The Abandoned Empress

CAUTION: REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

"The Abandoned Empress" is a fantasy shoujo story wherein the titular character, Empress Aristia La Monique, or Tia for short, dies by being executed by her husband, the crown-prince-turned-Emperor, Ruvellis Kamaludin Shana Castina for the crime of attempted assassination. However, as soon as she dies, she's given another chance by the god Vita, who grants her the destiny of "Pioneer," challenging her to defy her wretched fate in her second attempt at life. She learns that she was never meant to have loved Ruvellis, and that she was merely a stand-in until he could meet god's true Child of Destiny, Jieun, the girl with black hair and black eyes who hails from another world. Aristia is devastated to learn that her deep love and devotion to Ruvellis for all this time was an unfortunate byproduct of god's mistake, and she declares that she will reject god's cruelty, her doomed fate, and she will pave her own road to finding happiness. She swears that she'll never love Ruvellis again in this lifetime, because he's never ever loved her in return, and he had been the singular source of all her misery in her past life.

Simply put, Ruvellis was an utter piece of shit. Actually, there's no real succinct way to describe him without letting loose an entire string of cuss words. In the first life of Aristia, he was verbally, physically, and emotionally abusive to her. He practically raped her, got her pregnant, and then subsequently made her miscarry by pushing her down in order to chase after his true love Jieun, who had replaced Aristia as Empress. After Aristia's miscarriage, she learns that she will never be able to bear children again, and she's extremely upset over this, because now there is zero reason or hope for Ruvellis to look her way. Instead of comforting her, Ruvellis gets Jieun pregnant soon after, and many lavish gifts and festive occasions are showered upon this happy expecting couple, leaving Aristia to stew about the unfairness of it all. She briefly meets with her father, who has come to tell her that he will be whisking her away from this cage of sorrow as soon as he finishes an important mission. That's the last she sees of him, as he's promptly executed by Ruvellis for being the mastermind in an ambush on Jieun, which causes her to lose her child. Of course, Ruvellis doesn't tell Aristia that he's already killed her father, ordering her to pathetically beg for her father's life, and to kiss his feet while she does so, because he wants to make her suffer. He wants to see her cold, emotionless, and proud face crumple under him, relishing in the fact that he holds absolute power over this abandoned Empress of his. Finally pushed to her limits, Aristia takes her golden hairpin and stabs Ruvellis in the chest, leading to her arrest and subsequent execution, which sets the events of the rest of the story in motion.

When Aristia awakens, she is 10 years old. Time has gone back seven years prior to the tragic events that she had just experienced, and she wants to make the best of it, determined to make this precious second chance really count. Understandably, she's traumatized by the young crown prince Ruvellis, even when he is not the same threat as he was when he was Emperor. She takes great lengths to avoid running into him, clamming up whenever he tries to talk to her, even visibly shaking like a leaf in his presence. She focuses on improving herself by studying diligently, reading difficult books in different languages, and taking swordsmanship lessons, so that she may be capable of becoming a knight of the House Monique. Already well-known as a genius back in her first life, young Aristia draws a lot of attention for her astute observations and insights on various political situations, greatly impressing the Emperor, Ruvellis's father, who wastes no time in comparing his own son to her. This unfortunately gives her the opposite effect of trying to avoid Ruvellis's eye, and now he's taken a keen interest in this talented little girl who seems to be unable to stand him, for some inexplicable reason that completely mystifies him.

As Aristia continues to work hard in resisting the awful fate which befelled her, she meets two other characters who have taken an invested interest in her as well, the two successors of the other major Houses that serve the empire, Allendis de Verita and Carsein de Rass. One is a cold, calculating intellectual who gets close to her for his own personal gain, and the other is a brash, fiery warrior who genuinely loves her, because of her tomboyish bravery and stubbornness. It's clear that they're meant to pose as suitable options for Aristia to pursue as love interests, since she's vehemently sworn that she will never let her heart waver, and fall for Ruvellis again, acting like the blind fool she used be. Aristia's plight and genuine attempts to better herself are sympathetically portrayed, and sometimes tear-inducing at times. In fact, her sincerity touches the usually apathetic Ruvellis to bettering himself as well, because he sees her as his competition, and he works to get closer to her, to reach her, and to better understand her, despite her many attempts to push him away.

It's pretty apparent that Aristia will end up choosing Ruvellis again, even very early on, because he's the only one that she has chemistry with. While a lot of people will hate the idea of Aristia falling in love with her past abuser, I honestly don't have a problem with this. The Ruvellis of today is not the Ruvellis of the past. He may have the same face, the same voice, and the same overall disposition, but because of what Aristia has done in this lifetime, this Ruvellis is different too. Their lives are intricately tied together, regardless of what they want, as it was already predestined by Vita. It's undeniable that Aristia is not the same Aristia who was executed back in the first chapter, because everything she's done up to this point has changed her as a result of her actions, and this applies to Ruvellis too. The past Aristia was unfeeling and resentful, the new Aristia is passionate and hopeful, like a polished brand new coin. She now highly prioritizes her familial ties with her only family member, her father, whereas in her past life, she was distant and cordial with him. She has a new appreciation and love for the people around her, and she even discovers the truth of her bloodline, which was a secret that she never uncovered before, much less known the existence about.

We see Aristia slowly overcome her fears of being around Ruvellis, and they become more friendly with each other, although she's unaware that he is starting to develop feelings for her. She finally learns why he hated her so much in the past, because he was deeply envious of her mother's love for her. He never experienced any love from his own parents, and he coveted her mother's brilliant kind-heartedness and the joys of not being treated simply as a prince. She scolded him, she doted on him, and she taught him many things, and he hated how fortunate Aristia was for having such a great mother, something he has never known until he met her. Sadly, Aristia's mother died young, and this left a deep scar on his childhood, which he never completely got over. This is not an acceptable reason as to why he treats her so cruelly in his past life, because the trauma isn't enough to explain away his horrible deeds then, and it still isn't now, as we finally come to learn of his hidden past.

And that's the real problem of "The Abandoned Empress," that Ruvellis is a poorly created character who has done little to redeem himself in light of what he did previously. As I said, while it's true that he's different this time around, the despicable actions of past Ruvellis cannot easily be erased from the reader's mind, and nor can it be forgiven by Aristia, who suffered the most in his hands. While this current Ruvellis remains blissfully unaware of how much he hurt Aristia in that alternate past reality, he does nothing to rightfully earn her heart as a proper suitor in this timeline. Yes, he's more gentle and caring, but he's filled with empty words and promises. This time, he doesn't fall in love with Jieun, only having eyes for Aristia, but that's all. Even Allendis, the awful traitor who almost gave away vital information that would have doomed the entire empire, who scoffed at her real concerns of being killed again, had a better shot at redemption than Ruvellis, which was deciding to disappear from Aristia's life completely. Ruvellis never sacrificed anything of his to protect Aristia, or to make her happy, or to keep her safe. His very existence is a grim reminder of how tragic her first life turned out, and loving him in any of her lives always brings about misery and bitter turmoil. Because she's seen as a viable Empress candidate in this life, she's poisoned by the enemy faction to render her infertile, mirroring what happened to her in her first life. Just simply associating with Ruvellis puts her life at risk and she's always in mortal danger, as she tries to root out the scheming aristocrats that want to overthrow him in her new position as his loyal knight. Despite her best efforts to stay away from him, she is irresistibly drawn to him, and repeats the same mistake of devoting her heart to him in a blatantly inequivalent relationship, wherein she will always sacrifice more for him than he ever would for her in return.

I'm one of the small minority that is fine with Ruvellis being with Aristia, but only if he earned it, and he clearly has not. There were multiple chances for him to demonstrate his newfound, pure love for her, but he didn't take them. At first, Aristia pities him, but then she comes to realize that she loves him in this life as well, and that she's already done enough for both of them in her current course of destiny. This is final epiphany is spurred on by Jieun, who also traveled back into the past like Aristia, telling her that after Aristia was executed, Ruvellis became equally cold and distant towards her as well. His past self was exceedingly selfish, destroying what he couldn't have, and then going mad when he found there was no replacement to what he had forever lost. The entirety of this webtoon is neatly summarized in this back-and-forth argument between Aristia and Jieun in Chapter 131 as they debate on whether Aristia is doing the right thing in loving such a horrible man like Ruvellis. It's all you really need to read, you can skip everything before this, since the question has never been "Who will Aristia love?" but "When will Aristia stop fighting her fate, and admit that she loves Ruvellis?", which is completely counterproductive to her original wish. You may say, it's the journey that matters, and not the destination. Not in this case. Aristia's journey to discover that she still loves Ruvellis is uneventful, unmarred by any sort of real conflict, and therefore undeserved. It's still too little, too late.

While the webtoon gives Aristia the illusion of choice, it's just barely there, like a tease for what could have been. Allendis is removed from the story after the first half, and only occasionally appears in a scant picture here and there to remind you that he still exists. Carsein has always been too bubbly and upbeat, which automatically regulates him to the dreaded friendzone, despite his numerous sacrifices to protect Aristia. The two of them don't put up much of a fight against the towering shadow of Ruvellis, making it clear that he'll be the victor in the end. Instead of utilizing these two characters to their maximum potential, they're thrown to the wayside to make way for Ruvellis to swoop in and take Aristia with his charms, his power, and his status as the new Emperor. She really cannot say no to him, as she serves him. Even if he says he'll hear her out, and never do something she doesn't like, he immediately proceeds to violate his agreement and suddenly kiss her out of the blue, or reject her heartfelt blood oath, because he's always keeping in mind how he can sway her and make her his Empress. It's manipulative, and not very different from his past version, although it's a lot less malignant in presentation.

That's why this webtoon fails, because it ultimately destroys its message about defying fate, in favor of something that doesn't work, and doesn't even try to properly convince us that it will. It just forces this unrealistic happy ending down our throats, hand-waving away the unresolved issues between Ruvellis and Aristia, who haven't grown much at all after the first half of the story. Their romance is unbelievable, and too much time is spent on frivolous political scandals, ballroom dancing, and fighting against a strawman enemy who poses no threat whatsoever. Instead of spending more time exploring the characters' emotions and feelings towards one another, the story tries to rush towards the finish line, tying things up in a haphazard manner where everything magically works out, no one important dies, and all's well that ends well. By the final chapter, you couldn't give a flying crap about what the characters decide to do, because all impact and meaningful development has vanished like a cloud of smoke. Poof.

In terms of the art, it's simplistic, but well-drawn. The quality is overall quite consistent between panels, although there are definitely some panels that have more detail than others within a single chapter. There is not much shading or highlighting used, probably to reduce the amount of work need to produce the art, and everything is filled with large swatches of bold colors and thick lines. Character designs are unique enough to make it easy to distinguish the major characters, with each House having their distinctive color palettes. Unlike most webtoons, this one favors panels that stretch horizontally to fill the screen, leaving little to no white spaces between each panel. This allows for more details to fill the pages and interesting transition art that utilizes the vertical format of webtoons in a creative manner. However, this means that it may get too crowded, and can make it a little difficult to read through, especially when there are many word bubbles in quick succession.

In summary, "The Abandoned Empress" is a webtoon that had good intentions at heart with its original premise and set up, but ends up losing its way after the second half begins. Everything, from the characters, the plot, and the development up until that point is abandoned, just so Aristia and Ruvellis can live happily ever after, which was never truly earned, and had simply just been given to them by an author who didn't know how to fix what they've wrought.

Overall Breakdown:
Characters: 4/10
Story: 4/10
Art: 7/10
Lore/Worldbuilding: 2/10
Enjoyment: 4/10