What are your thoughts on villainess stories?

[Fox-Trot-9]

Yep. Question says it all. Since I'm writing my own villainess story, I'm just curious what you all think, b/c I've read quite a few villainess isekai manga and manwha, and they tend to follow a survival-oriented plot line where the goal is for the MC to avoid banishment in an otome game or romance novel or go back in time and redo past mistakes to avoid execution. As you can see, I'm hooked on this genre!

Anyway, what are your thoughts on the villainess stories you've read on SH or elsewhere online?
What are things that you've noticed about them?
What are things that you love? Hate? Love to hate?
And what do you want to see in a villainess story?

I wanna pick your brains a little bit.

 

[ForestDweller]

They're mostly boring, really. Just a wanking device for the Mary Sue lead. Even the popular ones are no exemption.

So, same like male isekai, really.

 

[EternalSunset0]

Not exactly my genre judging by the premise, but I don't mind. I'm not too deep on the genre so Hamefura's like my only major exposure to it. Still, I liked the show enough.

 

[ArcadiaBlade]

Its kinda.... Meh? Like, you have a world to build in and you kinda wasted it to just promote your character or something which should be okay but not good in making a better story than the game counterpart. Basically the genre is like a game with an added DLC. It might be good but its just it.

 

[Reborn_Cat]

Yep. Question says it all. Since I'm writing my own villainess story, I'm just curious what you all think, b/c I've read quite a few villainess isekai manga and manwha, and they tend to follow a survival-oriented plot line where the goal is for the MC to avoid banishment in an otome game or romance novel or go back in time and redo past mistakes to avoid execution. As you can see, I'm hooked on this genre!

Anyway, what are your thoughts on the villainess stories you've read on SH or elsewhere online?
What are things that you've noticed about them?
What are things that you love? Hate? Love to hate?
And what do you want to see in a villainess story?

I wanna pick your brains a little bit.

It was good at the beginning, but it ended up overused

 

[Biggest-Kusa-Out-There]

I believe the oversaturation of the genre does not help in finding anything new... as literally every novel tries to be different from the last one.

I'll talk about the classic Duchess villainess and such stories.

Now, I like a drop of realism in the stories I read... since suspension of disbelief is the most important of all rules no matter how good the style is. What I mean is: these stories tend to involve royalty/nobility and the characters act nothing like them. Imagine if Prince Harry walked to his gf or the girl he was supposed to marry and mistreates her, the public eye would eat him alive, especially those from Nobility. The fact nobles, and especially children of nobles face no consequence whatsoever in a 'medieval setting' is beyond me. In our history (where these stories are based of), they were not just 'scolded', or 'grounded', they had certain rights taken from them and their freedoms limited, if not bodily punished.
How can anybody support a wishy washy prince that abandons a fiance for a commoner? How can the country prosper in the future if they have such a king? Why nobody questions this? Why is THE SON OF THE RULER OF A NATION so free? You can't write princes or princesses as anything other than hardworkers that attempt to have a good image at all times, THEY'RE BRED FOR THAT PURPOSE. (Imagine a story about a doctor who doesn't know what a cell is, makes no sense)
Royalty are not people like us, sadly, they're tools and livestock. Anything other than that is looking away from reality. Royalty knows this, and acts accordingly, hence why it has functioned for thousands of years on Earth. Individuality killed monarchy.

For magic, it makes sense to isolate genes through inbreeding/selective breeding if that's how its propagated... so it makes sense to have nobility or royalty be the powerful families which keeps the common folk from acting up, but that means it's a reign of terror and everyone should know that unless they're brainwashed.

What I love about them is the childlike approach they have, the naivity that the world is nice for a breed of people who play tug of war for power every waking moment of their lives.

What I want from a villaines story is a cultured woman who shows they're from the elite of society by their actions and desicions, there is no place for 'self discovery' or 'finding out where you belong in the world' in these settings, otherwise it'd be like if an incel had a harem. They are supposed to know this, and should act accordingly to their education.

What would be cool to see is the 'commoner girl' that threatens the villain (the reason she's a villain to begin with in most scenarios) is some sort of supersoldier that lucked out in the genetic lottery, and everyone tries to gain their favor, and the MC would employ shady tactics or some silly thing like that. It'd me more of a militaristic nation that values might over anything else, which would justify vile people still in power.

Hope it helps!

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Yep. Question says it all. Since I'm writing my own villainess story, I'm just curious what you all think, b/c I've read quite a few villainess isekai manga and manwha, and they tend to follow a survival-oriented plot line where the goal is for the MC to avoid banishment in an otome game or romance novel or go back in time and redo past mistakes to avoid execution. As you can see, I'm hooked on this genre!

Anyway, what are your thoughts on the villainess stories you've read on SH or elsewhere online?
What are things that you've noticed about them?
What are things that you love? Hate? Love to hate?
And what do you want to see in a villainess story?

I wanna pick your brains a little bit.

i mainly enjoy the themes. The whole nobility aspect, even if they don't act like proper nobles. If the story is funny, great. If not, i don't usually waste my time with it unless its actually a more serious story with an interesting plot. But yeah some are boring to me for some reason, i dunno. Destruction flag otome and Death Flag are the ones i like best. The others? not my cup of tea. Might read the manga, but not the novels. Cuz these are mainly from female perspectives, and usually i cant get into them when its an otome setting. They gotta be...like, funny. Wacky? Eccentric? Not just your basic cookie cutter little girl.

Its kinda.... Meh? Like, you have a world to build in and you kinda wasted it to just promote your character or something which should be okay but not good in making a better story than the game counterpart. Basically the genre is like a game with an added DLC. It might be good but its just it.

...don't you read my story, tho? I don't feel that really has anything that stands out from the others, either. Well, maybe the original, but that one i usually wrote while high as balls so that's expected.

Just saying, cuz i thought you woulda liked those kinds of stories. Well, maybe its mainly the MC you cant get into. Usually their mainly from the perspective of a girl, so. Yeah

 

[SailusGebel]

The most enjoyable part about the villainess story was its freshness. When the genre was still new, it was interesting. But now, even the more popular stories became stale and boring. I don't like anything in this genre anymore. The thing I dislike is the fact that those stories are predictable and similar to one another. What do I want to see in a villainess story? I don't really know.

 

[ArcadiaBlade]

...don't you read my story, tho? I don't feel that really has anything that stands out from the others, either. Well, maybe the original, but that one i usually wrote while high as balls so that's expected.

Just saying, cuz i thought you woulda liked those kinds of stories. Well, maybe its mainly the MC you cant get into. Usually their mainly from the perspective of a girl, so. Yeah

Yours are just like added mods that improve the game. So its progress I guess? But thats basically it. Its like that but something not entirely game changing.

The example which is basically changing the entire game is mine that rewrites everyone. A simple otome game which should be basically just a single player game is turned into a battle fantasy where it doesn't even talk about the game or something like that and now its a multiplayer. Yours is just modded game where the characters are on crack and added some dlc characters that are stitched into it. You still stick to the romance genre, still the otome game but its main focus is your MC. Which is just a galgame on steroids.

 

[CupcakeNinja]

Yours are just like added mods that improve the game. So its progress I guess? But thats basically it. Its like that but something not entirely game changing.

The example which is basically changing the entire game is mine that rewrites everyone. A simple otome game which should be basically just a single player game is turned into a battle fantasy where it doesn't even talk about the game or something like that and now its a multiplayer. Yours is just modded game where the characters are on crack and added some dlc characters that are stitched into it. You still stick to the romance genre, still the otome game but its main focus is your MC. Which is just a galgame on steroids.

Yep. That's my Alternate story to a T. Well, the main story did become an MMO in later chapters tho. When I start wring that one again Imma have to include it more tho.

 

[K5Rakitan]

They are fun as long as there is a reverse harem involved.

 

[skillet]

When done well, very fun! ...but it's kind of more complicated than that.
(you didn't ask for this, but HUGE RANT ABOUT VILLAINESS STORIES INCOMING BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN NECK DEEP IN THAT GENRE FOREVER)

Imo, the fun of it came from its premise of 'turning the cliche (tropey) story on its head to unexpected consequences.' A huge meta-play on the basic storyline. It's kind of like how people fine the butterfly effect and other time travel stories interesting-- how can different decisions change the predetermined future? And how will the main character manipulate the story to their own desired ending?

The best stories came from the ones where the reincarnated villainesses had a distinct personality/goal and made good use of their resources/second chance/already learned information to masterfully play up the game.

The worst stories came from the ones that copied the good ones but forgot to give their heroines a personality, which is why as people flocked to this genre, it became less and less fun. In other words, the genre itself had so much possibilities/potential, but the generic heroine character (you know the one-- dense, klutzy, but somehow charming, doesn't speak their mind, 'smart' but actually doesn't do anything, is always confused as to why stuff didn't go their way when all the signs were already there, etc. etc.) began showing up into the 'villainess' characters and rendered it a complete shoujo mess. And since these new majority writers half-heartedly followed the newfound tropes of this genre (ooh, everyone falls for the villainess instead!), the genre kind of cemented itself into being 'another generic common shoujo trope storyline thingy.'

And I say this with love, because I love otome game reincarnation and shoujo. However, I can't help but hate the weak, generic shoujo heroine as well as unoriginal stories, and that goes for every genre.

So yeah, the villainess genre in itself is great. It has so. much. potential. Like come on. Time travel. Manipulation of information. A heroine who is both usually materialistically superior but story-wise inferior because they're still in a place of danger (both the op protag + the underdog story rolled into one). The sheer meta that becomes possible. Strategy games. Cathartic plot twists. COME ON.

tl;dr: villainess stories are the bomb when they aren't treated like self-insert frames for yet another boring heroine. The character makes the story, and a plotless, personality-less story that runs through the same tropes will probably be boring everywhere, regardless of genre, but the villainess trope got the worse end of that stick imo because it had such a huge boom.

And now I'm kind of mad again thinking of all the villainess stories I've already read and got mad over. :D

 

[Fox-Trot-9]

They're mostly boring, really. Just a wanking device for the Mary Sue lead. Even the popular ones are no exemption.

So, same like male isekai, really.

Yeah, I can see that. The isekai otome ones are basically self inserts.

Its kinda.... Meh? Like, you have a world to build in and you kinda wasted it to just promote your character or something which should be okay but not good in making a better story than the game counterpart. Basically the genre is like a game with an added DLC. It might be good but its just it.

Yeah, I see that. Since, basically, villainess stories are romance stories with a villainess route.

It was good at the beginning, but it ended up overused

What originally got me into the genre was the premise: story where the spotlight is on the bad girl of a romance novel / otome game, but after reading a lot of it, it's definitely repetitive after a while. Which is why I tend to mix up my reading with other genres besides villainess manga/manwha, like mystery and thriller novels and horror manga.

I believe the oversaturation of the genre does not help in finding anything new... as literally every novel tries to be different from the last one.

I'll talk about the classic Duchess villainess and such stories.

Now, I like a drop of realism in the stories I read... since suspension of disbelief is the most important of all rules no matter how good the style is. What I mean is: these stories tend to involve royalty/nobility and the characters act nothing like them. Imagine if Prince Harry walked to his gf or the girl he was supposed to marry and mistreates her, the public eye would eat him alive, especially those from Nobility. The fact nobles, and especially children of nobles face no consequence whatsoever in a 'medieval setting' is beyond me. In our history (where these stories are based of), they were not just 'scolded', or 'grounded', they had certain rights taken from them and their freedoms limited, if not bodily punished.
How can anybody support a wishy washy prince that abandons a fiance for a commoner? How can the country prosper in the future if they have such a king? Why nobody questions this? Why is THE SON OF THE RULER OF A NATION so free? You can't write princes or princesses as anything other than hardworkers that attempt to have a good image at all times, THEY'RE BRED FOR THAT PURPOSE. (Imagine a story about a doctor who doesn't know what a cell is, makes no sense)
Royalty are not people like us, sadly, they're tools and livestock. Anything other than that is looking away from reality. Royalty knows this, and acts accordingly, hence why it has functioned for thousands of years on Earth. Individuality killed monarchy.

For magic, it makes sense to isolate genes through inbreeding/selective breeding if that's how its propagated... so it makes sense to have nobility or royalty be the powerful families which keeps the common folk from acting up, but that means it's a reign of terror and everyone should know that unless they're brainwashed.

What I love about them is the childlike approach they have, the naivity that the world is nice for a breed of people who play tug of war for power every waking moment of their lives.

What I want from a villaines story is a cultured woman who shows they're from the elite of society by their actions and desicions, there is no place for 'self discovery' or 'finding out where you belong in the world' in these settings, otherwise it'd be like if an incel had a harem. They are supposed to know this, and should act accordingly to their education.

What would be cool to see is the 'commoner girl' that threatens the villain (the reason she's a villain to begin with in most scenarios) is some sort of supersoldier that lucked out in the genetic lottery, and everyone tries to gain their favor, and the MC would employ shady tactics or some silly thing like that. It'd me more of a militaristic nation that values might over anything else, which would justify vile people still in power.

Hope it helps!

Oh, wow, thank you for the detailed breakdown and insights! Will definitely refer to your post, b/c you bring up a lot of good points about the villainess genre.

When done well, very fun! ...but it's kind of more complicated than that.
(you didn't ask for this, but HUGE RANT ABOUT VILLAINESS STORIES INCOMING BECAUSE I HAVE BEEN NECK DEEP IN THAT GENRE FOREVER)

Imo, the fun of it came from its premise of 'turning the cliche (tropey) story on its head to unexpected consequences.' A huge meta-play on the basic storyline. It's kind of like how people fine the butterfly effect and other time travel stories interesting-- how can different decisions change the predetermined future? And how will the main character manipulate the story to their own desired ending?

The best stories came from the ones where the reincarnated villainesses had a distinct personality/goal and made good use of their resources/second chance/already learned information to masterfully play up the game.

The worst stories came from the ones that copied the good ones but forgot to give their heroines a personality, which is why as people flocked to this genre, it became less and less fun. In other words, the genre itself had so much possibilities/potential, but the generic heroine character (you know the one-- dense, klutzy, but somehow charming, doesn't speak their mind, 'smart' but actually doesn't do anything, is always confused as to why stuff didn't go their way when all the signs were already there, etc. etc.) began showing up into the 'villainess' characters and rendered it a complete shoujo mess. And since these new majority writers half-heartedly followed the newfound tropes of this genre (ooh, everyone falls for the villainess instead!), the genre kind of cemented itself into being 'another generic common shoujo trope storyline thingy.'

And I say this with love, because I love otome game reincarnation and shoujo. However, I can't help but hate the weak, generic shoujo heroine as well as unoriginal stories, and that goes for every genre.

So yeah, the villainess genre in itself is great. It has so. much. potential. Like come on. Time travel. Manipulation of information. A heroine who is both usually materialistically superior but story-wise inferior because they're still in a place of danger (both the op protag + the underdog story rolled into one). The sheer meta that becomes possible. Strategy games. Cathartic plot twists. COME ON.

tl;dr: villainess stories are the bomb when they aren't treated like self-insert frames for yet another boring heroine. The character makes the story, and a plotless, personality-less story that runs through the same tropes will probably be boring everywhere, regardless of genre, but the villainess trope got the worse end of that stick imo because it had such a huge boom.

And now I'm kind of mad again thinking of all the villainess stories I've already read and got mad over. :D

Oh man, I feel you on this big time, especially the reverse harem thing. Like, I loved Ouran Highshool Host Club, but when I read villainess stories, I don't want the MC to collected a bunch of hot dudes. I want the MC to actually do something using her wits / knowledge to overcome obstacles flung her way. That's why I still read The Villainess Reverses the Hourglass, b/c it has an active MC that actually has her shit together with the power fate's given her.

 

[Echimera]

They are fun as long as there is a reverse harem involved.

Make that a GL harem and I'm in.
Or at least just ditch the guys and go for the heroine, if you insist on keeping romance in the story.

Like any other genre, they can be good or bad depending on a lot of factors.
Characters are an important factor, both the glimpses of the original story we get to see and more importantly the changes the new 'villainess' brings.
Then there is the setting in general. While a generic setting may not ruin it, it'll leave a lot of the work of carrying the story to the characters.
Then there is he writing in general has a huge impact of course, though personally I can tolerate a lot before it turns me away from a story I otherwise enjoy.
...

What I don't really get is the whole 'overused genre' complaints. It's not the genre's fault that it became popular and tons of people tried their hands at it. There'll be tons of mediocre ones and a few standouts both on the positive and negative side of quality.
Judging a whole genre based on either of these groups doesn't really tell me anything about a specific story I have in front of me.

 

[Fox-Trot-9]

What I don't really get is the whole 'overused genre' complaints. It's not the genre's fault that it became popular and tons of people tried their hands at it. There'll be tons of mediocre ones and a few standouts both on the positive and negative side of quality.
Judging a whole genre based on either of these groups doesn't really tell me anything about a specific story I have in front of me.

I can understand the overused complaints, b/c the villainess genre has a set of motifs (in the characters and setting) and themes (in the premise) of their stories, but so does the mystery and thriller genres and their many sub genres. I'm an avid reader of mysteries and thrillers, b/c I love reading them for how they can take the same overall plot narrative and adapt them into something striking and profound. It's the same thing for the villainess genre. Once the novelty of the premise subsides, it's the little details and subtle flourishes of possibilities that keeps me reading more.

 

[The_Everdistant_Utopia]

Hopeless consoomer of Villainess novels here.

Well, in general I just find myself more inclined to read that kind of novels these days. I do realize it's just as oversaturated at the nth generic Isekai or cookie cutter Cultivation story, but I just find those three genres mostly topple due to author mishandling of the tropes, rather than the genre itself. Heck, there is a reason why it is popular enough to be oversaturated.

In general, I'd divide villainess novels into Reincarnation (as a villainess), Redo (as in time travel) and Redemption (as in not going back or reincarnating, just a post downfall villainess trying to redeem herself/get back at her feet/actively fix her life).

I find that Redo and Redemption stories are the ones I enjoy the most because it's more likely that I'll like the protagonist. It's also less likely to be as uh... Mary Suey. At least most of the time. Reincarnation stories are kind of a hit or miss... Mostly because they're such a wild card on the direction of the story. I've read a lot of them and it usually goes a couple of ways; Trying to avoid ruin, actively following the story (for some reason), going off on their own (and then the story becomes a fluff post villainess story) and worst of all... ending up forgetting this is a Reincarnation story on the first place.

I've read a couple of stories where the author just kind of drops the ball in the whole reincarnation gig and just pretends the character is the same as the villainess it replaced. It's sometimes explained as their minds merging, but sometimes it's just glossed over and I could only imagine it's because the author actually didn't wanted to write a reincarnation story but reincarnation stories are popular so they used the premise as a hook and never really followed up. It makes me livid because some of these stories are good, or would be even if it was just a normal Redo story.

As for what I like villainess stories, it's a combination of gravitating towards romance, or at least more well developed romance that most stories lack, the court politics (however inaccurate and weird they are) and the fact that in general Shoujo stories are more likely to focus on personal, internal conflicts and interpersonal relations a whole more than any other genre.

In general what I search in villainess stories is either a strong (and by that I mean strong personality or well developed character) protagonist, or even a weak protagonist that has the willingness and resolve to seek their strength (be that in self-reliance or in finding people in which they can rely on).

One thing I do dislike about villainess stories is how unsavory some fans can be, but that can be said about any fandom in general. As in, I do like to see stories where not literally everyone fawns over the protagonist and in plenty of stories there are characters that do have some personal grievances or understandable disagreements with the female lead. But when I find these, I discover that the average comment will be people literally in arms and screaming bloody murder, calling for the character to be literally executed for the crime of not liking the ground the female lead steps on.

 

[Ai-chan]

Frankly, Ai-chan thinks that the villainess trope is way overused these days. And worse, a lot of those are basically just copy-paste of each other.

That being said, Ai-chan is currently outlining a villainess-like story, but not from the villainess's point of view. Ai-chan will not say anything much because this is completely revolutionary, no translated Japanese, Korean or Chinese stories have made use of this yet. Ai-chan already wrote up to 4 chapters, but Ai-chan is actually waiting for a contest to make it public.

 

[Snusmumriken]

Honestly speaking, These are stories with a very common plot element but just dressed in a certain way.

This is a good ole: "weak to strong" progression fantasy.

You start with an MC that is in a precarious situation (villainess, death flags, yadda yadda) who has limited but sufficient powers and resources (again villainess most likely has some clout still before fated crash and burn. Most likely right at the peak of her power right before sliding down) And needs to use her own wit (or for the lack of it - knowledge of the plot) to stay alive and prosper.

Seriously there isn't anything that fundamental in it. The whole reason imo why it came to prominence was that it was using more mental skills in order to overcome the obstacles, compared to the usual power levels or the power of friendship.

And just as well it could be still popular now - the difference is now that the initial drought was satisfied by the deluge of novels - readers aren't simply looking for a villainess story - they are looking for good ones now.

 

[owotrucked]

I don't read LN from this genre, but I love visual comedy so I've read some manga.

I like Beware of the villainess the most because the studio/artist makes great art. The FL steps up to hold the immature characters accountable.

Bakarina was light hearted fun, playing the gaps of expectation, but I didnt like the artificial source of conflicts after it ran out of ammo about this aspect (characters started to understand her and predict her behavior destroying the initial interesting gap).

Overall the genre sets conflicts very quick but the way things are resolved and the turns of event don't often keep me interested. It's eady to pick and easy to drop, just like isekais I guess.

 

[SakeVision]

Fucking love them!
As long as she actually is a villainess and plays the role of villainess, and it isn't one of these "I'm reborn as vilainess but I'm going to act all nice to everyone and soon usurp the story of heroine"

unless it's called hamefura, I like hamefura a lot~