86/87

I think the answer to the question depends on if we are talking about first half of wmmap Claude or second half of wmmap Claude. First half of wmmap Claude had less respect for Athy as a person and even admitted it was difficult for him to view her and Diana as separate people. He's more likelier to go beserk and commit a massacre of the Ruby Palace 2.0. It doesn't matter if these people had something to do with Athy's death or were just unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Innocent blood will be spilled. If there is no one to blame, Claude will find someone to blame. I think his and Jennette's relationship would be much darker too. In the Lovely Princess Claude had enough time to forget his lover but in an AU where he lost his daughter too, Jennette would be touching an open wound. I can imagine Claude playing along with Roger's plans and inviting Jennette to the palace just to torment her. At Athy's debutante ball he must have noticed how uncomfortable Jennette made Athy. Athy was thanking Claude for everything and basically saying goodbye to him. Jennette becomes someone he could associate with the loss of Athy and use as an outlet for his anger, but I feel like eventually he would form a strange attachment to her (especially if he had used black magic on himself once again).

Should Athy sense the end of her time was near, she might believe this was her punishment for daring to change fate and trust in the heroine to comfort him once she is dead. She might close her eyes believing her death would not affect Claude as much as she wishes it would and tell him to take good care of Jennette, which are words Claude would not understand or want to accept and they would lead to a brutal rejection of Jennette instead, even if he pretends to accept her publically. At the beginning Claude would absolutely despise Jennette and hate her for being herself, because he would assume she was imitating Athy, unaware that Athy had been imitating Jennette all along.

I view Claude as someone who is trapped in a cycle repeating the same pattern and who cannot break out of such cycle by himself without any help from outside. Claude seems to be the obsessive type who centers his life around a single person and makes them their whole world, which becomes dangerous for the real world should his world suddenly break apart and leave him with nothing but ashes. He would seek his own ruin and because he is the ruler of Obelia, the pillar of the Empire, Obelia would fall with him. In both worlds Jennette would have a dangerous allure to him because she represents both love and death. A Claude who seeks ultimate destruction would still circle around her.

1. Jennette’s workshop:

Athy goes to Mietta again to visit Jennette (who has cut her hair!) who has opened her own very successful workshop, where she sells her handmade stuff. Anastasius is her salesman/assistant, and has to keep an eye on her because she keeps getting scammed.

Some guys try to hit on Jennette and then on Athy, and Anastasius throws them out.

2. Jennette’s tastes

Jennette is busy writing letters, and Athy asks her what she is doing. Jennette says she is writing rejections to courtship letters, and that she spends time on it because she is thankful to the people who send them… But Athy does notice she spends more time looking at the letters sent by handsome men. Jennette adds she doesn’t feel ready for a relationship because she is too busy, and Athy thinks it’s probably because she was raised by the Alpheuses.

3. Felix and Lily’s revelation

Spoon says that after she finished the side story focused on Lillian and Felix, she had a dirty dream with them as protagonists. When she told people about it, they told her to draw it, but because WMMAP is an all-ages story, she decided to only added a few doodles.

4. Claude and Diana meet again

Claude abdicates the throne to Athy, as he decided tolook for Diana, who has reincarnated. Spoon ended up discarding this idea because then Diana would be younger than Athy, making it weird. No one wants their dad to date a woman younger than themselves!

5. Hunting Competition

Spoon planned to hold a hunting competition or something similar, and depict Claude saving Athy in a moment of danger, even though he had no memories of her.

In the manhwa, it seem like she's doing everything for survival purpose until later on when Claude got back his memory but this Athanasia is genuinely enjoying everything that is happening in her life and also the character growth, her little hobbies, her honesty when she borrows money from Felix to repay back all the shopkeepers then get a job to repay back to Felix is my favourite part.

She's not only being kind to Claude for survival but because she actually sees her as her father, someone she loves and trust. The same way Claude is actually trying for Athanasia too.

In the manhwa, it feels rather one sided but in the donghua, I love their dynamic more!!

We don't know how Penelope's relationship to her father changed after she had broken the engagement arranged by him. He might have destroyed her childhood portraits either because he was mad at her for bringing disgrace to the family (infidelity, premarital sex + pregnancy out of wedlock + usage of black magic) or because he was afraid of Claude and destroyed everything that connected him with her for his personal safety, pretending he disapproved of her choice and had disowned his daughter. Another possible explanation could have been that Claude stripped the family of a portion of their lands and wealth, which allowed him to confiscate Penelope's property. Depending on which side Penelope's father took during the dynastic revolution, the area around his estate could have turned into a battlefield and many easily enflammable things like books, letters and family portaits might have fallen victim to the fire.

Another explanation for why there exist no other paintings of her could be that Penelope had been a bastard like Claude. The betrothal was permitted because Penelope had virtually no power as the illegitimate daughter of a minor family. Additionally it would give a reason for why Jennette inherits nothing of the Judith fortune even though both her mother and aunt have died.

Spoilers

When Ana does bad things, I can at least see his train of thought and his logic behind it. But when Claude does bad things, there is no logic, it’s over excessive and too cruel without reason. Like he has no reason to commit the Ruby Palace Massacre, and no reason to threaten torture towards his preschooler for not singing to him. He was abused while growing up yes, but he also had a loving and gentle mother with a loyal and supportive childhood friend/bosom brother. He knows cruelty, but he also knows warmth and love between parent and child. Hell, you even bring up the Coup was BECAUSE he thought Ana killed his mom, meaning he sees attachment and value in parent-child relationships, but still didn’t hesitate to make threats towards children, never mind his own child. No backstory explains or gives reason to his random and excessive acts of cruelty, there’s no correlation between backstory and action because they’re fueled purely by the writer’s need to exaggerate rather than to actually write a human. When Ana does something cruel or targeted, there’s a purpose and motive behind it. When Claude does something cruel or targeted, you have to jump through loops to grasp even the slightest of a valid reason if there even is one.

You’re condemning others for simplifying Claude, but you yourself are also simplifying his backstory to justify his actions and behavior, when if you actually picked it apart, they don’t make sense and don’t explain his actions or fuel his mindset and perception. For a rant about how people ignore the depth of Claude’s madness, in your own rant you try your best to ignore the depth in Ana’s. Your inherent bias comes through, minimizing and ignoring direct evidence and explanation (ie, “followed by a frankly bullshit assumption of Athy’s and Claude’s character” as if a panel before we weren’t literally told that he thought Athy was using Jen’s kindness for her own gain. Hypocritical? Yes. But you’re actively redirecting how the story is giving you an answer and reason, to enforce your bias. Which is exactly what you’re writing against.)

I dislike Claude because of the bad writing behind his direct decisions with over excessive violence and cruelty. There is a motive and explanation behind his hatred of nobles—that makes sense with the backstory provided so I can accept the violence involving that. But the Empress’ abuse should not have made him believe he can threaten torture and violence towards his child—rather, this should’ve instead made him violent with Jennette specifically in their first life because he knew Jennette was Anastasius and Penelope’s child. This is confirmed both in the novel, Athy herself (though it seems she forgot she knew this), AND Anastasius (via the screenshot you supplied—“Claude must have told her”, meaning he knew Claude knew about Jen’s origins). The Empress was not his mother, and he knew he was a bastard. So knowing Jennette was also the bastard born between the people he hated, he should’ve been cruel to Jennette instead, if we really want to talk about Claude’s backstory decisions affecting his character and writing. The headaches didn’t happen right away so he couldn’t have kept her because of those—hell, he shouldn’t have even had headaches in their first life anyway because he already fully forgot Athy and Diana by the time Jen came along. You even say this—Claude’s condition was was caused because of the ribbon Ana cursed, reactivating the curse Claude placed on himself via the mana blast—but in their first life, the mana blast didn’t happen meaning the curse wasn’t renewed because the curse completed. Jen’s mana doesn’t bring back the curse, the ribbon did. So he had no reason to treat Jennette kindly or even let her live, but because of ~writing decisions~ he does. Killing LP Athy also can’t be because of headaches, because again, the curse was completed. He shouldn’t be having them anymore, and we were never provided evidence that he continued to have them in LP. Or that he even had them at all. In the novel it’s different and we are shown he still gets affected by headaches and the memory magic, but the manhwa shows no evidence of this in LP. In fact, what we are shown in the manhwa is that when he dies to pains, they are completely unrelated to Athy—because he dies in LP after Athy is long gone.

Knowing his mother’s love to her dying breath, also shouldn’t have sent him in such a blind rage for Diana’s love for their child, he goes on a mass murder spree with the victims being concubines and servants aka what his mother and lover was. The coup was in retaliation after thinking Ana killed his mom—ok. Diana’s death wasn’t anyone’s fault—the Ruby Palace massacre had no explanation or justification. Grief does not justify it either, when he can handle grief in a semi-normal and not murder-y way when he drinks himself to death on every single one of Athy’s birthdays. The massacre in actuality goes against everything his past stood for, if we’re truly bringing his upbringing into this. His mother was a concubine, and hinted at one point to have been a commoner servant I believe. Yet he shows excessive and cold cruelty and apathy to even them. If we’re talking about backstory and ‘making sense’, those are the people he should’ve been the most lenient with. On top of this, knowing a parent’s love toward their child via his mother, even after remembering Athy is his child he isn’t lenient with her. And don’t give me “but his POV showed color meaning she brought life to his world” when he also shows in his POV that he was constantly waiting for and preparing for her death and was weirded out at saving her from it. If you’re gonna call Ana’s childhood mind control and manipulation a cop out from him taking accountability, the single chapter suddenly trying to convey “oh Claude always loved Athy see!” is also a cop out, due to its inconsistency with previously established information. There was no prior evidence or behavior supporting the info provided in that POV chapter, because the story and writing was so hell bent on making Claude as cruel as he can in the childhood arc. If you’re going to have a bad guy revealed to have always had this good thing, you have to set it up—otherwise the sudden reveal is just a cop out. This is why Ana works while Claude doesn’t—the ambiguity with his character from the get-go allows for slivers of his past and behavior to fit together for a complete puzzle throughout the story. But if you tell us everything about a character and support it with every little instinctual action early on, suddenly telling the reader they were actually different doesn’t flow smoothly (especially in the last sixth of the story by the way, you can’t show a guy being cruel and apathetic unless he accepts her as his kid for 5/6 of the story and suddenly go “aha but he always unconsciously loved her see!”). Plot twists don’t make sense if you don’t foreshadow it—otherwise if there’s no set up, it’s just there for shock value.

Don’t get me wrong, as much as I dislike his character, this isn’t really a fault with Claude himself. This is a fault with the writing, and I can’t blame Spoon due to the needing to change the direction of the story after the first season. The first season was supposed to depict a cold murderous tyrant unfeeling towards his blood ties slowly warming up to and coming to love his neglected daughter, but that POV chapter is supposed to convey “he always loved her”, which conflicts with the first season’s theme and message (as well as the final chapter’s?), “Blood doesn’t make you family, you have to put effort to grow close and understand the other”. Except when blood does matter apparently, since he always secretly cared about her because she was his and Diana’s daughter.

Good morning, first I came here to say that I love your analyses and it was through them that I started to see wmmap in a different way and it even encouraged me to reread the manhwa, and in doing so some questions arose and I wanted to know your point of view on them, if it's not too much trouble.

Most of them had to do with the worldbuilding aspect.

First it is about the magic system, magic system of wmmap has always confused me, like how exactly does magic work? What are its limitations? As far as I remember, to write stories that have magic in the world there are 3 essential rules and one of them would be (I got this part from Google)

:Limitations > Powers

What magic *cannot* do is more interesting than what it *can* do!

From what I've seen in novel spoilers, Lucas was practically a Gary Stu who solved all problems using his magic and was as strong as a god, so he has no weaknesses, which I honestly find very boring. I've seen someone say that his "weakness" is his arrogant personality, but that doesn't negatively affect him at any point (from what I've read in the manhwa and remember; if this happens in the novel or at some point in the manhwa itself, I apologize for forgetting). Even incredibly OP characters like Saitama, Gojo, etc., experience some consequences of being the strongest in their respective universes. Saitama no longer finds joy in life, and Gojo has a barrier between himself and others (would it be bad if I sometimes wished that Claude, Lucas, and any other OP manhwa character had a Geto in their lives? ).Also, how old is the magic tower? What exactly is its function in the government and that of the mages in society in general? How are the mages organized? Can everyone heal? Are there witches? How can people join it? Is there some kind of entrance exam?.

Another thing related to this that I've never been able to understand, maybe I should read more carefully and the novel too, is how exactly Jannette was born from black magic? Does it only affect those around her? Why did Ijekiel, the Duke, and the maids never seem affected? Was Janette herself never affected by being literally made of black magic? What would be classified as black magic itself?

Now, moving slightly away from this topic, in the initial chapters, when Lily reads a book to Athy, besides not showing any indication of anger towards the man who abandoned her best friend's child, she also says that the book states that Claude was considered a hero who defeated the tyrannical old Emperor, but throughout the story it is shown several times that EVERYONE fears Claude and that he might kill them, so I'm trying to imagine that this might have been written to improve Claude's image to the people, but wouldn't the incident at the Ruby Palace end up changing the people's opinion of him? Or was that kept a secret? I find it unlikely that something as big as the massacre of all the concubines wouldn't have spread by word of mouth, which would probably have led to insecurity, and taking this into consideration, another question arises: Why has there never been any indication of a revolution by the population? This is due to other reasons, such as the fact that we never see Claude interacting with his people; he's always with the nobility. How does he know if his people are living well? And he always spends a lot of money pampering Athy, when we see him investing money to improve the Empire? Athanasia herself, the recognized crown princess, is never shown trying to see her people, or even trying to do charity work; many European nobles in past centuries did charity work, and taking this from European nobles, what other historically accurate things would you love to see addressed or shown in wmmap? And what about other countries? A diplomatic meeting between other Empires? Nobles of Obelia and rulers of other countries trying to convince Claude and Athanasia to marry a member of a foreign royal family for political reasons?

Furthermore, I'm much more interested in Siadonna than in Obelia. Obelia hardly seems to have a culture; there are no typical dishes, no specific fashion, I don't even know which civilization it was based on, while Siadonna has its food, like the famous Lippe tea, its customs and clothing. Honestly, I would love a parallel story where Athy decides to go to Siadonna to learn more about her mother's culture, or even one that showed Diana's life before meeting Claude.

Perhaps the fact that world-building is one of the things that interests me most when reading a story is affecting my ability to fully appreciate WMMAP, but I would have loved for that to have been explored more deeply, so I'll stop here, but before that, I wanted to say that your analyses inspired me to try to do my own, so if I haven't taken up too much of your time yet, I wanted to ask if you have any tips on how to better analyze a story, both in terms of narrative and characters, and what you think about the questions I raised.

Collectively as a whole, yeah wmmap’s world building is kinda,,, really ass—both in the novel and manhwa.

One of the universal facts for both, according to Lucas is that, “Everyone has magic, it’s just a matter if they can/know how to use it”. Now let’s examine this, because if this is true, why do so little magicians exist then? And the few that are significant to us have to be all powerful masters at it? Even Ana who is claimed to be weaker at magic than Claude, why is that such a bad thing when there are so few wizards anyway? You’d think that in a world where all of the wizards congregate, and are limited to, a single country and empire, being Obelia, that a royal child having magic at all would be celebrated. Like why are the nobles looking down on the royals who have less magic, when the nobles themselves have yet to show they’re even capable of magic either? Moreover, if every human actually has magic, then in Obelia—you know, the empire of magic—why isn’t there schools to teach magic? That’s not what the wizard tower is—because it’s full of adults, mostly old people too. Rather, the wizard tower acts more of a work and research facility than an educational one (shown in the novel as Athy often frequents the magic tower and converses with nameless wizards, practicing theories and improving magic circles and etc—one of the older wizards even asking for Athy’s hair to experiment and examine her mana and bloodline). Magicians aren’t treated much like magicians, or staples of the empire—they’re treated like scholars. Educated and studying and experiment and theorizing upon a niche subject, but those subjects only really seem to matter in their field. We don’t get actively shown what their magic does to contribute, only told offhand to never be brought up again, and to never be put to use in front of the reader.

With such a small population, a sliver, why isn’t there an educational facility meant to foster the inherent magic within people, magic that everyone has? With the novel’s interest in Athy’s DNA causing her magic, is it based on your heritage? Is it more frequent in nobles? If that were true it would at least explain why they looked down on Ana—but then Ana shouldn’t have an inferiority complex to Claude, because if this were the case he should be weaker than the other magicians from nobility as well. And if it’s based off of your bloodline and high magic levels are more frequent in nobles, supposedly, why are they so hell-bent on teaching nobles so traditionally? Obelia by all means should be a very advanced and more open society and culture, the idea of and focus on magic and who can use it fostering a modern society. The focus on magic should break class barriers, yet there’s such a (barely touched upon) present theme of Athy being looked down upon and underestimated because of her commoner blood. Yet wmmap, at least it’s novel, tries to maintain a weird level of historical accuracy—but that historical accuracy doesn’t mean anything if we don’t even know what time period it’s based off of, and that so much of their history and society is fantasy-based. If magic is based on heritage or bloodline, why aren’t nobles educated in magic? Why aren’t there magic tutors, or an academy where noble children can learn magic if it’s so common in nobles? “Well magic isn’t that common”, but LUCAS SAYS EVERYONE HAS MAGIC !!! You can’t establish a world where magic is inherent, it just being a factor of how educated they are, while also establishing the protagonist and her family as magic geniuses strong enough to pass through time and space if they wanted to.

Jennette was drilled into a traditional, “everything you do has to appeal to your man” mindset. She ate as little as she could when around Ijekiel, when in reality she loves food and eats food without remorse or fear around Athy. Her sheltered upbringing forced her to fit into a traditional shell, yet if magic is so common and ESPECIALLY common in royalty to where you’re a disappointment with just weak mana—why didn’t the Alpheuses ever try to tutor Jen in magic? They tried so hard to groom Jennette to be sweet and subservient to appeal to Claude, but the moment they heard Claude adored Athy (Roger was constantly aware of this because of how frequent he visited the palace), why didn’t they switch plans to make Jen more useful, instead of lovely? If Claude’s love is so taken by another, present Jennette as the one more capable as an heir magic-wise. Athy’s magic and skills aren’t public—no one knows how powerful Athy is. Yes they wanted to groom her to be reliant on them so they could take control of the empire when she becomes empress, but this backfires SO hard because she grew up to become a lady (in both the novel and manhwa, and both LP and the main stories) who does NOT care about the throne at all or raising her status, but about her family instead. If they knew Jen was a royal and were under the impression her father was Claude—a genius in magic—and Penelope—a noble—they should’ve prepared for a possibility of Jen fostering an amazing potential in magic, yet they didn’t. And if the nobles believe blood = magic, Athy’s 3/4 commoner blood should’ve activated their prejudices to think she’d be the weakest Obelian in history.

Hell, even the royals don’t have proper magic education, since the manhwa at the very least depicted Claude having no knowledge of mana beasts. Speaking of mana beasts—why do they exist? Iirc, they are exclusive to royalty which is why it’s a secret—but why? Essentially, mana beasts are physical manifestations of mana when you have so much your body can’t handle it, so they manifest into a beast until the owner can finally take it—but they only appear in royalty to the point this information is taught only to heirs. Why? If they’re an automatic manifestation of mana, why do only Obelian royals make them? Is it unique to imperial mana? But if that’s the case, it can’t be a royal secret because the magicians would know with a single look. Mana beasts are creatures of the royal’s mana—to every magician entering the palace for a job or something else, they’d know immediately that Blackie is made purely from Athy’s imperial mana. Hell, CLAUDE SHOULD KNOW !!! He should know with a single look that Blackie was Athy’s mana beast because he’s also a magic genius, yet he had to be told this from Lucas. And it can’t be a case of “oh he was never educated on it” because as I stated, mana beasts are manifestations of mana. If wizards can describe Athy’s magic so vividly and feel it even when Athy isn’t actively using it, they can tell when an animal is purely made of magic. Claude, being so powerful second only to Lucas, he should’ve identified Athy’s mana in Blackie instantly. THE SIDESTORY EVEN SHOWS IT!!! In Sidestory 3 of the manhwa, Claude could tell the gambling den people were using magic to cheat, meaning he could sense it—sense the stupid and small magic, yet he couldn’t sense Blackie was Athy’s mana?

Another thing is that the manhwa brings up how wizards basically need to be legally registered. What does this mean? And how does this happen? Being legally registered as a magician means that you have to prove to someone you can actively use magic to be able to use it without legal repercussions. But if this is such a system, how does one know they can use magic? It’s almost oppressive—magic is not taught or smoothly integrated in their culture, despite being an empire based on magic, so you can only discover you’re a magician if you happen to use magic unconsciously—but if that happens, you just used magic illegally. What if someone caught you? You use magic for the first time unconsciously in public, and you’re apprehended because you don’t have a license. You weren’t educated on it, you didn’t even know you could do it, yet you’re being punished until you have a means of getting a license or permit—but you don’t even know how you did it in the first place. This is such a destructive environment—yet there are no repercussions if it goes undetected. Athy and Lucas can manifest money at will, yet not a single person catches them. They’re committing a crime with magic, but no one detects this and they don’t get punished at all for it. In fact, if being legally allowed to use magic a permit is required, why are there so little ways to detect magic? It’s obvious wizards can’t detect magic so easily seeing as Claude, a talent, can’t figure out Blackie is made with Athy’s mana. So then how the hell do they know if someone is using magic ‘illegally’ or not? @jeweled-blue-eyes brings up how sloppy the system is because it allows a black magician to sell books on black magic without punishment or detection. You’re not legally allowed to use magic without a permit or being recorded into a system, yet wizards can’t detect magic very well and they do not own devices that can detect it either. Also, are nobles exempt from this? Have Claude and Athy been using magic illegally this whole time? Or is this only exempt for nobility—then in that case, isn’t this just a system to oppress commoners more then? To monitor commoners, who don’t get any magic education. Magicians are not granted titles, they’re almost their own status—but what do they equal? They’re not royalty. But if Jennette, FOSTERED BY A DUKE, calls Lucas “Sir Lucas”, he’s offended and irritated at her disrespect. Yet it’s commonplace and accepted if teenage noble girls fawn over and call Lucas cutesy nicknames instead of a title at all. Are they above nobility? There’s no thought into what exactly ‘magician’ status is. And if they are an active status, is this why commoners are so barred from becoming one? From learning, from practicing, from knowing? It seems magicians are even more common among commoners, seeing as how Athy with her 3/4 commoner blood and Claude with his 1/2 commoner blood are once-in-a-lifetime (or twice, I guess) magic geniuses. I wish they expanded on this more—they could’ve easily had Athy, with her interest in magic, helping commoners learn magic or changing this system that’s so against commoners, instead of only being mildly irritated when nobles bring up her commoner blood. Instead of being irritated or making murderous threats, do something about it! Work on actively changing the system, changing the perception and social dynamics! Or just sit in the office and do paperwork I guess.

Speaking of black magic—what constitutes as black magic anyway? Jen’s black magic was inherent, yet posed no harm. That’s why they even left her alone, because the ‘black magic’ she had anyway was so weak it was nothing. It was just noted as black magic just because… the mana is dark. Her black magic was never used to harm people—in fact, it’s used as a stabilizer in story for people afflicted with black magic ailments. In the novel, the villain, Caraks/Aeternitas, amplifies Jen’s black magic and screws up her mental state even more, yet the most her black magic could do even with that is just… boost her charisma. It didn’t turn anyone against anyone, the most being making Cabel charmed by her when he was in love with Athy (she didn’t want this), all it really functionally did was make people nicer to her when she’s otherwise very ignored unless she brought up Ijekiel. She does attempt to make a black mana explosion twice, but the first was because Claude was trying to kill her, and the second was to kill herself instead. So the story has now established that Jen’s black magic AT IT’S MOST POWERFUL (had to be amplified by the villain to get like this) can 1) Make people nicer to her even if she doesn’t actively want it, 2) Self Protection, and 3) Self Harm. And when she unconsciously used it to charm others, she was the one being drained the most (Athy says this—that she was worried about Jen because Jen’s been constantly using magic and looked tired from it). With these points, why is it different from the magic Claude uses to 1) Cast barriers on himself and Athy, and 2) To try killing Athy with. Clearly black magic isn’t called black magic because it’s destructive since normal magic is equally as destructive. After all, Jen who’s supposed to be a being imbued with black magic, lived her whole life with it doing absolutely nothing (at least manhwa wise, there was an incident in the novel that implied she somehow used black magic to accidentally injure Ijekiel—except she didn’t even see it as magic? And neither did Ijekiel? None of them perceived it as magic period? We don’t even know what happened??? So I’m electing to ignore this incident because there’s absolutely no information about what actually happened—but the fact I even have to already speaks on how bad the writing is). So the story basically just says, “Black Magic is evil because vibes” rather than anything concrete or lawful. Aeternitas is said to have turned to black magic and has been taking the mana from other wizards/his descendant, but is it evil because it’s black magic, or is it evil because he’s using magic with evil intentions? Meanwhile, normal magic can easily create illusions and change your appearance at will, money laundering, and etc,,, Jen’s instance of black magic also goes against Lucas claim because when Jen’s black magic is removed, she’s ‘normal’. But I thought magic is inherent? Does this mean she has normal mana now? Hell, when Ana and Jen’s imperial mana is removed, they function just fine—meaning they still have mana? So we’ve established mana can be taken. Which opens up a whole OTHER can of questions about the magic system, and the morality behind it because why is it bad and called ‘black magic’ when Aeternitas takes people’s mana away, but if Lucas does it, it’s fine and normal??? So clearly black magic isn’t the actual magic or act itself, seeing as it has the exact same use and ability as normal magic. How do you even ‘turn to’ black magic, if black magic is the exact same as ‘normal’ magic?

There’s also just the general inconsistency of,,, why do some acts of magic have magic circles, and some don’t??? Magic circles were so ever present, even studied in the novel, but in both the manwha and novel you can just use magic ???? Without circles???? And Mana just exudes from you ??? There’s no effort into it—Athy just has to go “Oh I should do this”, wave a finger, wills it into existence, and “this” happens. There’s no bodily sensation, no focus, no effort—just a half formed thought and it’ll happen exactly how she wants it to without consequence. But if this is the case (there is a scene where Athy struggles at simple levitation, but there’s not much of a process to it), why are magicians studying magic? Magic circles seem the most common in defensive and offensive uses of magic. Then why are the magicians studying magic circles? If everyday use of magic can just be willed into existence, why are they making and developing formulas for magic circles? The second time skip in the novel starts with Athy showcasing how a magic circle’s formula could be more efficient. We’re never told what this magic even is, at least to my memory, or what it’s for. It’s just a magic circle. What even are magicians??? If their purpose in the tower is to study magic circles, then aren’t they soldiers? Are magicians in the tower meant to be magic weapons? If this is the case, Lucas has no right being upset at Jen for calling him ‘Sir’ if Magicians are an equivalent to knights. Why would they need to so extensively study magic circles, making them efficient and faster, when magic circles only appear for defensive and offensive magic? Not even black magic shows magic circles. Offensive black magic doesn’t even show circles !!! When Ana protects Jen from Claude’s attack, his protection manifests as a blue magic circle (blue being Ana’s mana). This isn’t black magic. Whenever black magic is shown, it’s of a dark aura particles—meaning circles are exclusive to normal offensive and defensive magic. But of course this is never brought up or touched on.

A small gripe of mine that is NEVER truly touched upon is,,, Athy shows no interest in her reincarnation. At least in the novel—manhwa Athy was at least implied to have been brought back via the World Tree because she was always Athanasia, and while shaky, it’s better than the concepts the novel has introduced. Basically, the novel is based on numerous world, and Lee Jihye is a soul from a modern Korea world that was plopped into a world of WMMAP. She shares no interest in why she’s there, or how, but I digress. That alone would’ve been fine—stale, repetitive, but fine. The biggest thing I’m questioning though, is when the sidestories introduce the concept of “Lucas can only fall in love with Lee Jihye”. Not Athy, the soul of Lee Jihye. When a second Lucas meets Lee Jihye, he falls instantly but doesn’t bat an eye towards actual (Lovely Princess) Athanasia, and is so obsessed he’s traveling multiple worlds to find her again. Through this, we’re shown of a world where Athy marries Ijekiel—except it isn’t ‘Athanasia’, it’s another Lee Jihye in Athanasia. This then introduces the concept of multiple Lee Jihyes from multiple Koreas, all somehow ending up in a world of WMMAP—all different worlds, of WMMAP and doing different things resulting in different outcomes. Is there an actual reason for this? No! Is it expanded upon? No! Does this mean there are multiple World Trees? Why are there multiples of the exact same world??? Why is Lee Jihye always going to end up in WMMAP??? And why are there then worlds where she doesn’t and it’s normal Athanasia??? None of these things gets answered, because all this confusion is because the sidestories brought up new concepts just to further enforce Lee Jihye as the protagonist—not ‘Athanasia’. What gets me more irritated is this then implies that magic is inherent for every world! If every world is just Korea or WMMAP, then magic isn’t a staple for Obelia’s culture specifically, it’s a rule for every world !!! Yet it’s the least developed system and concept in the story!

For an empire, for worlds based on magic, and magic being Athy’s most favorite subject (she states she has favorite subjects, but the only topic she’s shown the most active interest and practice in is magic, repeatedly throughout the manhwa and novel), WMMAP’s magic system and world building, where magic is heavily involved, is one of the most flawed and undeveloped things about it. Historical accuracy is great, but I very strongly feel that it’s useless if your world and character is so immersed in magic—if it’s so important, magic should take place in shaping society instead of historical accuracy. Historical accuracy only works if the history and world is more true to life. But if it’s a world revolving on magic, so much it’s dimensional and actively shapes the world and country’s history, historical accuracy should be a mere inspiration—otherwise your attempt to be historically accurate is instead what’s holding you back.

I meant to address the other things you brought up, but uh,,, I went a bit on a too-long tangent about the magic system and world building LOL but I wholeheartedly agree with you!

I’ll very quickly touch on them here at the end—yes, Claude and Athy, for people regarded as beloved rulers, don’t display any interest in or care for their people’s way of life. At the end of the novel I know at least Claude ventures into the town to survey every once in a while, but both fail when it comes to actual humanization and interaction with their people. I’ll forever be outraged at the lack of outrage for the Ruby Palace massacre—the victims were made up of commoners and nobles, servants and ladies. How could either of those sides just take that? How could they just take that their recently crowned ‘benevolent’ Emperor just slaughtered a palace full of people just like them? The story seems to think paperwork is all it takes to show how dedicated you are to becoming a ruler (repeatedly throughout the story actually now that I think about it), but they’re all so out of touch with their actual people or just uncaring. The most Athy cares about is paying merchants when she buys stuff and eats out in disguise in town—which doesn’t change anything. There’s no information on Obelia’s exports, what’s grown and produced in the empire, and the lack of an actual time period holds that back even more. It’s like WMMAP decided to be historically accurate for the most unimportant and least plot relevant/character relevant things. Debutantes (in the novel) wear white, but no one in the story is serious about marriage or love or stability so it’s useless. Noble girls and wizards who are supposedly her friends, are nameless and unimportant. Athy is supposed to love chocolate and commoner food, yet she shares no actual interest and remains as a simple consumer at the top of the chain (Jeweled-Eyes has brought it up before, that the price of food in town is actually quite expensive yet she isn’t worried at all—why are you, as a ruler and an ex-orphan who was struggling for meals and rent, not concerned that common food is expensive?). She shares a longing for things she had and knew in modern Korea (such as amusement parks, fireworks, night markets and street food) yet puts no effort into finding/making business with/reaching out to them for expansion or growing in general. We know eastern countries exist because Helena dresses up with their garbs, yet Athy shows no interest—a Korean counterpart could exist, yet she shows no longing or nostalgia, no interest in her own past culture. There’s not even a single genuine interest in her current culture, only surface level things like… clothing. That’s about it. WMMAP is hardly historical, and I wouldn’t have a problem with that if it at least took advantage of it—but if it is historical, make those aspects matter in a way that makes sense, or else it’s just historical for the aesthetic.

It’s not anything game changing, but there are little details DOTE has that makes it feel way more immersive than when I was reading WMMAP. Ariadne starts off her infant life immediately showing vs telling, describing her disorientation to exactly how she’s at the mercy of her infant instincts more than not, which I feel is much more realistic than baby Athy somehow being completely in control of herself. While both protagonists’ internal monologues are very opinionated, the way Ariadne conducts herself by always waiting and observing the things around her and immersing the reader in things like touch, smell, hearing, or taste—her ability to pause and examine things before running her thoughts off makes her come off much more mature than how Lee Jihye came off as to me—Lee Jihye/Athy often ‘telling’ the reader how observant she is while never actually describing to the viewer, and letting her opinions run her narration instead of actually observing the world around her.

I also currently find Ariadne someone who pays more attention to the people and world she’s in—constantly watching and being on the lookout for what the people around her are doing (Elene’s loud clumsiness, Serira’s genuine maternal tenderness that touches her, fully believing her dad’s a cruel tyrant only because he supported the rumors by actively attempting to harm the innocent her, her dad’s voice alone alarming her to play pretend, not wanting to be near one of her dad’s concubines because she’s a hostage princess who likely resents her dad and would thus probably hurt her as his daughter and etc). I don’t need to be told Ariadne’s observant—I can see it myself, and tell Ariadne’s judgment comes from what she observes, logic, more than her opinion. She pays attention to stray gossip, and strings it together to figure out what the current situation and political climate is to figure out how to act appropriately. This is what makes her feel like an adult, someone who is sharp and in control of her thoughts and limited action, even if her body doesn’t obey.

In contrast, Lee Jihye/Athy’s narrations often jumped to conclusions based off of her own private opinions. Her knowledge mostly stems from what she read from the source novel, instead of what she observes firsthand, and in turn that affects her biases and opinions, thus dictating how she acts (inherently assuming Claude is a violent tyrant because that’s what the novel said, but all he ever really does during the childhood arc is kinda,,, stare at her intensely? And smirk occasionally? Vs Caitel who actively tried to strangle her and executes people on a whim which horrifies Ariadne). Claude is cruel yes, but what I find disgusting about him is more of his apathy and cruel mindset, thus allowing him to sputter out cruel and heartless words—but what Athy experiences are just that. Words. And stares. She doesn’t actively try to understand or figure out his horrifying mindset, just assumes the worst based off of what she read in the novel.

It’s one thing to identify a threat based off action, body language, and observation—it’s another to identify a threat because the (fictional) book said the person was a threat, so now you assume anything they do is danger. To be honest, the latter is fine as long as there’s observation thrown into the mix, but I must remind you that Lee Jihye’s narration rarely describes things—she comes to conclusions a lot, but the reader misses her thought process and how she came to that conclusion. So when she ‘figures something out’ or ‘acts’, it feels like it’s a bit unfounded or based off of her assumption, instead of what she tells us is her calculative observation. This is what sets Athy and Ariadne apart as protagonists for me—the writer’s ability to show vs tell.

There’s also a difference in the two writers’ ability to set the mood. How they write their protagonists is one thing, how they set the scene is another aspect of writing skill. I’ve mentioned previously that Plutus seems to struggle with pacing, in how or where to put emphasis on description vs narration to set a pace. The lack of description, narration holding a more dialogue-like quality, causes the sense of ‘time’ to quicken. Plutus’ writing, not being able to figure out where to slow or speed up ‘time’ via placement of narration and description, makes the mood of scenes feel off. Scenes that should be intense and quick are filled with description, scenes that should be slow are filled with dialogue and snappy thoughts—the reader isn’t allowed to really get a feel for the scenes written. Yunsul seems to have a better grasp of this however—I found her writing to have more of a balance between description and narration. Not too much—but more than Plutus, in any case. This creates a baseline of a reading pace, making it easier to control the intensity and ‘speed’ of the scene—filling it with more dialogue and narration making it flow quicker, filling it with more description making it flow slower.

For example, chapter five starts out with longer paragraphs than usual. Ariadne describes the hostage princess one of her caretakers/maids had accidentally upset during the current outdoor walk. As the princess comes to know of Ariadne’s identity as the only princess, the paragraphs quickly shorten into small one to two lines. Yunsul has changed the pacing. No more are the long paragraphs of descriptions and observations—Ariadne is panicking because she’s being handled by someone who she resents her father. Yunsul changed the pace of her writing to fit the mood of the scene, to put emphasis on the intensity of Ariadne’s emotional state. Everything is intentional, everything has meaning. This is what a writer does. The paragraphs then return once she hears her father’s voice, but there are still smaller lines balanced between them—because while his appearance has shocked Ariadne, she’s still very on edge.

The rhythm of Yunsul’s writing reflects her intention as a writer. In comparison to the examples of Plutus’ writing from my other post, it is better—finding Plutus’ baseline to be odd, with often random strings of single-liners without purpose that could easily be combined in a paragraph because of their topic relation, to extremely short paragraphs which also confused me. I couldn’t ever really understand why Plutus was spacing such short lines and sentences like so. It were as if Plutus had been writing WMMAP on their phone—where short lines and sentences feel longer than they are because of the smaller, crowded, screen. It isn’t a bad thing per se, but it forces the writer to pace things differently—especially if the writer plans to publish physically, I feel, which both writers have. Smaller screens force you to pace things quickly because of how crowded it looks on the phone, but when you write it out onto the computer or upon a page it looks much more empty and spaced. The writer’s rhythm and pacing is reformatted, which changes and disrupts the writer’s intent.

Soooo I wanted to make this because sometimes whenever I would go to re-read wmmap I always had this thought: “why did Diana’s design change so much? Why’d she just slowly start to look exactly like Athanasia?”

In the beginning of the manhwa her character was drawn to be sexy/mature since she was the mother of the protagonist.Athy was more bubbly and girly looking

She was curvy and her eyes were drawn soft with a tilt as to convey her nurturing energy…. So tell me why, by the end, she ended up looking like this? Without either qualities she ended up looking like a recolored Athanasia

The art is beautiful and she’s still so beautiful but it kinda weirded me out how much she just looked like Athy? I understand she’s her mom but that’s why the subtle differences such as their body type and eyes are so important, because then you get Diana and Claude moments that made me go: ah… why does this just look like a romantic scene between Athy and Claude..? Even if these stories depicted a time when Diana was younger she was still an adult?

His backstory, shoehorned via the novel sidestory, made no sense with pre-established information—being that powerful wizards are born via strong mana filled bloodlines, but this poses a great risk to mothers who lack this and have little mana. Yet Lucas, with mana so strong he can travel dimensions casually, was born to a small family with no history of magic or wizards at all. Not only that, his mother survived and was so healthy that she could have two(?) more children and raise them to adulthood perfectly fine—meanwhile, both Diana and Penelope passed away with daughters not even CLOSE to his mana level, and Claude’s mother sickly and bedridden from him.

People are harassing Spoon for his past, his past being one of the most inconsistent writing example in the novel,,,

In contrast, Spoon gave him a past with more emphasis on his ties and relationship with the world tree—the world’s GOD—as well as giving the world tree way more importance. The world tree was barely a factor in the novel, just a plot device for Lucas to fix Athy and Claude’s problem while making them immortal. But the emphasis on him basically being God’s chosen, God’s son, gives much more of reason why he’s ‘special’ and ‘different’, all while expanding and being consistent with the world’s actual lore.