Battle Princess Peony’s royal destiny is simple: defend her planet from the evil Divine Lady Silkrose. But everything changes when she's accidentally warped into Silkrose’s private academy for villains-in-training, where graduation is the only way out!
Peony throws her heroic heart aside and starts becoming the villain of her nightmares in her bid for freedom, but the dark side is full of secrets that could change her world forever. Will Peony escape Silkrose's clutches? Or will she succumb to Silkrose's dark charms for good?
Goodbye, Battle Princess Peony is a gothic Magical Girl fantasy romance comic by Mira Ong Chua. In February 2021, Chua announced a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the comic, and the book was released in July of that same year. A sequel, Goodbye, Battle Princess Peony ~eternal spring~ was published in May 2023.
Tropes appearing in Goodbye, Battle Princess Peony include:
- Always Night: The Dark Moon is locked in an eternal night.
- Badass Normal: Unlike Battle Princesses and Divine Ladies, Loyal Knights are explicitly stated to not be able to use magic of their own.
- Can't Hold His Liquor: Nightsky tells Peony about the time a single drink took out Silkrose for an entire night.Nightsky: Moonshine! I need towels!
- Evil Costume Switch: Peony's decision to take commit to graduation is marked by Lovelace giving her a black ensemble befitting of a Divine Lady.
- The Fashionista: As the Head of Beauty Class, Lovelace prioritizes looking one's best in a battle over anything else.
- Floral Theme Naming: All of the main characters are named after flowers.
- Peony is named after a soft pink flower that can stand for love and honor.
- Dianthus is named after a flower which is often said to symbolize loyalty, fitting her status as a Loyal Knight.
- Lady Lovelace is named after the countess of lovelace.
- Lady Moonshine is named after moonshine yarrow.
- Lady Nightsky is named after the night sky petunia.
- Lady Silkrose breaks the trend as, while you could say she's just named after roses in general, there's no breed of rose known as a "silk rose"... unless her name is intended to invoke actual silk roses, as in fake roses. This could be meant to be a hint that her cold, cruel demeanor is nothing more than a façade.
- Flower Motifs: Besides the fact that all the main characters are named after flowers, flowers in general are a prominent motif in the comic. One pivotal scene involves Peony and Silkrose talking in a garden of black roses, while Peony reminisces about a field of pink roses back on the World of Flora. Silkrose mentions missing the sight of pink roses, causing Peony to remember seeing a pressed pink rose in Silkrose's diary, and uses up the magic she managed to regain that day by transforming one of the black roses into a pink rose. Besides signifying a step forward in their relationship, the two rose gardens illustrate that the Divine Ladies aren't so different from Battle Princesses and the scene also manages to foreshadow Silkrose's past.
- Funbag Airbag: While running away from Lady Moonshine, Peony ends up crashing into Lady Lovelace facefirst into her chest.
- Hands-On Approach: During the enchantment class, Silkrose attempts to help Peony by standing behind her, holding her hands in the correct position, and murmuring right in her ear. This startles Peony enough to accidentally shoot a giant beam of magic through the roof.
- Magical Girl Warrior: Peony and all the Battle Princesses fight to defend their respective worlds with magic.
- Regal Ringlets: Lady Lovelace has absolutely massive ringlets that reach down to her thighs, fitting her status as Head of Beauty.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: After Peony passes Lovelace's class, the Divine Lady swaps Peony's white Battle Princess dress for a black outfit befitting a Divine Lady. In the book's climax, when Peony declares to Dianthus that she's going to fight for the World of Flora and the Dark Moon, her magic returns to her and changes her outfit into an altered version of her Battle Princess outfit that is a mix of black and white.
- Something Else Also Rises: During the enchantment class, Silkrose attempts to help Peony by standing behind her, holding her hands in the correct position, and murmuring right in her ear. Peony— who had been struggling to create a few sparks— ends up shooting a massive beam of magic straight through the roof of the ballroom that bursts into a firework.
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: During Lady Nightsky's class Peony is stunned to learn that Divine Ladies have a strict no-kill policy, which is at complete odds with everything she has been taught her entire life. During the book's climax, despite everything that happened in the past, and despite being badly hurt, Silkrose begs Peony not to kill Dianthus, and as a proper Divine Lady, she does so.
- Title Drop: The true meaning of the title is revealed towards the very end of the comic, when Peony symbolically says goodbye to her former, Battle Princess self and permanently adopts a Divine Lady identity in order to stay with Silkrose.
- The Tragic Rose: Despite initial appearances, Lady Silkrose turns out to be not a cruel villain but an incredibly tragic figure. Initially unable to control her magic, she was seen as a liability to the Battle Princess she was meant to serve, but the princess showed kindness and patience to her, helping her learn to control her magic. Silkrose's love for her princess ended in tragedy when her Loyal Knight attacked her in a fit of jealousy, causing the Battle Princess to jump in an attempt to stop the fight and lose her life in the process. Lady Silkrose not only had to deal with the sorrow of indirectly being responsible for the death of her lover, but the knowledge that she was technically also responsible for the banishment of all the Divine Ladies.
