To the Love Born in the Lowest Place Chapter 28 Discussion

It is weird how much I have been enjoying this story. Like, there weren’t any reviews and the summary confused me, but I decided to just try it out and ended up reading all of the free translated chapters in half a day. It is seriously bordering on becoming one of my favorite TL novels and it came out of nowhere.

Since I was confused by the synopsis, I’ll go ahead and make my own here:

Liv has been able to hear the voices of the gods, all of them from many different religions and pantheons, for as long as she can remember. The gods love her and any time she dies, they destroy the world and turn back time (she doesn’t retain the memories, but the gods tell her when it happens). Additionally they eke out divine punishment on those who caused her death, whether it be the carrier who passed an illness to her or a butler who failed to stop her from falling down the stairs. The gods’ way of doing things is obsessive, and flagrantly disregards human morals and standards. Constantly having contact with the gods since she was born led to Liv being heavily influenced by this attitude and mindset, and she constantly struggles to make human connections, especially after her adoptive parents who had believed her to be a Saintess adopted the “Real Saintess” Hildegard and people began hating her for impersonating the Saintess. Liv falls in love with Emmett in the same way the gods fell in love with her, deeply and for no particular reason, such that when he is about to die, she puts a knife through her neck to make the gods revert time. However, after returning, Emmett’s attitude has changed to a man in love.

My thoughts on individual characters:

Liv - I absolutely adore Liv and how she is portrayed. Others view her as needlessly selfish due to her extreme caution around not dying due to not wanting to inflict divine punishment on others. I love the dichotomy of this ultimately selfless motivation being presented in such a selfish way. Her skewed morals don’t make her a bad person, just a strange one in the eyes of others. Her perspective is so unique and a joy to read, as well.

Emmett - I really like how he is characterized, including his flaws. He is the loyal hound of the tyrant emperor, and is absolutely ruthless in that context, but so caring when out of it.Spoiler

He came the closest to understanding Liv for a while, even before she turns back time, but has pushed her away at the time when the story starts because he couldn’t reconcile their two extremely different values.

[collapse] I’m really hooked.

The gods - I really like how they are portrayed. The dynamic they have with Liv is really interesting. Being in the presence of gods causes extreme physical and mental fatigue, which is why she doesn’t speak very much and avoids sacred sites because their presence grows even stronger there. The way the author describes them and how they view the world really makes them feel like beings completely removed from humanity’s ideas of right and wrong, which is really impressive.

Hildegard - As the Real Saintess in seeming opposition to our main girl, it would have been so easy to make her a hypocritical antagonist, but she isn’t. Rather, she genuinely cares for Liv, although she does struggle to understand her. One of my favorite moments in novels is when a misunderstanding-causing secret is finally revealed, and we get to see that in the first couple chapters, which is so satisfying. Outside of that, Hildegard’s characterization isn’t anything flashy or dramatic, but that just makes it all the more impressive that the author managed to make her feel fleshed out like a real person.

Hayden - Not much to say about him. Possibly a 2nd ML, but he doesn’t even have a chance. He’s also gone pretty thoroughly insane. When he first appeared, I, like Liv, was intrigued due to his role in the first couple of chapters, but he is starting to border on being annoying. Spoiler

Although I did find the part where FL didn’t realize how weird it was for him to suddenly come in through her window kind of funny.

[collapse] I think he’ll be the one to drag her into the side plot (the nonromance one), and I’m fine with and even excited for that, I just hope he isn’t the 2nd ML.