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Repressed Love. Or: Derrick Eckhart and deconstructing the "Duke of the North."
Apologies if you're used to Apothecary Diaries content from me, but I'm currently reading "Villains Are Destined To Die" and Derrick Eckhart has me in a bit of a chokehold.
Because he's such a trainwreck. And he's allowed to self-destruct in a perfectly logical way that follows from his character archetype - an archetype that is usually portrayed as someone to be Healed By Love. Instead, Derrick Eckhart's story is a classic tragedy. He is doomed by the qualities that define him.
(image credit; Ep. 38)
Here's a 30 second recap of the setup for Villains Are Destined To Die. The main premise is that our heroine is suddenly thrust into the world of the romance dating game she was playing on hard mode as the villainess, Penelope Eckhart, who is the adopted daughter of Duke Eckhart after his biological daughter tragically disappeared. The goal? Get one of the five male leads to 100% affection score and achieve an ending before the true daughter reappears at Penelope's coming of age ceremony and the regular game begins with the Duke's True Daughter as the heroine. Because the villainess always dies in the end.
Our five male leads are as follows:
Derrick Eckhart - the eldest son and heir of Duke Eckhart.
Reynold Eckhart - the younger son of Duke Eckhart and a knight.
Callisto Regulus - the Crown Prince and a war hero.
Winter Verdandi - a mysterious nobleman and sorcerer.
Eckles - a fallen noble of a conquered nation, now enslaved, but secretly a swordmaster.
If this looks like a list of tropes, congratulations! That's the point. Each romance-able character fits into a neatly defined trope, but since we're focusing on Derrick Eckhart, we're looking specifically at the following archetype:
"The Duke Of The North."
(image credit: Ep. 37)
Derrick Eckhart hits almost every single bullet point on a list of this trope. Colored in cold tones; black hair and blue eyes, with an angular, cutting beauty that is indicative of his matching aloof and logical demeanor? Check!
While their duchy is not physically in the north, it is isolated in that the Eckhart duchy is neutral, not throwing their support to either candidate in the succession struggle between the Crown Prince and his younger brother. Check!
He's the captain of the Eckhart duchy's knights (20,000 strong), so his military prowess and power is acknowledged. Check!
He is the heir of the duchy and is very aware of it's responsibilities, fettering many of his actions through the lens of those duties. Check!
Traumatic past? Check, check and check!
If Derrick were the male lead of this story, his story would likely follow the typical tsundere path of learning that there is strength in the trust that accompanies vulnerability and intimacy - that the balance between the duties of his position and the desires of his heart is not only possible, but desirable. The female lead's love would either be a redemptive object or, in better written stories, an example that propels him to better himself in order to be worthy of her.
But the author did something interesting. They broke the trope down and deconstructed it. What might actually happen when that traumatized, emotionally stunted man falls in love for the first time? Is this something he is able to handle with grace and maturity or is he motivated by his underdeveloped emotional ego? (I'll let you guess...)
Let's look at the two primary emotions that represent Derrick's two "sisters" and drive his actions: guilt and shame.
Guilt
So, the backstory behind Derrick's trauma is both very simple and heartrendingly realistic. The three original siblings, Derrick, Reynold and Ivonne sneak out to a large festival one night. Derrick, being the oldest, has Ivonne's hand in his, but the parade begins and as the crowd swells, his little sister is swept away.
Ivonne is never seen again.
His little sister's disappearance proceeds to tear the already grieving family apart (the mother has succumbed to Dead Mom Syndrome). It's now only the male members left - and while Reynold is allowed to act out and grieve openly to a degree, Derrick is not. He is the heir and he is already expected to control his emotions and conduct himself appropriately. Because his actions reflect on his name.
It doesn't matter that his little sister is just gone, with no leads or even the closure of finding her body.
It doesn't matter that it's his fault; for taking them to the festival without asking permission or guards, for letting Ivonne's hand slip out of his, for failing to find her.
In that crucible of pain, sorrow and guilt, Derrick learns that there is no possible justification for losing control. Because to do so is to make everything even worse. Ivonne and his mother are both gone. If he shames their name and proves himself to be an unworthy successor, Derrick will lose his father too. Everything in his life must now revolve around being the perfect heir - because it's all he has left.
(image credit, Ep. 152)
Callisto makes a similar observation about the weight of being an heir. "The Emperor must be flawless." (Ch 73). We'll actually circle back around to this, because Derrick and Callisto are narrative foils for each other.
Neither Callisto nor Derrick are allowed to show emotions such as fear or grief - because those are potential weaknesses that people could use to try to take advantage of their family's power to advance agendas that likely do not have the best interest of either the imperial family or the Eckharts in mind. Indeed, Callisto's position is weakened because of his brutal reputation, which he encourages in order to express his anger.
Derrick doesn't have that outlet. Anger isn't something he's allowed to feel; rage will only compromise his judgment and threaten the only identity he has left. The most he is allowed to express is irritation and contempt.
Penelope vs Ivonne
And then the Duke does the most insane thing possible - he adopts a street beggar that has a passing resemblance to Ivonne and makes her the new daughter of the house.
**cough** Does anybody see a problem here?!
Oh, here's one. Penelope is so much more vibrant a character than Ivonne. You can see the surface similarities, but that's where they end. Ivonne, is described as "angelic" and painted in the same pastel tones as Reynold (pale pink hair and light blue eyes that link her to Derrick, Reynold and the Duke). Gentle, kind, quiet. An "easy" child.
Penelope is not easy. She's tempestuous and emotional before abruptly going silent after hitting a certain point. She's painted in jewel tones, her eyes "turquoise" or "emerald", her hair a deeper magenta with wild curls. She demands attention (and justice) through bad behavior and no matter how many times she's knocked down, she keeps fighting back. In short, she is uncontrollable.
(image credit, Ep. 134)
Because Derrick cannot allow himself the luxury of anger or disgust at his father for bringing this strange girl into their home, he deals with her presence by simply ignoring her and shutting away his emotions per the status quo. Or, at least, he attempts to.
But Penelope forces her her way into Derrick's life because she is NOT like Ivonne.
She does everything that Derrick is never allowed, while his father seemingly indulges Penelope with material goods that she demands because it's the only way anyone in the house will actually acknowledge her existence. Except for one person- Derrick. Derrick, as the heir, has to clean up the aftermath of Penelope's tantrums. Messes that, in his mind, there is absolutely no justification for. If he can deal with Ivonne's disappearance with dignity befitting the Eckhart name, then by god this girl can stand to control her own behavior!
And it's good to remember that, until the story starts with our version of Penelope, Derrick's perception of her behavior is spot on. Penelope herself comments on it multiple times - how OG Penelope had turned everyone against her. Reynold may have started the household's ostracism by framing Penelope for theft of Ivonne's necklace, and Derrick and the Duke exacerbated it with their willful ignorance, but OG Penelope was her own worst enemy.
(As an aside, I can tell that some readers have never dealt with a 'problem child' in their own family. As someone who did have a sibling who acted out, sometimes in seemingly unforgivable ways at the time, I can say that both Derrick's resentment and the perpetual cycles of blame are rooted in emotional realism).
This is the static pattern until hard mode starts and OG Penelope is replaced with the current Penelope, who already escaped a eerily similar toxic family dynamic. She has no attachment to these men, therefore she is able to do what OG Penelope could never do - she lets go of them. Which is exactly what is needed to smash the current dynamic to smithereens and force Derrick to contend with Penelope's presence in his life.
Because here's the thing. Penelope's behavior forces Derrick to feel. Penelope evokes a response from Derrick - annoyance, resentment...
...and desire.
(image credit, Ep. 19)
Shame
Penelope is not Derrick's sister. He utterly rejects that role, even as the Duke forces him to play it in public. He repeats this rejection multiple times; "I have only one sister and her name is Ivonne," (ch. 75)
But when Derrick expressed cold contempt, Penelope responded with hot rage. Where Derrick is aloof, Penelope is passionate. Derrick must always be in control, whereas Penelope lets control go freely. It's very much an attraction of opposites. Penelope represents everything Derrick is not allowed to have or be - but desperately wants.
If Penelope had chosen Derrick's romance path, then there's an old trope at play here; Kissing Cousins. Depending on your perspective, the incest angle is eliminated due to the fact that Penelope is adopted and Derrick never once thinks of her as his sister. Penelope's primary game conflict is that she's not truly accepted as a daughter of the house. A way to resolve that is to step out of Ivonne's shadow, tempering her extreme emotional reactions with adult self-control that allows Derrick to see and accept her in a new light - not as a living embodiment of his guilt, but as her own person. That, in turn, could give him the opportunity to process his guilt and grief, while also allowing him a safe space to allow himself the emotions he was denied by his trauma. With this conflict resolved, it clears a path for Penelope's true acceptance by the Eckharts, not as a ghost of Ivonne, but as their daughter-in-law, becoming Duchess Eckhart.
(Look, you don't have to like it, but consanguinity is a romance trope that's alive and well. I'm looking at you, Cyrano de Bergerac, Eight Cousins, Game of Thrones/House of the Dragon...shall I go on? Honestly, Derrick and Penelope is pretty tame. Diet Consanguinity, shall we say?)
But Penelope rejects this path immediately, therefore opening up the chance to explore Derrick's first love in a much more realistic sense - this is not a relationship that brings him joy, but instead fills him with shame. I didn't need to read spoilers of the light novels to realize that he was attracted to her from the beginning- it's right there in his affection score; he doesn't want to be addressed as 'Brother.' Her earliest death event with Derrick is when she implies that he's sleeping with her maid.
It's baked in.
And that shame will propel Derrick to stay stuck in his old pattern with Penelope because he cannot reconcile duty and desire. He cannot even recognize what he is feeling consciously. The easiest thing for Derrick to do is live in denial, blaming Penelope for everything, to continue being the put-upon heir of the family who constantly bails her out of trouble. Because the alternative is to acknowledge the unthinkable.
Is it admirable? No.
Is it likely to get him what he wants? Absolutely not.
Is it realistic psychology? Yes.
He is so caught up in the old dynamic with Penelope that he's too slow to realize that it's gone - the new Penelope reflects his own coldness back at him. The more she retreats, the more he chases her, looking for that source of warmth, her unyielding, continuing affection that he thought he couldn't bear. But without it, his world has become utterly cold and full of nothing but his guilt, shame and duty.
And then Derrick destroys what little attachment Penelope had to him with the trial, when he repeats this pattern for the last time by refusing to hear her defense privately and trying to simply get her to plead guilty to an attempted assassination with the assumption that Derrick will simply be able to use the Eckhart name to help her escape the consequences. Season 2 ends with, 'I had no expectations."
That's a death blow to their relationship. Derrick is defined by the expectations of others, which is why he, in turn, defines Penelope by her reputation. For Penelope to tell him that she has no expectations of him is to tell Derrick the agonizing truth - that he is nothing to her.
Not her brother.
Not the future duke.
He's not even a man that she respects.
(image credit, Ep. 85)
This confrontation is different than the Season 1 conclusion, when Penelope's finally willing to risk Reynold's affection score dropping in order to confront him with the truth and consequences of his own actions. In the aftermath of that fight, Reynold realizes that he is the one who needs to reflect on his behavior, not Penelope.
But where Reynold is able to eventually confess the truth about Ivonne's necklace to his father, Derrick is so ashamed of himself that he spirals. The old relationship is gone, leaving him with only her ringing condemnation of his behavior and her justified indifference toward him.
And he does offer an apology - but it's an apology so steeped in the only identity he has left - the Heir - that even though Penelope recognizes it as a genuine attempt at apologizing, it fails to move her. He is not capable of simply saying "I was wrong - at least, not without a bunch of modifiers about why being wrong wasn't his fault.
The Prodigal Daughter Returns
And then, of course, Ivonne makes her inevitable return - not brought in by an outsider (Winter Verdandi) as in the original game, but by Eckles, Penelope's personal guard. A man whom Derrick is already jealous and suspicious of. And, when Penelope understandably starts to lose her shit, Derrick treats it as a return to the status quo - the absolute worst thing he could do.
Especially because he now appears to have a way to expunge his guilt. He can help restore Ivonne to the family.
Derrick is the easiest target for Ivonne to subvert away from the respect Penelope has been painstakingly building from the beginning of the story, because she yokes his conscious guilt and his unconscious shame into a team that drives his actions all the way to Penelope's critical coming-of-age ceremony and the start of the original game, where Penelope's role of villainess is to be cemented.
Derrick desperately wants his little sister back. He also wants to do right by Penelope in the wake of the hunting arc. This is his tragedy, because the two goals are at odds. There is no way to restore Ivonne and win Penelope's affection.
Especially not playing against this magnificent son of a bitch.
(image credit, Ep. 58)
Like all the best character foils, while Derrick has been wrestling with shame and guilt, Callisto Regulus has been busy actually listening to Penelope, thinking critically and making judgments about her based on facts, both old and current. Unlike Derrick, he learns about Penelope and isn't shackled by what people think of either him or her. Indeed, Callisto understands the power of a bad reputation and how it can be harnessed just as easily as a sterling one.
Winter and Callisto are the ones to spring to Penelope's aid at the ruined coming-of-age ceremony, while Derrick is frozen in brainwashed confusion. Even Reynold manages to be the voice of reason in the chaos of her poisoning, pointing out that if they don't let Winter treat Penelope, she's going to die before the doctor can get to her.
(As an aside, when Reynold Eckhart is your voice of reason, you know things have gone sideways!)
Finally, only after Derrick has temporarily broken free of Ivonne's manipulation, having thoroughly soiled his own reputation and the Eckhart name by bringing Ivonne to the ceremony against the orders of their head of house and causing a public spectacle (everything he's accused Penelope of doing), he is left wandering the halls of the estate, desperate to make sense of what's happened and his own feelings.
He can't even go into Penelope's room to check on her - because that spot by her side has already been claimed. He's too late.
(image credit: Ep. 159)
This panel encapsulates Derrick's character in one shot.
The cool tones and shadows, echoing Derrick's symbolism as he's shut away from the warm light representing Penelope. The longing, the jealousy, the self-hatred as he can only peer through the crack in the door. The eerie green light of Ivonne's control has faded from his pupils, leaving him clearheaded for the first time in days as he slowly pieces his fragmented memory together to view the consequences of what he has done.
Meanwhile, a rival Derrick cannot challenge - Callisto - has the right to ask about her condition from the doctor and sit by Penelope's beside, begging her to wake up, not to leave him alone in hell. A hell that Derrick has helped create.
Derrick has had every opportunity through the end of Season 4 to change course - and each time, he is tripped up by those archetypal qualities that define his trope.
The tragic past and hidden vulnerability? These are the qualities Ivonne uses to manipulate and brainwash Derrick into betraying not only Penelope, but himself.
The emotional coldness? It means that Derrick is unable to even understand what he feels, let alone express it coherently, whether to be accepted or rejected. Instead, he's trapped in a self-destructive cycle, alienating the very person he yearns for, unable to ease his loneliness and self-hatred.
The devotion to duty shackles Derrick to a role that is his only identity that outside forces shatter for him - and Ivonne cares nothing for Derrick's well being in the process.
Rather than either the male lead or even a positive force in the narrative, Derrick's traits destroy everything he cherishes, leaving him utterly alone.
The fate of the Duke of the North is to be on the outside looking in.
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