Discussion The Villainess Reverses the Hourglass

Hello,
I’m currently reading this Novel

Title: The Villainess Reverses the Hourglass
Alt Title: The Villainess turns the Hourglass

https://www.novelupdates.com/series/the-villainess-reverses-the-hourglass/

Description:

With the marriage of her prostitute mother to the Count, Aria’s status in society skyrocketed immediately. After leading a life of luxury, Aria unfairly meets death because of her sister Mielle’s schemes. And right before she dies, she sees an hourglass fall as if it were a fantasy. And just like that, she was miraculously brought back to the past.

“I want to become a very elegant person, just like my sister, Mielle.”

In order to face the villainess, she must become an even more wicked villainess. This was the new path Aria chose to take revenge on Mielle who murdered both her and her mother.

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Right Now I’m confused about the FL character, so can someone please analyze her character for me? So I can get a better understanding about her...
and Thanks for the help

 

Okay, this is what I personally feel. I have read plenty of revenge-themed novels. So, of course, the title appealed to me and I decided to give this novel a shot.

I have to say, I was truly disappointed. I feel that the FL is quite childish and her methods to get revenge are childish as well. Her rival here is a kid barely out of her teens. Of course, it is wise to nip the evil in the bud but the FL, who is over 20 years old takes pleasure in seeing her kid rival jealous. She has no character, and flaunts her wealth freely, despite knowing her lowly origins. Idk if she changes later but in the first few chapters she is like that. She decides to 'steal' her rival's fiance to make her envious. She acts like a white lotus, the fiance falls for that and seeing that the rival had moved on the MC casually throws him away despite him not having done anything wrong (except the fact that he's easily swayed). She may have some good points, like her learning various subjects and etiquette, but the major reason for her taking such pains is not to prepare for the far future but to outshine her little rival.

The romance is unrealistic too. The ML is interested and mesmerized by her in their first or second meeting. What I see in these kinds of stories is the ML and FL first being wary of each other and then coming to a mutual understanding and working together to topple their mutual enemies. Half of this story focuses on romance which gives revenge less significance.

Perhaps I am used to having FLs with noble aura and clever minds who only turn the tables so that the end sufferers are the perpetrators themselves. I think this is more satisfying and impressive. Instead of reading this one, read Malicious Empress or something. It's more worthwhile.

 

Personally, I love the FL. She is truly a villainess through and through. Most of the time she is focused on her revenge against Mielle. Of course, she has the entire resentment from her previous life and in her second life, her primary aim is to give Mielle the same treatment. Because of this, she kinda doesn't want to form bonds with anyone else and sees everyone as 'pawns' to be used in her revenge scheme (e.g. Sarah), but it's not like she's completely lost her good emotions because she slowly redeems herself too. And honestly, even if Mielle is a child, which child behaves like that? constantly plotting to kill someone?

Spoiler

pushing your own father down the stairs?

Spoiler

constantly humiliating a girl you don't care about in front of others?

I mean, I don't know but if you've read the novel, she did go too far sometimes.

Aria is not the typical 'I'll teach them all a lesson' villainess. She is an 'actual' villainess. She is similar to how she was in her previous life but smarter and more logical. Her chemistry with the prince is really good because he is someone who understands her and is not falling in love with any fake personality that she is putting forth (like Oscar).

If you haven't read the manhwa, give it a go. The art is gorgeous.

 

I read the novel ages ago so I might get a few things wrong. I honestly thought the revenge was quite petty and stupid at times. There was a lot of romance. I didn't like Asher as he was creepy and way too infatuated with her. Everybody left and right fell in love with her(including a certain someone who I won't say). Everyone loved her at practically worshipped her. I haven't read some of the chapters before the end and the end itself because it was boring and dragged out. Aria was killed in her past life and she saw her mother poisoned I think. Because of this she decided to re-enact the revenge. She also gets super rich and stuff. Basically everyone loves her and she gets a happy life or something. I didn't read the ending. I realised that on the manhwa everyone loved Aria and the manhwa too.

 

MC goes from interesting to lacklustre. She's a grown women with years of experience but a low rank in society fighting against a beloved child with a much higher rank. She chooses to be petty and vindictive and get revenge in this life for her previous and honestly.. that's a fascinating concept. She starts off a true villainess with actual problems to solve (winning people over, trying to get money, etc.). Then the novel takes a nosedive and she gets handed everything to her in a platter;

Spoiler: spoilers for future chapters

magical powers with little to no repercussions, a prince who's infatuated with her, money, entire kingdoms falling for her, and even her lineage (the one thing she was lacking in) ends up being of royalty.

A character who's set for life then continues to choose vengeance and it reads as boring. She's not smart, but now she doesn't have to work hard or come up with clever ideas using her future knowledge to win people over, instead she does the bare minimum and it all works out for her. She's boring and not different from any other otome isekai MC ever written.

 

I personally enjoy reading it, but I do agree that she is a bit childish. Like she tries to be fast and know stuff

Spoiler

But she is obviously so clueless that she doesn’t realize who the prince is

She also is a very generic “I reincarnated after being framed as the villainess” by just doing petty things.

 

I totally get what you all are saying about Aria being childish, and I agree. I love the girl and the novel as a whole, so I might be a little biased, but hear me out. I thought her childishness made her realistic. Aria was never a smart cookie, obvious from her first life (got played by a child and her doting nanny) and the fact she’s reborn won’t change that. Sure Aria’s schemes with Mielle started out petty as hell, but that’s who Aria is. In the story there are times Aria looks back on her past life and remembers immediately going for the kill the moment she felt Mielle offended her. Foolish. This time, it didn’t particularly change, she just became more patient about it and learnt to pick her battles. Keep in mind at the start of her rebirth she’s living in a house with a vindictive child who literally wants her torn to her lowest point and killed

Spoiler: Last words

This isn’t even a joke. At the point of her death, Mielle comes up to Aria for some “last words” and tells Aria she, Mielle, has wanted to see Aria and her mother dead from the moment they stepped foot into the Roscent family. Peace was never an opinion with Mielle

Mielle is a child, yes,

Spoiler: Sabotage the carriage

but this child (and this was still when she was like fourteen. Right at the start of Aria’s rebirth mind you) didn’t think twice about sabotaging Aria’s carriage all because she was pissed Aria was so good at embroidery and gave their father a handkerchief which he really liked and praised

Honestly, Aria impressed me. She held back while Mielle was throwing all these schemes at her (and still slandering Aria in high society) because Mielle was a child. Still, it’s frustrating don’t you think? So yeah Aria retaliated pettily and focused on mainly protecting herself and building connections because in comparison to Mielle’s reputation and wealth, Aria was no better then an ant. She was reborn when she was fourteen, and her reputation still didn’t fully change until she was seventeen(?), and that’s because Mielle had the upper hand amongst nobility.
As for stealing Mielle’s fiancé, I’m all for it. Aria played Mielle’s card, the long game. When Aria was about to be executed, Mielle mentioned that from the very beginning she had been behind all Aria’s terrible actions,

Spoiler: The Maid

including putting a maid by Aria’s side who would comfort Aria as a friend while also feeding her insecurities

Aria sure as hell can’t do that, and Mielle was too well protected by her nanny, so she aimed for something precious to Mielle— her fiancé Oscar. And really if you read the novel it’ll become obvious Mielle doesn’t particularly care for Oscar, but more for what she can be if she marries him. This is literally all her “love” is based on

Spoiler: Mielle and Oscar

if you read the novel, Mielle only ever thinks about marrying Oscar and becoming Duchess, and their relationship is made even more shallow to me when Mielle knows a gift sent by Oscar is actually from his sister, but she still basks in it shamelessly and shows it up. Then again when I realized that I’ve never seen Mielle send Oscar a present but always shows off the ones she gets from him and finds ways to make him appear in public with her. Once more when the rebellion is in swing, Oscar’s sister notes Mielle looking at the King of the other country with the same way she once looked at Oscar. Mielle doesn’t care for Asher, she cares about how good she looks besides him, what she can become by marrying him, and mainly hates Aria, the prostitute daughter, for coveting what’s hers and ruining her fairytale of a life

As for Aria and the Prince’s relationship, I thought it was beautiful and progressed finely. It was interest, then admiration, trust, dependence, then love.

Spoiler: The tulips

I lost my mind in the scene of Mielle’s birthday where Oscar came in with Mielle and Aria was hurt because he hadn’t been returning her letters. When she gets to her room, she sees a box with a broach and knows it’s from Oscar. She thinks it’s a cheap goodbye, his way of asking her to be understanding and gets so pissed she almost smashes it, but as she’s about to she looks at her table where there’s a vase full of tulips from the ML and pauses. She remembers what’s important and her real intent for approaching Mielle’s fiancé is simply to make Mielle jealous and later uses to broach to accomplish just that

I do feel bad for Oscar, believe me I do, but the boy was never going to be free of his family, and with that he could never be happy with Aria. I like to think Aria might have developed a little crush on him along the way. While it’s not explicitly said, her actions with him were more desperate and sad the with anyone else. Also, she didn’t particularly throw him away

Spoiler: Oscar

Oscar’s sister threatened to harm Aria if Oscar didn’t stay away from her. Oscar complied and wasn’t unable to explain things to Aria. Aria figured it out even before the birthday party, but that didn’t lessen the feeling of being abandoned, and Aria felt like she had been thrown away. Rather then pursuing gracelessly and ending up ruined, she lets him go

Anyway, I thought this was an amazing story but it just goes to show you you can only efe ally experience something by yourself but it’s been nice seeing everyone’s different takes on this

 

Oh about what I said before about Mielle never giving Oscar presents, I was wrong. She gave him pens once

 

Her overreliance on that hourglass made me anxious.

 

You cannot even imagine how my heart damn near stopped when she theorized if it might be making her tired because it was taking from her life force

 

It didn't stop her. Her usage of it was so petty. Ugh, I was facepalming so hard.

 

So basically Oscar gave Mielle expensive jewelry, dresses, flowers, etc.
and all he got from her is pens?!

He’s pitiful. T_T

In this point I totally agree.
I mean she should have kept it for important tasks.
It make me worried that she will collapse in a critical step of her plans. (I hope I didn’t jinx it)

 

I rather liked Aria, because even though her actions were kinda sus( the whole stealing the fiance thing), I get that she was desperate to not die again, and her later efforts are more admirable, so to say.

 

Also this might be nothing but I randomly noticed it while reading the webtoon again (don’t judge me it’s too beautiful for it’s own good). Anyway, I noticed that whenever the Roscent family is eating together, Mielle and Cain seat on the Count’s right, while Aria and her mother are always on his left. It got to me and I remembered why it did. My family practices this kind of etiquette and during meals like this, the wife if supposed to be on the husband’s right, the kids on his left. When there’s a guest, depending on how honored they are, they’ll stay on the left with the kids, or on the right with the wife. When the ML’s servant visited, he sat on the right with Mielle. But Aria and her mother are always on the left I’ve literally never never see them on the Count’s right. I don’t know if this was deliberately done by the artist, but I just had to point it out because it’s an absolutely genius way to show how disrespectful the Count was of his second wife and step-daughter.

 

0.o
First of all,
Wow! How could I have never noticed that!?

thank you for pointing it out.

Secondly,
How didn’t they (Aria and her mom) notice that?!

I mean I understand that they wouldn’t get it at first since they were commoners before.
but with Aria experience and her memories shouldn’t be aware of that already?

 

I’m sure she’s probably aware after her rebirth, but it’s not like she can change it. After all, if she pushed such a thing I can’t imagine the backlash would have been good. Also for the purpose of abandoning him in the future wouldn’t it have been better to let him pile up as many mistakes as possible? Also I think Aria’s mom might have always known but just never said anything. Because of the unfair power balance in her and the Count’s marriage, she might have ignored it just like she does when Mielle and Cain are rude to her. When she divorces the Count she tells him he treated her like a flower vase and let his children walk all over her. There are even multiple scenes where we see Mielle subtly insulting her or excluding her from conversations and the Count says nothing. I can imagine if she or Aria ever tried to argue the table thing they would have been treated as though they were going against the Count’s legitimate children.

 

I just really liked the novel, is not a redemption story, she is a villainess until the end, it just happens that people thinks that she is a good person and that makes her the best villain.

I actually enjoyed reading it, but my problem was with her dependance on the hourglass, if she didn´t have it she probably wouldn´t be able to do anything and that was kind of sad.

Also I always wondered what happened to the prince in the first time line, because as far as it's known he got married but he was still planning to take down the aristocracy so I keep wondering if he was able to do it.

 

@kirakv , I think Prince Asher probably failed to take down Isis in the first timeline. He ended up married to her so I figured she maintained her power.

I also came to terms that Aria is very petty at times. I honestly relate more to heroines that are “fair” in judgment and actions but after I accepted that there are several things Aria does that I just can’t condone, I basically just observe her as a character during those times rather than rooting for her.

One thing that really bothered me is the way she pleaded with Oscar to not leave her. It’s the epitome of embarrassing and I just feel she should have more dignity. I know she’s fearful of Mielle marrying into Oscar’s family and gaining power through Isis and the crown prince (not knowing he’s Asher), but I just feel she should have looked for other ways. Notwithstanding, I don’t know what it’s like to be oppressed and killed by her stepsister simply because she’s the child of a prostitute.

About the hourglass, I guess it doesn’t reduce Aria’s life force because it’s a legitimate power from hereditary although she doesn’t know that yet.

 

@Celebrianna
Too bad that Asher couldn't do anything, I keep thinking that maybe with time he could be free even in the first timeline.
I also understand the feeling when she went kind of crazy with Oscar for leaving her, but I could kind of understand we, she felt like if everything was falling apart, she thought that even in this second live she would have the same ending and it didn't matter what she did. And thankfully she realized it wasn't like that.
And according to the novel the hourglass may have an effect on her live span because she wasn't supposed to have her power and that's why the side effects were stronger on her than on Asher. Her power was not complete, she didn't have the royal blood so she wasn't supposed to have it

 

@kirakv , I’m not sure what spoiler is correct but yesterday someone posted an outline of the novel events on the spoiler thread and it’s said that Asher took Aria to this special lake to test if she is descendant from a lady name Violet who was a wife of royalty. I think this test has something to do with her powers.

Spoiler

Chapter 199:

Asher took Aria to the pond of imperial castle to prove whether she's Violet's descendant or not (as a wife of royal family, Violet had to drink from the pond. Only royal family members, their spouses, and their descendants could touch the pond so if Aria was Violet's descendant, naturally she could touch it too). As Asher predicted, Aria could touch the pond.