- #1
So this mainly focuses on inconsistencies in the world building. As a general rule this story is pretty good about its world building but a lot of issues seem to occur around the big scenes in plot, generally when interacting with villains in the story. Lets start with the time she got kidnapped, in this instance she decided to go out because she had 3 knights who are obsessed with her, and they became her guard knights. Since she did two outings with two of the knights the last one came up and asked her if she was going out, causing her to spontaneously decide to do an outing. The villain who was targeting her at this time somehow learned of her outing and managed to arrange a carriage, mercenaries, then cause monsters to attack (never explained how) and make a women come up to the MC and ask her guard to come slay the monsters, and then proceeded to kidnap her. There is a ton of issues here, first the fact that he somehow learned of this outing. Second, even if he did that he was able to prepare this plot in that short time frame. Third, that she, a duchess, went out with only a singular guard knight who then proceeded to leave her unguarded (even if she commanded him to leave). Plus, the way that she got saved is because she happened to be wearing earrings that can be tracked. She sent a 8 year old girl to the estate to inform her husband. I keep seeing people praising her for being an intelligent MC but her actions feel like the author is trying to make her seem smart while having her proceed to take really risky and s*upid moves, which work out because its a story. When ican or whatever his name was threatens her to follow him in town, when at this time he is by himself (there might of been a line about him with mercenaries but I don't remember it) rather than simply yelling out or making a commotion she decides to follow him, because of the possibility that the townspeople could get hurt depending on how he acts. At this time she had no idea of how Ican made himself strong, so her "smart" decision was to follow him to prevent the risk of townspeople being hurt (Which no indication so far has shown MC to be very sympathetic, she at least doesn't peg me as the type to put herself in a dangerous situation to prevent the slightest bit of harm from happening to strangers) while essentially leaving her rescue in the hands of an 8 year old girl delivering an earring. She then proceeds to be kidnapped by the villain, where she spends an unspecified but most likely a decent amount of time with, due to the lines about them heading towards the border. During this time she is completely unprotected, her being "smart" is putting her in a situation where if ican decided to kill or do other things to her she would be unable to resist. Since this is a book, nothing happens, but still. Then she proceeds to pretend to be sick to get off the carriage, manage to convince him to go to a pub, then say she would pay a reward to whoever captured him. This action just makes very little sense unless as a backup in case the 8-year old girl failed. If she was being tracked then this action would only serve to provoke her kidnappers if failed, and then put her in a dangerous situation. And it failed, this caused her to be nearly strangeled to death before plot armor, aka male MC manages to save her. Then, after this incident its suddenly revealed that artifacts exist and that the duke apparently has a massive number, yet her as the duchess does not even possess a single self defense artifact. Now, because of her nearly dying, she has only THREE guards and some artifacts, and we once again get something that while might not be a plothole serves to show that the guards are incompetent and should not be guards. Later on she visits her family and brings the three guards, who then proceed to get wasted at a banquet they held. The story does say that barriers were set up but the point still stands, all three of her knights, whos job is specifically to guard her, decided to drink and become incapacitated. Then at a later point when she runs into a carriage in the road with a stranger ask for someone strong to help them carry a wheel she nearly orders the knights to help out. It feels like absolutely nothing was learned form her near death experience. While the situation is a bit different she would still be sending all her guards to a distance away from her because of a strangers actions. There is close to no value having guards this worthless, since the story keeps adding situations where she leaves herself completely vulnerable. Then we get to another issue. The sister of that villain, rebecca, who is shown to be the evil mastermind decided to try to use the duchess to try to kill the duke. She somehow manages to get information and set up an attack in a short window again, where while this one can be a bit more excused since it never goes into her power is still a bit unrealistic. The duchess decided to go shopping with her sister, with her three worthless guard knights. Since Rebecca had mind control something her three guards became worthless, and the female lead was only protected by her divinity. Rebecca then takes her sister hostage and orders her to take off all of her artifacts, which the female lead does. While a loved one is in danger it just feels like the height of folly to start removing your one form of protection, and if you did have enough protection artifacts to decide which one to wear at a whim why not give one to your sister for protection? There is just a lot of small things like this that don't add up. Skipping a lot of s*upid stuff that occurs she gets saved last minute by her husband again, which just feels like a cheap cop-out. It feels like this story is desperately trying to have the independent and strong female lead while also having the male lead save her every time. Then, with both the duke and a powerful mage Rebecca somehow manages to escape after stealing a bit of female mc's blood, which will definitely be a plot point later on.
Overall my point is that while the story isn't bad, quite a few things happen for plots sake, where they don't really make sense in context. Even if the world is peaceful you have an important figure like her being protected by three guards who are incompetent and have no idea what it means to be a guard. The villains set up plots that would require some kind of planning and obtain information about the female mc's whereabouts while all other forms of information travel is slow. While most people seem to be able to overlook these inconsistences or things that just simply don't make sense (Like her having incompetent guards, the guards not having any artifacts, ect.) for me it just is something that I really dislike about this story. With the main plot thread not being that interesting to begin with and very little in their relationship that feels special I'm dropping the novel. The novel is by no means bad, but its just not something that has engaged me and with the issues that it has I've lost interest in reading further. I honestly think most of these issues were just caused by the author either trying to add stakes to an action scene or to try to create relationships. The guards are incompetent because its suppose to be funny that they all act like puppies in front of her because of their own s*upid reasons. Her actions that feel risky and borderline s*upid are because the author is trying to make her seem intelligent while executing it poorly. The last minute being saved by her husband is just the author wanting to use it, with poor excuses on justification on why he was there. Things like her removing all of her artifacts is because if she actually used those artifacts there wouldn't be a threat. It's not a major issue but it just feels like if its written from a slightly different angle it could greatly improve these issues. (Even something simple like a monolog that the reason why she risked provoking her kidnapper is because she couldn't be sure the 8-year old managed to deliver the earring. That they knocked her unconscious in the crowd and kidnapped her rather than her following them. Have her actually have a decent number of guard knights but have them be limited to a small number when the villain makes their move) The only one I can't think of a simple plot change could fix is her incompetent guard knights, but thats caused by them trying to be written as gag/friendly characters rather than as someone who can act as a guard, but this isn't really an issue. I personally hate that we get lines about them all getting intoxicated, especially after she got kidnapped. It shows a complete lack of responsibility to their duty to guard her. Anyway, my overall point is just that while I dislike the novel for these reasons, the aforementioned issues and its lack of something to engage me. I do think if your looking for a romance feel-good where everything works out then you should read this novel.
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