dracina

It looks so adorable!!
P.S. Am I the only one who feels like the art style is very different?

I feel like if you read this when you're younger, before your frontal lobe has developed and you don't know much about the world/about how power imbalances work/about how a person's mind works in one horrible situation an how it works when they're out of it, etc you'll read it with a modern lens (aka a world that to your young mind isn't complicated - just black and white with no shades of gray). In that way in your mind it'll be like Infidelity = bad. You wouldn't even think about how it's so nuanced in this particular situation cause of the power imbalances, is it actual consent or is it consent that is given cause you think that saying no to the emperor is inconceivable?, her being underage, etc. You won't think to question the narrative. You'd go with the flow and join everyone else in saying Trashta/Soveishit (he's still a piece of shit) - I'd know, I was reading the manhwa when it initially began to get updated here and watched the terms be coined live and join in the comments hating on them. We'd all cheer on Navier and Heinry's romance cause he would comfort her and he gave white knight on a horse or as a bird vibes. He was basically her saviour who came to her aid in her hour of need. His wanting to take over her kingdom? Oh that's just so he can make her an empress and he's doing it cause they hurt her. You know who this reminds me of? Y/N and the CEO. Nobody questioned why he was flirting with a married woman despite being the representative of a foreign nation, nobody questioned why he wanted to take over or the harm he'd cause in the process.
We're born into a world where humans should be treated equally and that's the aim we all strive for, for everyone to be treated on par with each other. But when we read manga/manhwa/manhua, a lot of the time, based on the time period, we have to read it with that shut off either as a way to better understand the dynamics/to see how it would apply or work under a modern lens stress test later but sometimes that doesn't work and that's exactly what happened with this manhwa. When we all read this manhwa back when it started, we treated the characters as equals and treated them in that manner which was our mistake cause they are not equal to each other like at all. A slave who never got paid, had very little food, no education, no family, no friends/socialization that wasn't abusive, no kindness and grew up with a scarcity and survivor mindset is in no way shape or form meant to be treated the same as someone who grew up with everything they need, got whatever they wanted and were treated like they were the best all the time, had little to no abuse (poisoning attempts are attempted murders) and the world was their oyester. Equality is not the solution here, equity is and Rashta never got that, not from her fellow characters, the readers at the time and even now and certainly not from her author.
Rashta is no saint but none of the characters are and yet she always bears the brunt of the hate, more than Sovishit cause she's a 'villainous homewrecker' and she's a woman and woman are always at fault for their own actions and the actions of the men around them.

If you read this when you're older, then you see it for what it is - elitist, sexist and classist.