Apr 28
The Problematic Prince, by CACTUS and Solche
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The Problematic Prince, by CACTUS and Solche
The Problematic Prince, by CACTUS and Solche
I have a lot of thoughts about this manhwa, The Problematic Prince, but I need to re-read it again so that I can cohesively bring together my thoughts.
But just to preface this: I fucking hate Björn.
Show him!!
This is me being a 90s kid and going like ‘ugh kids these days’😭😭😭
He just like me I fear💀
I think the problematic prince is Solches best work. [Tw: Spoilers and repeated mentions of SA]
Yeah I know, I can't believe I'm praising Solche either. Don't get me wrong, the bar is in hell and the only reason I consider the problematic prince to be "good" is because its not throwing rape around for shock value, even when you take away the obvious romanticized abuse scenes, the use of rape in cry or better yet beg goes from trying to tell an actual story to "lets just put this here because theres no other way to show the reader that Matthias is a psychopath even though we already established that he kills animals" its like this in Bastian as well, rape is used only because Solche for some reason thought there was no other way to get the point across that Bastian is a disturbed individual other than him violently assaulting Odette.
Admittedly, I originally hated this book the same way I hate cry or better yet beg simply because of my personal bias against Solche, but after I spent the time rereading it, I've come to the conclusion that... I still don't like it, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it is without a doubt a terrible read for everyone. Its hard to explain but I do like how Solche actually took the time with this one to keep this it dark without going into a direction that was shock value. The only reason I don't want to gush about it is because knowing Solche, I do think that problematic prince is still designed in the end to be part of their weird abuse fetish, only they did a better job at hiding it this time.
Bjorn is the only male lead written by Solche I can appreciate as a character because he has proven time and time again that he is a terrible person and husband (as the title would imply) without resorting to assault to do so. I don't even think he's on par with Matthias or Bastian, he's not sociopath coded or a deeply disturbed individual, he's more or less just a frustrating asshole with previous relationship trauma.
Erna and Bjorn aren't a Stockholm case coated in glitter and candy, they're more like a traditional 1950s married couple where the husband finds his wife adorable but he isn't really taking anything she has to say seriously because he doesn't see her as a person. If it weren't for Solche being known for their obvious abuse fetish, then I'd probably be able to say that Bjorn and Erna are one of my favorite examples of a toxic couple in media, with the other two big flaws in their relationships writing being Gladys taking all the blame for Bjorns shitty excuse to be a prick and Erna taking his ass back even though he was FINALLY being served some consequences to his actions.
The Problematic Prince, by CACTUS and Solche