The biggest problem about I am the queen in this life is how tone deaf it is.
[Tw: A LOT of talk about sexual assault and disrespectful depictions of victims of sexual assault]
The problem with going out of your way to write terrible people with the purpose of uplifting your favorites is that the "morals" the audience are supposed to be rooting for end up incredibly vague. What is the difference between right and wrong in this world when so many characters are ignoring certain behaviors while condemning others?
While it does take place in 16th century and many acts that we now consider deplorable were normalized or swept under the rug more easily back then, Ariadne is still allowed to get away with acts that would damn her if she were a real historical figure, and she certainly would not be getting her way as much she does in the story.
Plus, while it is often forgotten about in favor of fanservice, this story IS a fantasy and characters do have magical powers, so historical accuracy hardly matters anymore when Ariadne can look through people's memories.
So there is no excuse for why the subject of sexual assault is so often misused in both the novel and the manhwa.
Let's talk about the elephant in the room..
Caesar was sexually assaulted via coercion, twice.
Isabella taking advantage of Caesar while he was drunk took away the right of consent as he wasn't in the right state of mind to consent properly, she later blackmailed him by threatening to tell Ariadne that he cheated on her if he didn't kiss her (and in the novels case, they did way more than just kissing) which again, takes away the right of consent from Caesar since he will be punished if he says no.
Now, this is not a Caesar defense post, even though I tolerate his character, thats only because he's one of the few allowed the decency of being written as a complicated villain instead of the usual way villains in this story are depicted, any other time I hate this man, but come on, he was assaulted no matter how much the plot just ignores it because it wasn't in your face about it.
Hell I don't even know if anyone in charge of the novel and manhwa even considered it to be sexual assault to begin with because Ariadne cutting him out of her life afterwords was portrayed as this huge girlboss moment as well as yet another "Poor Ari! 😢 She deserves to be comforted by her golden retriever Alfonso so she can move on from the trauma of that dastardly womanizer and that slut of a sister!" Caesar getting taken advantage of while he was drunk was never once acknowledged as what it was, and you actually kind of feel a little bad for him.
It doesn't matter if he was drunk or if she was being blackmailed, he didn't put Ariadne first, and that alone is proof that they shouldn't be together...
But all of a sudden... Its completely justifiable for Ariadne to fall back in love with Caesar while Alfonso is at war even though he sexually assaulted her, forced her to remove one of her fingers to prove her loyalty, and had her killed so he could marry her sister, all in the same past life, because Ariadne is traumatized and traumatized people end up being drawn to what hurts them because its all they've known for years, and hey, at least Caesar isn't an ugly old man like Leo, if she's going to be forced to marry an abuser, it might as well be a handsome abuser.
This is what is really ticking me off here. The concept of Ariadne falling back in love with her abuser isn't entirely a bad idea. Caesar destroyed Ariadne's life yes but that was from a different timeline, when you think about it through the lense of someone who just regressed into the past, they realistically aren't going to immediately think that they came from the past and are in fact more likely to think that what happened was a dream or a crazy hallucination at first. Caesar was also described as the only one who showed Ariadne any kind of affection for almost a decade in comparison to her neglectful family and the cruel nobles so it objectively makes sense that she would feel more for him over the crown prince who randomly caught feelings for her one day, the problem is that we as the audience never actually SEE what happened in their relationship that was so impactful that it convinced Ariadne to trust the same man who raped her in a new life.
And since we don't know what their relationship was like to warner her love for him, this leads to many readers assuming that Ariadne is just as stupid as Isabella when she takes Caesar back because all we have seen of him up until that point was him acting like a manchild.
Meanwhile, Caesar is not held to the same standards as Ariadne. I'm not arguing for his trauma to be used as justification for any future crimes, but it is still disturbing how we are given more reasons to understand WHY Caesar would give in on Isabella's advances twice even though he clearly dislikes her because he wasn't a proper consenting party. We as an audience have more incentive to feel bad for him instead of thinking "God he's an idiot for going back to the woman he was just taunting a few chapters ago"
This isn't just another case of protagonist centered morality, its also a case of the absolutely abysmal way I am the queen in this life treats sexual abuse as topic, ESPECIALLY in the manhwa where Isabella is shown to be a repeat offender after that infamous panel of her randomly groping Ariadne for no reason... and Ariadne just never thinks of it again even though I'm pretty sure getting sexually assaulted by your own sister would do something to you? I'm not an expert but like... come on, at least TRY to put in some effort.
The topic of sexual assault in this story is utilized in three ways.
1: It is used as a cheap way of garnering sympathy for the authors favorites. Ariadne's trauma from being assaulted is treated just like her powers, it is often forgotten about and only comes up again if the author wants something specific to happen.
2: It is used as a punishment for certain characters that "deserved it" such as Isabella, who was sexually coerced twice by Leo and Agusto. Since she's evil and doesn't show any signs of trauma afterwards, it is never thought about again.
3: The authors themselves don't even realize that what just happened in a specific chapter was sexual assault so it is not treated as such by the victim and other characters and it will never be corrected, which as I'm sure you know, is Caesar's case.
Because of all three of these reasons, rape is such a desensitizable subject in I am the queen in this life, with MULTIPLE villains being the evil rapist archetype. Readers aren't taking it seriously anymore since its always occurring as a plot device as some kind so the main characters can have an easy reason to be liked, or so the villains can be hated right off the bat without any effort.
As I'm sure you know... That is extremely tone deaf, and honestly its straight up disrespectful to victims of sexual assault.
There is nothing wrong with wanting to include subject matter like this in your writing. HOWEVER! If you want to include sexual assault in your narrative, it is essential that you follow these two steps.
1: That it is respectful of course and not in any way meant to romanticize the abuse
2: The assault has to MATTER. Its not enough to just write a rape scene and then end it with "That was very gross! Oh well, moving on." It must either be intergral to the story or to the character.
While the character in question definitely shouldn't lose all of their autonomy to being "the victim character" since that can encourage the idea that victims of assault are precious little babies that must be infantalized at all times and thus unintentionally giving power to their abuser, there should still be a middle ground where the trauma has an effect on the character.
