Why Navier isn't a good person.
Despite what the title says, this isn't a post dedicated to hating on Navier, it's about what she is as a person when the rose tinted lenses are removed.
The remarried empress is always reminding the reader that Navier is embodiment of perfection in every aspect because she is "good" and "righteous" She doesn't let her emotions or trauma get in the way of what is "right" and she only wants the best for her empires, you'd have to be crazy to hate a woman who just wants peace and stability for "everyone" several men adore her for her gentle coldness and will not stand for any insubordinate women who are jealous of the perfect empress.
And while Navier technically is a good empress, its because she's only a good empress for the nobles.
Or more specifically, the nobles who are on her side, which to be fair is most of them.
I know the entire remarried empress tumblr has practically been turned into a hate pit for the manhwa but I'd still like to make a full essay about in more detail.
First off with the biggest elephant in the room
Okay we all already knew this one but I will say it again.
A big excuse for Navier and the abolishment of slavery is that it's a problem with the church and she can't do anything about it.
While this does hold a lot of ground, remarried empress has never cared about real historical accuracy before and it feels more like the church argument is used to justify why Navier was empress of a slave adjacent empire to begin with while also validating her beliefs of Rashta rather that challenging them.
The church has allowed Navier to remarry into the empire without questions in the middle of her divorce trial, the grand priest even gives them his blessing. There's a clear favoritism there.
Navier has also prevented/made acts that would normally get her in hot water with any church in monarchies history. Her existence alone has prevented a war between the east and west, she still managed to negotiate a deal with whitemond despite her brother cheating on the princess of whitemond, Charlotte, with her lady in waiting by handing Charlotte off to marry Kaufman, she's pardoned a viscount who tried to assassinate Rashta while she was pregnant and faced almost no backlash, and her daughter became the empress of an empire that she doesn't even have the rights too.
So if Navier can do all these things that would normally put her on blast in any real monarchy in history by at least one person, without ANY consequences then the excuse that she can't abolish slavery no longer matters since it's clear that the plot would make room for her if she ever decided to abolish it.
But excluding how and why she could abolish slavery. What about her views on slavery? I mean it's one thing to be unable to abolish something but what about what she thinks of slaves?
This is a little trickier considering the writers were very careful to make sure Naviers views on slavery were kept vague. At worst she just doesn't care but I believe she supports it, mostly because she benefits from it along with her own misguided view on slavery being used as a good form of justice against criminals.
In episode 2, Navier already finds a justification of slavery to the readers: That it's used for criminals who can eventually gain their status as commoners back and how trying to escape would be their fault since it gets them sentenced as permanent slaves, despite this she never finds a justification for why children are also enslaved for their family members crimes, this idea of family members being enslaved seems to also be encouraged within the story since Heinrey was viewed as in the right for doing so against the remaining Zemensia family.
She referred to Rashta at first as "The slave" Doesn't seem to have qualms of her friends ridiculing Rashta for being a slave, is only concerned that Sovieshu will still love Rashta even if she is a slave, befriended slave owners, and generally doesn't give a damn about slavery until it negativiely affects her which even then, doesn't lead to any reflecting on her beliefs and instead is used to further justify why slaves should just sit and accept the punishment not fitting their crimes.
"But what about Navier in the side story? She accepted Rashta as her attendant without question!"
While Navier may believe slavery fine as long as it's used for "criminals" that doesn't mean she dislikes all slaves.
I'm really sorry that I have to ruin the fun of the side story but for the sake of this post, I must.
The only reason that Navier really likes Rashta in the side story is because Rashta is now her servant instead of the woman cucking her. Navier basically takes Rashta away from her original owners and let's her live in the palace as a new maid/lady in waiting but they never really say what Navier did with Rashtas bill of sale, for all we know Navier is the owner of the bill of sale and Rashta is still a slave, she's just a slave under a "good master" now. I won't be straight up accusing Navier of this as fact since as far as I can remember at least, I don't recall it ever being said of what she did with it but it is a possibility.
If you're still confused than just imagine Rashta as one of those maids in most OI where their only personality is being a cheerleader for the main leads.
Navier may be all about justice and everyone in the room getting a chance to speak but she doesn't exactly hold her allies to the same standards.
For obvious examples we have Heinrey and Lebetti. Navier is pretty willing to prioritize the perpetrator being honest with her over the actual crime. She finds out for herself that Heinrey has been stealing the eastern empires mana the entire time but she quickly forgets about it once Heinrey makes a big show about how much he regrets it and in the end, not only does the only mage who gets any mana back is also coincidentally one of her favorites, but I'm pretty sure she ends up benefiting from it as well.
When Heinrey slaughters and enslaved the rest of the innocent Zemensias and their servants, she doesn't hold him accountable and instead COMFORTS him by insisting that the criminals got what they deserved and that he shouldn't let it burden him.
As for Lebetti, Naviers initial reason for befriending her was literally just to tell Rashta in a clever but fucked up way that she wants nothing to do with her and would rather become friends with her abuser because she dislikes her that much for ruining her life. Navier is aware of this relationship very well and even tells Lebetti to call her "sister" to spite Rashta.
When Kosair tries to poison Rashta in hopes of causing her to miscarry Glorym, Navier not only completely dismisses it but also makes the situation about her by shifting the main problem being about how Sovieshu could find fault in her for it rather than the actual victim who nearly lost her baby thanks to her psychopath brother.
(BTW, since lots of people like to justify Heinrey murdering an entire bloodline with "It was how they did it at the time" then by that logic, Naviers entire family should have been executed and enslaved for Kosairs crimes)
And as I've said already: While Navier doesn't really care about the innocent people Heinrey killed without a trial, she sure does seem to give a shit about "injustice" when viscount landre is being sentenced for trying to kill Rashta, her enemy.
In fact, even when Navier isn't making any decisions of her own, it's pretty clear that any friend of hers is allowed to do whatever they want because in the end, Navier in some shape or form, will save them from consequences.
3: Not every intention she has is really good
A friend and I discussed this before and we realized that this was manipulative then what first meets the eye. Tbf this one is a little more of a reach than actual facts but it's something I could see Navier doing in the name of what she thinks is justice.
Navier hides a letter containing currency in the millions range for Rashta to use to take care of the empire. This sounds like Navier still being good hearted to Rashta despite everything and the latter just being an ungrateful idiot but here's the thing.
The letter and money was hidden inside of a chair.
Why is that important? Well, if this money was absolutely meant for good intentions for the empire, why would Navier just bank on the hope that Rashta would notice a seemingly inconspicuous chair. Hell, why would someone as intelligent as Navier who has known Rashta for so long even think that she would use the money for good?
It could be a writing flaw
Or it could be that the intentions were not good. It was designed from the very beginning to take advantage of Rashtas impulsiveness to show the eastern people just how unfit she is to be an empress, the money being hidden in a chair was so if Rashta never found it, it would act as a failsafe
Now there is a bit of a flaw to this accusation considering Navier later tried to tell Rashta to make some quick changes to her large donations with Naviers money before it was too late but let's be real. The story is CONSTANTLY proping Navier up as incredibly witty and clever, it would not shock me if she just either wanted to remind Rashta that she's already being a bad empress, or if she needed an easy way out of any controversy down the line by acting like it was never planned while also putting herself in a good light. Idk but I personally think the latter is true.
Let's circle back to that whole" Not meant to be hating on Navier" part because I'm sure this sounds like a list of reasons to despise the female lead.
While these actions do make Navier a bad person or at best, a morally grey character. These are not what I would consider traits of a badly written CHARACTER, or at least, when these traits are acknowledged as bad.
What makes Navier a bad character is that she is meant to be cheered on as she's making these decisions that hurt other people or ignoring those hurt people because they did something to attack her position beforehand.
These are all things that most queens and empresses in history would do to maintain their power, women in those eras couldn't exactly target the men without a lot of planning and even luck regardless of how socially adept they are but they could easily knock down other women if they knew how to play the game.
Queen Mary I had around 300 protestants burned at the stake to revert England back to Christianity, Elizabeth I executed even more people than Mary but is still remembered fondly as "the good Tudor queen", Wu Zetian had her political rivals assassinated even though she already won against them, and Marie Antoinette, while not being completely evil, was still perfectly fine with people starving on the streets.
of course, Navier never executed anyone but she still did everything she did to secure power and live on the rest of her life as an empress.
If Navier was allowed to actually be a little evil from time to time, with her actions not being justified and even called out by others as well, I think she would be on par with other say, Penelope Eckart who while not having perfect writing, is still written better because her actions are acknowledged by the narrative as what fucks her over along with circumstances.
Instead, Naviers problems are all seen as entirely circumstantial and it's presented as her being wronged by everything and deserving of all the best things.
Btw: If Navier were an antagonist then this would be the panel where she gets revealed as the twist villain
It just reminds me so much of Rashtas evil smirk from episode 1.
