"My feelings on" part 4: into the light once again and how it only takes a few gross tropes to taint what could've been a perfect piece of work.
I remember seeing the trailer for it so many times back in 2018 but I never got to read all of it since Tappytoons has a 30 ad policy just to get enough to buy on chapter. It's really good, wholesome families, sibling dynamics, a smart villain, and a magic system so the fantasy aspect wont be abandoned for cheap fanservice.
The protagonist used to be known as Alisa, 4th princess of Edenverre and was mistreated by family and servants with the exception of her younger sister, the golden child Marianne who is later revealed to be the mastermind behind the false accusations of poisoning Marianne Alisa faces. She is executed by her own family and comes back as the princess of the enemy empire Elmire, now known as Aisha she swears to one day get justice on her sister.
The revenge plot may be overrated but Into the light does it well enough that I could look past it. The politics and world building are fantastic and the element spirits low-key reminded me of gacha studio or genshin impact characters, and characters like Ashley and Mina aren't enemies for Aisha to defeat, they are people who make mistakes and are allowed to grow.
My favorite part of course is the villainess Marianne, she geninuely scares the hell out of me with her uncanny valley vibe she emits, there's always something so off about her and she reminds be almost of a monster who would star in the conjuring. Marianne has the ability to brainwash others and while I can't tell which, she either steals Alisas body or she causes an illusion affect to alter her and Alisas forms to the family of Edenverre (Really confusing but i like it) and while Marianne doesn't have as much screen time as I wished I enjoyed her while I could, because into the light treats Marianne with respect as an antagonist.
Marianne barely showing up may not even be a bad thing entirely, because while revenge is part of it, the story is built more on healing from your trauma and surrounding yourself with positive influences so it's reasonable that most chapters would center around Aishas powers and her family.
My only small gripe is a petty one but I'm pretty sure the author is an only child 😭. I'm not saying that Aisha and Ysis should be full on murdering eachother but their so unbelievably protective of eachothers feelings to the point of Ysis disliking the idea of any man wanting to marry his sister in the future, ive even seen some fans get concerned that it was going into a brothe-sister thing (especially when he was included as an option for men for Aisha to be attracted to ick)
As someone who has lived with 3 siblings, the excitement for a new baby sibling dies after 3 weeks at most. But hey, they do got a large palace, maybe Ysis just had the luxury of not needing to listen to his baby sister cry at night. I also don't understand why Ysis would immediately believe that Aisha was a reincarnated soul that could remember her past. Like I know he loves her but if my sister started to tell me she was the executed princess in a past life I'd be more concerned.
I wish I could say that was the only thing I didn't like.. unfortunately as much as I love into the light once again, it doesn't stay great for very long. That was my only small gripe because I have a lot of large problems with the love interests
Aisha is 14 and turns 15 at some point but for most of the series, she's a young teen and all her love interests are leaps and bounds older then her. Starting with the big one, Luminas, a 2000 year old king of light who meets Aisha WHEN SHES STILL A BABY!
"Damn, too early, ill give it 13 more years."
Not even the second male lead is safe, Veon is the youngest of the male leads and he's basically watched Aisha grow up since he was Ysis's friend. I can't remember his exact age but I know he is at least 20 which is just... that doesn't make it any better!. There's also apparently some dude named Arsen who's also at least 25 years old and one of Alisas childhood friends, I've heard people say he's another love interest but I haven't seen anything confirmed myself so I'll just hope my 2nd favorite character isn't going to be going after minors.
I'm starring to think the author has an age-gap fetish at this point.
Quick thing I wanted to bring up, a lot of the comments on this chapter have been uncomfortable not just with the age gap and pedophilic weirdness but also this dress. It doesn't look bad but it's built like a maternity dress and for some reason she looks pregnant in a lot of shots which just.. I'm gonna hope we're all just overthinking that one because the last thing this manhwa needs is implications that Aisha will get pregnant young.
While there is a lot of people who are rightfully uncomfortable with the 2000 year age gap, there is also a lot of people justifying it. "He treats Aisha well though!" "It was normal in that time!" "Your just being too soft! Let Aisha be happy!!"
Let me bring up some real history for minute.
This is Isabella of Valois during her wedding with Richard II, she is the youngest bride currently known about in the medieval era
Isabella was only 6 years old when she married her 29 year old husband.
This is Margaret Beaufort.
She was 12 when she got married to her 24 year old husband and 13 years old when she gave birth to Henry VII
And probably one of the more well known examples, Catherine Howard.
She could have been as young as 15 and as old as 17 when she married Henry VIII who was 49.
Now did these examples make your skin crawl? Did they make you feel disgusted? Well they should, just because it was normal in that era, doesn't mean it's all of a sudden fine. There isn't even the cheap excuse that Aisha is technically over 20 given her mental age since Alisa died at 14 and Aisha is very clearly still mentally a young teenager.
Luminas and Veon are definitely nowhere near the personalities of men like Henry VIII but that also doesn't make it okay either. Especially when Veon basically watched Aisha grow up and she's his friends little sister! and Luminas knew her since she was an infant. Would it be that hard for Aisha to at least be a young adult and not a 14 year old. Because it really feels like Luminas is waiting for her to be legal since he already tells her she's his ideal woman when she's still a 14 year old.
Conclusion: Into the light once again is a beautiful story about healing from your trauma and the writting and the characters are just amazing. But it all feels like it's backpeddled when it's so heavily romanticizing or just straight up ignoring the fact that Aisha is basically a grooming victim, the relationship is practically covered in glitter to make it look better, "Sure Luminas is 2000 years old and Aisha isn't even an adult but at least he's so nice to her and he teachers her how to summon spirits! He'll always protect her!" Because while Luminas will (hopefully) never hurt her. Real groomers absolutely will. It pushes the message that as long as the man who is old enough to be your dad is sweet to you and protects you, then it's fine if he has feelings for you. Intentional or not. A story about healing from trauma supporting relationship where ones a child and ones a god with a mature mental age to boot is kind of like when movie producers fucked up the original meaning of Lolita.
Coming up on the next "My feelings on":
