A young woman dies one day, hit by a car on her way back home from college. However, she wakes up reborn in another world, slowly realizing she landed in an adult reverse-harem novel titled "Hell's Flower" she read back in her previous life. The problem is, she's reincarnated as Roxana Agriche, daughter of a prominent and very villainous family which ended up slaughtered by the titular female lead in revenge for kidnapping and murdering her older brother.
While original novel's Roxana was a fairly minor character who was killed along with the rest of her family, this one is determined to rise in the ranks of her cutthroat family and stops at nothing to save herself. So when her father's men bring home a prisoner: Cassis, heir of the rival Pedelian family, Roxana's decision to save him completely alters the book's plot.
The Way To Protect the Female Lead's Older Brother by Kin (also translated as How To Protect the Heroine's Older Brother and licensed in English as Roxana) is a Korean light novel, also adapted to a webcomic. The novel is finished while the webcomic is currently on hiatus. You can read the webtoon here
on Tapas. Both novel translation and webtoon are also available on Radish app.
Warning: A good portion of the Tropes elaborated here contains spoilers from the completed Webnovel. You have been warned.
This work provides the following tropes:
- Abusive Parents: Lant Agriche encourages his kids to compete among themselves and murder each other in order to rise in the ranks, openly derides and humiliates them if they fall short off his expectations and outright kills them when he ultimately decides they're not up to his insanely high standards. Many of his wives are not much better.
- The Ace: Roxana is beautiful, smart and extremely accomplished in almost everything she tries her hand at. Same goes for Dion. Together they take the top spot in their father's personal ranking of his children.
- Acquired Poison Immunity: All Agriches practice mithridatism to keep themselves safe. Each of them keeps the nature and dosage of the chosen poison secret, save for their personal physicians.
- Aloof Big Brother: Dion is Lant's most successful child who often stays away from family estate and doesn't interact much with his siblings.
- Animal Eye Spy: Roxana uses some of her butterflies for reckon missions.
- Aristocrats Are Evil: Agriches. Listing all their atrocities would take ages.
- Battle Butler: Roxana's personal maid, Emily, who uses combat magic to fight.
- The Beastmaster: A specialty of White Pherions. Roxana with her butterflies is arguably one, albeit she admits to stealing that page from Pherions' book.
- Because You Were Nice to Me: Due to his Parental Issues Jeremy is desperately starved for affection and clings to Roxana who seems to be the only person to genuinely treat him well.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Due to Jeremy's differing impression of Sylvia in the newer timeline and as a ripple effect of the changes Roxana made, he spent more time bickering with her than not.
- Big Brother Instinct: Cassis is very protective of Sylvia and they share a close bond.
- Big Brother Worship: Sylvia towards Cassis. She suffers from a massive Freak Out when she learns of his fate in the original novel.
- Big Labyrinthine Building: Agriche manor. The building plans Roxana shows Cassis consist of several maps that need to be overlayed on each other, and Roxana later reveals she still did not show him all of it.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: Agriches take this trope to an almost ridiculous level. Other houses, save for possibly Pedelians, are also implied to have some issues.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Agriches are firmly on the black side and Roxana is barely lighter than that. Much later, other families, with the exception of Pedelians, all have their own skeletons in their closets exposed such as Veritiums and their obsession with beauty and making living puppets out of corpses, and a majority of the Gasteur family being addicted to drugs supplied to them by Agriches.
- Black Comedy: Quite a lot of it, but Maria scolding Dion for killing Ashil, five years after the fact and in the middle of a very dangerous situation, has to take the cake.
- When Roxana orchestrates her takeover in the Agriche estate, Lant, incapacitated inside a magic circle, yells for help at Jeremy, who just came into the room. Jeremy runs over, only to step on him and yell at Dion to stop touching Roxana's hand. All while Fontaine is bleeding to death on the floor next to them.
- Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: Three Agriche daughters introduced so far: Roxana, Griselda and Charlotte, respectively.
- Blood from the Mouth: Roxana regularly coughs blood due to intentionally poisoning herself.
- Blood Magic: Fontaine's blood is used to activate a magic circle to trap Lant inside.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: Some Agriches are so out of touch with reality even other members of the family consider them to be too much.
- Break the Haughty: Agriches try to to this to Cassis, but he manages to keep his pride.
- Brother–Sister Team: Roxana and Jeremy. To a lesser, and more enigmatic extent, Roxana and Dion.
- Butterfly of Death and Rebirth: Possibly. Original Roxana was killed by a butterfly swarm controlled by Sylvia's love interest from the Pherion family. Reborn Roxana decides to take advantage of her knowledge from the original novel to find the eggs and bind the swarm to herself before the member of Pherions does.
- This is pretty much confirmed in the "bad ending" side story, where dying Roxana discusses reincarnation with Dion.
- Cast from Lifespan: Emily can use offensive magic at the cost of her own vitality.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Agriches, of course. Even less villainous ones are treated with distrust due to being potential weak link if anyone was revealed to care about them.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Usual fate of Agriche's prisoners before being killed.
- Agriches put Cassis through this until Roxana asks for him as her "toy".
- Later Charlotte is put in the torture chamber for three weeks for disobeying Lant's orders and attacking Cassis.
- Roxana mentions one of her elder sisters was tortured and burned to death for attempting to escape the family estate.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The Five Great Families: Pedelians of Blue, Pherions of White, Veritiums of Gold, Gasteurs of Red and Agriches of Black.
- This also corresponds with their Hair Colors, with Pedelians having silver hair with bluish tint, white-haired Pherions, ginger Noel Veritium and red-haired Luzak Gasteur and, finally, several black-haired Agriches.
- Roxana's butterflies: red ones for devouring her victims, purple ones for creating illusions. Roxana herself is shown wearing increasingly more red and purple clothes and jewelry as the story goes on.
- In the "bad ending" side story the butterflies turn black as they begin devouring more of Roxana's blood, who then starts wearing white.
- The glowing blue butterfly on Roxana's finger seen on the official webtoon cover above symbolizes Cassis.
- Cool Big Sis: Roxana for Jeremy, even though there's only a year of difference between them.
- Costume Porn: Taken up to eleven in the webcomic, even by otome isekai standards. Roxana usually wears at least one Pimped-Out Dress per each issue. Other characters are not far behind.
- Dark Horse Sibling: Played with. Roxana in the original novel was a minor character who barely managed to stay alive in her family, was viewed as pathetically weak and ended up massacred along with other Agriches. Reborn Roxana from a young age does everything to achieve high position among her siblings and is heavily favored by her father.
- Decadent Court: Not exactly court, but Agriches' estate is not a place you're likely to survive long in if you're weak.
- Downer Ending: Explored in the "bad ending" side story, where Roxana dies due to blood depletion and her health deteriorating because of her butterflies.
- Driven to Suicide: Jeremy's mother. Whether she did that only out of fear of her son or something else remains to be seen.
- Epic Fail: Charlotte, every time she appears onscreen. First Roxana casually cuts her face in reaction to Charlotte throwing a tantrum over Roxana receiving Cassis, then she's further humiliated and beaten by Jeremy, who goads her into attacking Cassis. Then Cassis himself, while still shackled and weak from his injuries, manages to overpower Charlotte, who is later punished for her insolence by being put in the torture room for three weeks. After getting released she immediately mouths off to Roxana again, who this time tests her hallucination-inducing butterflies on Charlotte, leaving her traumatized.
- Escaped Animal Rampage: During Cassis' first escape attempt some giant spiders are inexplicably (read: Jeremy) let out of their cages, causing rampage at Maria's tea party.
- Establishing Character Moment: Particularly in the webtoon, Maria is introduced as a cutesy woman who speaks with Roxana quite affectionately, inviting her to her tea party. Several panels later she decapitates one of her own maids with a parasol for speaking out of turn and calmly continues her walk in the garden while covered in blood.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: In the original novel Jeremy is a minor villain who falls for the female lead and in the new storyline he still is the same messed up person, but he genuinely loves Roxana and would do anything for her.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Jeremy is a murderous Psychopathic Manchild, but even he is disturbed how Ax-Crazy Maria is. He's also shocked and outraged at Dion for attacking Sierra.
- Everyone Loves Blondes: Roxana, Sierra and Sylvia are all noted in-story to be very beautiful.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Roxana notes she's not surprised Agriches ended up killing Cassis pretty quickly in the original novel - he made them unsettled just by not being as twisted as they are.
- In the original story Jeremy seems quite baffled by Sylvia's hysterical reaction when he tells her his family killed her brother.
- Evil Is Petty: Lant Agriche orders the kidnapping, torture and eventual murder of Cassis over some minor spat with Lissel Pedelian.
- Family Eye Resemblance: At least several of Lant's kids have inherited his signature red eyes. The ones shown so far are Roxana, Dion and Griselda. Lant's flashback reveals his father also had red eyes.
- Pedelians have gold eyes. In the novels Sylvia and Cassis got this trait from their father, but it seems to be coming from their mother in the webtoon.
- Feuding Families: Agriches and Pedelians. Notably they became this only after it was revealed Agriches murdered Cassis, which apparently happened over some minor slight. In the original book it ends up with the entire Agriche family murdered by Sylvia Pedelian and her love interests from other houses.
- Fille Fatale: Roxana is taught seduction at eight, which is apparently common for Agriche girls.
- Florence Nightingale Effect: To a degree. Roxana patches Cassis up after he's badly beaten by Lant, and they both realize they're attracted to each other. However, Roxana is deliberately trying to make Cassis feel indebted to her, to save herself from Pedelians' inevitable revenge on Agriches, and coldly notes hormonal teenagers are bound to feel like that. Not to mention she previously manipulated Jeremy into goading Charlotte into attacking Cassis before Lant got to him.
- Foreshadowing: Roxana making Charlotte hallucinate being devoured by butterflies hints there's more to her powers than it seems and foreshadows the way she helps Cassis escape Agriches without raising suspicion.
- Freudian Trio: The three top Agriche children:
- Superego: Stoic, emotionless, aloof Dion.
- Ego: Manipulative, sugar-and-ice Roxana, who is nevertheless motivated by both love and revenge.
- Id: Brash, impulsive, violent Jeremy.
- Garden of Evil: Agriches like to experiment with cultivating poisonous and carnivorous plants, and it's actually hard to find a flower in their gardens that's not toxic to some degree.
- The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Subverted with Roxana and Charlotte. While Charlotte is furious over Roxana receiving Cassis as her "toy", and swears to get revenge on her one day, Roxana doesn't even consider her a rival due to their age difference and power imbalance. She still slaps Charlotte around for a bit and leaves her to be beaten by Jeremy.
- He-Man Woman Hater: Roxana mentions Luzak Gasteur has a phobia of women. He's still quite polite, if stilted, towards her during their brief interaction.
- Her Boyfriend's Jacket: Cassis gives Roxana his coat at Wigdrasil. Twice. She covers the second one with illusion while hastily leaving Wigdrasil, but uncovers it later after overthrowing Lant, to rub it in Dion's face.
- High Turnover Rate: It's a miracle anyone is willing to work for Agriches considering, for example, Maria's unfortunate tendency to kill her maids on an almost daily basis. Roxana mentions both Dion and Fontaine casually killing their tutors every once in a while. She also rarely bothers to remember names or faces of the family servants, save for very few exceptions.
- Hollywood Costuming: While this is a fantasy setting, so no complaints can be levelled at anachronistic apparel, not much thought was given to the costumes of people seen in the background at Wigdrasil, who are wearing hats and carrying parasols at the banquet taking place inside the building, during winter.
- Incest Subtext: Roxana/Dion, with their last scene together before the timeskip being ambiguous enough to make many readers assume Dion put her through a Scarpia Ultimatum to keep his mouth shut about her letting Cassis escape. While this was disproven during their post-timeskip conversation, the incestuous undertones in their interactions are still quite heavy. In fact, Roxana point blank tells Dion it would be easier for him if he just lusted after her instead of wanting something more.
- This is made even more explicit in the "bad ending" side story.
- To a more one-sided degree, Roxana/Jeremy. Jeremy is extremely possessive of her attention, best evidenced when he tries to get Cassis killed by Charlotte after Roxana expresses her interest in Cassis. He also explodes at anyone even looking at Roxana wrong, to the point of beating at least several people during their stay at Wigdrasil (which is supposed to be a peaceful gathering) and almost gets into a fight with Luzak Gasteur, memeber of another powerful family, for staring at his sister too long or even just talking about her. Not to mention planning to destroy Roxana's butterflies before they hatched because he was concerned she was worsening her health for them and spent too much time in hatchery for his liking, and his mental breakdown when he's forced to kill Roxana's illusion during his evaluation. However, their relationship is much more amicable and less laden with tension than the one between Roxana and Dion, and Roxana ultimately treats him as just a younger brother she's particularly fond of.
- The webtoon milks it for all it's worth in the triumvirate scene with Roxana, Dion and Jeremy after they overthrow Lant.
- Taken to a full blown text by Fontaine, who's not even trying to hide his desire for Roxana and outright plans to marry her.
- This is probably more of a poor coloring choice by the webtoon artist than an actually intended implication, but Sylvia and Cassis' parents have both the same shade of hair and their mother has gold eyes, which is said to be a trademark Pedelian trait (in the novel it is their father who has it), suggesting they might be related.
- Kill the Ones You Love / Deadly Graduation: Toyed with. Each Agriche kid has to pass an evaluation involving killing an illusion of a loved one. Failure means death. It's implied Ashil failed because he was unable to kill an illusion of his mother or sister. Later Roxana has to kill Ashil's illusion and Jeremy has to kill Roxana's.
- Lima Syndrome: Roxana towards Cassis in the original novel. However, she was powerless to save him from being ultimately killed by her relatives.
- Love Makes You Dumb: Jeremy falls for Sylvia in the original novel and reveals to her his family murdered her brother. This results in Sylvia swearing revenge on Agriches and eventually causing their downfall.
- Mad Doctor: Griselda, at least if what Roxana says about her in the novel is to be believed.
- The Mafia: Agriches are an aristocratic version of this. Roxana outright compares Lant to a mafia don.
- Magic A Is Magic A: The rules of magic in the setting remain amazingly unclear, but so far it's established that the methods Roxana uses to control and command her butterflies are not magical, albeit the butterflies themselves are. Due to this, it takes her a lot of energy to control just a handful of them in the demilitarized zone of Wigdrasil, which has anti-magic barriers set around it.
- This is also why it ultimately costs her more effort and health than the member of White Pherions, who, due to his natural magical ability and his family's innate specialty could control his swarm much easier, and with no adverse health effects.
- It's also stated that Agriches overall (with the exception of Griselda) have no affinity for magic. They still can use magical objects, though.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: Lant Agriche has plenty of children with his numerous wives. However, due to his peculiar attitude towards raising them, he regularly culls their numbers.
- My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad: More like, "My brother can beat your sister", rather. Unlike the original novel, since Cassis is alive due to Roxana's action, Jeremy's relationship with Sylvia mostly consist of them admiring their own older siblings and bickering about who is better than the other whenever they interact.
- Nosebleed: Noel Veritium suffers from a minor one after seeing Roxana for the first time.
- Offing the Offspring: Lant has no problem killing off his children if he considers them a disappointment.
- Oh, Crap!: Roxana's reaction when her family kidnaps Cassis Pedelian, which finally hammers home the realization she's reliving the plot of the novel and it's going to end badly for the Agriches.
- Also later, when she learns Dion had slaughtered the Pedelian search party sent to find Cassis.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: When Roxana asks Lant for Cassis as her "toy", he agrees, noting she had her birthday recently after all. Roxana comments internally he must be particularly pleased with her, since he usually doesn't even bother remembering his children's birthdays.
- On the same occasion, several characters are surprised with Roxana's request, as she never expressed any interest in her father's captives before.
- Parental Favoritism: Lant's modus operandi when it comes to raising his kids. The top three who prove to be the best are allowed to eat dinner with him once a month.
- Parental Neglect: Maria towards Dion. According to Roxana, she bothers to pay attention to him once a year or so.
- Taken even further with Jeremy's unnamed mother who completely refused to interact with him and ultimately committed suicide when he tried to confront her.
- People Puppets: A specialty of Gold Veritiums.
- On a less professional level, Maria and several of Lant's other wives like to create living dolls out of unfortunate servants, using drugs and some sinister surgery.
- Poisonous Person: Roxana's bodily fluids are toxic due to her consuming increasing amount of poison to feed her butterflies.
- Power Trio: Lant allows the top three of his children who manage to prove themselves to him to have dinner with him every month. As of now the top three are Dion, Roxana and Jeremy. Dion apparently never attends, busy with other errands.
- They're also the leaders of the coup against their father.
- Pretty Butterflies: Roxana's ultimate weapon are swarms of carnivorous butterflies she commands by feeding them her poisonous blood. A lot of her clothing and jewelry are also decorated with butterfly motifs.
- Prisons Are Gymnasiums: After getting moved to a comfortable cell close to Roxana's quarters, Cassis uses his free time to excercise in order to increase his chances of escape.
- "Reborn as Villainess" Story: A notably dark example of the genre, with plenty of adult themes and a heroine who is basically a A Lighter Shade of Black compared to the villains.
- Somewhat Lampshaded when the main character considers killing herself in hopes of getting a better reincarnation and ultimately decides against it out of fear of landing in an even worse situation.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni / Sibling Yin-Yang: Cool, aloof Dion and hotblooded, childish Jeremy. Interestingly, Dion has red eyes while Jeremy's are blue.
- Rule of Three: The top three Agriche children: Dion, Roxana and Jeremy.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: Both Cassis and Roxana in the original novel.
- Sibling Rivalry: All of Lant's children are expected to compete among each other for his approval. On pain of death.
- Stockholm Syndrome: Arguably Cassis towards Roxana, although she was not responsible for his kidnapping, saved him from her family and ultimately helped him escape the Agriche estate. However, he's still unaware she manipulated some events to make his situation seem more hopeless in order to make him feel more indebted to her.
- Averted in the original novel in the case of Jeremy and Sylvia, who later kills him alongside other Agriches for what they did to her and Cassis.
- Strong Family Resemblance:
- Roxana otherwise looks a lot like her mother, only with wavy hair and Tsurime Eyes.
- Lant claims he would have killed Ashil earlier had he not looked so much like Sierra.
- Dion and Fontaine look like a younger and rougher versions of Lant, respectively.
- Maria calls Jeremy "a mini Lant Agriche", albeit Roxana herself notes he doesn't look much like their father.
- Averted in case of the green-eyed redhead Charlotte, who seems quite resentful of the fact, but played straight with her and her mother.
- Pedelians all have silver hair and gold eyes.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Roxana's heavy ingestion of increasing amounts of poison and frequent bloodletting in order to feed her butterflies actually have an adverse impact on her health and it's later outright stated she doesn't have much time left to live.
- After Roxana takes over the Agriche estate and locks herself in Lant's study waiting for Cassis, the entire household descends into chaos and anarchy, with other Agriche children, led by Jeremy, using the opportunity to kill indiscriminately. Griselda lampshades this, commenting that Lant should have realized, raising his children the way he did, that they would feel no love or loyalty to the family.
- The Swarm: Roxana's butterflies. One swarm devours everything on her command, the other, which she keeps secret, creates powerful illusions. However, she risks the high probability of losing control over them after a certain time and ending up being devoured herself.
- Time Skip: After Cassis' successful escape from Agriches the story flashes forward three years.
- Training from Hell / The Spartan Way: What Agriche children are put through since early age. Those deemed weak end up killed.
- Troubling Unchildlike Behavior: The desired end result of Agriche upbringing.
- Truce Zone: Wigdrasil, a demilitarized zone surrounded by magic-suppressing barriers in the central part of the continent, where annual meetings and banquets are held every winter.
- The Un-Favourite: While being one to Lant usually ends very quickly, it's implied Fontaine is also this while managing to remain still alive. Original Roxana seemed to be this.
- Unishment: After the fight at Maria's tea party Lant sends Dion out to capture the escaped beasts at the border of Agriches' lands. Roxana bitterly comments that they all know Dion isn't particularly bothered by this.
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Jeremy telling Sylvia about her brother results in Agriches being completely wiped out in the original story.
- Victoria's Secret Compartment: Early on, Roxana had to hide the Agriche mansion's map on her dress's cleavage while sneaking it to Cassis' prison room as she has nowhere else to hide the map with.
- Villainous Incest: According to Fontaine, inbreeding was common among Agriches few generations ago. He also openly lusts after Roxana and plans to marry her.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: What Agriche children are supposed to be towards Lant. Fontaine is particularly bitter about Dion being their father's favourite son.
- White Sheep: Roxana to the rest of her family. By a small margin.
- Original Roxana was apparently a more straightforward example.
- Ashil, which ends up with him being killed at fifteen.
- Who Writes This Crap?!: Reborn Roxana's reaction to some of the novel's more insane parts.
- Wrong Genre Savvy: Played for Laughs during Jeremy's encounter with Luzak Gasteur. Roxana, judging Luzak by what she read about him in the original novel, thinks to herself someone like him won't respond to Jeremy's provocations. Cue Luzak responding to Jeremy's provocations.
- You Must Be Cold: Cassis does it twice to Roxana at Wigdrasil, first time giving her his cloak when he encounters her walking in just her nightgown in the garden on a winter night (with Roxana initially mistaking him for Dion), then on the next day when they officially meet at the last banquet in Wigdrasil, where he gives her his coat.
- Jeremy also gives Roxana his coat in chapter 40, after scolding her for walking around in just her dress.
- You Remind Me of X: Roxana pulls this on Cassis, telling him he reminds her of her deceased older brother. Subverted, since she does it to manipulate his Big Brother Instinct and make him view her in the similar light to Sylvia, and she later admits to him he's not really like Ashil.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: Roxana is internally rolling her eyes every time Lant praises her by comparing her to himself.
