heinrichsnosehair - Tumblr blog

[heinrichsnosehair]

I return with a passion!

Everyday I wonder why they wrote my man Yester so wrong... Why did author-nim choose to make this beautiful, gorgeous man so cartoonishly evil just so the Raphael and (God forbid) Rezef would look good...

Anyways, here are some pictures of my bae. Just look at him and tell me why he never got more screentime? It's an injustice for such a gorgeous design to be so underused... 😔

[heinrichsnosehair]

I have no idea how relevant The Villainess is a Marionette still is in 2024, but I just have to air out my grievances regarding the manhwa.

Below is my mini-essay and speech on why, as much as I believe Heinrich should've been the main male lead, the problems in the way the novel is written simply would make Heinrich and Cayena impossible.

Everyone, it's already obvious from my display name, but I am a big fan of Heinrich. There are so many facets of his character that, if written right, could've made him outshine even Raphael and Rezef. One of those facets lies in his character. Appearance wise, his cooler color scheme works fantastically in contrast with Cayena's warmer color palette, which in turn creates a striking imagery: that of the sun and the moon.

His character design is also arguably much more striking compared to Raphael's and Rezef's designs, simply because Raphael is modeled after the typical dark-haired male lead and Rezef after his sister.

I'd like to expand further on my point about Heinrich's character and bring the attention to his role as an antagonist within the story. He is the manipulator behind the scene, who clearly acts as he pleases, whenever he pleases. As a writer myself, I absolutely enjoy villainous characters who do villainous things for their own amusement and benefit, and that's exactly what Heinrich brings to the table. He doesn't need to be redeemed and turned into a "good guy", and that's perfectly fine with me. Like wise men once said, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

(I also have... some opinions regarding Cayena x Rezef, but that's a story for another post.)

By making him the main male lead, the author could've had the chance to explore an enemies-to-lovers dynamic through expanding and creating more opportunities for them to interact. The pieces are already there: Heinrich and Cayena are thematic opposites of each other (the sun and the moon) and they both have a mutual goal of becoming powerful, which they pursue through different methods that can also be used as thematic opposites (working in the light and working in the shadows). Isn't that a more interesting dynamic to explore than a relationship where Cayena (after her transmigration) doesn't even need to work for Raphael to suddenly fall in love with her?

However, even with my evident(ly huge) bias for Heinrich, making him the male lead wouldn't fix the main issue the novel suffers from - and, I would say, would make the novel even worse. He is much too one-dimensional as a character, which brings up questions that, as of season 3 of the manhwa, have not been answered yet: what is the reason why he became like this? What will he do to balance out his tendency for acting recklessly and vulgarly? Is he even a true mastermind capable of bringing forth someone's downfall, when all of his screen-time is so heavily focused on Cayena and what she's doing?

To finish, there really is just so much untapped potential in his character - and in all the characters in the manhwa, frankly. There is too much happening, and not enough nuance to each situation Cayena is placed in. So much to explore, but it's all abandoned for Cayena's romance with Raphael.

Sigh.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.