Literature / The Villainess Turns The Hourglass

Our lead, Aria Roscent

The Villainess Turns the Hourglass, also known as The Villainess Reverses the Hourglass and Agnyeoneun Molaesigyeleul Doedollinda (Korean: 악녀는 모래시계를 되돌린다), is a Korean Web Serial Novel by Sansobee, later adapted as a Korean Web Toon by Ant Sudio. It is about the revenge of Aria Roscent, the daughter of a prostitute who married a wealthy count.

With the marriage of her prostitute mother to Count Roscent, Aria's status in society skyrocketed immediately. After leading a life of luxury, Aria unfairly meets death because of her sister Mielle's schemes. And right before she dies, she sees an hourglass fall as if it were a fantasy. And just like that, she was miraculously brought back to the past.

"I want to become a very elegant person, just like my sister, Mielle".

In order to face the villainess, she must become an even more wicked villainess. This was the new path Aria chose to take revenge on Mielle who murdered both her and her mother.

The web novel ran from June 2017 to June 2018 (209 chapters total), and was published in four volumes with an additional fifth volume (which is eBook only). Sansobee added some extra web chapters in 2020 (32 of them). The novel has been licensed in English by Qidian International. To date, volume five of the novel and the 2020 extras have not been translated.

The webtoon originally ran in Korean from March 2020 to November 2022. The first official English translation was published by Tappytoon and ran nearly simultaneously with the webtoon uploads. In September 2022, a new translation of the webtoon by Tapas began releasing as well, and began its second season in August 2023. Yen Press announced in May 2023 that their Ize Press imprint would publish an English paperback and ebook release of the webtoon with the panels rearranged from a vertical layout to a traditional left-right book layout. Volume 1 of this edition was released on November 14, 2023, Volume 2 scheduled for February 2024 and Volume 3 scheduled for May 2024. Papertoons began publishing a paperback version of the manhwa in German beginning in May 2023 and have published 5 volumes of a 6 volume release.

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Tropes:

• Abusive Parents: The story has a few of these, mostly being extensions of Parental Neglect. Stepparents aside:
  • The Countess can come off as negligent, since she only makes sure that Aria is safe and provided for, typically not going any further, and outright states that Aria's birth was a burden (albeit in a matter-of-fact rather than resentful manner). Ultimately, the Countess turns out to be a subversion, since not only did make sure to raise her daughter to maturity when most people in her situation would have abandoned her, she is more than willing to give up everything she has gained from her marriage to ensure that both she and her daughter are safe. It is all but stated that Aria's physical resemblance to her father (who her mother believed to have betrayed her), conditions as a prostitute single-mother, and husband's neglect of both herself and her daughter were the primary causes of this attitude. As Aria improves their circumstances, the Countess improves, exponentially.
  • The Fredericks to their son and heir, Oscar. The parents only care about their daughter, Isis, and are behind Isis all the way, regardless of her actions. While the exact extent is unclear, they all completely ignore and disregard his opinions and feelings, treating him more like a puppet than a human being. As a result, Oscar is forced to ignore the woman he loves in favour of an engagement with her abusive stepsister, kept out of the loop regarding the family's various plans, and his objections to said plans are not only ignored, he is eventually confined and starved for daring to object to the treason.
  • It is revealed in the epilogue that Asher's father, The Emperor, is a complete do-nothing, even when his son is avoiding getting assassinated, nearly getting forcibly married off to one of the conspirators, or handling a massive attempted coup d'état, the guy does absolutely nothing. Purportedly, this is due to the assassination of his wife, not that anyone approves of this behaviour. This complete neglect turns out to even extend to his job, effectively forcing his son and heir to do it in his stead,^note (with the potential consequence of the country either colapsing or falling into the hands of the Aristocratic Party, which is almost the same thing) which is the reason Asher is always so busy, despite not having inherited his father's position yet.
• Adaptation Expansion: While the manhwa doesn’t make any large divergences from the webnovel, it does make some additions in ways such as adding more explanations for events like how Aria’s mother married the Count, plus some additional events added like the Forgotten First Meeting of Aria and Asher as children, and Isis being shown having been reborn in the epilogue.
• Adaptational Sympathy: Carin is shown in a more negative light in the novel compared to the webtoon, where she shows more appreciation for Aria even at the start. In the novel, Carin becoming pregnant with Aria ruined a chance at getting out of the brothel when she was much younger as the baron she hoped to marry wouldn’t take her now. Aria distinctly maintains the memory of being blamed. On top of this, in the novel Carin essentially abandoned Aria in the mansion due to her misbehavior, though in the new timeline when Aria improves their relationship is finally mended. In the webtoon, Carin can clearly be frustrated with past Aria but the idea that her giving birth to a daughter “ruined” her is something that is implied to be Aria’s idea.
• Alas, Poor Villain:
  • Isis goes to the guillotine not seething with resentment, but simply relieved that her brother will be spared. She doesn't care that he testified against her because she knows he was only following his morals, not trying to save his own skin by throwing her under the bus. The creators of the webtoon seemed to like her a lot as well, drawing fan art of “alternate universe” Isis’s for the end of Season 2 and even adding a small redemption for her to the end of the side story, where her Imperial Bloodline power activated at her execution and she was reborn in the body of a commoner girl in rural Croa to live out her life in peace.
  • Surprisingly enough, Mielle can also be seen as this. Her last moments before her execution are spent in her own head, hallucinating a world where she and Aria get along, and she dies smiling. Aria Lampshades this, however, believing that they would never get along, as the only reason Mielle wanted this timeline was because it would end well for her and not out of concern for others.
  • Cain seemed to finally be on track to redeem himself, taking responsibility for his family after their downfall and accepting his new place as a servant. Only to get poisoned by his own sister when her plan to kill Annie (and possibly Aria) goes wrong. He dies simply grateful that Aria wasn’t hurt instead, but believing Mielle killed him on purpose.
• Alpha Bitch: While not in an academic setting, Isis serves this role in the hierarchy of aristocratic society, with Mielle as her understudy.
• Always Someone Better: Played with. In her first timeline Aria could not match Mielle in manners, etiquette, elegance, or general education, although she recognizes in hindsight it was because she got frustrated and gave up too soon due to being compared to someone that had the advantage over her. In the second timeline, Aria quickly surpasses Mielle.
• Anti-Hero: Despite the title, Aria is no Villain Protagonist, although she does see herself as one. In fact, both Aria and Asher qualify.
• Arranged Marriage: As is to be expected of noble society, this is something very common. The Roscents and Fredericks arrange one between Oscar Frederick and a daughter of the Roscents, Isis threatening harm on Aria if Oscar continues to favor Aria over Mielle. Isis and the Aristocratic Party try to impose this on Prince Asterope, which he tries his damnedest to stop even before meeting the love of his life.
• Aristocrats Are Evil: Zigzagged. While the Aristocratic Party is this, other aristocrats vary. Particularly evil aristocrats of note:
  • Mielle is a massive bitch behind her saintly façade. She plotted to murder Aria and her mother from the moment her father brought them home. In the first timeline, she was successful (via systematic manipulation and poisoning), so her evil only went that far. In the second timeline, her lack of success leads her to push her father down the stairs to frame Aria for murder/attempted murder, be fully on board with the Aristocratic Party's treason, abandon all "affection" for Oscar in favor of a possible fling with Isis' prospective fiancé, and try to murder her bail guaranteer. To top it off, she is completely unrepentant and believes that she should be forgiven by her victims.
  • In the first timeline, Cain unlawfully executed Aria. In the second, he clearly begins to desire Aria sexually, neglects Mielle when she is beginning to have a break down, and eventually is part of a treasonous plot.
  • Isis Frederick, even when leaving aside her terrible treatment of certain individuals personally (including servants and her own brother), is very much an evil bitch of nobility. She commands the corrupt Aristocratic Party and plots to seize complete control of the imperial family by eliminating the political power of the Crown Prince and his allies and forcing him to marry her. When that fails, she is willing to marry a foreign king, sell out her own country, and stage a coup d'état.
  • On the other hand, characters such as Sarah, Marquis Vincent, Rain Pino, and the Piaast family are all aversions of this trope who show empathy for others and look beyond title and class to determine a person’s worth.
• A Taste of Their Own Medicine: Aria’s first life ended because of Mielle using her own flaws against her to create a perfect villainess in the eyes of the world while crafting her own image as a saint. This Aria’s goal in her second life and the series as a whole is to do the same to Mielle without her ever realizing. Throughout the series Aria slowly and methodically forces Mielle into more and more desperate situations where her true nature is revealed to the world, as Aria slowly becomes a beloved paragon of society. In the end they’ve completely reversed their roles in the eyes of the world, with Mielle the despised villainess that meets her end on the execution block and Aria the beloved saint.
• Authority in Name Only: The Aristocratic Party has managed to make the imperial family this and does their best to keep it that way. While the Crown Prince actively averts this, his father doesn't even bother trying, and the Prince himself was rendered powerless in the first timeline due to the political machinations of the Aristocratic Party.
• Babies Ever After: The epilogue side story uses time travel to show us that basically EVERY female character becomes happily married with children. Sarah and Annie discover their pregnancies during Bliss’ trip to the past and Bliss and Lippe themselves are quickly revealed to be Aria and Asher’s future twins. Once they Set Right What Once Went Wrong they get their fluffy happy future too.
• Beat Them at Their Own Game: Aria's modus operandi for getting Revenge on Mielle. That said, she doesn't do things the same way Mielle does, opting for temptation and wit in favour of Mielle's Gaslighting and slander.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: Spectacularly averted, but Aria does take extensive advantage of belief in this trope.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: Congratulations, Emma. You wanted Mielle to grow up to be a conniving, self-serving monster who hides under the guise of a prim and proper lady, you got it. Unfortunately, this does mean she would rather save her own skin, then risk it by standing up for the person who raised her, this being you.
• Becoming the Mask: Aria does not like to admit it but she does become much kinder the longer she pretends to be. One instance is originally making Sarah her tutor to use her connections later, but finds herself won over by Sarah's kindness to truly love her like a sister.
• Best Served Cold: Every wrong Mielle did to Aria in the first timeline is returned to her in the second, occasionally with interest. This even includes convincing Mielle that Aria never wanted to hurt her at all and causing Mielle to (briefly) adore her, then tricking her into destroying herself and laughing at Mielle before she dies. And unlike Aria, Mielle has no magic powers to turn things around again.
• Big Brother Bully: Zigzagged. Aria is abused by her stepsiblings, one of whom is plotting to kill both her and her mother. Aria counters this, actively seeking the siblings' downfall and ultimately manipulates Mielle to accidentally poison her own brother and getting her executed. Meanwhile, Isis will do anything to keep her younger brother in line, including threatening him with his crush's life and encouraging their parents to abuse him. It’s implied that this is typical of her and probably also includes physical abuse. The webtoon shows an instance of her striking him to force his obedience, making the implications of the novel more explicit.
• Big Brother Instinct: Cain is very protective of Mielle. Oscar has it toward anyone that seems to be pathetic and fragile (his familial situation is implied to be a contributing factor).
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Aria does this for Asher, in the form of timely advice and insight, which saves him politically, allowing him to slowly retake royal power back from the Aristocratic Party.
  • When it appears that Mielle has successfully cornered Aria, Asher teleports there, quickly learns about the situation, and teleports with Aria to an entirely different location.
• Birds of a Feather: Aria and Asher are wickedly clever schemers with a taste for revenge and a strong hatred for the Aristocratic Party.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing
  • Mielle’s secret. Had she not gloated to Aria just prior to execution Aria would have had no idea that Mielle set her up from the very beginning. In the new timeline though, she's not quite as good at hiding this trait as she thinks. Sarah picks up on the fact that Mielle constantly speaks in ways that undermine Aria, and the baronesses Mielle invites for a meeting are ultimately put off when she seems offended at them being working women.
  • Aria takes note of this quality of Mielle's and one ups her on this front in her next life. She often deliberately sets Mielle up or uses a Wounded Gazelle Gambit to undermine her reputation while appearing perfect and kind on the surface.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: The official English translation of the web novel is notoriously rough, even getting the name of the author wrong and so awkwardly literal that it’s not always easy to follow what’s happening in a scene. As it progresses it becomes more apparent that it’s a barely edited machine translation, producing such gems as “Jessie lift T-Pot with a look of sorry” in Chapter 92.
• Boomerang Bigot: Mielle is so completely sure that women shouldn't be anywhere near business that she repeatedly tells a bunch of successful businesswomen - women whose support she needs - that they should be leaving everything to their husbands. Naturally, said businesswomen are taken aback by her words and Mielle ruins her chances of getting their support. Aria, who is not stupid (and also richer than everyone at the table combined, most likely) almost immediately subverts the meeting to her own ends after Mielle bungles everything.
• Brainless Beauty: Aria in the original timeline never used her brain because her looks were all she needed and it was constantly drilled in that she was inferior to Mielle. However, it becomes a clear subversion before too much longer: Aria was definitely rash but any stupidity was the result of nothing but ignorance. It didn't help Mielle was deliberately invoking this trope on Aria in the first timeline.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: At the end of Epilogue 5 in the manhwa, Jessie’s thought bubble is her apologizing that she can’t break up a fight between Ruby and Annie “this week” because “the author doesn’t have any more room in this episode.”
• Break Them by Talking: This occurs a few times during the story. First being Mielle's Evil Gloating before Aria's execution in the first timeline. It occurs again when the Crown Prince calls Isis out on her arrogant assumptions. At the traitors' execution, Lohan gives her another good one. Finally, Aria gives Mielle an excellent one the night before the latter's execution.
• Broken Ace: Mielle in the original timeline was regarded as a well-mannered All-Loving Heroine and the pinnacle of noble breeding, when she was in fact a conniving, classist sociopath who planned the deaths of her stepmother and stepsister before she ever actually met them. Once Aria turns back time, she gradually destroys Mielle's reputation and essentially exposes her true nature, until Mielle ends her life as a convicted murderess and is executed exactly as Aria was before.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Cain is highly attracted to Aria, which both she and her mother consider disgusting. Even if they weren't raised together and don't share blood ties, they are legally siblings, so such blatant lust and possessiveness doesn't reflect that well on him.
• Butt-Monkey: In the last arcs Isis becomes this. She is publicly humiliated when Asher starts to officially court Aria. Her protégée and future sister-in-law, Mielle, ends up branded as an insane drug addict who tried to murder her own father. Lohan, the King of Croa double crosses her by betraying her intentions to Asher. Just to salt the wound Lohan blatantly hits on Aria in front of Isis. In the end Isis is condemned to death for high treason and her noble title is taken away.
• Butterfly of Doom: The series inverts this twice, essentially creating a “Butterfly of Awesome” effect.
  • Aria going back in time to take revenge indirectly helps Asher in regaining the royal family's power that he was unable to accomplish in the original timeline. All because of an idle comment she makes in this timeline that Asher overhears, causing him to move more aggressively in pursuing his plans.
  • The epilogue continues this tradition as the plot concerns Bliss Franz, Aria and Asher’s future child, going back in time to try to prevent her own birth as she blames herself for her mother’s weak health after the birth of Bliss and her sister Lippe. Her mere presence in the past starts the changes she needs in the future. Ruby, Aria’s new head maid, is revealed as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing before the children are born and is replaced, leading to Tiaran being hired to replace her. Tiaran turns out to be from a village where a lake filled with healing water resides, allowing Aria to be healed during her difficult child birth and restoring Bliss’s health now. Lippe directly credits Bliss’s trip back for creating the solution. The story makes the nature of this one small change causing a massive ripple effect in a page showing the main characters as literal cogs in a machine and Ruby’s cog replaced by Tiaran’s.
• Can't Catch Up: Aria realizes that never being able to be as good as Mielle at being a noble contributed to her bad behavior in her first life as she inevitably would give up at everything. In her second life she realizes Mielle simply had years of experience and more resources to be ahead from the start… but also that Mielle is not actually that talented and had others to lean on to cover this up. Thus Aria turns the tables in her second life and uses her knowledge of the future and Mielle’s fragile ego to immediately work on leapfrogging her. Part of her revenge is to inflict this trope on Mielle instead… and it works perfectly.
• Cassandra Truth: Nobody believes Mielle when she repeatedly claims that Asher suddenly appeared out of nowhere and left with Aria in the same way. Since the existence of special powers is basically only known by their possessors and their relatives, it is concluded that she is either taking hallucinogens or is insane. Asher uses this in order to convict Mielle for the crime.
• Cast From Life Span: Implied. Aria's unusually mature looks for her age are commented on several times while in contrast Mielle only changes gradually. While it’s never confirmed, Aria connects her rapid aging to when she began to use the hourglass and begins to restrict her dependence on it.
• Character Development: Aria starts as a villain protagonist and while she maintains a certain cruel edge right until the end, she also mellows and matures. Her grudge against Mielle never fades, but she also gains interests outside of it and realizes she's more than just a pretty face. Mielle, in contrast, goes through the opposite: She never grows as a person, instead having the supports in her life whittled away as a consequence of her own actions. Her obsession with Aria grows until there isn't much else to her, even coming to adore Aria after Aria "saves" her, only to have even this last crutch yanked out from under her.
• The Chessmaster: Asher, i.e. the Crown Prince is this, and while poor advising led him to lose his power in the first timeline, in the second, he has Aria. To wit, he takes the Aristocratic Party for a ride by manipulating specific exports and imports, then foists the hot potato that is the casino on to a greedy member of the Aristocratic Party (without Isis being able to intervene), uses the resulting corruption to his advantage, and when the Aristocratic Party tries to stage a coup, he manipulates the events in order to completely decimate them.
• The Corrupter:
  • In the original timeline, Mielle purposefully ensured Aria would turn into a horrible person by surrounding Aria with people who gave her the wrong advice.
  • In the new timeline, Aria manages to deduce that it was actually all thanks to Mielle's personal maid, Emma, that Mielle's schemes ever succeeded. Emma for her part, raised Mielle to become the monster that she is, not out of malicious intent, but because she believed it was the only way for Mielle to survive the cutthroat world of the aristocracy and out of a sense of gratitude for Mielle's biological mother, the late first Countess Roscent. Of course, the problem here is that not only did Mielle grew dependent on Emma's assistance, Emma herself actively fed malicious schemes and advice to Mielle as they plotted to rid themselves of Aria and her mother.
• Crazy Jealous Guy: Cain's lust for Aria is rather twisted and controlling. He's eventually convinced by Mielle to passively aid in her murder attempt of their father by the thought of being able to keep her "under permanent house arrest" (read: keep her as a sex slave) if they could successfully frame her.
• Death by Childbirth: The first Countess Roscent died from complications right after giving birth to Mielle.
• Didn't Think This Through: Mielle clearly didn't consider potential setbacks with her plan to frame Aria for attempted murder on Count Roscent when in court such as what would happen to her if her father didn't survive, Asher taking Aria away from the scene, Asher being able to accuse her of being a drug addict because of mentioning his teleportation ability in court, or her accomplishes betraying her out of fear of also being labeled drug addicts.
  • Lack of planning is Mielle's Achilles' Heel; after Emma is executed, it becomes very clear that she did most of the actual planning, with Mielle simply relying on her and playing her part. So when Mielle is forced instead to come up with her own plots, she repeatedly fails spectactularly due to her own biases and misconceptions.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Mielle plots to kill her stepmother and stepsister for having married into the family. Isis and Emma are in complete agreement, actively assisting and encouraging Mielle. And then there's Isis' reaction to getting dumped.
• The Dog Bites Back: Oscar Frederick does this to his family, when they top off their typical abuse with confining and starving him for objecting to treason and trying to dissuade them. He offers to inform Asher about everything he knows, leading to him being considered a Category Traitor and the only one of the Frederick family to survive, albeit as a commoner.
• Domestic Abuse: Count Roscent treats his wife as though she were a beautiful object and is implied to actively prevent her from disciplining his children (who are abusing her) or doing more for Aria.
• Double Standard:
  • The Aristocratic Party believes that while commoners should get judged according to their crimes, if a noble does the same thing, they should only get a slap on the wrist. At one point, Cain thinks that a noble should be able to get away with murder — he thinks it a privilege of nobility. Additionally, the Roscents treat the Countess and Aria this way. So, if Aria does something wrong, the Count allows Cain to loudly scold her; if Mielle does the same exact thing?— a quiet word of warning. Similarly, Aria’s accomplishments are downplayed and rewarded at best with minor trinkets, while Mielle is given excessive praise for minor achievements and even given the credit for economic ideas and solutions that actually came from Aria.
  • The universe also treats the sexes this way regardless of status and a recurring theme in the story is Aria eventually overcoming this. Education for women is focused only on tasks like embroidery to make them good wives and they specifically have a lower age of majority of only 17 which makes them easier to marry off sooner, whereas men wait until age 20 to allow them to receive a full education first. Aria has to self-teach herself economics in the new timeline because nobody will tutor a girl. She herself notes that people like Count Roscent inherently value the opinions of men over women and her imaginary example illustrates this with him patronizingly ignoring Mielle suggesting war could be coming as just “rumors” while Cain suggests the same thing causing the Count to spring into action. This mentality makes Asher’s invitation to join his discussion group enticing as the group, despite currently being all men, does not discriminate against her gender and treats her ideas with the same seriousness as the other male members.
• Dub Name Change: Due to multiple translators being involved in the various official English releases of the webnovel and webtoon, all working for different companies, and seemingly no oversight from the Korean license holder, a number of name inconsistencies have arisen as a result in the English-speaking fandom. While this mostly affects minor characters like Sarah/Sara, Lane/Rain of Pinonua/Pinonoire, or Vika/Vicah Layers/Vyers/Byers, a major character impacted is major antagonist Isis who became "Isys" in the Tapas translation, as well as Lohan becoming "Rohan". The Aristocratic Party also becomes the Noble Faction in the Tapas translation. The webnovel is the least trusted of the translations as it didn’t even translate the author’s name correctly in the translations themselves but with no “one true translation” it’s hard to settle these name debates.
• 11th-Hour Superpower: Aria's powers were first activated when she was unlawfully executed by Cain. Later in the story it’s revealed this is a power that can manifest in anyone of the Imperial bloodline, under the same circumstances. A weaker version can also appear in someone related to someone else that was baptized in the holy waters of the Imperial spring, which Aria’s biological father Chloe was. The trigger for this manifestation requires that the individual be about to die but express a strong will to live. As seen in the cases of Bliss and Lippe, this can even manifest in the womb if the safety of the pregnancy is threatened enough that unborn child could die. It’s still supposed to be a rare occurrence as most of the people who *could* trigger this ability don’t and only a small number of individuals even know of the possibility.
• Entitled to Have You: A rare female example. Isis feels this way about the Crown Prince, both because only his status, lineage, and appearance match hers, and because there are rumours that the two are in the process of getting engaged (never mind the fact that it was Isis and the rest of the Aristocratic Party who spread the rumours in the first place and were trying to politically force the prince to agree).
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Subverted, at first while it’s no secret that Mielle is truly evil, she seems to have people she genuinely loves like her father, brother Cain, substitute mother figure Emma, fiancé Oscar and dear friend Isis. In the latter half of the novel, these relationships are carefully shown to be shallow and easily dismantled at her own hands. She’s unwilling to do more than give token protests for Emma when she’s accused of forcing Berry to poison Aria in fear that a full throated defense will put suspicion on Mielle. Afterwards, she tries to murder her father to frame Aria because he was happy with Aria being engaged to the prince, leaving him crippled. She blackmails Isis with all of their correspondence to escape house arrest for the above. While posing as Isis' maid, she is willing to turn her back on Oscar for a potential fling with Isis’s prospective fiancé. Finally, Mielle even shows consternation at her brother’s willingness to embrace a second chance when they are forced into servitude and stripped of their titles for plotting treason, even though the alternate option would have been execution.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Ruthless as Aria can be when extracting revenge on those who wronged her, she's shocked when Mielle resorts to pushing her own father down the stairs to frame Aria for attempted murder.
  • Viscount Vika (Asher's mole in the Aristocratic Party) helps Marquis Piast to reunite Carin and Chloe in order to give Aria the status of a Lady of a Marquis house. He finds the romance between her parents to be silly and boring but always thought that people looking down on Aria for being the daughter of a prostitute despite her proven abilities was incredibly stupid.
• Everyone Must Be Paired: The story never builds up a proper Beta Couple but it does make sure that in addition to Aria, all of the other female main characters that are in her circle of friends is paired up and married before the end of the series, with the Epilogue giving a peek at how that’s going.
• Evil Gloating: Mielle could not resist gloating to Aria just prior to the execution. It becomes her undoing.
• Exact Words: All the Aristocratic Party members are told individually that the punishment for their crimes will be reduced if they tell the authorities what the others have done. When the time for the execution comes up, it turns out everyone sold out the others, so any leniency for fessing up is countered by the other crimes that are revealed.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • Double subverted by Aria. She is amazingly perceptive but does not figure out Asher's identity as the Crown Prince despite all the clues. To be precise, she repeatedly comes to the correct conclusion only to reject it, something both Asher and people who know him are often stunned by but relieved that she continues to guess wrong. A major reason Aria keeps making this mistake is because in the first timeline Isis quickly neutralized the Crown Prince and married him, making Aria believe he was weak-willed and incompetent. Since for much of the early story she still hears about him supposedly courting Isis in her second life, she believes this to still be true and thus can’t imagine the far more active and confident Asher to be the supposedly useless Crown Prince she knew in her last life...
  • She almost does this again in the epilogue with Bliss’s identity but finally catches on a lot quicker.
  • Played straight by the Aristocratic Party, who never notice that there might be a spy in their ranks, Vika's behaviour, and any of the Crown Prince's actual plans. Mostly this is an example of them not noticing when things change.
• Fatal Flaw: For Mielle, pride. She is a huge believer in blood purity, and resents anyone who gets a leg up in society despite their inferior blood. She went after Aria and her mother purely because Countess Carin was a prostitute and they were from the slums, despite neither of them having anything against Mielle. If Mielle hadn't gloated her victory over Aria and her mother in the first timeline, Aria wouldn't have sought after revenge. But alas, Mielle couldn't keep her mouth shut, and Aria went on to ruin Mielle's life.
  • For Isis, pride with a dash of complacency. Like Mielle, she takes pride in her blue blood, and looks down on others she considers beneath her. She is so assured that Prince Asher is hers and that her brother is too soft to be a proper duke, that she doesn't consider that both men could stand up to her if they found the opportunity to do so. She's also so used to having the approval of the nobility around her that she doesn't realize that the Aristocratic Party's loyalty is fragile at best. This extends to the coup she starts after being rejected by Asher; she was so upset that he wiggled his way out of an engagement with her that she recklessly begins a rebellion, having no idea she's being played like a fiddle by Asher and King Lohan until it's too late.
• Flower Motif: The noble families are represented by flowers.
  • Franz, the imperial family is represented by a tulip. Asher often gives tulips to Aria as a result.
  • The Roscents have the lily. While pristine and pure looking, most lilies are poisonous: perfect to represent Mielle.
  • The Fredericks have a golden rose as their symbol. In the webtoon, Isis is often drawn with very thorny red roses.
• Foreshadowing: Early in the story, Aria thinks to herself that the best way to exterminate an entire noble family is if they’re accused of treason. This ends up being the downfall of both House Roscent and House Frederick.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Aria and Asher actually first met as children back when Aria was still a commoner. Aria can only vaguely remember the encounter, but Asher still remembers it despite not being able to recognize Aria now.
• Frame-Up: Mielle tries to frame Aria in both timelines, often using circumstantial evidence. In the first timeline this is successful and leads to Aria’s execution at the start of the series. In the second timeline, she pushes her own father down the stairs, having set up the situation so that Aria appears to be the culprit (Mielle herself lacks an actual motive). Asher uses his powers to teleport Aria away and create evidence that he and Aria were away on a trip and could not have been on the scene at the time of the crime, thus Framing the Guilty Party.
• Framing the Guilty Party: Simultaneously played straight and inverted when Mielle tries to frame Aria with the attempted murder of Count Roscent: Asher creates evidence that Aria could not possibly have been at the Roscent estate at the time, and onlookers realize Aria lacked a motivation or reason to murder the count regardless, resulting in the conclusion that the only person who could have pushed the Count down the stairs is Mielle.
• The Gadfly: Lohan delights in being this. He deliberately irritates Isis by showing interest in women other than her (especially those "inferior" to her) and infuriates Asher by flirting with Aria.
• Gaslighting: Mielle did it to Aria from day one, assigning maids who were ordered to reinforce her worst qualities and make her feel awful.
  • Aria and Asher later do this to Mielle herself when she tries to frame Aria for pushing Count Roscent down the stairs. Mielle claims that Asher spirited Aria away before anyone could see Aria at the scene; thanks to the fabricated evidence Asher put together, Mielle is believed to be on hallucinogens at the time of the crime, leading to her guilty verdict and house arrest.
• Gender-Blender Name: Aria's father, Chloe Piaast, who is obviously male, although he does have beautiful looks that Aria inherited.
• Generation Xerox: Aria's beauty is credited to her mother's blood. However, while this is true of her build and eye colour, Aria is otherwise the splitting image of her biological father. Personality-wise, Aria is almost exactly like her mother taken up to eleven.
• Glass Slipper: The bracelet Aria receives from Asher is all that’s left behind after he teleports her away from the scene of Mielle’s attempted frame up. Later Mielle tries to use the broken bracelet found at the scene of the crime to prove Aria was present, only for Aria to “reveal” she was wearing the “true” bracelet, making Mielle’s appear to be fake.
• Golddigger: Annie is so blatant about her obsession with material things and desire to marry up and become a noble that Aria plays her like a fiddle and woos her away from Mielle and Emma’s side. When she later asks Aria for advice about pursuing a relationship with Baron Burboom, she easily admits her attraction is based entirely on his wealth. That all said, Annie is a more benign version of this trope as she is ultimately loyal to Aria and her eventual rich husband.
• Gone Horribly Right: Emma, Mielle's servant, influenced her into becoming the person she is wanting to protect her from noble society. Mielle ends up becoming one of those very individuals Emma was trying to protect her from.
• Heel–Face Door-Slam: After being demoted from nobility, Cain seems to actually be trying to faithfully serve his sentence and do a good job as a servant. But Aria tricks Mielle into poisoning him and he dies a quick, nasty death.
• Heroic Bastard: Although she is manipulative and not very choosey about her means, Aria is this.
• Heroic Self-Deprecation: Heroic might be a bit of a stretch, but Aria is completely convinced that she's succeeding entirely based on knowing some of the future. It's eventually pointed out to her that true intelligence is not just knowing facts but knowing when to apply what you know to maximum effect.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Mielle. Had she not gloated about her evil schemes to Aria, Aria might have never activated her powers. And, in the second timeline, Mielle just had to push her father down the stairs in order to frame Aria for the crime, which leads to her Humiliation Conga.
• Homoerotic Subtext: Both the novel and the manhwa adaptation heavily play up the scene where Aria gives Jessie a brooch and pins it to her lapel as if she’s trying to make a move on her, using many of the same framing as when Aria uses her charms on men. To a lesser extent the same framing reappears when Aria brings Annie over to her side and there’s another brooch pinning moment.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Cain and Mielle go from Count Roscente's heir and beloved daughter to an errand boy for the Imperial Palace (and dressed in the same ridiculous outfit as them) and a maid for her former sister and stepmother respectively. At least Cain seemed to have learned his lesson before his demise, but Mielle's deeply humiliated about the whole affair and tries to take out her guarantor out of spite, leading to her execution.
  • It extends to the entire Aristocratic Party as well. They go from being the upper echelon of high society, to a group of traitors that willingly backstab one another for a chance to avoid execution. Which fails because they all accused each other, leading to everyone in the party having their assets taken by the government and being executed for their crimes.
• Humiliation Conga: This is a large part of Aria's revenge, not to mention Asher's. Mielle gets the worst case of this, once she attempted to murder her father and frame Aria for it. She is considered to be an insane drug-addict who harms her family members, then her attempt to escape the situation leads to her becoming Isis' maid. Then she's sent to jail for participating in the coup, so she's stripped of her rank and only spared due to Aria's Cruel Mercy. Aria then has Mielle work as a maid under Annie, who used to be Mielle's servant. Since Mielle refuses to accept her new circumstances (as Aria predicted), Aria suggests that Mielle drug Annie's tea, giving a warning about the dosage. Of course, Mielle instead goes overboard, so when Aria switches the cups as she planned, Cain is murdered. As such, Mielle is returned to jail, humiliated further, is told the truth of the entire thing, including Aria's powers and the first timeline, and is executed.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: After Isis forces him to leave Aria for Mielle, Oscar has this attitude toward his first love and is happy for her when she gets together with the Crown Prince. Later on, when he betrays his family, Asher states this to be one of the guy's motives.
• Identical Stranger: Downplayed. Even though they were born to different parents, Aria and Mielle are similar enough that they could be confused for each other at a distance. Asher the Crown Prince did not know Aria was the girl he met until he personally meets Mielle. This gets played later when Mielle pushes her father down the stairs and frames Aria - the only girls she convinced to falsely claim they saw Aria commit the crime retract themselves and state they only saw someone "similar", which casts the blame back on Mielle.
• Ignorant of Their Own Ignorance: Once she comes back, Aria can’t believe she was ever outwitted by Mielle, who is all in all a fairly average girl but with a puffed-up sense of her own ability, a rash streak just as deep as Aria's and is seemingly incapable of reflecting on herself or improving at all, with Aria theorizing her plans only succeeded because of her maid Emma. Once Aria puts in the effort to be above her, she quickly proves to be far more cunning on her own.
• Informed Deformity: Characters frequently refer to Sarah as "plain," but in the manhwa she’s still drawn so attractively that many readers wouldn't notice without the dialogues saying so.
• Ironic Echo: Compare how Mielle reveals her deception to Aria on the scaffold in Chapter 1◊ to how Aria announces her intent to ask for Mielle to be saved from the guillotine when the coup plot is exposed in Chapter 83◊. The art emphasizes how the positions of the two characters have switched.
• Ironic Name: "Mielle" means honey, but, rather than the sweet personality the name implies, she's incredibly vicious.
• Irony:
  • Emma's whole reason for being The Corruptor to Mielle was wanting to protect her from the evils of aristocratic society. This ends up leading to both her own death and Mielle's in the second timeline.
  • Mielle despises Aria for being a commoner and thus below her. Aria turns out to be the granddaughter of Marquis Piaast, meaning that, had Chloe been able to marry Carin as he originally promised, Aria would actually outrank her in terms of status. She's technically illegitimate, but only due to a technically and when her parents marry even this ends.
  • Relating to the above, Mielle attempting to frame Aria to get her out of the picture leads to Aria coming to Croa with Asher to establish an alibi. This and her identical appearance to Chloe catches the attention of her paternal grandfather, who'd been trying to track down Carin for his depressed son. In other words, Mielle's own actions trying to eliminate Aria leads to her finding her real family.
• Jailbait Taboo: Several adults find themselves quite enamored with Aria. The classier ones kick themselves and do their best to remember that she's not an adult and their attraction is really not appropriate.
• The Jailbait Wait: Legally speaking, Asher is not actually allowed to do more than hold Aria's hand since she's a minor; much teasing ensues. He eventually starts kissing her a year before he is technically allowed, only Cain takes it poorly.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Aria's admittedly sly, manipulative, and enjoys making her enemies squirm as befitting her self-image as a "villainess". However, for as self-serving as she is, Aria genuinely desires to reward those who serve her and only really seeks to hurt those who deserve it like Mielle. She even averts being a Bad Boss to most of her maids with the exception of Berry, and even that came from knowing Berry, in the first timeline, was the one who framed Aria for murder and most likely poisoned her mother. In short, Aria desires only to be a villain towards other villains.
• Just Between You and Me: What kicks off the plot, if Mielle hadn’t bragged to Aria how Mielle set Aria up in the first timeline, she would never have gotten the drive for vengeance to go back and destroy Mielle in the second timeline.
• Kick Them While They're Down: After being sentenced to death but before the actual execution, Aria honestly believed that Mielle was a truly good person and regretted everything she had done to her. Then Mielle showed her true colors while laughing that Aria had been manipulated by Mielle the entire time.
• King Incognito: Asher turns out to be the Crown Prince, Asterope Franz. He reveals this to Aria after some time, but maintains this for the most part until the opening ceremony of the academy, which gives him enough power to jilt the Aristocratic Party.
• Lady in Red:
  • Aria is this during the first timeline; in the second, while she sometimes uses her ability to wrap men around her finger, it only goes as far as tempting them, and, once she gets into a serious relationship with Asher, she stops using this ability to manipulate, although using it to tease her lover is something she continues to enjoy.
  • Aria's mother has shades of this and is often seen as a combination of this and a Brainless Beauty. Her actions however show that Aria has come by her personality, intellect, and other traits honestly and then taken it up to eleven. When she decides to work with her daughter to dismantle the count household after Mielle tries to frame Aria for attempted murder, she's able to read and play people like a fiddle.
• Lampshade Hanging: A page in the manhwa has Carin and Aria discussing Aria’s new relationship with Crown Prince Asher. When Aria finishes telling the story her mother remarks “It sounds like something out of a novel!”, with Aria concurring “It really does feel like I’m in a novel.”
• Like Father, Like Son: Cain is more like his father than he would like to admit. It does not take him long to start lusting after Aria.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Aria is the only member of Crown Prince Asterope's think-tank who is unaware of Asher's identity (at first, that is). Aria and her mother are also routinely kept ignorant of things Roscent-related. Aria is the only member for the Roscent family not aware that Mielle's sixteenth birthday ball is where her betrothal to Oscar will be officially announced, much to her dismay (not because she loved Oscar anymore; she had hoped to use Oscar against Mielle in some way).
  • The Fredericks use the fact that Oscar is at school to keep the guy uninformed about their plans. Even when his sister plans the coup against Prince Asher, Oscar is not allowed to know more than necessary, which is why he's locked up in his own room on the day of the coup. He ends up betraying Isis and the Aristocratic Party by using what knowledge he had of the nobles' distrust one another to have them backstab each other for hope of clemancy.
• Lord Country: The king of Croa is named Lohan Croa.
• Lost Orphaned Royalty: Aria's biological father is a nobleman and (abandoned) stepson of a prince, making her the granddaughter of Marquis Piaast.
• Love at First Sight: Rain Pinonoire, Asher's right-hand man privately believes that Asher fell in love with Aria at first sight. The people themselves aren't so certain. Chloe also fell in love with Carin shortly after they met, to where he fell into depression when he was unable to fulfill his promise to her after being deported to Croa.
• Lust Object: The Countess for the Count. Aria for Cain. The apple really did not fall far from the tree.
• Malicious Slander: Aria is able to reframe her initial poor reputation as being nothing but slander by her sister. At the point the story gets going, she has been rude and bratty, but her perfect manners in public and good business sense lead people to believe it must have been deliberate attempts to ruin her reputation.
• Mama Bear: The Countess may seem inattentive to Aria, but whenever she gets the sense Aria's in danger, she immediately focuses all her energy on making sure Aria's safe. She's enraged when she just finds out about the carriage incident and rushes to Aria's side after she's almost poisoned. The Countess is also visibly disgusted when her husband tries to set Aria up with Rain. Finally, after Aria gets put on trial when Mielle frames her for pushing Count Roscent down the stairs, she joins forces with her daughter to drain the count's assets dry.
  • Aria herself in the epilogue side story, as when she discovers any threats to Bliss she reverts to her villainess persona effortlessly to wipe them out. She absolutely ruins Ruby AND her family’s future when she discovers what she has been doing to Bliss. Then when Tiaran slips up and reveals the existence of the secret healing spring in her home village, Aria threatens to arrive at the village bearing her severed head if Tiaran doesn’t immediately ride back and convince her village’s elders to give her the water she needs to save Bliss’s life.
• Manipulative Bastard: Mielle is this all the way, especially in the original timeline. However, Aria suspects Mielle was only successful in the original timeline because of Emma, supported by Mielle's lack of success in the second timeline after Emma is executed. Throughout the second timeline, Aria is this and far better at it compared to Mielle, though she's a comparatively benign example, only going after those who've wronged her and primarily using temptation rather than other means (such as Gaslighting).
• Marry for Love: Sarah and Marquis Vincent get married because they very deeply and purely love each other. Their love even brings a cynic like Aria to tears, and they are subsequently shown to be Happily Married. In the beginning of the epilogue, Aria's mother, Carin, marries Chloe due to their mutual attraction. Likewise, Aria and Asher also get married in the epilogue, because they are in love with each other. Eventually, Jessie marries Hans, not because of his super-excellent prospects, but because they are in love and have been dating since both of their situations and prospects were much bleaker.
• Meaningful Name: Aria was named for the solo songs of opera since her mother wished for her to be self-sufficient.
• Mirror Character: Aria eventually realizes that she and Asher were very similar in the first timeline being brilliant people who were misled by bad advice and ending up in tragic circumstances. She feels incredibly embarrassed for her previous low opinion of the crown prince.
• Mission from God: When Aria discovers the fragments of the hourglass in her bed right after seeing it as she mysteriously reincarnates at the start of the story, she decides God has endorsed her plan for revenge in her new life. This is never directly confirmed but she does end up meeting God after drinking a drop of the enchanted healing water and reiterates that she believes God used her this way and she is pissed. God’s answer is not legible to the reader and Aria does not elaborate on it besides it being "reassuring" so it’s not really known if God really is the one to set Aria on her path.
• Mistaken Identity: Though Aria and Asher meet for the first time very early in the story, a long-running thread in the first season is each of them getting the wrong idea of who the other is. Due to Aria deliberately wearing a dress of Mielle’s bearing the House Frederick seal at the time Asher meets her and his knowledge of the rumors about what Aria is supposedly like, he mistakes her for Mielle who he has also never met. And due to terrible impression he leaves behind, Aria makes sure to have Mielle keep wearing the dress to make sure everyone associates her with it. Meanwhile Aria assumes that she’s being pursued by some “country noble,” and due to Asher’s need for secrecy, he waits a long time to correct her.
• The Mole: Vika Layers is Asher's in the Aristocratic Party.
• My Beloved Minions: Since Aria learned in her past life that all of the maids were working for Mielle to conspire against her, she quickly turns the tables in her next life by making sure to win them all over so Mielle loses access to them. She makes it very clear in the series that loyalty to her will lead to great success, making sure to shower Jessie and later Annie in gifts so the maids understand being one of “Aria’s people” will benefit them. This is solidified when Annie’s good work for Aria leads to her marrying a noble and moving up in the world. Throughout the series Aria continues to be protective of Jessie and Annie, even going out of her way to ensure Hans is able to rise above his commoner status so he’ll be a good husband for Jessie when she realizes Jessie has fallen for him.
• Nice Guy: Despite her horrible life in the first timeline, in the second timeline Aria does encounter genuinely kind and good people.
  • Jessie, her first maid, was the only one in the first timeline to give her genuinely good advice and try to help steer Aria on the right path. Out of gratitude and guilt for the way she treated her, Aria does her best in the second timeline to be kind to Jessie. She even has trouble when encouraged to be cruel to Berry and Mielle after she becomes a maid.
  • Sarah is nothing but polite and courteous and has a gentle heart which helps her to win over the equally kind hearted Marquis Vincent… and unintentionally Aria as well.
  • Oscar is the Token Good Teammate of the Frederick Family which is why he’s the only one of the aristocrats to survive.
  • Chloe, Aria’s biological father and his parents are kind and loving and are absolutely delighted to find out about Aria which befuddles her due to never having family that was warm and affectionate.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Had Mielle not decided to gloat about her victory over Aria just as she was about to be executed, Aria would not have discovered her ability to turn back time or take revenge on both her and the Aristocratic Party. Aria turns out to be a far more effective villainess than Mielle could be on her own.
  • Later, Mielle attempting to murder her own father to frame Aria backfires on her when Asher comes to Aria's rescue, so all she ends up accomplishing is making herself look like an insane addict, ruining her own reputation. Not to mention this causes Cain to take over, allowing Aria and Carin the chance to milk as much money from the count's fortune for themselves due to Cain's inexperience.
• Not Blood Siblings: How Cain justifies to himself his lust for Aria. However, he is the only one to thinks so, everyone who notices his sexual interest in Aria is disgusted. This includes Aria, her mother, all of the servants, and even Mielle. Although Mielle seems to be disgusted because of her abhorrence of Aria, rather than any moral factor.
• Not Good with Rejection: Isis Frederick does not take it well when anything doesn't go her way. This is first seen clearly with her treatment of Oscar. The Crown Prince's rejection of her assumed power in his affairs takes this even further, being her motive for planning and enacting a treasonous plot to have him deposed.
• Not Hyperbole: In the beginning of the story Aria makes a lot of comments about having had to eat grass. The ones listening and the readers thought that she was just being a bit of a brat about having to eat vegetables. Asher's childhood memory of meeting little Aria actually shows her eating grass out of hunger.
• "Not So Different" Remark: At the execution of Isis and all the nobles for treason, Asher muses that his motivations for taking Isis down with such brutality make him very similar to Aria, despite her beliefs in him being a saint compared to her. He then indulges himself by holding up Isis’s severed head to the cheering crowd.
• Only Sane Man: Oscar is the only member of his family sane enough to realize that the Crown Prince has caught on to their plot and that if they don't desist, they will be executed for treason. His repeated efforts to convince them of this are rewarded with the family confining and starving the guy while they proceed with their plans.
• Parental Abandonment: More than a few characters have a case of this.
  • Aria's biological father was one of her mother's clients, her mother isn't sure which one, and is therefore not in the picture. Turns out to not actually be the case, Aria is the splitting image of a man who had promised to marry her but didn't return. It is later revealed that the man is Chloe, the bastard son of Marquis Piaast and Violet, who had been forced to marry to a minor prince of the empire during their engagement. Once that prince found out that his ill-gotten wife had cheated on him with her ex-fiancé, he had both mother and son exiled, separating his daughter (Frey) from her mother and brother and resulting in Chloe being stuck in Croa severely depressed. This obviously rendered Chloe unable to be with Carin, and consequently, Aria, whom he didn't even know existed, which he regretted. He is eventually able to return to the picture.
  • Count Roscent's first wife died after giving birth to Mielle, giving both Cain and Mielle a case of Missing Mom.
  • Asher's mother was assassinated, while his father might as well not be there for all the things he actually does (nothing, by the way).
  • Aria's mother, Carin, was a foundling who had been abandoned on the streets as an infant.
• Parental Substitute: Emma is a beloved mother figure for Mielle, and was the one to encourage and teach Mielle her wicked ways. Part of Aria's Revenge is ensuring that Emma gets framed trying to poison her and gets the death penalty.
• Parents as People: The Countess is self-centered and spends more attention to her relaxation than her daughter's circumstances, and even has directly told Aria that her birth was a burden. But, as Aria frequently admits to herself, the Countess could have very easily abandoned her (as most people in her situation would) but chose not to do so. Additionally, although she is generally quite laissez-faire, whenever Aria asks for help, the Countess does her best to back Aria up. Later on, the Countess shows that, for all her neglect, should Aria be in danger, she'd immediately pull up the stakes to save her. Her very reasonable fears for Aria's safety whenever something or someone threatens it (such as attempted murder by a servant) highlight this. After Aria gets puts on trial for attempted murder because of Mielle, she starts working with her daughter to drag the household down.
• Passive Aggressive Combat: Aria and Mielle engage in this all the damn time when they're in public.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: Aria's methods of getting revenge involve turning the tables against Mielle, Isis and all those who genuinely deserve it by being an even worse villain. However, Aria truly avoids become an outright monster because she never goes after innocent people (even if she uses them, Aria makes sure they're properly rewarded for wittingly/unwittingly aiding her).
• Poor Communication Kills: Aria initially doesn't have anything against her stepfather, Count Roscente. However, when he apparently passes off Aria's achievements as Mielle's, she instantly turns her back on winning him over and never looks back. Unfortunately for him, this is based on a misunderstanding: He never said Mielle did anything but rather that his daughter did it and people simply assumed he was talking about Mielle. Though in all fairness, he didn't try very hard to correct the misunderstanding either.
• Privilege Makes You Evil: Very much the case for Mielle, Isis, and almost all the rest of the Aristocratic Party.
• The Purge: Asher carries out one on the conspiring aristocrats led by Isis.
• Rage Breaking Point: After reincarnating, Aria has worked over time to keep her natural temper from flaring in public as her outrageous tantrums in the past are what gave her the reputation that got her killed in her past life. But her temper finally boils over in front of everyone when she learns that the respect she thought she’d gained from Count Roscent was a lie and he’d been using her own accomplishments to prop up his biological daughter instead^note Though this is technically a misunderstanding, it's one he didn't bother to correct, leaving her shouting in rage as she realizes that even if she were to be the perfect child, the Count will never see her as his child. As people like Sarah have never seen this side of Aria before they’re legitimately shocked to see her ugly side. Fortunately for Aria, she uses her hourglass just in time to avoid the consequences of this outburst and plays things cool after the reset.
• Reset Button: Aria's hourglass allows her to reverse time for five minutes once a day. It is very, very useful as long as she keeps track of time.
• Revenge: The entire story revolves around this. Aria has ample reason to want to exact this on the Roscents and a few others, and she is determined to do so to the end. Additionally, Asher has many good reasons for wanting revenge on the Aristocratic Party and is likewise determined to see it through, come Hell or high water. There's also the villainous example of Isis: hers is less successful.
• Right for the Wrong Reasons: Mielle really is the culprit of her father's attempted murder, but not because of where Aria was at the time.
• Romantic False Lead: Oscar Frederick.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: Asterope "Asher" Franz, the Crown Prince, is very active politically and militarily. It turns out that he is also doing all of his father's work on top of that, making this doubly true. Frey, another member of the royal family, works as a judge despite not needing to work as a royal.
• Royalty Superpower: Some members of the imperial family can develop superpowers when they are in danger. Asher is capable of teleporting. Aria's biological father is the illegitimate son of a minor prince's wife who was baptized with special holy water, which is why Aria also has a power. It is noted that individuals who get the power but are not from the imperial family proper have a more limited version.
• Sarcastic Confession: Mielle tries to bring up Aria’s broken bracelet during Aria’s trial for pushing her father down the stairs which Mielle attempted to frame her for. Aria shows an identical bracelet on her wrist and when Mielle protests, Asher sneeringly asks if she’s accusing him of forging evidence to save his lover. Which probably was exactly what he did but because he’s the Crown Prince and there’s no way to prove it, it just comes off like Mielle forged the bracelet to try to frame Aria.
• Secret Identity: Aria is the mysterious "Investor A", and doesn't let anyone who is not involved in her work under that identity know until the academy's grand opening.
• Secret Relationship: Aria and Asher, prior to the academy's opening ceremony.
• Secret Room: The novel mentions that Aria’s hiding place for her hourglass is her own secret room connected to her bedroom and that everyone in the Roscent manor has their own to escape to if needed… and that Aria only discovered hers by accident in the last timeline. The family had deliberately not told her about it and she discovered hers too late for it to save her life. The hidden room is still in the manhwa but its purpose isn’t mentioned.
• Selective Obliviousness: One reason Aria does not figure out Asher's identity is because she thinks of the Crown Prince as the politically incompetent fool who was usurped and forcibly married to Isis. The Aristocratic Party often has shades of this, especially where Vika Layers is concerned.
• Self-Made Man: Woman, in this case. Aria speculates and invests heavily, earning herself a vast fortune and the praise and awe of thousands.
• Self-Made Orphan: Mielle attempts this on her father, solely in order to frame Aria for the deed. She is completely unrepentant and, upon finding out that her father doesn't forgive her after he recovers, wishes she had pushed him from higher up.
• Sleeping Their Way to the Top: Both the novel and the webtoon show inciting incidents where Carin resolved to find and woo a rich suitor in the brothel because it was the only way out of the deep poverty and dangerous life she and her daughter were living. Eventually she snagged Count Roscent in a relationship both knew wasn’t for love. The novel shows that Carin resolved to do this earlier in life than in the manga and in fact was upset when her pregnancy with Aria ruined her first chance at getting out by marrying a baron.
• Sketchy Successor: Lohan has elements of this trope, despite otherwise being an effective, reasonable, and capable monarch. In particular, he ignores etiquette and manners, enjoys being The Gadfly, and declines giving up his bachelorhood in favour of being a flirt.
• Social Climber: Annie, a maid sent by Mielle to spy on Aria is this. Aria manages to sway Annie to switch sides by offering her the opportunity of an advantageous marriage.
• Son of a Whore: Prostitution is highly stigmatic and Aria is largely despised by both nobles and commoners for being the daughter of a prostitute.
• Spanner in the Works:
  • Asher teleporting Aria away after Mielle frames her for attempted murder on Count Roscent not only prevents her from framing Aria but implicates herself instead, leading to her reputation taking a nosedive.
  • Aria is this to Isis’s plans to marry Asher. By having a chance encounter that led to him being intrigued caused a domino effect that allows Asher to cause trouble for the Aristocratic party and firmly refuse to marry Isis, something he was never able to do in the first timeline.
• Smarter Than You Look: Aria, to the surprise of everyone who meets her, even herself. She proves to be a fast learner under proper tutoring to where she quickly surpasses Mielle. This also applies to her mother Carin, who also appears to be a Brainless Beauty, but proves sharper than she lets on.
• Smug Snake: Mielle appears to think herself as clever and above Aria. In reality, Aria realizes Mielle's schemes in the original timeline only succeeded because of the help of other people, whether it be Isis or Emma, and she's far less effective on her own power.
• Stay in the Kitchen: Mielle tries to espouse this to a group of baronesses and commoners who help manage the businesses of their husbands, and it only makes her look closeminded and ruins her chances of networking with them. Aria speaking in favor of the women taking an active hand in their livelihoods only endears her to them.
• Strong Family Resemblance: Though she takes a lot from her mother, especially in terms of personality, Aria is the spitting image of her biological father Chloe. His older sister Frey remarks on it and even states how much Aria looks like him when dressed in one of his old outfits. Likewise, her paternal grandfather Marquis Piaast is able to immediately confirm Aria is his granddaughter after seeing her in person.
• The Tease: Aria and Asher do this to each other about a third of the time they are together.
• Teleportation: Asher has this ability.
• Time Travel: Aria turns time by over a decade, back to the age of fourteen. Subsequently, she can turn time back five minutes once a day.
• Tongue Trauma: Aria's tongue was cut off and salted prior to her execution. She also mentions she did this to Jessie in the previous timeline, which she regrets doing in hindsight knowing Jessie was the only servant that tried to advise her.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Played with. To most people, they assume Mielle does this as more stuff backfires on her while completely unaware Mielle was always this awful and her mask's starting to slip with each of Aria's victories.
• Took a Level in Kindness: From nearly everyone’s perspective, this is what happened with Aria. Of course, the truth was for the most part she was pretending in order to better manipulate everyone.
• Villain Protagonist: Aria can be very cruel and doesn't deny, at least to herself, that she and Mielle are pretty similar. Aria is just smarter. However, with time, Aria actually grows and develops past her petty grudges, while Mielle remains a foolish, vicious child.
• Villain with Good Publicity: In the first timeline, Mielle and Isis were this.
• Vitriolic Best Friends: Lohan and Asher are this. They're constantly throwing barbs at each other, threatening violence, desertion by teleportation, or war, which often send their retainers into a panic. On the other hand, they're very familiar with each other and take the insults in strides; they trust each other enough to work together as a team. When Isis reaches out to Lohan to marry him and start a coup in her country, Lohan immediately notifies Asher; the two of them hatch a long-term plan to deceive Isis and the Aristocratic Party into thinking Lohan is their ally, while collecting evidence against them. They succeed in capturing the traitors red-handed, while drafting a peace treaty between the two countries for 50 years.
• Undying Loyalty: Emma towards Mielle. She has raised the girl herself and even gets executed while covering for Mielle.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Mielle makes no effort to come to Emma's defense when Berry confesses that Emma forced her to poison Aria, with Aria noting how Mielle is too much of a coward to aid the woman who raised her from infancy. This becomes a pattern with Mielle the more she's defeated by Aria; she's willing to throw her loved ones under the bus to further her own goals. This leads Mielle into shoving her father down the stairs; blackmailing Isis into helping her escape from house arrest; and trying to poison her guardian (Annie) when she had enough of being a maid.
• Villain Cred: Aria frequently finds herself shockingly impressed by the depths of Mielle’s acts of villainy, especially when Aria’s actions in the second timeline cause Mielle to start retaliating against her rather much sooner than in the first timeline and with much more ferocity.
• What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?:
  • Aria understands and exploits romantic love, but platonic love tends to elude her as well as actually feeling love herself. Hence she often tries to explain away moments such as realizing she truly cares for Sarah or that she actually has developed some genuine feelings for Oscar, both times convincing herself it’s only because of their value as pawns. Similarly, the idea of being close to family members is foreign to her. Eventually she accepts that Sarah truly is a friend, that she truly loves Asher, that it is possible to receive unconditional love and support from her biological family that she finally discovers, and that without even realizing why, she deeply wishes to protect and care for Bliss and Lippe as their mother.
• Wicked Stepmother:
  • Inverted in the prominent example of Countess Roscent. She has never done anything bad to Cain and Mielle, who insult and belittle her for being a former common prostitute, with Mielle actively trying to kill her. It's only after Mielle tries to frame Aria for attempted murder against Count Roscent, on top of a previous incident where Aria got poisoned by Berry, that Carin finally has enough and works with her daughter to drag the household down.
  • Averted in the more subtle example of Chloe's father, Marquis Piaast. Despite the lack of interaction between him and his stepdaughter, it is made very clear that he cares for her about as much as he does his own son. However, the man himself seems to believe himself to play this straight, only downplayed, due to his actions having "stolen" Frey's mother and brother from her.
  • On the other hand, Count Roscent definitely plays this straight. Not only does he turn a blind eye to his children's abuse of their stepmother and sister, he also clearly favors his children over both his wife and stepdaughter. He does only the absolute bare minimum for Aria while treating her like a disposable pawn the moment she appears to have any worth. He doesn't treat Carin any better, using her as a shield from other nobles who wanted him to marry their daughters, and going off on "business trips" to see other women. It's why Carin has no issues with divorcing him and leaving him in a nursing home for good.
• World's Most Beautiful Woman: Aria is the most beautiful woman in the empire. No one else is considered to be even in the same ballpark.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Mielle's main specialty was to bait Aria into attacking her and then showing it off in public to make herself look good and Aria look terrible. Aria didn't realize what she was doing until the moment of her execution. When she goes back in time, now she's the one with more information and ability to frame Mielle back.
• Wrong Assumption: Aria assumes because the Crown Prince married Isis and mishandled the casino in the first timeline that he was an idiot and pathetic puppet for the Aristocratic party. In truth, Asher is just as brilliant a schemer as her; he only failed to bring down the Aristocratic party because of bad advice. With Aria there to tell him things such as the casino being a live grenade, he's able to successfully take back power from the party in the 2nd timeline.
• You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Aria doesn't give herself much credit for her business success because she has knowledge of the future to guide her actions. However, Asher points out that true intelligence is not really the facts you know but how you apply that information, which is something that never occurred to her.
• Younger Than They Look: Aria starts a year older than Mielle but looking approximately the same age due to childhood malnutrition. However, she seems to grow up quite a bit faster. Later in the story adults getting all hot and bothered over and have to stop and remind themselves that she is not an adult and they need to behave more maturely. It's implied the quick aging is because her hourglass ability is causing her to age faster.

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