#i stand by the fact that if Rashta was the protagonist and not Navier everyone would love her

[enobariasteeth]

love remarried empress but WOW are the fans incapable of nuance

[dismyblog]

remarried empress could have just made rashta a noblewoman who got abandoned by viscount lotesshu's son when his father disapproved of the relationship.

i'm going to try and put this under a "read more" but im on mobile so idk if it will work

remarried empress is a very good story. yes the protagonist is an empress of a european inspired country and fuck noble system but in this case its a historical fantasy stand in for what its really about:

navier, a highly competent woman from a family with a history of highly competent women, working her ass of from childhood training to become the amazing and skilled leader she is and then getting cast aside by her husband and removed from her position because she wasn't like his mistress: cheerful, always smiling, adoring, beautiful, submissive, delicate, INFANTILE, and doing nothing but pouring praise and gratitude upon her man.

since its a romance story, navier is not hurting for love interests that actually value her skills and regal and offer her a way out as her husband and his mistress mistreat and humiliate her over and over but she remains by the emperor's side and shows a united front not for his sake but for the sake of her people and kingdom and because she knows the role of empress is what she wants and what fulfills her in a way no man ever could.

she only makes moves against rasta when she realizes that someone is blackmailing her, which could effect the emperor, which could, more importantly, effect her kingdom.

she only makes moves to take one of her love interest's offers and leave her husband when she finds out he's going to divorce her and take the job she worked so hard at her entire life.

it wasn't because she loved king henry, it was because he offered her the chance to remain a ruler first. if grand duke kaufman had come back to see her first she would have gone with him instead. being a leader is what fulfills her.

this is what makes navier the enjoyable protagonist she is. her goals in life come first and all she's looking for in a partner is someone who will help her reach them.

it wouldn't matter if she HAD turned out to be infertile. her skill at her job and the self worth it gave her far outweighed the fact that she was 30 and hadn't provided an heir yet. the eastern kingdom was only ass powerful as it was because she was such a great empress and partner to emperor sovieshu.

but all this is undermined by one thing: rashta is a slave.

and this isn't just some tasteless worldbuilding detail, its part of her backstory and her drive as a character. we SEE the horrors of slavery in the eastern kingdom.

and navier is the ruler of that kingdom. she's pure blooded nobility, descend from the upper class of nobles who have maintained and profited from slavery for generations.

there's not even an attempt to show navier is against slavery or doing anything to get rid of it. she just accepts that its the way things are and that a slave would never be able or worthy of taking her place.

she's the empress of this country. she complicit in this system. she the embodiment of "lawful good".

how am i supposed to simply see rashta as the greedy and power hungry mistress out to steal everything from navier with this? that's what the story wants me to think of her. that's how she's portrayed. a greedy woman that's desperate to be adored by everyone around her and the power that comes with it.

it doesn't work, the nobility of this country took everything from rashta down to her very freedom and rights as a person. all for their own gain. if she caught the eye of the emperor she deserves to take EVERYTHING she can from it and get all the comfort, luxury, and security she's never had. if she wants the throne she should take it. if she wants to secure herself by passing off the child she pregnant with as sovieshu's she should. if she wants to take the seat of empress for herself she should.

by not making rashta another noblewoman more equal to navier and instead making her a slave you turned rashta into a victim and navier into an indifferent ruler rashta has every right to hate.

it's taken us out of the story where "empress" and "concubine" was a historical fantasy stand in for "competent woman loses her job and husband because she "doesn't smile enough" and "seems cold" while her husband's mistress is "charming", "refreshing", and "adorably childlike" because she fits the ideal of the submissive infantile woman.

instead it makes them to much like their real life counterparts. it turns a great character like navier and makes her no different then any real world european queen. yeah "girlboss". great. still complicit in the horrors of slavery.

and rashta become someone who deserves not of the bad things that are going happen to her. her ending up scarred and locked in the tower awful not karma. her taking her own life is tragic.

i'm fully capable of seeing what the story wants me to see and appreciating the great character navier is so close to being. but then the story shoots itself in the foot.

and before anyone says anything. i know its a korean novel thats tackling the "historical european fantasy" genre. my points still stand. i really enjoy remarried empress but it's super imperialistic and the story and fandom does almost nothing to address it as they glorify navier and trash talk rashta.