Literature / The Villainess Flips the Script!

A young woman dies one evening, hit by a car on her way back home. However, she wakes up reborn in the world of her favorite novel, The Owner of the Winter Forest, as Judith Mainbaum, the abusive aunt of the main character, Luca. Judith was killed halfway through the story, which ends with grown-up Luca becoming Lonely at the Top after taking revenge on people who killed his loved ones and drove him into hiding in order to get their hands on his inheritance.

Judith decides to be a good aunt to Luca this time, and, after handing him over to his rich relatives, to remove herself from the story and live quietly somewhere else, while keeping eye on her nephew, and try to prevent the tragedies that are supposed to strike him. However, when, as per script, Luca's uncle, Ruediger Winterwald comes to take him home, Luca refuses to let go of Judith, and she's forced to accompany them to the Winterwald estate, where she poses as Luca's mother and is surprisingly warmly welcomed.

Luca is an illegitimate son of Judith's late sister and Ruediger's deceased older half-brother Jonas, whose mother was the eldest daughter of the previous king, which, due to certain dealings between royal family and Winterwald dukes regarding railways, makes Luca the preferable heir to the House Winterwald. However, there are other relatives vying for that position, making Luca's situation rather precarious. There are also several mysteries, including Jonas' rather suspicious death, strange history between current Duke Winterwald and his wives, Luca's unusual behavior and Judith's ancestry.

The Villainess Flips the Script! by Ken (also translated as It's Time to Change the Genre) is a Korean light novel, also adapted to a webcomic. The novel is finished while the webcomic is currently ongoing. You can read it on Tapas.

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This work provides the following tropes:

• Abhorrent Admirer:
  • Back in Emden, Thomas kept hitting on Judith, despite her constant refusal (and her calling him "Potato"). He's later forcibly brought by Count Greenhalten before the royal family to testify against Judith being Luca's mother, with the Count claiming Thomas was her boyfriend, much to Judith and Luca's mortification. However, Thomas seems pretty reluctant to act against her.
  • Played with Franz proposing to Judith, who wants absolutely nothing to do with him. They're both aware that Franz only does it to have access to Luca through (who he thinks is) his mother.
• Abusive Parents:
  • Judith was not a very good caretaker towards Luca in the first timeline.
  • Franz is also hardly father of the year to David, trying to pass him off as Jonas' bastard for personal gain.
• Accidental Murder: While trying to stop him from running away, Judith throws a pepper shaker at the head of an assassin who tried to kill Luca on the train. He promptly falls between the cars of the train riding at full speed. Judith is absolutely mortified by this.
• Affection-Hating Kid: Luca dislikes being coddled and seems genuinely horrified by Judith and Ruediger becoming close. Then again, he's not really a kid and has some valid reasons to distrust Ruediger.
• The Atoner: Judith truly was not a good caretaker toward Luca in the first timeline. When her consciousness is sent back in time due to Luca's wish, she chooses to be kinder toward him, likely in part for her subconscious guilt for how she treated him.
• Bastard Bastard: Jonas, a drinking womanizing deadbeat dad with ambitions to ascend the throne (to which he had no rights), was not Duke Winterwald's son. Somewhat subverted, since he wasn't aware of it.
• Brainless Beauty: Judith's grandfather Viscount Maibaum was extremely handsome (enough to get the attention of Princess Margaret), but not good at much of anything, as a child Judith pointed out.
• Break the Cutie: Everything that happens to Luca in the first timeline. Luca in the current timeline is the end result.
• Broken Pedestal: In the first timeline Luca adored Ruediger, who was eventually killed fighting assassins to buy Luca more time to escape. However, just before they parted, Ruediger told Luca he never loved him and took care of him merely due to family obligations. Luca never got over it and in the second timeline remains cold and aloof towards his uncle to the point of trying to prevent Judith from marrying Ruediger due to his belief he would hurt her. While Luca mellows out a bit later, his relationship with Ruediger is never particularly warm even then.
• Child Prodigy: Luca excels at pretty much everything thrown his way. Subverted, since Judith notes Luca in the original timeline actually struggled with both studying and sports due to starting his education later than his peers (he was illiterate until he was taken to Winterwald at 10). This is because he turned time back to the point wherein the plot takes place and kept all of his knowledge, while Judith is unaware of this and wonders why he is so different.
• Clingy Child: Luca pretends to be that towards Judith when Ruediger comes to their home to take him away, even calling her "mom", in order for Ruediger to take them both to Winterwald.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Winterwalds are associated with blue, white and black, while the royal family is red and gold. Judith herself even after being revealed as a member of the royal family keeps wearing blue, white and cool shades of purple.
• Cool Uncle: Ruediger was this to Luca in the first timeline, to the point of sacrificing his own life for him. Averted in the current story where time-regressed Luca is distrustful of him due to Ruediger admitting before his death in the first timeline that he never loved Luca, resulting in him clinging to Judith instead.
• Costume Porn: Not to the same extent as some other stories of the genre, but most female characters are nicely decked in late Victorian/Edwardian fashion.
• Crash-Into Hello: Judith and Ruediger's first meeting in the second timeline. However, Judith refuses to even look at him and leaves quickly, so she doesn't recognize him until she realizes later she miscalculated Luca's actual age and Ruediger should come to Emden now, not in a year.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Ruediger stabbing Franz in the hand with a fire poker is one thing (although Franz was trying to force a marriage proposal on Judith). Later on, he yanks one of his military peers by the collar just for respectfully introducing himself to Judith and gives him the mother of all death glares. Good thing he and Judith finally work out their relationship the following chapter.
• Crazy-Prepared: When Ruediger Proposes to Judith at the ball meant to introduce her as a royal family member, Luca snatches away the ring to invalidate the proposal, only for Ruediger to take out a second ring to finish since he had expected Luca to do that.
• Death by Childbirth:
  • Vanessa, after giving birth to Jonas, from acid fever. At least several people speculate her husband had a hand in her death, having grown weary of her promiscuity and wanting to hasten his wedding to Sophie. However, this seems unlikely, considering Vanessa planned to divorce him anyway after giving him an heir and he knew that.
  • Larissa died giving birth to Luca, which was one of the reasons for Judith's intense dislike for him in the first timeline.
• Death by Despair: Sophie died of grief after Ruediger was killed in the first timeline. Her husband soon follows her to the grave.
• Defiant to the End: Original Judith, just before being killed on Franz's orders.
• Didn't See That Coming: Franz did not anticipate his gambit to get Judith accused of deceiving the royal family by posing as Luca's mother to fail because of Judith being confirmed as a royal family member by the former king and therefore cannot be tried for said offense, which also blindsided Judith since it hadn't been revealed in the original timeline.
• Dirty Coward: During a game of catch, Ruediger tells Judith that Jonas would always designate him as a proxy when a duel was issued against him.
• The Dreaded: Ruediger, both among the maids of Winterwald estate, for his intense dislike of any attempts at wooing him (which cost many former maids their jobs in the manor, and resulted in the female servants eventually avoiding him altogether) and among other nobles, for his 100% kill count in duels. Ruediger's duel count is said to be in the 40s.
• Driven to Suicide: Count Royton Greenhalten kills himself, explaining in his suicide note he did it out of fear of facing Ruediger in the duel. He could technically refuse Ruediger's challenge, but it would meant losing his honor. However, Judith speculates said suicide might have been orchestrated by Franz wanting to clean up his loose ends, since Count Greenhalten was acting on his orders, and Judith planned to interrogate the count in exchange for Ruediger calling off the duel.
• Duel to the Death: Ruediger's specialty, as he has, so far, killed all his duel opponents. It's to the point Greenhalten chooses to commit suicide rather than face him in a duel, or at least it's easier for Franz to clean up loose ends because of this.
• Entertainingly Wrong: Upon seeing Luca being easily proficient at all his subjects, despite doing rather poorly at them in the first timeline, Judith starts wondering whether he's also a transmigrator like her. He isn't, because Judith isn't a transmigrator either, since there was never any novel to begin with. They're both Peggy Sues.
• Entertainment Above Their Age: Luca is unusually interested in gambling and alcohol. However, this Luca is actually the one that lived through the events of the first timeline, meaning he's mentally an adult.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite being an abusive, greedy aunt to Luca, original Judith was absolutely outraged by Franz's plans to kill her nephew and tried to stop him at the cost of her own life.
• Everyone Has Standards: Thomas is a rude Abhorrent Admirer toward Judith, but he's notably hesitant being forced to testify against her for lying about being Luca's mother and even tries to deny she was a bad caretaker.
• Evil Uncle: Franz to Luca, albeit they're not that closely related. Franz was behind everything that befell Luca in the first timeline, including Judith's death, and is currently doing everything to gain control over the railways, including sending assassins after Luca, proposing to Judith (who he believes is Luca's mother) and trying to pass his own son as Jonas' bastard with a lowborn woman.
• Family Eye Resemblance: Almost all royal family members have gold eyes, except for Margaret, Vanessa and Judith, who had violet eyes. This is also why Judith assumes the old king dotes so much on her and was overprotective towards Vanessa.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Early on, when Ruediger shows up in Emden to take him away, Luca points out he cannot be his uncle, since they don't look alike. As it turns out later, Luca is not a Winterwald, since his father was an illegitimate child and Luca was already aware of that.
  • Victoria comments how Jonas was the odd one out among militantly monogamous Winterwalds due to his philandering ways.
  • Original Judith was extremely envious of her other, apparently more attractive relatives because she looked completely unlike them. It's because she takes after her grandmother, while the rest of her family inherited their grandfather's looks. However, Judith's similarity to Greta serves as an important plot point later on because of who Greta really was.
  • Judith having light violet eyes is commented on by Sophie to actually be very uncommon to have. The only other person to have them is Princess Vanessa. This turns out to not be a coincidence because the two are actually related.
  • In chapter 2, Judith goes to a May Day festival at Greenhalten Estate in Emden in order to sell some herbs to buy medicine and more food for sick Luca. Count Greenhalten's son actually shows up in chapter 60 to reveal publicly she's not Luca's mother.
  • During the train ride, Luca walks into Ruediger and Judith having a friendly conversation and accuses Ruediger of hitting on his aunt, while claiming "he wasn't like that before". This is yet another hint, in addition to his unusual behavior and sudden ability to read, that Luca has experienced the original timeline and turned back time.
  • The Winterwald goblet and its mysterious properties is also mentioned early on concerning how it apparently grants a wish, but it takes a while before it's revealed how relevant it was to the root of the entire plot.
• For Want Of A Nail: Luca making Judith come with him to the Winterwald estate leads to a chain of events that reveal Judith as a royal family member.
• Genre Shift: Discussed by Judith in-universe. The Owner of the Winter Forest was apparently advertised as a "revenge story", but early on, with scenes showing poor and abused Luca finally being taken in by his loving paternal family and showered with attention and gifts, it actually seemed to be shifting into a "healing story", before suddenly stripping Luca off his newfound family, putting him on the run and plunging into revenge storyline. On a somewhat meta level, the title of the books/manhwa relates to Judith's resolve to change the genre of The Owner of the Winter Forest novel into something more benign than a revenge story. Except it wasn't a novel.
• Glove Slap: Ruediger throws his glove at Count Greenhalten's face when the latter accuses Judith of being "a woman of loose morals" and challenges him to a duel.
• Grumpy Old Man: The old king. He's very difficult to deal with, has a tendency to break and throw objects when displeased, is extremely overbearing towards his family and hates his deceased daughter's in-laws because "they took her from him" (she actually sought the marriage herself just to get away from her dad). This overbearing attitude ultimately caused his younger sister to elope when he refused to accept her relationship.
• Hate Sink:
  • Second timeline Judith describes original Judith as basically this, as she was spiteful towards a child because of the mother's death, neglectful towards him, and tried multiple times to sponge off the Winterwalds even after he left her "care". Subverted, since it turns out she did have some redeeming qualities and her death in the original timeline was actually because of trying to protect Luca.
  • Played straight with Jonas, who not only was a philanderer and dead-beat, he turns out to have been vying for the throne despite having no rights to it and was planning Sophie's death for that very purpose until his stepfather ultimately arranged for his death.
• Heartwarming Orphan: Luca in the first timeline.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: Original Judith was killed by Franz as soon as she started working against him when she realized he intended to kill Luca.
• Helicopter Parents: The old king was this towards Vanessa. She agreed to a marriage with Duke Winterwald in order to escape the palace and have the life she wanted.
  • He also acts like that towards Judith, barring Ruediger from visiting the palace while she's staying there and not allowing her to leave.
• Heroic Bastard: Luca in the first timeline, although it's implied he grows more gray as story goes on. Second timeline Luca is a bit too jaded to call him outright heroic.
• Heroic Sacrifice: In the first timeline Ruediger died fighting off assassins sent after Luca to buy his nephew more time to escape.
• Identical Grandson: Judith looks exactly like her grandmother, which is why the old king instantly recognizes her as his sister's granddaughter.
• I Hate Past Me: Judith turns out to have actually lived the events of the original timeline, as there was never a novel to begin with. Her recalling how Judith acted in the original timeline and viewing it in disdain make evident she hates herself for it.
• Impoverished Patrician: Mainbaums, Judith and Larissa's family, were a minor nobility until their father squandered what was left of their money by gambling.
• Informed Flaw: Early on, Judith internally comments on how the novel portrays everyone in her family as exceptionally good-looking except for her. She lampshades this as Judith by saying that she is beautiful herself so her novel version shouldn't be taking her frustrations out on Luca.
• Irony:
  • Judith believes herself an awful aunt for how she treated Luca compared to Ruediger being a cool uncle from her memories of the novel. Then it comes to light that despite how she treated Luca, Judith's death in the first timeline was from trying to protect Luca from Franz and her being rather critical on her original self makes evident a part of her did love Luca, while Ruediger confesses to have never loved Luca to begin with.
  • Judith constantly tells Ruediger that his compliments and gifts towards her will make people think he wants to be with her romantically. Internally she remarks that the original Judith would have pounced on the opportunity. It turns out that this was exactly what he was trying to accomplish from the moment they met, and it also turns out that he felt this way about the original Judith. Additionally, considering that she was always Judith then she's talking about herself — or rather, the type of person she used to be.
  • The original Judith was self-conscious about not being as pretty compared to her family, since she took more after her grandmother. It's the very fact she's a spitting image of her grandmother that leads to her being identified as Princess Margeret's granddaughter.
  • Duke Winterwald had absolutely no interest in Vanessa, the royal princess he married for the railroad rights. Ruediger is implied to have fell in love with Judith at first sight...and she happens to be a royal family member via her grandmother (although neither party were aware of this at the time).
  • Both Judith and Luca are confused as to why the other person is acting so "unlike" themselves. Luca had turned back time after the end of the original timeline and learned some things Judith didn't know, while she had seen the end of the "novel" and decided to be a better caretaker to him when she awoke at the start of the present timeline. In Chapter 72, Judith internally confirms that the current Luca isn't the one she knows, but still thinks someone transmigrated into him like her past self did into Judith.
  • The former king is obsessed with keeping his loved ones close to him, which in turn makes them resent it and run away, which in turn makes him even more overprotective. In fact, this in particular concerning Vanessa unwittingly caused a lot of problems down the line for the Winterwalds when Vanessa ended up marrying into their family just to get away from him.
• Irritation Is the Sincerest Form of Flattery: In the original timeline Luca tried to model himself after his beloved uncle. Even after he becomes bitterly disillusioned with Ruediger, their common mannerisms are still very obvious in the second timeline. However, it doesn't seem like Ruediger minded this in both timelines.
• Jerkass: Jonas, who spent his life drinking, gambling and womanizing, ignored his son's existence, planned to become the next king, despite having no claim to the throne, and planned to have his loving stepmother killed. Nobody seems to be particularly wistful about his untimely passing. And then it comes to light that he was never Duke Winterwald's son to begin with and the latter only acknowledged him for railroad rights.
• Kids Play Match Breaker: Luca is really trying hard to block Ruediger's attempts at wooing Judith (with Judith's obliviousness regarding Ruediger's intentions making things even easier for him), due to his belief Ruediger would ultimately hurt her like the emotional betrayal he gave him before he died in the original timeline..
• Liar Revealed: Played both ways at the royal banquet. Judith manages to uncover all of Isabella's lies about being Jonas' paramour and a mother of his son, but she herself is also revealed by Count Greenhalten as Luca's aunt, not his mother. Judith admits the truth and she's only saved from the accusation of deceiving the royal family by the old king showing up and revealing that Judith is his sister's granddaughter and thus a member of the royal family as well.
• Lonely at the Top: Luca in the first timeline. On his way to become the Winterwald heir, he loses his aunt and uncle, who died trying to protect him, Sophie dies from grief after Ruediger's death and Duke Winterwald follows her soon. It's also implied his friends die as well while helping him defeat his enemies. This is why Luca uses his wish on the goblet to go back in time, starting with him insisting on keeping Judith with him.
• Long-Lost Relative: Judith is the granddaughter of the runaway Princess Margaret, the younger sister of the previous king, meaning Judith is a member of the royal family by association.
• Love at First Sight: Ruediger tells Judith this in chapter 51 as part of his confession. Interestingly, it's implied he fell for her as well in the first timeline, despite his disgust over the way she treated Luca.
• Loved by All: This seems to be the case with Vanessa, who was apparently adored by virtually everyone, except her actual husband, who remained indifferent and knew about how she was really like.
• Love Triangle: Duke Winterwald married Vanessa, while loving her lady-in-waiting, Sophie. Sophie is heavily implied to be in love with Vanessa, while it seems Vanessa was indifferent towards both of them and had married the duke only to get away from her overbearing family.
• Loving a Shadow: Heavily implied with Sophie toward Vanessa. Judith notices how Sophie brings attention to her disappointment neither Jonas nor Luca inherited Vanessa's violet eyes and determines her doting on Jonas was more because he was Vanessa's child rather than truly loving him. Vanessa herself appeared rather indifferent to Sophie back when she was alive and Princess Malina comments about how even Sophie, for all she doted on Jonas, had no clue about how he was afraid of horse riding.
• Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe:
  • Jonas wasn't Duke Winterwald's son. The Duke still agreed to acknowledge him, as it gave his branch of House Winterwald claim to the railways. The identity of his real father is left unclear.
  • Isabella was able pass off David as her son with Jonas, which allowed her to move into Winterwald and be recognized as Jonas' common law wife in the first timeline. However, in the second timeline Judith manages to debunk her claims. David is actually Isabella's son with Franz, and he looks a lot like his father.
• Marry for Love: Princess Margaret, the former king's younger sister, eloped with a minor nobleman for love. Judith recalls how, despite going through financial hardships, she lived happily with her husband for the rest of her life.
• The Mole: In the original timeline, Isabella was accepted as the mother of Jonas' other son (although Luca was still favored over David as the heir, thanks to his looks being closer to that of the royal family) and invited to live in Winterwald. This allowed her to spy on the family for Franz and resulted in many tragedies after Ruediger's death.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Judith has this reaction after Luca asks her if she would still care about him if he didn't become the Winterwald duke. She realises that for all his newfound maturity and intelligence he is still a child and wanted her attention and love. It's even sadder when you learn that this is his second go-around and he's still seeking genuine affection.
• Nephewism: Luca is raised by Judith, his aunt, as his mother is dead and his father doesn't care. After said father's death, his uncle finds out about Luca's existence and comes to their village to take him home. In the first timeline Luca goes only with Ruediger, but in the second one he insists on taking Judith along. Ruediger even awkwardly suggests they're going to act as Luca's parents.
• No Social Skills: Ruediger is incredibly blunt and short with virtually everyone except for Judith. This is partially caused by his rather neglegtful childhood and partially by the fact his social status and wealth let him get away with practically anything. This also quite complicates his relationship with Judith, who initially assumes he's just as polite towards her as any nobleman would.
  • To illustrate how out of touch with social norms Ruediger is, just before his Heroic Sacrifice in the original he had no qualms about telling Luca how he never loved him and everything he did for his nephew was out of family obligation. This mentally messes up Luca pretty badly and quite irreparrably damages his trust in Ruediger in the second timeline.
• Not So Stoic: Anything regarding Judith is enough to entice a reaction out of Ruediger that isn't cold indifference. He even gets in a fight with the old king when the older man refuses to let him see her.
• Oblivious Guilt Slinging: Judith becomes extremely embarrassed when listening to Ruediger telling her how much he admires her for being such a good mother figure to Luca and how it's one of the reasons he fell in love with her. Somewhat subverted, since this is second timeline Judith, so the responsibility for the poor treatment of Luca falls onto original Judith, but they're technically still the same person, only with the latter version being remorseful of her original actions.
• Offing the Offspring: Duke Winterwald arranged Jonas' death, when the latter started getting too ambitious and planning to have Sophie killed. Subverted since Jonas wasn't his biological son.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Jonas apparently died after falling off a horse while riding drunk. Malina suspects his death wasn't an accident since Jonas hated horseriding and it's unlikely he would try to do it while intoxicated. It turns out to truly be the case: his death was arranged by Duke Winterwald because he was plotting to kill Sophie.
  • Judith undermines Isabella's claims of being Jonas' paramour by pointing out it was extremely unlikely he would give her his mother's watch, let alone tell her to sell it to fund an abortion, as it was a symbol of his royal pedigree, something he eagerly flaunted, not to mention he never gifted any of his mistresses with his prized personal effects.
  • Everyone at Emden village is incredulous seeing Judith being concerned about Luca and buying medicine for him.
  • It's quickly becoming obvious Luca isn't acting like he did in the original story, or even like a ten year old kid in general.
  • From Luca's point of view, Judith and Ruediger are not acting like he remembers and he even points that out, not that they would know what he's talking about.
• One Head Taller: Judith and Ruediger have the physical dynamic but aside from his stubbornness and stoicism he's more like an oversized puppy towards her.
• Parental Favoritism combined Parental Neglect: Ruediger's mother, Sophie, ignored him in favor of her stepson, Jonas, as he was all she had left after Vanessa's death, and his father never cared about either of his sons, which is why Ruediger grew up so emotionally stunted. However, Sophie did apparently die of despair after Ruediger was killed in the first timeline. And despite this clear favoritism, the fact Jonas had no qualms with allowing Sophie to die as part of his ambitions indicates Jonas never appreciated this.
  • Vanessa was her father's favorite child, mostly thanks to having the same eye color as his missing younger sister. Because of this, her brother, the current king, takes great pains to avoid taking sides for his children, especially regarding the fight between his eldest daughter and son for the throne.
• Parental Neglect: Original Judith towards Luca. In the first timeline Ruediger came to their house in Emden only to find Luca seriously ill while Judith was away having fun at the May Day festival.
• Peggy Sue: As it turns out, the main character wasn't reborn into a novel: she was just reborn as Judith in this world, died, and awoke again in the second timeline thanks to Luca's wish. Luca himself is his grown-up first timeline version in child's body.
• Poor Communication Kills: Judith assumes all of Ruediger's gallant gestures and words towards her (telling her he wants to be Luca's parents with her, buying her clothes and jewelry, telling her how pleased he is with being able to be on the first name basis with her, constantly inviting her to spend time with him, etc.) are just how a noble gentleman acts towards any lady, which is not helped by Ruediger's rather limited facial expressions and flat tone of voice. It takes seeing Ruediger actually interact with other members of nobility and said coworkers pointing this out to make Judith realize there was more to his treatment of her than just sheer politeness.
• Purple Is Powerful: The only characters that have purple eyes are royal family members, including Judith.
• Really Gets Around: Jonas. Judith manages to undermine Isabella's false claims about her relationship with him during the royal banquet because about one third of the women attending the banquet used to be Jonas' paramours, and they support Judith's suspicions.
  • On the other hand, several people comment how unlikely it is for Jonas to have fathered only one bastard for the exact same reason.
  • Vanessa as well. Jonas wasn't even her husband's biological son.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ruediger lays into the relatives present at Luca's debut gathering for badmouthing Judith and Luca by pointing out that those people are barely related to the main Winterwald family and they are talking about matters which are none of their business.
• Rebellious Princess: Margaret, who escaped her royal family in order to Marry for Love, and was stated to have lived happily despite her family's financial hardships.
  • Vanessa was a more calculating version of this trope, arranging her marriage with Duke Winterwald in order to get away from her overprotective father and planning on divorcing him later to become fully independent.
• "Reborn as Villainess" Story: Subverted. Judith initially assumes it was the case, but it turns out there was never any novel in the first place. The Korean woman mentioned early on just died and was reborn as Judith, then died and was brought back in time to the moment Luca was about to be taken by Ruediger, because original timeline Luca made a wish to undo things on the Winterwald goblet.
• Replacement Goldfish: After hearing Sophie comment on her violet eyes and seeing Vanessa's portrait, Judith realizes she was received so well at Winterwald because Sophie saw some part of Vanessa in her. Later, she has a similar revelation when meeting Princess Malina.
  • Judith speculates both she and Vanessa were/are this to the former king for his younger sister.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Princess Malina suspects Duke Winterwald of killing off Jonas in order to make Ruediger, his son with the only woman the Duke actually loved, his heir to House Winterwald. Since Ruediger is rumored to be soon engaged with Princess Josephine, it would also mean keeping the railways, as per earlier agreement. As it turns out later, the Duke did arrange Jonas' death, but not for the reasons Malina assumed it to be (it was actually over Jonas planning to have Sophie killed as part of his plan to get the throne), and neither Ruediger nor Josephine are interested in each other.
• Royal Inbreeding: Luca, whose parents had common great-grandparents. However, he's technically not considered part of the royal family and his parents were unaware of their shared ancestry.
• Self-Serving Memory: Inverted with Judith. She remembers being a lousy aunt to Luca, which was true. However, Judith in the first timeline actually died trying to protect Luca from Franz's plot.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Duke Winterwald, who apparently entered a marriage contract with Vanessa in order to have her lady-in-waiting, Sophie, close to him, never consummated his marriage with Vanessa and let her have affairs and an illegitimate son he accepted as his own, and, after Vanessa's Death by Childbirth, immediately got remarried to Sophie. He doesn't care about either Jonas, Ruediger or Luca, and pays attention only to his wife. He was also the one who arranged Jonas' death, when the latter started planning to have Sophie killed. When Sophie died in the first timeline due to the shock after Ruediger's death, he simply gave up and followed her to the grave.
  • Ruedinger himself had absolutely no interest in relationships, let alone marriage, to the point where he was taken off the succession list, only to fall in love with Judith at first sight in both timelines.
  • Princess Victoria comments that all men of House Winterwald fall deeply for only one woman in their life, and Jonas was a peculiar exception, which becomes less peculiar when it comes to light he wasn't really a Winterwald.
  • Implied in case of Sophie towards Vanessa, to the point where Sophie neglected her own biological son in favor of Jonas, just because Jonas looked so much like Vanessa. When meeting Judith, Sophie comments it's a shame Luca didn't inherit Judith's violet eyes, because he would look more like Vanessa.
• Single Woman Seeks Good Man: Gender-inverted. In chapter 71, when Judith asks Reudiger why he loves her, he goes into details about the many positive aspects of her personality, starting with their first encounter.
• Stiff Upper Lip: Ruediger has a tendency to say things he genuinely means with a completely emotionless expression, like when he tells Judith he's very excited to finally be on the first name basis with her. This causes a lot of misunderstandings between them down the line.
• Strong Family Resemblance:
  • Judith looks a lot like her grandmother, Greta, aka Margaret, the sister of the previous king.
  • Virtually everyone in royal family has either red or strawberry blonde hair and gold eyes.
  • Winterwalds have black hair and blue eyes.
  • Both Jonas and Luca look a lot like Vanessa, except for lacking her violet eyes.
• Suddenly Suitable Suitor: Gender Inverted when Judith is revealed to be Princess Margaret's granddaughter whom the old king dotes on, and along with being Luca's aunt and only blood relative makes her the most valuable prospective bride in the entire kingdom.
• Surprise Incest: As it turns out, Judith and Larissa are granddaughters of Margaret, younger sister of the previous king, who eloped with a poor man from a minor noble family. Luca is a result of a one night stand between Larissa and Jonas, grandson of the previous king, making them second cousins.
• Title Drop: Judith delivers the localised version ("I will flip the script") in Chapter 54/the end of season 2 when she decides to actively change the story as she knows it so that Luca and Ruediger don't suffer this time.
• The Unfavorite: Downplayed, but Ruediger was quite neglected by his mother in favor of Jonas. He doesn't seem bothered by this.
  • In the original timeline both Luca and David were accepted as Jonas' sons, but Luca was considered preferable due to his looks. Still, David had his loving mother by his side, while Luca had only aloof Ruediger as his protector.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Jonas wanted to kill Sophie, his stepmother, despite said stepmother caring for him over her own biological son, as part of his ambitions. Bonus points for being an actual bastard.
• Used to Be a Sweet Kid: Downplayed, but Judith remembers original Luca being a trusting and affectionate child, following Ruediger everywhere like a puppy. Current Luca is a withdrawn and cynical loner who keeps away from Ruediger. This is the original Luca after being brutally stripped of his Wide-Eyed Idealist childhood persona through years of being hunted and losing his loved ones.