memory has been replaying each time. Thus, Ruth technically brainwashed Riftan into seeing Max as this perfect person and he will have a much harder time separating himself from this idea.
Circling back to his mom: because of what he and his step-dad had to do (he only carried her and step-dad sent him away a bit to do the mauling,) every time a woman touches him, it reminds him of her corpse on his back. So thanks to the brainwashing, Max ends up being the only woman who doesn't do this to him. Because he killed the dragon, he is rewarded by the king (emperor?) with his lands and he returns to his home. He asks Max's father for her hand and of course, he says he will never be good enough and makes fun of him. He doesn't get to talk to her or even make eye contact because, of course, she's still being beaten and can't look at anyone. He thinks she feels the same way. While he is there, he finds the new son of his step-dad, has him set up a private meeting, and gives his step-dad some money he earned.
Well well, a war/another dragon to defeat (I am fuzzy at the moment but this is when he travels with the princess) comes up and Max's dad doesn't want to participate. He has to go or send his "son" to go in his stead. Suddenly, Riftan is good enough for his daughter but because he is a despicable b*stard and doesn't believe for a second his daughter can keep a man like him, he threatens him to marry his daughter by imprisoning his step-dad for having money from seemingly nowhere. His new son had to run to Riftan and he went to the castle. Worried about his past of being a serf coming out second only to his step-dad being unjustly imprisoned, he agrees to being married. Of course, everyone tells Max the first time hurts and a man like him could beat her to death if she didn't satisfy him so she's scared out of her mind when they do the obligatory consummation the day before he leaves to fight. Then, her dad beats her like Riftan was supposed to make her six months pregnant overnight or some crap and continues to beat her the entire time he's gone.

And to go past where we are now in the timeline, yes, Max has a miscarry when she goes to try and help Riftan defeat some monsters down the line...after being buried in an avalanche and healing herself so she doesn't die. She didn't know she was pregnant so it was early and it goes all around the nobility like she's a useless woman because she can't keep a baby. Riftan felt that maybe she wanted to be home for a bit after the incident so he sends her home. Obviously, she takes that as she has failed him as his wife and he's returning her, which is also how her father interprets it. Later, when Riftan comes back to get her, they have to break into the castle and he and his knights (including the one that has been giving her a hard time) see her chained up and being whipped across the back by her father. Riftan beats him close to an inch of his life and he's healed but I think I remember them saying he ends up having a permanent stutter (could be making up that last bit because it sounds like poetic justice.) All the knights who witnessed this all become very protective of Max as well.
Of course, his blue blood being spilled "without reason" his terms for Riftan to be punished. Since Max's stepsister, married to the king (emperor?), was psychologically abused by their father, she has no hard feelings for what happened to him but can't intervene. The punishment would have been severe but Max offers to go to the wizard's tower for three years in his place. Riftan is stubborn to the end, saying he won't wait for her if she goes (he does though, for the same reasons explained earlier.) She gets to come out of her shell more and make friends at the tower. She specializes in earth and water magic, which gives her the affectionate nickname of Mud. She also does something forbidden but can hide it so no one else knows or she can never leave the tower.
I actually haven't read up to where Riftan beats the living hell out of her father so that and everything following is spoiled from someone else. Because like you, I felt this story was getting to be a slog at times. I find it more tolerable knowing WHY Riftan isn't able to let Max do anything but be a well-kept woman. It was also good to know that he does find out what her father did to her and that the knights now understand why she never came to the territory while he was away. The fact that it's taking forever is both a strong and weak point. The slow burn is building other plot points around to pay off in the long run. I would occasionally give this a glance to see where it's at, look at the pretty art, and lie in wait for the good bits.

I mean she has blonde hair and blue eyes and her name is charlotte, are we surprised ??

I... I feel a little offensed here.... Is it an expression that i don't know or is it just really misogynistic and discriminating?

It's not misogynistic and discriminatory if it's true, you are acting like throughout history and the present, white women haven't used their tears to antagonize and villanize people, people literally made a meme out of women like that, so pipe down

Facts loool

Literally my first thought when she said that

Wow... So you really were misogynistic and discriminatory, it was not because i had a lack of culture. I didn't know Olympe de Gouge and Marie Curie was villanous and known for their "tears to antagonize" though....
No but really, are you dumb? You defined her bitchness by her skin color and a gender? Don't you see a problem?

First of pretty sure OP was most likely joking and so was I but since you want to be dumbass and accuse me shit after i explained my reasoning.
Second of all, it is very obvious that you are white seeing as how you keep deflecting and trying to make me seem like the bad guy for saying something true, you accuse another girl of misogyny to make you better because most likely if you and I were in a room together not only might you be racist to be but also misogynistic. Why are you feeling so attacked and hurt? Why are you acting like the only why white women created feminism was just so they could have just as much power as white men so they could be just as sick and disgusting to BIPOC. White women are also oppressed, yes but in a world where your race comes first you need shut the fuck up and keep it pushing

I feel attacked because you were discriminatory, that's why. How could i be racist and misogynistic if i feel offensed that you defined a default of a character by it's gender and skin color? Yeah, women created feminism to have as much as power as men, that's the point of feminism. But were did i say that i was offensed because you criticized her for being white?
You were joking? How funny! Is it funny to mock someone for their skin color? I didn't know, and i don't think so but ok.
If you and I were in a room, i think you wouldn't have said something like that because you would have know that it was wrong, but internet gives the right of the hate hé....
I would not shut up, obviously fighting the racism is more important that this king of discriminatory, but i don't think we have to accept something wrong because worse exist, with this kind of thinking, we accept progressivly too much things.
So yeah, i will continue to say that this was misogynistic, because it was, AND discriminatory because it was too.

Talking to you is obviously pointless and yes if were in real I would have said that, I have said it multiple times even, you are saying that I'm being discriminatory and judging an entire race based on their skin color but you are acting like this something that is not typical, white women tears have been used to hurt a lot of people and I stand by what OP and me say, white women are one of the most racist and hypocritical groups of people there is, if you are racist and hypocritical don't know why you are so mad

Girl shut up you're white and I think that explains a lot. Don't come at me about some "discrimination " bs when your people have been doing it for years and STILL ARE !! You guys used to eat our fucking organs what do you not understand ?!!! THERE'S nothing and I mean NOTHING wrong with what I said. What I said in my comment is exactly what you're doing right now . I can't go back to my fucking country because of the shit y'all caused stop tryna play victim . Y'all real good at gaslighting poc its crazy!!! I was discriminating you?? PLEASE SIT THE FUCK DOWN and think about your people's history cuz it's crazy what your saying right now

Y'all white people tryna play victim too crazy for me, I'm done of being the older person my race is done with being the older person . Why can't y'all just stop killing us and leave us the fuck alone!! We have every right on this earth to hate y'all after the shit y'all caused and still doing!

Shut fuck up , Drink water and stay out black people's business

I have never seen a more dense person like them before, she was just out here spewing shit saying we are discriminating against her like they are doing that to us now