There has never been a romance Manhwa where I was so hopeful for the two main leads to not end up with each other... I've been seeing a lot of the same tropes in Medieval Romances the days.

'She is so different.' Is something that would be thought by every Male Lead in these stories as they mostly never sympathise with people other their designated Female Lead. Everyone else is normally killed under their sword with no mercy.

To compare this story with Lucia, it's a lot more grounded in the fact that the Male Lead isn't instantly entranced like always upon seeing the Female Lead. Although this does hit his character and makes the readers less eager in the 'romance'.

Again, I've never wished for the Female Lead to live a quite life without the Male Lead so hard...!

Apparently, a face and body matters more than actual personality in these kind of stories. Perhaps writers these days have a particular taste~? I'm going to stop right here because I feel like this will turn into a rant if I speak any further of this.

I find it weird that even though the 'Bad Boy Archetype' (where the Male Lead looks course and rude on the outside but has a gentle heart on the inside) doesn't exist, people STILL use it anyway.

But I guess it's absurd for me to find anything happening in the Medieval Era not 'weird'. People of the past were narrow-minded and had systems that weren't really rational in using its resources.

I mean, just look at how Henry the 8th changed even religion just so he could get married six frickin' times in a row. Men back then were so vane and caring of their looks to the point they even created garter belts for them (originally for men).

Social norms were also different back then in what was to be expected for women and men, to the point these world turn into gender norms that affected the minds of women in general.

Because they were told they couldn't, well... have a life besides raising children, especially for those with higher status, they would naturally grow up thinking they can't live without a man, which ends up being why they get married like other 'normies'.

Unlike Lucia, the Female Lead in the Beatrice Manhwa is a 'reincarnator' who had lived in the modern age and knows our culture, so seeing her bend to gender norms of Medieval times because she's a slave is really uncomfortable, which makes me more eager to see her live a quite life without being abused by society more than it already has.

Up to the 36th chapter, the Male Lead has shown interest in her for being literate despite being a slave, and she herself would like to avoid him due to secretly hiding her identity as a princess that was taken as a war slave, which isn't really good.

After all, the story goes out of its way to repeat a hundred bloody times how desirable he is from his looks alone and TELLS US to our face that he is kind for his high status despite not showing it.

We hear servant girls saying that he helps out sometimes and go he's 'so dreamy~', but never get to see that side of him ourselves. Compared to Hugh in Lucia, he's less fledged out and doesn't really have a reason for his actions other than mommy and daddy issues that stem from the irrational system of governance itself.

He was almost killed by his mother who has a falling out with his emperor father (she is now dead) and now treats life indifferently. Compared to the complex trauma of being from a bloodline that has 'madness' coursing through it and losing all his loved ones like Hugh, the edginess of this Male Lead is more 'normal' yet less sympathetic.

The story goes out of its way to show the difference in perspective between the aristocratic Male Lead and the slave girl Female Lead who temporarily lived as an abused princess married off to a fatty scum of an aristocrat. Things he finds normal are weird to her and vice-versa, which really makes me confused on what the author is going for. Is this really going to be a 'romance'?

Not once have I felt like he deserves the heroine in any meaningful way, which goes to show how the story fails in making us like the Male Lead. He is too 'normal' as an aristocrat and fortunate that it makes me feel he doesn't deserve the heroine.

His biggest 'difficulties' are kicking out beautiful women trying to seduce him to the point even the man's father is starting to think he's homo (which is also his own fault for acting like he is). If anyone else was him, he'd be swimming in babes...

How are we supposed to feel for him...???

What I'm trying to get at is that if you're going to give these kind of characters traumatic backstories, at least make them equal. Don't just expect the readers to be attracted to the Male Lead because he's hot, that's just really shallow.

There's a line between Romanticism and Realism that all Medieval Romances must take not of. If you make your world 'realistic', then there must be some realism in the romance as well. However, to make a romance without 'romanticism' in a Medieval Romance would be redundant. What is the point of even writing such an empty story?

Things being realistic doesn't add relatability when we are being shown a long forgotten society. It's a wonder why romances set in old eastern empires seem more desirable in how authors of those stories don't even try to add realism to the setting.

There are always too many power struggles and useless fights in the more trashy romances set in an ancient setting, which makes me wonder what authors are aiming for with romances these days?

Anyway, to get back to the point, don't make the setting realistic if you aren't going to make the main characters abide by this realism. No one wants to see a reincarnator go through the hardships of being a slave for the sake of realism.

And even if you make the Male Lead as unrealistically handsome as you can, to the point that the Female Lead is only attracted to his looks alone, then not only will the relationship seem shallow, but no one will cheer for their 'romance'.

In Lucia, the Female Lead also found the Male Lead handsome as well, to the point she offered a marriage contract with him purely because of his looks, which was a shallow action, but it really saved the story because it was self-aware in how being attracted to him solely for his looks were shallow. Unlike what happens in other romances.

Handsomeness is not a 'virtue', it is just an added bonus in a romance and should be treated as such.

The Beatrice Manhwa didn't show anything desirable about the Male Lead beyond his handsomeness unlike what the Lucia Manhwa did in properly showing that he was self-ventured and not misunderstood like other main characters.

I guess in the end, what I'd hated most about Beatrice was that it used the most unrealistic Bad Boy Archetype for the Male Lead despite having a semi-realistic setting. It really isn't that bad on its own but when a good romance story like Lucia already exists, it's hard not to compare what that story did right and what this one did wrong.

That's just my opinion though. Request Analysis blogs anytime and have a good day~