hide's Topics (46)

That isn't entirely right, which might be the fault of the webcomic for how it portrayed it compared to the novel. Roth doesn't know why Ianna left. The only things Roth knows:
- His father resents him for the death of his mother
- His father was involved in summoning Ianna and then in sending her back
- Ianna convinced him she loved him and that he should have a child with her (he'd married her for her sake because he knew she was only going to be allowed to go home if she did, so he agreed to help her out. He had no intentions with her beyond that at first until she'd expressed interest in more. He didn't even want to have a kid at first out of consideration for her and how dangerous it'd be)
- then after having a child (which he didn't know she was told she needed to do), she just up and leaves him

So he doesn't know why she did anything, just that she'd convinced him they were in love, convinced him they should have a child he believed to be out of love, then worked with his father to leave him so it seemed like Ianna just worked with his dad for some act of spite/revenge the dad had planned out. He doesn't know she did love him and was caught between wanting to be with him and the fact her mother would die without her. Doesn't know she wanted a way to come back and was told it was impossible. And if he'd told her when he found out her clothes were missing that she needed those clothes to go back (granted, she'd just told him her clothes were missing so it might've been a judgement call that it'd hurt her to be told she lost her only chance) they might've tried to work out a way for her to go and come back since very clearly it was possible.

still don't feel any empathy for roth if im being honest, i understand how it might have been a rough time for him as well but like i said ianna was really young, and obviously going through a hard time mentally and emotionally so we can't expect her to have made the best choices
(she was just post partum as well)
then to bring her back again just to rape her and make her feel like a replacement, idk for me roth just did too much after the fact that now no matter what i can't make a judgment on him without a skewed opinion already

still thanks for the extra info!!! rlly helps to see different perspectives when sometimes things feel so one dimensional (づ￣ ³￣)づ

I give him a pass on the first time he sleeps with Anna. When she sneaks into Ianna's room and he forces himself on her, he didn't actually know there was another person. He goes there to be alone and use hallucinogens so he can hallucinate sleeping with his wife. Under the effects of a hallucogenic aphrodisiac in a room he thinks he's alone in when he sees a woman that is the spitting image of his wife? He thought she was just a product of the drugs and his imagination. It's why Anna thought he might not realize what they did when she first became his personal maid, she realized his actions were the effects of the drugs and he might not even recall what happened.

Now, there are some key differences between the webcomic and novel at play (ones that do make Roth's side of things more understandable. Not forgivable, but easier to understand where he's coming from). The webcomic makes them both more vulnerable. Like the novel is more of a thriller while the webcomic is a softer, psychological flick. Rather than centering Roth on his anger and spite, the webcomic put more attention to his grief earlier on. The webcomic also portrayed Anna more frightened and vulnerable while the novel had Anna's trauma as something more internalized, focusing on her feelings of guilt. We haven't really had as much of her guilt going on here in the webcomic. Like her whole purpose for going home kind of stopped being addressed really early on. I'm a little iffy on this but iirc in the novel Ianna never told Roth about her mother. She'd told him there was someone she really needed to return to, but not that it was her mother and instead caused him to believe she was chasing after an ex lover that'd left her. Consequently, the boyfriend Anna came with was an ex-boyfriend in the novel (again iirc. It's been a minute). So in the novel, it looked even worse to Roth what Ianna did because it looked like she really did seduce him, have a child with him she refused to bond with, then leave to go chasing after some other guy. because of these differences and how they change things, I do wonder if the webcomic will end differently

Agreed 10000%

I HOLLERED

A beautiful soul LOLLL