I have always felt uncomfortable with how Evillious handled its darker skinned characters. Lolan Eve is one of the few confirmed queer characters in Evillious and the only dark skinned woman of color in the series we see is a mean classist who is mean to the probably intellectually disabled Mikulia who is literally targeted by the duke because of her skin color and is the only member of the harem to tragically die at the hands of her rapist who sucked her spiritual energy out of her just to show how much of a bastard the duke is (her name literally means sorrows! Like the only dark skinned woman of color we actually get to properly meet is literally named after her suffering! Look, I know that was the name of her Vocaloid, but still!) said duke who is literally her rapist is turned into comic relief and is basically given a happy ending alongside the other characters and she is never brought up once again in the story and including the harem girls who should have not accepted their rapist’s invite to come back to the harem because of what happened to her but no, they seem to have conveniently forgot about her and what happened to her! We don’t get to see her opinion on the four of the girls coming back to their abuser, we don’t even see her again after her debut in the novel! She is mentioned once in the album and she just disappears from the narrative!
Here are several things in my opinion that makes things worse. Kayo you know, a young wasian woman who lost everything due to a racist xenophobe and his xenophobic group who literally committed her crimes because she wanted revenge for her husband and her dead son who were murdered by said xenophobe is dancing in waltz of the departed with the fetishizing racist rapist who raped the owner of the body she is currently in who is also her ancestor instead of you know her husband who she committed her crimes for! The song tries to make the duke seem like everybody else despite the fact that what he has done is truly unforgivable and heinous (all the others had tragic backstory too, but they didn’t go around raping literal children) like no he’s not just human! He’s a fucking rapist and a child predator! He does not deserve a second chance! Despite being made to literally showcase the duke’s cruelty, mostly all of the fandom completely ignores her character as well as the duke’s fetishism and racism towards her making jokes about her sexuality and giving her racist abuser sympathy and pity they should be showing her instead and some even defend this writing decision by saying that this was meant to be a fuck you to being gay was a choice first of all fuck these people don’t try to make this story seem progressive when it’s really not and also second of all even if that was the case, it still doesn’t make things better! You could have a message like that without having your only lesbian character of color being raped by a wealthy white man! And what also just really ticks me off is the fact that nobody in the fandom under that video of the song showed any discomfort or called Mothy out for literally having his rapist character basically be allowed to get off scott free even though they knew from his PV that he also raped children and made him dance with the woman (who looks like his victim and is a descendent of his victim) who lost everything due to xenophobia despite him being a racist asshole who literally kidnapped a lesbian because of her skin color and despite the fact that he could’ve had her finally reuniting with her husband, a lot of those people in the fandom read the books yet they did not call him out. None of them were angry. All of them just enjoyed the song and did not say anything. (Edit: I honestly feel guilty myself about not calling out some of the more questionable elements about the series earlier especially with the song with Elluka and Gumillia and honestly, I don’t blame people for not calling this out because a lot of them were just happy we got this beautiful and well-made music video with a new song and a lot of them hadn’t even read the books and while the fandom isn’t perfect surrounding the Duke and his victims at the same time it isn’t as nearly as bad as I made it out to be here I just think I was very pissed add certain fans who do stuff like this and with some of the questionable writing decisions around sexual assault and rape.) Lolan Eve was made to show the cruelty of the duke only for him to be given a second chance and get off scott free without any consequences for his actions (very weird given the fact that previous abusers like this were punished) and for the fandom that was meant to see her as a symbol of the duke’s cruelty only to woobify and baby him and completely ignore her and her suffering at his hands! The fact that her and Bruno’s sister are the only two dark skinned female characters we ever actually hear about and are basically only made the show how much of a bastard the white characters were meant to hate by them being brutalized by them are is just disgusting to me! Lolan doesn’t even get to have depth like some of the other queer characters in the story, she’s just the mean dark skinned lesbian who tragically dies at the hands of her rapist!
Rajih Assad is the only dark skinned Arab character alongside Lolan Eve despite the fact that most of the woman in the harem are also from their region which was based off of Arabian Peninsula. All the women we see from this area are pale and the only dark skinned one is killed by their rapist. Rajih is a character in the manga and is a character mentioned in the novel itself. His only role in the story protected and jealous (Edit: Of the duke, sorry about the original, poor spelling) of his lighter skinned childhood best friend and implied to be crush and to help Karchess, a white wealthy British man find his lover and free his lost friends, a wealthy white British man who treats him horribly by the way despite the fact that he was the only one who was able to help him find his lost love and is straight up classist to him all the way their entire conversation with one another. His character was literally only made to be victimized by a wealthy white man who steals his childhood friends away from him who due to this becomes a alcoholic and has to be helped and saved by a wealthy British white man whose literal first words to him is scolding him for giving up (never mind the fact that he’s a peasant going against in his own words a monster and a lord) and to help said white man defeat his childhood friends rapist only for one of his childhood friends to go right back to her abuser and we don’t even get to hear whether or not he approved this or not we don’t even see if he came with her for protection! Both him and Lolan were to further the plot and to show how much of a dick the duke is only for him to be given a second chance later! (Edit: maybe I was a little too harsh and definitely over criticizing the story for minor things but at the same time, I’m still angry at the fact that he and Lilien aren’t shown or mentioned again in the story after the lust arc
Bruno Zero or known by his birth name Sigurd Zero which by the way are “amazing” names to give your only black character of importance (the name he is given literally means brown or dark haired and his last name is literally a number and zero at that and his birth name literally is defender or guardian. Edit: This is obviously supposed to be his code name so I can let this slide) and also as one of the comments pointed out his race is literally named after beings that help guide others (very tone deaf and racist given his background like this is not a name white characters used to be racist or derogatory towards characters like Bruno this is just what they’re called aside from Maistians). He is the only black character of importance and is a former slave who had his family slaughtered in a cruel hunting game caused by racial violence not even Clarith was shown suffering! And later willingly becomes a butler despite the trauma he suffered from being a slave and a servant (this is after he arranges the death of his racist abuser by the way. Also Gallerian still felt guilty for sentencing Loki and still considered him a friend and still feels a chill down his spine when he learns of his death despite the fact that he knew what that bastard had done to Bruno and his family!) to a wasian man (who despite being mixed is not discriminated against despite the fact that in the previous book, it was shown the fact that there is racism shown towards people who are mixed in this universe) because he was the only one to treat him with kindness and treat him like a equal and because he was charmed by his ambitious nature. His character literally revolves around a wasian man (Gallerian) literally mostly everything he does is for his sake. He is the one to protect him from Ma by getting her to leave, he is the one who serve as both his butler and leader of his criminal organization, he arrest Nemesis because she killed Gallerian‘s wife and daughter and later saves nemesis because she is Gallerian’s daughter, he is the only character who is loyal to Gallerian after everybody else leaves him, literally stops wearing his hair up after Gallerian‘s death because Gallerian used to like it that way, literally only broke out of prison to protect Gallerian‘s fortune, was spared by his adopted daughter because of his connection to adopted dad, became a butler again and a spy only to die at the hands of Gallerian‘s daughter. Bruno shows up again only to help a white colonizer king get Lich and Seth (who was in disguise as Keel). 3 of his main connections on the wiki are 1 white and 2 wasian characters! He is a criminal who aids a another criminal in his corruption and assassinations and makes a creepy sexist jab for Nemesis to use her womanly charms to get her targets and ruthlessly orders her to kill her lover knowing that her target is her lover.
The only time we actually have dark skinned characters in the series is as plot points or as vessels to show how much a white character sucks or to aid a white character or a wasian character in Gallerian‘s case! Lolan was made simply to show how horrible the Duke is. Rajih was only made to help Karchess’s quest to save his lover. Bruno while more complex than the other two is still made to be Gallerian’s butler and to showcase how racism is wrong (very ironic considering some of the writing decisions including the ones I just mentioned surrounding him. And the worst part is, I don’t see enough people in this fandom talking about the racism in the story and I feel like people in this fandom give the story way too much praise for being progressive while in reality while yes, it does have some progressive themes. It is really not that progressive and actually does have a lot of bigotry in it!
(also quick little rant about things I also do not like: I hate how the duke is allowed to have the four women who he fucking raped come back to him because he “changed” the reason why this doesn’t work is because unlike the other sinners the duke didn’t do something that while yes can happen won’t happen to you on the street! He is a rapist and it’s a dangerous message to send that someone like him should be allowed to be forgiven for doing something that horrendous and violating and traumatic to someone especially since a lot of the fans of the series are impressionable teenagers (Edit: while I do think this part has good points at the same time. I do think I was being a little overdramatic because there are a lot of adults in the fandom and I don’t think the series sends a bad message or people will actually be harmed by reading the story but I definitely do think it’s a decision made in poor taste) and a other thing I hate is the fact that Bruno never shows hatred towards Ma for putting quell a rebellion in Maistia by the natives or was working with very racist people who were literally owning slaves including Bruno himself and the fact that this is never brought up in the fandom and the fact that Elluka and Gumillia literally did black face with mud, not with magic or anything like that but mud (even if they did it with magic it would still be horrible obviously) (Edit: OK I don’t think it would be horrible because really anything is better than black face) and also the fact that the only other dark skinned male character we see is a xenophobic antagonistic figure stopping our two main leads from entering his country)
