So the background is, Ruve's father, the Emperor, has always been very cold and distant to him, raising him with harsh expectations and no love. The Emperor was actually in love with Tia's mom, Jeremiah. Keiran (Tia's dad) was engaged to be married with another woman (Karsein's mother actually) in a political marriage, but he also fell in love with Jeremiah.

Jeremiah was in love with Keiran, not the Emperor. The only person in the empire who can break off the official engagement between Keiran & Karsein's mom is the emperor, but obviously the emperor wants them to get married so he can hopefully marry Jeremiah. However, Keiran offers to swear an oath of absolute loyalty to the Emperor if he will give up on Jeremiah and allow Keiran to marry Jeremiah by breaking the official engagement.

The Emperor/King is actually a very just, wise man and he realizes he cannot put his own personal feelings ahead of the good of the Empire, so he gives up on his love for Jeremiah and breaks off Keiran's engagement so Keiran can marry Jeremiah and then Jeremiah gives birth to Tia.

Just some background, I'm probably mixing them up (?) but Tia's family is part of the "Aristocrats" (I think) which mainly support the Emperor and on the other side you have the "nobles" or something, which oppose the emperor. The emperor is actually not as powerful as you think, as the noble faction have basically 50% the power of the empire and the Emperor+aristocrats the other 50%. The emperor needs to ensure the aristocrat faction that supports him is unified (there's in-fighting inside both factions), which is why he wanted Keiran to swear an oath of absolute loyalty to him.

Tia has her father's coloring, but looks exactly like Jeremiah, which is why the Emperor (who was in love with Jeremiah), loves her so much and treats her like a daughter. He gives her all the love he has and gives zero love to his son. The reason is because in order to survive as Emperor, you have to be cold, logical, rational, and strong-willed. He does love prince Ruve a lot, but was perhaps misguided.

The aristocrats all have harsh expectations on Ruve to grow up to be intelligent, rational, capable so everyone is always telling him "You need to stop whining, you need to be better". On the other hand, Tia is naturally gifted and smart and everyone always says "Tia is so amazing, we love her so much!" Imagine being a young boy, growing up and seeing how everyone, including your own father, loves Tia so much and nobody gives any love to you at all. Of course he grows to resent Tia.

Only two people ever showed "love" to Ruve, which is Jeremiah and Duke Jenna/Zena (or whatever his name is, the main villain). However, when Jeremiah gets assassinated later on, she happily gives up her life to protect Tia, while ignoring Ruve (who was also in the same room), so Ruve feels betrayed that Jeremiah didn't care about him at all, which I mean, of course this woman will protect her biological daughter over the unrelated prince. Like Jeremiah rushes to Tia and covers Tia with her body, while leaving Ruve to fend for himself against the assassins.

After this, Duke Zena is the only person who shows any "love" to Prince Ruve, which is why he believes anything Zena says. Zena basically tells Ruve that Tia is an unfeeling, incredibly manipulative and intelligent woman who is out to marry him so she can get more power for her household and the aristocrat faction. Thus Ruve hates Tia even more.

Tia, on the other hand, despite being loved by everyone, also has really harsh expectations put on her and she feels she cannot show any weakness, that she must prove herself to be a capable Empress. She actually does have trouble expressing her feelings which is why Zena's whole "she has no feelings" rings true to Ruve. However, through her actions, Tia proves that she cares deeply about the Empire, her household, and even Ruve.

However, one day Ji-Eun magically appears and is denoted the "child of god" and the one who is supposed to be empress. Ji-Eun is basically an average Korean 16 year old girl. Imagine getting thrown into a game of thrones setting at 16. She lost her friends and family and is completely alone in the new world. Zena tells Ji-Eun about all the s**t that goes down and basically says "If you don't manage to get Prince Ruve's support, you will probably get raped and killed cause the politics here are deadly". He also tells Ji-Eun "Ruve is desperate for love, so just be happy and smiling and tell him you love him". So Ji-Eun, terrified for her life, does everything she can to seduce Ruve and he falls in love with her because she is "honest" with her feelings and "innocent".

Thus Tia becomes the "abandoned empress" and Ji-Eun the actual empress. Ji-Eun now gets to enjoy a life of luxury and wealth, while Tia does all the official Empress duties as the "Queen". The Empire is thriving and everyone thinks "Life is so good and our Empress is such a wonderful, kind, happy person, while that b***h Tia thinks she's so much better than everyone. She always acting so stuck up."

NOW THE IMPORTANT PART. Zena's plans are in motion and he wants even more power, so he begins to poison Ruve with a psychotropic drug that makes him angry, bipolar, and schizophrenic. He also feeds lies to Ruve and Ruve hears the people+staff... basically everyone saying how Tia is a total smug, superior b***h who is power-hungry and pissed off her plans to get power failed cause Ji-Eun showed up. There are rumors that Tia wants to assassinate Ji-Eun so she can get back the place of Empress.

Ruve confronts Tia and wants her to be honest with him, but she basically thinks "I'm scared of you, I cannot be honest with you" and tells him "you won't believe me anyway" and Ruve goes "So you're basically admitting all the rumors about you are true." Now don't forget he is drugged with those psychotropic drugs, so that's when he rapes her. And of course, he later pushes her and causes her to miscarry.

He does feel extremely guilty about this, but when Tia finds out she miscarried and can no longer have children (her womb is damaged), she laughs crazily in front of many maids/servants, basically cursing god (Vita) for her life. Zena and the palace staff report that Tia laughed like crazy, saying "I'm so glad I don't have to give birth to that f**ker's baby. Thank god I had a miscarriage". Of course Ruve gets pissed off at this and thinks what kind of monster is happy her baby died. Thus Tia just confirmed all the rumors about her.

Tia's father, Keiran, understands Tia is unhappy and miserable and begs Ruve to take Tia away. He wants to fake her death and have her live quietly in another country. At the same time, Zena fakes an assassination on Ji-Eun and blames Tia for it, but Ruve has some moments of clarity. He thinks "If Tia wants to escape to another country, why would she risk killing Ji-Eun? The only point in killing Ji-Eun is if Tia wants to stay and become Empress."

I'm kind of confused too with the novel/webtoon, but I think there's not enough evidence to tie Tia + Keiran + her house into the assassination attempt, but Ruve & Tia fight and he lies to her that he killed her father, because he wants to hurt her in retaliation for her laughing that their unborn child died. Tia, who was also poisoned by Duke Zena, goes crazy upon hearing her father was killed and stabs Ruve. Of course, now there is enough evidence that Tia committed treason, attempted assassination of the Emperor, so Zena and everyone votes to have her executed. Ruve actually votes against them but is outvoted. He only wants Tia banished to another country. He was actually trying to grant her wish to escape the palace. He was setting her free.

However, Tia is executed and dies thinking Ruve had killed her father and sentenced her to death when none of that actually happened.

Anyway, now that Tia is gone, Ruve continues to get crazier after being poisoned with the drugs, Zena causes unrest in the Empire by continuing to gather more power, and Ji-Eun must now do all of Tia's duties. How can you expect a modern 16-21 year old girl to run an Empire? Ji-Eun makes a ton of dumb decisions and that with all the other crazy going on means the Empire goes to ruins.

All the people that used to praise Ji-Eun and say "Tia is so smug and unlikable" suddenly turn on Ji-Eun. Suddenly everyone says "Ji-Eun is such a dumbass. How can anyone be so dumb? She's probably faking dumb and is actually evil and wants us to all suffer and die. Nobody can be THAT dumb. When Tia was Queen, she was so smart and the Empire was thriving." Basically everyone regretted tr*shing Tia and wished she were still alive and the Empress.

Ji-Eun is devastated that suddenly everyone turned on her and one day Ruve finally tells her, after another dumb decision, "Why are you so dumb? I wish you had died and Tia was Empress". Ji-Eun also gets pregnant at this time and feels so alone and powerless and worried about the future of her baby.

Ruve has figured out at this time that Zena is not his "father figure" but was actually poisoning him and that everything about Tia was a lie. For instance, Ji-Eun keeps saying she loves him but after 5 (?) years together, has no idea what his favorite/disliked foods are, whereas Tia figured it out within a couple of weeks. Tia also took so much pressure off him by handling many Empire matters for him, whereas Ji-Eun actually stresses him out with more work with her dumb decisions. He realizes Tia loved him and showed it through actions, just not words, while Ji-Eun's words were empty and hollow and betrayed by her careless actions.

Ruve also realizes that he is dead soon, especially if Ji-Eun gives birth to a son, since Zena will kill him and then assume the role of "regent", while raising and brainwashing the baby who will one day inherit the empire. Ruve has a way to save his life by killing Ji-Eun and he considers it, but realizes that killing her + the unborn child will be doing the same thing to her what he did to Tia, something he regrets with all his heart. And in case you forgot, he actually wanted to save her life and send her away from the empire, just Zena + the nobles were too powerful and ordered Tia executed. I think the webtoon actually portrayed this badly since they showed Ruve kind of with a superior/unfeeling look on his face while she was executed, when in reality he wanted to spare her.

So he instead realizes he's lost and Zena will now take over the Empire, so he gives up on being Emperor and tries to run away, but Zena gets wind of this and sends soldiers to assassinate Ruve. Ruve falls down a cliff and as he lies dying, he gazes up at the moon (the king is the sun and the moon symbolizes the queen/empress) and he thinks the moon is Tia and basically begs her for forgiveness and thinks death is not so bad since he will be reunited with Tia.

This is all background and Tia gets sent back in time, of course.

SECOND TIMELINE

This time, Tia realizes she should be more "open" with her feelings and she's not actually alone, there's so many people who support her and love her. Don't forget she also thought her father was somewhat "unfeeling" but realized he risked his life and household to make her happy. He begged Ruve to fake her death and let her live quietly in another country, showing how much he actually loved her.

Thus 2nd timeline (2TL) Tia shows her emotions more and Ruve, seeing Tia showing all these emotions and laughing with Karsein + Allen, realizes she is not unfeeling and cold. Also, don't forget that Tia inheriting her household makes it impossible for her to become Empress (due to some rules and stuff), so how can Tia be power-hungry and out to manipulate him, Ruve, when she appears to want to break off the engagement? Thus 2nd timeline (2TL) Ruve realizes a lot of what Zena said about Tia was a lie.

Oh, and BIG SPOILER ABOUT ALLEN, but Allen, despite being much more capable than his brother, is passed over in favor of his older brother. Allen wants to inherit the household, thinking he is better than his brother, but the parents think it's unfair, since the oldest son is supposed to inherit. Even though Allen is definitely better, the oldest son is capable still. Allen thinks this means his parents don't really love him and he gets driven to Zena's side as a spy.

Allen also is sociopathic and possessive of Tia. At one point, he considers killing her father, Keiran, because Keiran sees through Allen's true nature. He also kind of has an erot*c daydream about strangling Tia to death so she will always be his. His other plot is to kidnap Tia and keep her locked up in a secret house forever, so she will belong to him only.

However, he does have a moment of clarity where he realizes he is f**ked up in the head and he double-crosses Zena to the current Emperor, who sends Allen away to another country, but thanks him for realizing the error of his ways.

So Allen did love Tia enough to realize his love for her was messed up and psychotic. He willingly went away to protect Tia from himself.

Ruve falls in love with Tia because of how expressive and lively she is in the second timeline, and also because, if you've forgotten, he loved Jeremiah (Tia's mother) because only Jeremiah + Zena ever showed him love +affection, and Tia resembles Jeremiah.

After Ruve died in the first timeline, Ji-Eun gives birth to a girl, who cannot inherit the throne and with Ruve dead, it means the royal lineage is broken. Zena can now over take the throne legally, so he decides to kill Ji-Eun and stabs her and her baby daughter to death.

Ji-Eun b****es to god/Vita about how unfair her life was and Vita (God) offers Ji-Eun a choice. She can send Ji-Eun back to modern day Korea with her memories completely erased, or she can send Ji-Eun back to the moment she arrived in the Abandoned Empress world with her memories intact.

Ji-Eun does miss Korea + her family, but don't forget this choice came literally 10 seconds after she got stabbed in the stomach by her "friend" Duke Zena. Ji-Eun hates Ruve for abandoning her ("I wish Tia was alive and you were dead instead"), hates Zena for manipulating and killing her, and most of all, hates that Tia took everyone's love even in death. Remember, after the Empire started to crumble, the people and Ruve all said they regretted how they treated Tia and wished she was the Empress and said Ji-Eun was dumb tr*sh.

Ji-Eun also thinks if she runs away to Korea with her memories erased, it means admitting to herself she lost to Tia, that she is and will always be inferior to Tia. She thinks if she actually works hard she can match Tia and become a powerful empress who can take revenge on Prince Ruve + Duke Zena. Thus in her anger and pride, she chooses to relive a second life instead of going back home to Korea.

When Ji-Eun arrives this time, she does everything she can to seduce Ruve because she wants to make him fall in love with her so she can then toss him aside and destroy him, the Empire, and Zena.

But at this point Ruve only loves Tia and none of Ji-Eun's attempts work. So she instead asks Zena to adopt her, so she can have the aristocrat backing and become Empress. Her second goal, of course, is to spy on Zena and find out his weakness so she can kill him.

Zena though is smart and while he wants to manipulate Ji-Eun and make her Empress, doesn't trust Ji-Eun at all. By the way, Ji-Eun has a special power where she can heal flowers/plants, just not humans. Tia's power from God is that she can hear Vita's voice/holy messages, just like some priests can.

Anyway, yada yada, s**t happens and then one day Tia gets stabbed and almost dies, but Ji-Eun who finally realizes that neither Ruve nor Tia are the true villains, begs God to save Tia's life and Vita/God tells Ji-Eun she can save Tia by giving up her magical powers and losing her status as a "child of god". Ji-Eun willingly does so and Tia's life is saved.

Ji-Eun works with Ruve + Tia to bring down Zena and Zena does get judged for his crimes and his whole household is beheaded and killed.

Ji-Eun saw herself as a protagonist in an isekai novel, thinking that she was the main character and Tia was the villainess out to steal her position and love, but realized in the end, she was actually the villainess. This is why she saves Tia's life, because she wants redemption. She also regrets so much not taking Vita/God's offer to go back to Korea with her memories erased.

Ruve and everyone else in the Empire wants to kill Ji-Eun, since she is a co-conspirator and Zena's adopted daughter, but Tia begs them for mercy, however, Tia is overruled, just like first timeline Ruve was overruled when he asked for clemency for Tia.

Tia visits Ji-Eun in prison and asks why Ji-Eun hated her so much and why Ji-Eun decided to save her. Ji-Eun tells Tia "I was supposed to be the protagonist, I was supposed to be loved and have a happily ever after, but even in death you stole that from me. Ruve & the people told me they loved you more and that I was useless tr*sh. You have everything that I don't have."

At this point Tia gets pissed and goes "WTF. Ruve + the people executed me and treated me like tr*sh for years. How can you be jealous of me?"

At this point Ji-Eun goes "Be honest, you looked down on me."

And Tia does admit she looked down on Ji-Eun as being dumb and incompetent and was upset that Ruve + the people loved her despite Ji-Eun being a dumb Empress.

The girls both find it ironic they envied the other.

At this point Tia gives Ji-Eun an option, which Ruve agreed to. She gives Ji-Eun two bottles, one with real poison and one with a Romeo+Juliet poison that will fake death. Ji-Eun can choose to die or she can be smuggled away to another country and live there quietly for the rest of her life.

Tia tells Ji-Eun "this is your choice" and then walks away and you never find out what choice Ji-Eun chose but in side stories I think it says she chose to live.

Tia & Ruve get married and have 2 daughters + 1 son. The daughter inherits the Marquess household while the son becomes the greatest Emperor in the history of the Empire.

Vita had originally said the "blessed child of god" would bring eternal happiness to the empire, but in the first timeline, the empire crumbled due to Zena and everyone (including Zena) lost. In the second timeline, they all lived happily ever after, except Zena + ji-Eun. Since Ji-Eun gave up her powers, Tia is the only "child of god" in the second timeline. Also, Ji-Eun eventually comes to peace with her life and lives a quiet, but fulfilled life as an ordinary person in another country. Kind of bittersweet she never got to see her Korea family again, but that was her choice and she has to live with it.

1. People are angry Tia ends up with her abuser (the crowned prince) in the end.
But she didn't. Yes, Rube (ML/prince) abused her in the first timeline. And I think he deserve the fate that he got in the first timeline. Someone else here explained what happened but he did not get a happy ending. But 2nd timeline Rube is NOT the same person. There is a conversation that Tia (FL) has with Ji-Eun in the novel about nature vs. nurture. Is someone's personality set in stone and it's not something that you can change? The author of the novel is making an argument that that isn't the case. Similar to how Tia is no longer how she was in the first timeline, Rube isn't the same person either. Can we hold something that 2nd Timeline Rube has not commit against him? In the second timeline, at the beginning, he is a bit of an a-hole toward her. But if we look at the situation from his perspective, everyone, including his own father and "mother" (the empress, not his birth mother), treat this girl better than him. If it's just tutors and other people, okay. But when your own parents treat a random girl better than you, you'll probably be a bit hostile toward her. And then, once Tia transmigrates, she is always super afraid of him. But at this point, he hasn't done anything to her besides act a bit cold, so he doesn't understand why. But once he found out why (via the letter), he changes his attitude toward her.

2. People are angry that she transmigrated so that she can be better suited for prince/Rube.
Except I don't think that's the case. She transmigrated so that she can "pioneer" her own path. In the first timeline, she was destined to be the empress and because of that, Tia never had any agenda of her own. She did as she was told - which was to love the prince and be the perfect empress. Looking at this objectively, I don't even know why in the first timeline she even liked the prince besides she was supposed to. In the novel, she tells Ji-Eun that in the first timeline that the only person she cares about is the prince. Even after all that happened, up to the point she thought Rube killed her father (he didn't actually, the prince lied, the father was alive until she died and then he committed suicide), she didn't even care about how he treated her and just wanted him to love her. She was upset that she lost her baby because she thought if they had a baby together, the prince would love her. She was upset she couldn't have any baby because she thought the prince would love her if she could have a child. Her entire world revolved around him.

In the novel, Rube and a couple of people brought it up but kept avoiding talking about what actually happened, but something happened when Tia was young (around five). I'm not sure whether it's whatever this was that cause her to become emotionless or just people training her that she shouldn't show emotions, but she became emotionless and had no friends. In addition to having no friends, her emotionless also cause issues with her relationship with her father, who also had issues with openly showing his love, too. (He did love her though - side note below on that). But in the second timeline, because she's more open with her affection toward her father, her father in turn learns to be slightly more open with showing his love for her. And in being more affectionate for the people around her (her father, the knights, etc), she changed everyone, including the crowned prince/Rube. And I don't think they would end up together if he doesn't change either (more on that later).

And for those who are saying she ends back up with Rube so nothing has changed/she hasn't pioneer anything. But this time around, she chooses to be with Rube. She doesn't end up with him because of fate or because she is told to, but she decides in the end to accept him. She chooses to become an empress.

[Side note for people who are hating on the father: There's an explanation on why Tia's father acts the way he does. Tia's mother was betrothed to the emperor but she and Tia's father fell in love with each other. The emperor let them get married on the condition that Tia's father swears a blood oath to be loyal to the imperial family aka he will die if he break the oath. But he does love his daughter - in the end of the first timeline, when he realized that she was miserable in this marriage, he didn't care about his blood oath anymore, he went to the prince (emperor) to get him to let her leave the palace.]

3. People are angry why she doesn't end up with the second leads (Allendis/Carsien) over the ML (who causes her PTSD).
Sadly both of them never had a chance. Tia did not come back for romantic relationships or even revenge. When she died in the first timeline, she was abandoned by the person she married, she was abandoned by people who were supposedly supporting her (the pro-emperor faction), and she lost her father. She just wanted to have friends who won't abandon her and actually have a healthy loving relationship with her father.

Because of what happened with Rube in the first timeline, she didn't think she could love anyone again because she would always be afraid of the person she loves abandoning her again. While I don't agree with this, but, the way the novel is written (and it's in first person perspective from Tia's POV), the only person that can make her love again is Rube. Going off a line she says in the novel to sum it up: She is no longer the abandoned empress but the beloved empress. If it's anyone else she ends up with, she still would be the abandoned empress. Only by ending up with Rube, she is no longer "abandoned." Rube in the first timeline abandons her easily as soon as Ji-Eun appears. Only the 2nd timeline Rube can prove that she won't be easily abandoned. And he does prove this to her time and time again that he won't abandon her for her to finally accept him in the end (Ji-Eun appearing, the doctor misdiagnosing her to be infertile, meaning that he won't have a heir, etc).

Also while I do see the argument for Carsien for a better match for her, but Allendis is an obsessive psychopath. Not to the point of hurting her but definitely not a healthy relationship.

The novel is 300+ chapters long, and it isn't until 280something that they finally end up together. She doesn't easily end back up with the person who cause her PTSD. There are times where she does compare him to the 1st timeline Rube and he has to and does prove to her that he isn't him for her to get pass it. And she wasn't fully heal from all that happened in the first timeline until the very end when he does a blood oath to promise her that he will love her forever in return for her being by his side forever.

- I thought this started out very strong and had a good premise. I wish the story kept the wild energy of the first five chapters. Instead, it became very tame after she traveled back in time.
- I loved how they emphasized the father-daughter bond in the beginning. It got kind of sidelined though. I would have preferred it if her father stayed a major character throughout the story.
- I was very entertained by the first 75% of the story, but it went down a rabbit hole at the end with the poison conspiracy. I just don't think the author handled that plotline very well. They threw in random characters that I just didn't care two cents about. Like, whatever. Off with their heads - who cares?
- I did not like the romance in this. She ends up with the worst option (he literally traumatized her - I don't care if there was a time reset - it still happened) and it left a bad taste in my mouth. Why does every female in a story have to become royalty in the end? Is a romance story not worth it if the protagonist doesn't become a princess/queen/empress? Blegh. I was rooting for Carsein.
- I feel like the author tried so hard to push that this girl was "strong" by having her go the knight path. It doesn't mean anything though. She doesn't act like someone who can protect herself and in the end, she quits being a knight. I hated that she quit.
- What is up with the tragedy tag? The only tragedy is how the romance concludes.
- In my opinion, the author had a good thing going at the beginning and it was fairly addicting to read, but this ended up going in the wrong direction.