- #1
Somewhat infuriating.The OG MC had an extraordinarily powerful spirit companion, so much so that she should have immediately been in line for the throne of the Emperor. However, she was a normal, very young child, who went from abject poverty with doting, indulgent parents, to a luxurious palace filled with scheming strangers who all want to use her. Forbidden from seeing her parents again, given every material she could ever ask for, and neglected by her grandfather, the Emperor, who stuck her there, and her AH cousin who wants to keep his Crown Prince position, it is any wonder OG her wound up a mess? Then they punished her for turning into what they created.I like the premise of someone who is ridiculously overpowered deciding they'd rather not, and just have a simple life baking instead. But this is not that.I also like a character who hides their potential to ensure their enemies underestimate them, unexpectedly emerging from behind and win in the end. But this is also not that.Instead, new MC is so abjectly terrified that every single person in the palace is an enemy who will kill her (since they killed the OG for not being nice enough. Literally, she wasn't girly and cute, so they killed her), that instead of embracing her powers and potential, she dumbs herself down. She basically castrates herself and play acts at being so sweet and simple and so "poor widdle me, I just wike cookies" as she signs away her birthright to simper and be thought of as cute. She's like a silly little lap dog they think is cute and too s*upid not to pee itself, and she's got one trick to keep her from being so dumb they chuck her out (which I could get on board with), which instead manages to turn her into a bird trapped in a gilded cage. Whenever she waits around forever to beg someone to take her little offering of cookies or whatnot, I just want to smack her. She's just getting herself more and more trapped, while hobbling herself from ever being anything more than their favorite pet and emotional opiate.OG FL may have gotten killed, but she at least tried.
