(Binged) up to ch163 over 3 days:
This is a damn good series. I initially rated this a 9/10 around ch50. But as I started approaching chapter 100 I realised 'no...this is genuinely doing a masterful job at everything it's setting out to do. This is a 10/10'
This is NOT one of those series where it starts good and tapers off in quality. It maintains it and honestly probably gets better in season 2
There was one short kidnapping arc that honestly felt cliche, but it was resolved in an unusual fashion that left me satisfied.
[edit: I'm just gonna add here that the wide cast of characters is really good. The fmc, mc, so many of the rivals and side-characters all great...except the brother, he bores me mostly.]
in-depth:
Political thriller:
Ok, this series is, above all, a political drama/thriller. And it does this really REALLY well. You see plans put into place that may come into fruition a hundred chapters later, you also see shorter term plans, and these are all overlapping in a very realistic way.
This series does not suffer from the flaw of so many lesser series where the main character is so smart and everyone else is so dumb. No. We see our fair share of competent politicians and at least two other very skilled ones close to the level of our FMC (imo). We even see at least 2 character who are implied to have potential to be S-tier strategists but are currently almost completely unpolished.
By all this I mean the world of politics feels real. There's one scene where a political strategy council is meeting and one is a plant who's going to offer a very well-dressed bad idea. Afterwards a member who we've never even see before mentions to the plant all the flaws, demonstrating this tertiary/quarternary character has political acumen because of course he does, the guy is a high-level politician, it's only realistic!
That said, the FMC is a cut above, but this is in part due to no one (very reasonably) expecting a masterclass strategist to spring out of nowhere, enabling her to play the long-game in the background.
You also see a lot of political double-speak as people speak 'politely' around issues to send messages/threats/offers etc. And it's all done so well
Psychological
One thing the main character (FMC) struggles with, at times, is her psychological scars and guilt. The FMC is really well-written. She's got trauma from emotional and physical abuse and generally bad parenting (but we also explore the mother's psyche and, man, 'villains' can be complicated people, too) that has left her with many sociopathic tendencies. As a result, our FMC at the beginning of the story has done...bad things. LOTS of bad things...like if you counted her death toll, she could probably swim in an Olympic swimming pool of their blood (imo, we never get exact figures). She's betrayed 'friends', allies, killed bloodlines (children included) created national crises/disasters... So when she gets this next chance, the guilt is real. She knows she's horrible, inhuman, has so much blood she can never wash it off. But the problem is, sociopathic traits! So can't just fix herself just like that, and her methods work, and her goal is important
Romance:
Feels a bit weird at first, cos it’s not the focus of the story, but it gets better over time, especially as it becomes more intertwined with the above psychological themes. All of her feelings make sense, and in the end I really do like how it’s revealed to us and makes it feel more melancholic/tragic.
bit of Supernatural
So, this world has two types of magic. Neither of which pop up often (as one is only available to a saintess and the latter isn't worth the cost unless you're homicidal and sneaky) but you should know this is a fantasy world, so you don't get the wrong idea going in. There's monsters, but they're all in the wild so we never actually see them. There's an inhuman humanoid race that has their own civilisation as raiders, again just mentioning so you're not caught off-guard, cos it's unexpected.
Translation: I highly Sawateam translation whenever you can read it as theirs felt the most clear (VERY important in a strong political story) and when a translation is ambiguous they try to clarify it in their end-note. The official translation is second-best (it's honestly confusing that they refer to dukes as 'your highness' rather than 'your grace' but eh. Also there are a few conversations that aren't clear, but it's rare). I read a couple Anxious Frogs scanlations, english is clunky and often unclear, avoid it as this is a political story (no offense)
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