One of my most hated Rofan Male Leads
I know that in the annals of Romance Fantasy there are certain characters in certain roles that are seen as literally the worst, and no role has as many infamous candidates for the title as the Male Lead. Anyone familiar with enough popular series can probably think of the big ones: Matthias Von Herhardt. Ruvellis Castina. Killian Devonshire. All well known assholes. But one I don't see talked about as much, but chaps my ass like no other, is this smelly demon taint.
This is Kylart from "I Got Pregnant with rhe Tyrant's Child." He ticks off all the boxes you'd normally associate with a Red Flag: Obsessed with the FL Elan, an actual rapist (not called out in universe, but he had sex with Elan when she was too drunk to consent), emotionally torments Elan. But unlike a lot of rofan manwha with Tyrant in the title, Kylart actually IS a tyrant. In addition to being a shitty romantic partner, he's a war criminal who had innocent women, children and the infirm murdered while they begged for mercy, had a woman executed for claiming to be the woman he slept with because he "hates liars" and had a loyal noble couple who helped him sieze power murdered, covering their deaths up as an accident. Why? Because like most revolutionary leaders who overthrow the previous regime, he thinks the people who can help him can also turn on him. Gotta keep anyone who can fight him underfoot!
This last point segues into another factor for why I have such a passionate hatred for this man, and it actually has to do with another character, the Second Male Lead, Leonhart Crescent.
Like a lot of 2MLs in works with shitty MLs, Leonhardt is very obviously better for Elan than Kylart. He's kind, cares about her, helps her when he sees her struggling, and when he finds out she's pregnant out of wedlock, offers to be the father figure in her child' life. He is everything Kylart is not, and the writer obviously saw that he was clearly the better choice for Elan. So what's a writer to do when the character everyone is obviously going to root for over the guy you want her to be with? Well...
Spoilers ahead.
Leonhardt is the son of the aforementioned murdered noble couple.
For some reason, Kylart thought it would be smart to make the son of a couple he murdered the captain of his personal guard (which means he's not just evil, but he's also a dumbass.) As you can guess, he's keeping close to find a means of revenge against Kylart. Later in the series he joins a rebellion against Kylart that is also lead by a prince of a kingdom that was taken over by Kylart and ends up finding Elan as she had run to said country and was friends with said prince. Kylart finds Elan and his children (as she had twins) and brought them back to the empire to make Elan his empress and officially put his children in the royal lineage. So the rebels, including Leonhardt, decide to hatch a plan to get rid of Kylart once and for all. They abduct Elan and use her to draw Kylart into a clearing where they attempt to kill him, but it doesn't work because he like such a cool badass that nobody can stand against his awesomness. Elan is rescued, the rebellion is defeated, and Leonhardt is executed as a traitor, his last interaction with Elan showing how bitter and angry he is at her for daring to choose the Emperor over him. The end.
"Well Leonhardt doesn't sound like a good guy!" You may say. "Kylart may be bad, but Leonhardt kidnapped Elan" And this is true. He also discussed the possibility of kidnapping Elan's children. Obviously he's not a good match for her! Why would she ever choose him! Task successful, he's officially worse for her than Kylart!
Well, there's one problem with the conclusion that his actions, no matter how justified he may seem, make him the worse suitor for Elan.
Kylart is also guilty of the same thing. And he's WORSE about it.
You see, when I said Kylart brought Elan and the children back to the Empire to marry her and make them his heirs, what I didn't mention was that he kidnapped the children from her cottage while he distracted her in a dream (as he can enter and stalk her in her dreams if he's closed enough to her.) Yeah, magical stalking! He of course asks her about his child and she lies and says she had a miscarriage to get him to leave her alone. All he does is smile and tell her they can always make another one.
So then she goes to where he's camped out with his men where she's captured and dragged before him. He takes great pleasure in basically telling her he's taking his kids back and if she wants to stay with them then she has to marry him. She tells him she'd rather die and that she'll kill herself before she'd marry him. And how does our Male Lead react to this?
By telling her that if she did, he'd no longer have a use for the children and would kill them.
This... this toxic shit rocket is so fucking obsessed with a woman who despises him that if she tries to self end just so she won't be forced to be his lawfully wedded cocksleeve, he will MURDER HIS FIVE-YEAR-OLD CHILDREN.
Leonhardt on the other hand, balks at the idea of kidnapping them in the first place, and makes it clear to his comrades that even if it did ever come down to it, they were not to be harmed for any reason. He even makes it clear to Elan nobody actually wants to harm her either, they're just after Kylart and given that one of the rebel leaders is a man who's parents were murdered by Kylart due to paranoia and the other is a prince who's people, including innocent civilians and children and the elderly were slaughtered by Kylart while they begged for mercy, I'm absolutely flabbergasted at the idea that they're the guys we're supposed to be rooting against. Hell, when the prince calls Kylart out on it, he doesn't have a shred of remorse, because if your name isn't Elan than you can get buttfucked with a chainsaw for all he cares. And Elan chooses this guy after all the shit he out her through!
God DAMMIT, I hate this fucking guy so much, and I hate this story for so blatantly demonizing the more morally upright character who is justified in his hatred of the ML. I have NEVER seen a character in a Rofan comic done as dirty as Leonhardt.
And that's the thing that cements Kylart as one of the absolute WORST male leads. It isn't just that he's a special kind of evil even beyond the normal parameters of Red Flag MLs, it's that the story is so morally myopic it tries to derail the second male lead by making him do the same shit the male lead is guilty of, but to a less disturbing extent.
If you're like me and you read shit like this because you have a sick addiction to being enraged at fictional characters, then you won't find many series that will rake their nasty, jagged claws across that itch as well as this one does. Consider yourself warned.
