#villainess trope

[theunnamedtroublemaker]

Beautiful Nightmare - Arnold x Rishe AMV

I have too much inspo these days so here, have an edit 🍪

[justhellacesome]

What if we take a twist to the villainess otome trope.

Where we begin with the condemnation event however it is the villainess looking down at the prince and condemning him from his betrayal towards the engagement by having close relationship with the Saintess (as the villainess should) and he is banished to the north. As is expected. And on the way there he is welcomed by the dukes knights to guard him as they travel to the castle/stronghold. And they get attacked ofcourse by beast or so. But the knights and he worked together to clear them off. All the knights are strangely quiet and keeps to themselves. (And the leading knight is quite taller than himself) The travel was fast because of this.

Everything seemed normal and what was expected until dinner.

When he was greeted by the duke.

Truthfully when he was first banished, there really hasn't been enough word about who the northern duke was. They however knew that the villainess was a friend's of theirs. And that they never appeared in the capital without any armor. Only a vassal or stand in for the duke would appear. Probably a sister or a cousin. Or no one at all.

Anyway, the duke did greet and surprise surprise it's a woman. Who's like a head taller than him. But she seemed pretty calm an chill. With downturned blue eyes and long black hair.

There wasn't much in the way of conversation. No harsh glares or accusing words. Not much was spoken in the quiet castle. It was probably eerie.

(honestly everyone in the castle has very good control with themselves. Especially with how tight the information of the dukes identity was kept they would have to be. And information is very important trade. So they might not seem to care much but they are biggest gossips that everyone can be considered a spy.)

And if the dukes a woman that means the knights are also made up of women. As the men are usually the hunters and one who treks the mountain and cold north for game and such. The women are the ones who keeps the castle perimeter safe and controlled.

Like female warriors and such.

Also would love to put the snow leopards as companions for the hunters but not as pets.

The whole north is like a sanctuary. Where people are free to come and do whatever and animals would also be seen lounging around and keeping people company and warmth. Just a very tight knit community that you won't really see in the capital.)

(wakanda forever and all that.)

Now I wanna build on this. Cuz I got distracted with world building again.

[confusedcultist]

I want at least 200 chapters of this stat

ojou-sama that married into a commoner family but kept her pride

[pruneunfair]

Tropes in manhwa are awful yet people still defend them

I'm in a bad mood right now so what better way to release all that pent up anger by ranting on what can ruin a good story.

1: Slavery being inserted only for cheap plot and slaves being demonized as obsessive/greedy monsters for "not knowing their place"

Theres nothing wrong with wanting to insert slavery in your story AS LONG as it's not just cheap plot to make your MC look "better" by buying from a single to all of the slaves because let me tell you this: there is no such thing as a good slave owner, you cannot morally own another human being. A lot of manhwa like to have slavery be a part of their plot completely ignoring that just because the MC goes "wow this is terrible" doesn't make them a good person after they buy a slave.

Remarried empress does this with its villian Rashta by pushing the notion that she's being greedy for not wanting to stay in poverty so Navier won't suffer because apparently a slave wanting what the silver spoon mouthed nobles were born into is so terrible not to mention they justify slave owners and slavery in general as a punishment for criminals (neglecting the fact that children can be sold by their parents)

The villainess has fun again justifies a child slave being bought by the lead and he becomes an obsessive shouta love interest, fans continously justify by using the ancient lolicon excuse "he may look young but he's actually 99182823 years old!"

In divorcing my tyrant husband, Robelia buys 30 slaves and the only 2 that consistently show up have no other personality other then "we love you FL we will worship you till the end of time!"

There's a damn manhwa out there literally called the order of slave breeding and even when a story tries to do this correctly such as VADTD with Penelope being portrayed as a bad person for what she did to Eckles, fans have been so deluded by the idea that FL's buying slaves is "girlboss" that they think Eckles should be grateful to be Penelopes "pet"

2: ML's murdering innocent people after one guy hurts the FL

I already made a specific post about it before and I'll say it again: all this does is make your male lead/father figure look like a horrific monster. While you could say it's because its a medieval kingdom (objectively that is true that they would do this) manhwa and OI is the same place where despite in those times taking a mistress was considered normal they still view it as cheating and "how could you pick that slut when you have such a perfect wife!? 🤬" in most stories. So yes, modern morality is still inserted within these tropes. While I can get it's a way to show that the man in questions loves the FL so much he's willing to go to such lengths to protect her I think just mutilating the guy that actually did the sin would be enough because try imagining yourself as a faithful servant who was amazing at your job getting brutally slaughtered by the Emperor because your boss attacked his daughter or lover.

Into the light once again does this with Aishas dad murdering all the relatives and close friends of a count that tried to kill Ysis and Aisha, Aisha doesn't seem to care despite being in a situation where she was wrongfully executed in her past life.

Remarried empress does this too. After Navier is nearly killed by Krista's brother, Heinrey tortures and kills the dad and slaughters the servants of the zemensias. I can't remember if he also murdered the remaining family members but I wouldn't put it past him.

3: protagonist centered morality

Protagonist centered morality is the biggest indicator that a piece of media is dealing with a mary sue FL. Whatever the protagonist says is right is immediately morally correct. This is actually used to justify the last 2 examples with "it was for the FL!" Things like slavery, murder, workplace abuse, union busting, pedophilia, and being a POS to your loved ones are all justified if the protagonist finds a cheap way to justify it and you HAVE to agree with her because her backstory is very tragic 🥺. Protagonist centered morality also ruins the chance for good characters since the FL herself never has to grow as a person so she stays the same exact thing as she was just with more enablers and random characters will be treated as villains even if they aren't actually wrong about being suspicious of the Protagonist or calling out her behavior. It twists the narrative in such incomprehensible ways that you don't even know what your reading anymore. I can't even list all of the manhwas that do this given how many there actually are so I'll just list some that are at least self aware there Protagonist is awful/morally grey or isn't even a bad person but they still have flaws that can be pointed out

Villains are destined to die

My in laws are obsessed with me

Not sew wicked step mom

Depths of malice

The villainess turns the hourglass

Beware of the villainess.

4: villains being dumbed down to make the lead look smarter

This is unfortunately another common staple often used as a quick way to make the FL look smart and witty but is that really hard to look smarter when everyone else around you is an idiot? Not only does the FL not have to put in actual effort to best her enemies but you just start to pity the villain for basically being a punching bag. Dimwitted villains aren't always bad in fact they can be some of those most entertaining characters no matter much they lose but that only works when they are meant to be seen as a goofy character that your not supposed to take seriously. Villains that are written as extremely childish and stupid but your still supposed to treat them as serious antagonists on the other hand are just annoying since you wonder how the protagonist even got killed by them in the first life if they're so stupid.

Isabella de Mare while admitly having a good reason for being dumbed down (she's a teenager in the 2nd life so it's reasonable she wouldnt be as smart as her adult counterpart) is still a joke of a villainess who keeps flipping back and fourth from a snot nosed whiny brat to a mastermind only at convenient opportunities when the plot needs conflict.

Mielle from the villainess turns the hourglass was first portrayed as extremely conniving as she arranged for Arias downfall in the shadows but in the second life she fails at every scheme she has even though she has Emma and Isis to help her out.

Ragibach is a literal demon possessing the body of another woman with the goal of setting demons loose on the word to start another human vs demon war and she succeeded in that the first time, the devastation was all there so clearly she has to be a formidable antagonist right? Well no, she's another case of being dumbed down further and further so Keira can succeed and while they do understand some plot holes such as Ludwig not trusting her as much in the second life it doesn't change the drastic character change from evil genius to bumbling idiot.

In short: dumbing down your villains so your lead can look smarter is essentially going to give the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb vs a coughing baby.

5: feminine women being demonized as basic "other girls" sluts

Okay this one isn't nearly as terrible as the others on this list because we all love the good old "a demon makes itself look beautiful to deceive humans" kind of villain, in fact as you probably know by me by now, white lotuses are my favorite kinds of character and even in media outside of manhwa I always find myself drawn to angelic villains but it seems like this is less of that and more of "Oh those are all the other girls who just want a man to save them, look at how much better my badass rich boss babe is for working for herself while taking all of their men at the time 😎" in manhwa. As soon as a traditionally feminine girl shows up, comments are already calling her a two faced bitch and half the time protagonist is already skeptical of her. This is the opposite of what being a feminist really is, a real feminist wouldn't be putting down other women just because they dress with more pink with bows and skirts and while I do think for most manhwa this is unintentional I do wish that we could have more characters like Psyche, Helena, Athy, and Jennette that prove that being overly feminine doesn't make you a backpedal on feminism. This doesn't make the badass or sexy fl's bad either, it just means they can co-exist.

An angelic villain should be treated as evil for being a well calculated schemer, not because they have a light colored color scheme

6: toxic relationships being romanticized as good

You know for a large community that claims to be about girl code a good chunk sure likes to look the other way when it comes to toxic relationships as long as the abuser is "hot" and theres always the terrible excuse such as "he has trauma!" Or "he doesn't know how to show his love normally!" No just no we aren't doing that here. Cry or better yet beg has this problem with not only the narrative claiming that Matthias graping Layla is okay because she actually loves him and doesn't know it but a large part of the fanbase also defends it, the same goes with try begging, a manhwa written by Solche who also wrote cry or better yet beg and once again despite Leon being an abuser everyone's ready to justify his actions because he's just a soft little boy who ends up falling in love with Grace awww 😍 (what the hell?) Everyones all about not justifying abusers because they had a sad past until it's the "sexy" male leads with daddy issues.

7: maid slapping

This shit isn't asserting your dominance as a boss bitch it's just work place abuse. This trope has gotten so out of hand of being justified by narratives and readers that there is an entire webtoon called this isekai maid is forming a union that's all about criticizing twisted manhwa tropes that get brushed off with maid absuer being at the biggest one. It's funny because a lot of people complain that Isekai maid union villainizes the nobles too much but they never ask the same questions when a OI is demonizing maids as greedy and lazy in order to deserve a beating. This doesn't just stop at hands either it can escalate to threats of mutilation just to assert dominice which is absolutely sick. Most of the time these leads used to be office workers or terminally ill patients, they know how terrible it is to be treated like garbage by their superiors yet they continue to absue every maid who isn't getting on their knees for them. Most maids in real history would not mistreat a noble even if they were the most hated in the house and even if they did they'd be fired without a letter of recommendation so why can't the FL's just fire the rude maid if they care about dignity so much because I'm pretty sure getting violent with a maid isn't very dignified either.

8: disgusting age gaps

Very similar to #6 but in this case while the ML/FL isn't a cruel monster to their partner it doesn't change the fact that grooming and pedophilia is still a crime worthy of life in prison. You'd think "oh no way, this can't be justified can it?" You'd be wrong. Now I belong to house of Castillo thankfully has a larger fanbase of people who think that a relationship between a girl who got groomed by her knight is bad but in cases like into the light once again a lot of people like to say "Well Aisha is technically 28 so it's fine!" When it really isn't since Aisha is still mentally 14. Taming my ex husbands mad dog is another one that does this with Reinhardt grooming a 16 year old boy and its apparently meant to be "cute".

9: claiming a character as unattractive yet giving them a perfect body and appreance

I just think this is a major cop-out since there's time where they want to make a realistic story yet also wanting a fantasy fufilment. I don't think its a coincidence that the only woman in tears of a withered flower that yout supposed to support is a Victoria's secret model body type. Even though she's meant to be an overworked exhausted 33 year old woman being mocked for losing her beauty she sure as hell isn't drawn that way, the only other women around hae soo are all women with smaller boob's and in general more common body types that are either classed as stupid or jealous that Hae soo is so beautiful that all the attractive men want her

how about we don't pit all the women against each other for once? And let's especially not villainize other women because their jealous they could never be have large boob's and tiny arms+waist at the same time?

10: the commoner protagonist actually being a noble rich person all along

Look I know most of us had loved those "the hated child is the lost princess" GLMM but we need to drop it because it's kinda disappointing that the nobody who had to work their way to the top is actually a secret magical princess who had royal blood in them all along. While I did think the villainess turns the hourglass was a pretty decent read I was super disappointed finding out that Aria was of noble descent all along. I liked seeing a commoner protagonist for once and it really felt like it was critiquing the idea that all commoners and poor people who want nice things like the nobility are greedy animals. Something similar can also happen with certain saintess manhwas that decide to twist itself into "the villainess was the true saintess all along!" And I'm just sitting here thinking "well there goes the hope that you didn't need the super duper rare power to be a strong character"

I feel way better now after writing all this.

[anbaisai]

A continuation of this post by @skriblee-ksk, in which Kalmia is left to ponder for the rest of class what Mayu meant...

[asteriass]

The progression of the “Villainess” trope

Y'know, thinking about it, it's very ironic how a trope made to subvert one's expectations & give more depth to 1 dimensional villains in cliche novels by "humanizing" them more & providing their side of the story, eventually became oversaturated with cartoony villains & flat MCs. Thus, completely failing in its goal to "subvert expectations" as it too turned into mind numbing cliche, becoming the exact opposite of what the troupe initially aimed to achieved.

I am talking about "Villainess" series.

I remember seeing a twitter post a while back saying how a lot of the villainess stuff the authors & studios are putting out nowadays lack any sort of nuance when it comes to its characters. And how a lot authors simply switch the roles of the cast (Like: OG MC -> villain | OG villain -> MC) & call it a day. And I 100% agree with that.

This troupe kinda ended up becoming the dictionary definition of the saying, "You either die as a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become a villain” lmao

What could've been an opportunity to write nuanced villains & morally ambiguous main characters, turned EXACTLY into the cliche it was pocking fun at.

In an attempt to reveal how the MCs of your typical cliche novels can also be in the wrong at times, flaws that the story & its (in-canon) fandom may purposefully ignore, the villainess stories ended up doing EXACT SAME thing EXECPT this time it's the "villains" doing it rather than the OG FL or OG ML of the “OG novel”. In an attempt to stop cliche villains from remaining cliche, while we did ended up getting slightly more nuance for the “OG villain” characters, in the process, the OG MCs turned exactly into those flat cliche villains.

Alot of villainess series poke fun at the troupes they themself use, but not in a satirical way.

So many villainess series poke fun at the OG novels for being problematic or stupid & the fandom of said novels basically ignoring its flaws & problems, only gushing over the OG FL. Which yea, is nice & all, but y'know... that's exactly what those villainess series do too. SO MANYY of them borderline have the FLs participating in literal slavery. & More often than not have a borderline colonizer ML. Not to mention the numerous which carry weird undertones of colorism, and many such other things. All the while, the fandom of these villainess series continue to ignore their glaring problems & flaws & instead just gush over the FL and ML.

And I'm not even saying this in a hating sort of way (well, aside from the series with issues of colorism, orientalism, etc). Moreover, this is all not to say that one can not enjoy such stories, because admittedly, there is indeed fun in just reading a simple and familiar story line. But this is all more me being intrigued by this trope’s almost ironic progression as companies rush their staff to produce something which they think will be able to ride the waves of the current trends, only for the vast majority to simply drown in a sea of mediocrity (with many even being canceled due to this)

[Though I mean, something as simple as villainess tropes won’t be the only one to go through this. Like a lot of Shakespearean works, a subversion of the classics & typical troupes back then, got turned into ones of those classics and by many are now considered cliche. And that's just scrapping the bottom of the barrel!]

[flightyquinn]

One of my favourite anime tropes is when a character is a total dunce, but then the tutor rephrases their questions as relating to a niche interest, and they can suddenly come up with the correct answers instantly.

What's one plus one? They have no idea. You have thirty slices of cake, and five people each have one, how many slices of cake are left?

Who are all these historical figures? That's too hard to remember. Which of the prince's relatives implemented large-scale irrigation in a certain town?

[restricted-on-13th]

Outsider fics people! Sharee!

[zmeyel]

The popularity of all of the "reincarnated otome game villainess seeks revenge on the capture targets" series just shows what the people truly want is the Count of Monte Cristo.

[la-hannya]

Not romantizing jealousy, of course, just letting that out there incase, but I can't be the only one that loves when an inhuman or human with "beastial looks" gives the slit eye territorial glare when someone is being flirty with their partner.

[bubblesandpages]

STOP. HOLD UP. THEY'RE PUBLISHING A VILLAINESS ISEKAI. HOLD THE PHONE, START THE PRESSES

[eloise175]

Literally the best couple ever, hands down.

The beauty of the true (future) imperial couple

Now THIS is a Crown Prince. The Crown Prince ever.

On my knees for him

Callisto’s expression speaks volumes. He was not expecting anything of her, and yet he always goes all out whenever Penelope comes into the picture.

Even with the dress, when Penelope asked him why he sent it, Callisto simply said that he had missed her and thought of her when he saw it.

He’s scrambling for affection points from Penelope without even realizing it

Sometimes I look at them and wonder “just how dumb do they have to be to not realize their actual feelings for each other??” because normal people don’t look at each other like this

Busting out tissues and a bucket because I’m going to bawl my eyes out next chapter. They’re going to be so miscommunication for a good chunk of the upcoming chapters *sobs*

[i-drop-level-one-loot]

Reincarnation/body swap Isekai manhwa where the MC becomes the villainess, but instead of all the male leads falling for her she steals the FL

[jojotier]

watching "i'm in love with the villainess" and highkey did not expect to get hit in the face with "the protagonist is a gay woman who not only talks candidly about being a gay woman but also expresses that even in this otome world which is handpicked to give her romance she doesn't expect the girl she loves to love her back because she's been conditioned for her entire life to view her love life as "other" so she's fully prepared to get crumbs if it just means getting near her"

[dyinggirldied]

Not sure what to cook with this but please hear me out. Imagine our MC who wakes up and realizes they have transmigrated into the novel they just read as evil canon fodder/ minor villain/etc to their joy!

Before this novel, they have read other works such as The Red-Haired Trash Commander, The Ultimate Reader, The Dumb Villainess Wants To Live!, Scum Villain Teacher, etc.

The books share the same motif: a transmigrated protagonist loved by all.

And our MC is aiming for that. Not due to any inferior purposes but perhaps a tad selfish one. MC is desperately yearning for love, for devotion, the kind that goes above and beyond.

MC grows up as an orphan, jumping from one terrible household to another until they become legal of age and do menial jobs to fend for themselves.

They are depressed and tend to sleep a lot. Until a coworker introduces them to the wonder of webnovel and they are hookd.

So it is a wonder that they really have been sucked into a novel, thankfully one that is more your typical fantasy-action one and thus is familiar to MC.

The course of action MC decided to follow can be divided into below:

R for Realistic

MC does what his "role models" do but eventually realizes (or gains some points in the EQ apartment) that they cannot expect unconditional, perfect love from the people around them. That people has breaking point.

Perhaps their heel- turning point is when their companion shots back a question, "Do you even care about us?" and that is when MC admits to themselves they have been subconsciously treating as if their friends are still characters and it is unfair for them.

MC's expectation for "love" is what almost ruin them and so they set out to fix things.

It is a more bittersweet ending, with MC learning a lesson.

C for Crack

MC does all of that his "role models" do and at some point, realizes they have come to really, really love and care for their companions. Dun, dun, dun comes the guilt.

They feel like an imposter who have deceived their friends and that they are a terrible, evil, irredeemable villain.

More self-sacrifices and actual misunderstandings occurs until their companions tie them down and have The Emotional Talk that will define their relationships forever.

Probably a Happy Ending.

Y for Yandere

Bad Ending where MC is tied up and locked by their companions, who turn deaf ears to their "confessions" of being evil, to keep them safe.

[vulturevanity]

Babygirl you are smitten