#zaida

1) Leuce (Lore Olympus)

This girl was done so dirty in that god forsaken comic!

Rachel claims to be a folklorist but any knowledgeable folklorist would know that Leuce wasn't some dumb flower nymph, she was Hades's first wife. Now yes, she isn't really "cannon" in Greek Mythology, she came way later, but my word still stands. Rachel completely bastardised a mythological figure, but what is new?

Even if we don't take her origins into consideration, Leuce was written as a tool instead of an actual character. She was used as an obstacle to try and come between Hades and Persephone, something that wasn't needed as we had bigger threats like Apollo to worry about, not to mention that this dumb storyline didn't lead anywhere. This little side story didn't affect anything or anyone and Leuce was forgotten soon after.

It doesn't help that Leuce is shown to have some sort of mental illness or is not in a good place mentally so having people calling her delusional and making fun of her comes out as incredibly ableist.

Having Persephone coming to her home uninvited, vandalising her apartment and threatening her is the icing on the cake! A Queen breaking into the house of low class citizen and destroying it while also threatening a person who is a minority is not badass, it's pathetic and abuse of power. The fact that Rachel expects me to look at this and say "Yes, go Queen, bully this low life peasant" is disgusting!

Leuce deserves an author who respect her as a character and respects the myth she comes from.

2) Alex (Lore Olympus)

Another character who is a minority getting bullied and brutalised by royalty.

Some people say that Alex deserved what happened to him because that tabloid and the picture he took almost ruined Persephone's reputation, and to that I have to say: No he didn't deserve it!

I am not saying that Alex shouldn't face any consequences, but it this case the punishment doesn't fit the crime. Getting mutilated by a superior God is not a proper punishment for slander. Firing Alex from his job and maybe taking the case to court would have been a proper punishment, not this!

Hades didn't even apologize to Alex properly, he just saw the poor boy he brutalised as an inconvenience and wanted the thing to be over with. He didn't even put Alex's eye back because he felt guilty, he did it because Persephone told him to. And speaking of Persephone she had some nerve to corner Alex and act all high and mighty while threatening a minority once again.

Alex didn't deserve to be mutilated by blue Gru and to be traumatised by him and his manic pixie girlfriend. He deserves and apology and some compensation money.

3) Eckles (Villains are Destined to Die)

Once again we have a slave being the villain or an antagonist. Manhwas really have a problem with poor people and slaves huh?

The life of this man is absolute misery. His country gets invaded and destroyed, he lost his home, his friends and his family, he lost his title and got sold to slavery only to be bought by a white rich woman who treats him like shit.

Now I don't have a problem when victims aren't perfect, I would argue that Eckles's behaviour makes sense, he is a pretty realistic depiction of an abuse victim, but the fact that he seems to take an antagonistic role in the story while the fandom demonizes him grinds my gears.

It is Rashta all over again and I hate it! I know that most characters in VADTD are supposed to be morally grey but when it comes to Eckles the comic makes him out to be more villainous than other characters and the fandom treats him the same way they treated Rashta: with hatred and disgust.

I don't know why the author decided to write the slave character like a pathetic evil simp but it's disgusting and messed up. My man needs some therapy, he deserves better especially when it comes to his writing.

4) The Zemensia children (The Remarried Empress)

These poor babies. They did nothing wrong and yet they've suffered so much...

Sadly I don't know their names so I'll just refer to them as The Zemensia Kids.

These two kids had their grandpa taken away and tortured, they watched as their mother got brutally murdered alongside the maids and servants, they were kidnapped, stripped of their titles and got sold to slavery. All of that just because their father tried to kill the precious fl and her psycho husband couldn't contain his bloodlust.

Being so young and having to go through all that is traumatizing, I can't imagine what these kids will have to go through in slavery, especially the girl. I sincerely hope that both of them end up exactly like Rashta and ruin Kai and Lari's lives so that Heinrey's actions will bite him in the ass in the future.

I want to go into the comic and rescue them, they didn't deserve any of this.....

5) Diana (For my Derelict Favourite)

Another woman who fell victim to the sexism and internalised misogyny of the Otome Isekai genre.

I don't have a problem with Diana being the villain, I have a problem with the way she is written. Diana isn't written as a character, she is written as a tool and a punching bag for Hestia. She has little to no agency and she isn't even allowed a small victory because God forbid another woman outshines the precious fl.

For a story that supposedly deconstructs the typical manhwa formula it doesn't change anything. Hestia is the smart, beautiful and capable fl that wins against everyone with her Mary Sue girlboss powers, Caelus is the ml that exists only to serve the fl and be her trophy husband with a sad backstory to make him seem deep and Diana is the white lotus villainess who is too dumb and incompetent to to anything against the badass main character.

This story follows the same harmful and misogynistic tropes that exist in every other manhwa without even realising it. Diana doesn't get punished for being a bad person, she gets punished for being "the wrong type of woman", a woman who isn't the fl and doesn't worship the protagonist. She gets punished for "driving Caelus into suicide" and there's this incel mentality that Diana owned Caelus a relationship and herself because he killed for her even if she didn't ask for any of that.

Diana could have been either a sympathetic antagonist or a truly terrifying one like Dodolea or Marianne but she is just another cookie cutter villainess whose only purpose is to make the fl look better. She deserves a better author who knows how to write good characters

6) Zaida (Down to Earth)

Zaida reminds me of early LO Persephone in all the wrong ways.

Zaida is is drawn very childlike and she even acts like a dumb kid at times ( she deadass says she wants to go potty, like wtf)? I know that young looking people exist (hell I'm one of them) and that Zaida is suppose to be naive but there's a difference between being naive and acting like a toddler. I know that this mostly her early characterisation and that she does try to become more independent, but damn, the comic doesn't really know what to do with her.

She clearly exists for the sole purpose of "fixing" the male lead Kade. Every time she tries to do something that has nothing to do with Kade it always comes back to him. Zaida's best moments are when she isn't with Kade or isn't thinking about him. These moments are also good because she gets character development but then we go back to square one once Kade gets involved.

And speaking of, the most disappointing thing has to be her alien origins. Not only doesn't she look like an alien she also doesn't behave like one. She is drawn with big doe eyes, she has cute pointy ears, flowey turquoise hair and body many men find attractive. This isn't an alien this is someone's manic pixie girlfriend fantasy. Her behaviour isn't any better. She acts less like an alien who wants to learn about humans and their culture and more like a child who keeps asking questions about things they don't know. The author clearly wanted a Robin-Starfire dynamic and they failed miserably.

Zaida isn't that bad of a character but the author needs to let her exist outside of Kade. Putting more effort into her alien origins and her design could have been better. It would have been even better if she wasn't the "born sexy yesterday" trope and was drawn with more realistic proportions.

7) Jade Meldea (The Princess's Jewels)

Another interesting character who got plot lobotomy and started worshipping Arianna.

Jade was one of my favourite characters next to Bavilo up until he started to fall for Arianna. He was the only character who had a normal reaction after getting blackmailed to join Arianna and leave his home. Jade wasn't affectionate with Arianna at all and tried to stay away from her as much as he could. Hell, there was even a panel where Arianna is smiling while she is at a port wearing a pretty sundress. She looks innocent and cute but in the next panel she looks very sinister. This was Jade's image of Arianna and he wasn't wrong. I really hoped that Jade would be the reason for Arianna to finally realise how awful and swallow she has been but he just ended up falling in love with her just like the rest of the fuckboys in the harem.

The worst thing about his writing is how his SA is handled. Jade has a weird yandere chick who is obsessed with him and is willing to do anything to make him hers. During an attack at a festival, that woman lured Jade to a secluded area and after she managed to incapacitate him she tried to force herself into him only for Arianna to save the day. The rape attempt is used as a tool to make Jade love Arianna (because girly is so unlikeable it took a rapist to make her look good) and doesn't affect Jade's life in any way shape or form. There was a time when he was afraid of women but that all went away after our girlboss Arianna comforted him. Boom, trauma gone.