But I know my wishes mean nothing... because we are not the main characters of the novel.
- Sasha Sanchez
Sasha Sanchez and her mother are peasants under hire of the Serpentine family and they lived peacefully until the great plague hit the lands. First, her mother is taken and then the plague too took the lives of the Masters of the Serpentine household.
It was during the funeral that Sasha remembered her past as an Orphan Korean girl and that she possessed the body of the Final Boss of the novel. While vowing to protect the Serpentine children who are both her Childhood Friends and are like a family to her, the group is instead pitted into political intrigue that will shape and force them to be Driven to Villainy for their revenge.
Sasha decided to let herself be evil and fight for what has been denied to her and the Serpentine children by the world, a happily ever after.
A Fairytale for the Villains is originally a webnovel created by Nyangiwa Hyangshinlo (Kitty and Spices) of A Stepmother's Marchen fame.
A promotional comic can be found in Kakao and illustrated by Banana before it is officially adapted into a webcomic that is illustrated by Vena. The webcomic localized by Pocket Comics in English under the title "A Happy Ending for Villains"
.
Warning: A good portion of the Tropes elaborated here contains spoilers from the completed Webnovel. You have been warned.
A Fairytale for Villains contain the following tropes:
- Animal Motifs: The Serpentine family, like their name, had snakes as a motif. The original Sasha as the Final Boss of the original story is known by the title of "Queen of Vipers".
- Babies Ever After: The webnovel side stories reveal that Sasha and Benya had three children.
- Becoming the Mask: The reincarnated Sasha originally tried to stay strong and vowed to protect the Serpentine children from their fate and stray them from their potential doom and villainy. However, when she experienced first hand the turning point that warped and turn the original Lethias, Benya and Sasha to be villains in the original story, Sasha has decided to embrace her "canon" role as a villain from then on in vengeance.
- Break the Cutie: The imprisonment in the Gilded Cage that is the Serpentine clock tower and Estelle's death on top of others completely broke and destroyed what innocence and hope Sasha and the brothers had that it eventually drove them to be villains. Even the reincarnated Sasha is just as Driven to Villainy as the brothers were after experiencing them first hand.
- Childhood Friends: Sasha grew up with the Serpentine children and genuinely loved and cared for them along with seeing the Duke and Duchess as Parental Substitute due to how well they treated her and her mother with kindness.
- Childhood Friend Romance: Sasha eventually marries Benya by the end of the story.
- Driven to Villainy: The story and the reincarnated Sasha experiencing things first hand has her realize that the original Sasha, Benya and Lethias all became the villains due to a combination of greedy relatives trying to take over the estate and Estelle's death.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: It took much turns and trips for Sasha, Lethias and Benya to get their own justice to make their enemies pay for their crimes on them and earn the happy ending that had been denied to them.
- Eye Scream: Lethias lost his eye from an attack by a butler under hire from one of the Serpentine siblings uncle.
- Gilded Cage: Sasha and the siblings are later trapped in a tower (Later revealed to be the Serpentine family clock tower) by the relatives of the Serpentine family in order to protect them from the plague. In reality, they are actually scheming to take over the Serpentine family assets and estate by trapping the four children in the tower under said pretense with nobody the wiser. Only the reincarnated Sasha realized the trap and she made the effort to try and get them all to escape earlier than they should. It's also revealed that the relatives hired several people to act and pretend to be the imprisoned children with nobody the wiser that the real children are imprisoned.
- Go Mad from the Isolation: While all four children broke from the isolation in varying degrees, Lethias is suffering the worst out of the confinement among the four to a point of being Driven to Suicide and Benya had found his brother trying to kill himself several times.
- Grey-and-Gray Morality: The story eventually develops to this as Sasha, Lethias and Benya employ morally ambiguous actions for the sake of revenge and justice as their enemies are also employing the same methods.
- He Knows Too Much: Duke and Duchess Serpentine were reportedly said to have died from being infected by the Great Plague. In truth, they are actually killed by the second Prince because the duchess witnessed his murder of the Empress and killed them to silence the two and hide the evidence of his murder.
- Imaginary Friend: Sasha hallucinates that Estelle's ghost is with her and keeping her company and encouraging her to move on due to her trauma at her inability to save Estelle from her canonical death. It was only after Sasha, Lethias and Benya finally accomplished their revenge that she is slowly getting better from this. Sasha may still grieved for Estelle's fate, but she no longer see's her ghost hovering around her anymore and moved forward.
- Kill the Cutie: Estelle, despite Sasha's best efforts, ended up dying and succumbing to illness and malnutrition due to her already weak and delicate constitution.
- Living Emotional Crutch: Sasha ends up being this for Lethias and Benya. Especially so after they escaped the clock tower as now that they know that their relatives are scheming to take the estate and assets, and how said scheming killed their sister, Sasha is the only one that they could trust the most.
- Loving a Shadow: Adriana's attraction for Benya is ultimately based on the notion of her self-centered savior complex and how she will be the one to "save" Benya from the pain he suffered from the tragedy inflicted on him.
- Point of Divergence: In-Universe example, the changes Sasha made has an effect:
- Sasha planning to keep up morale between herself and the Serpentine siblings when they are brought and kept in a tower eventually gives them the fuel to escape from the tower earlier than they should and eventually, in an attempt to save Estelle, she sneaked in to the mansion to find one of the uncles and some medicine to help her and was found by Prince Assad. This led to Assad realizing the truth and brought their confinement to the attention of the Crown Prince during their escape, allowing the group to be rescued and their uncles dealt with.
- Unlike the original story, Lethias and Benya both had Prince Assad as their ally in their plans to get revenge so while they and Sasha remain a degree of "villain", it's not to overt villainy like the original story had.
- In the original story, Adriana's love interest is Assad the Crown Prince. Adriana instead fall in love with Benya after overhearing his tragedy and tried to win his heart him so she could become Benya's "Savior" instead. This ended poorly on Adriana as Benya is already in love with Sasha by that time, however.
- Plot-Triggering Death: Estelle's death on top of being trapped in a Gilded Cage warped and drove the original Sasha, Lethias and Benya to become the villains in the original "War Wagon on Fire" scenario, and the reincarnated Sasha witnessing the events that led to their villainy first hand made her realize that she has to be ruthless to survive and avenge those who do them wrong and deny them of their happy endings.
- Protagonist-Centered Morality: In-Universe, the reincarnated Sasha was blind-sided by how little is covered about how the original Sasha, Lethias and Benya's Start of Darkness occured in the original "War Wagon on Fire" novel due to the novel focusing on Adriana's point of view. Experiencing the event first hand made Sasha realize in hindsight of the trap that she and the Serpentine siblings are caught on and of the events that drove the original counterparts to become villains.
- Put on a Bus: To protect Sasha from the Serpentine family enemies after their escape from the clock tower, Benya and Lethias agreed to send her away to study abroad.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: After seeing that the tragedy that will happen to her and the Serpentine siblings is inevitable, Sasha decided that trying to stay heroic is pointless and that she and the siblings shall become the villains if the world wished so.
- Time Skip: A 7 year time skip occurs after Sasha, Lethias and Benya escape from their imprisonment in the Serpentine Clock Tower.
- UnderstandingGirlfriend: Fiance, rather. Lethias is engaged to Alfoncina Orsini and she is nothing but patient and understanding to him.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: For varying degrees of kid depending on the individual. Sasha starts out kind and protective of her Childhood Friends, Lethias is a gentle older brother with good manners and Benya, while prone to moments of brattiness, loved his family. They are all thoroughly broken and Driven to Villainy with Estelle's death being the last straw.
- "Reborn as Villainess" Story: An orphaned Korean woman reincarnated into Sasha Sanchez, initially unaware of the world she was reincarnated into until the funeral of the Duke and Duchess of the Serpentine family and that Sasha is the Final Boss of the story "War Wagon on Fire". Initially vowing to protect the Serpentine children and steer them from their canonical fate, Sasha finds it almost difficult to do so as they are pit to situations which allowed Sasha to finally understand why Benya and Lethias became the villains along with Sasha herself.
- Secretly Selfish: The original heroine, Adriana was a genuinely good person who wish to help and share her kindness. However, it is later revealed that she had a protagonist-centric savior complex and she tried to win over Benya to fulfill said savior complex instead of falling in love the Crown Prince, the original love interest in the story for her. When that failed due to Benya being head over heels for Sasha by that point, she grew to have a petty dislike and hate for Sasha for "taking away and stealing her love story". This trait also led to Adriana Gaslighting Alfoncina on how "no one will become Alfoncina's friend except for her" and it was only through Sasha that Alfoncina was able to get away from it. Fortunately, Adriana was able to move on from Benya by the webnovel's side stories.
- Ship Tease: Sasha and Benya, both are childhood friends who went through and confided in each other to stay strong in face of the tragedy they experienced and the knowledge of their shared past made them each other's trusted confidants and accepting the other no matter what they will eventually become.
- Too Good for This Sinful Earth:
- Poor Estelle was a genuinely good-hearted and sweet girl with her own moments of childishness. She ultimately died despite Sasha's best efforts to make sure the siblings get out of their imprisonment by the scheming relatives alive, and passed away shortly after they were rescued by Prince Assad.
- The Serpentine ducal couple are fair, benevolent figures who are not only Good Parents to their children, they are also a Benevolent Boss to Sasha and her mother, treating Sasha like their own as well. The duchess wound up being a witness to the murder of the empress and the couple are killed with their deaths framed as death via the plague to hide the evidence that will lead to the culprit being caught, leaving the children to fend for themselves and fooled by greedy relatives who want to steal the prestige and title that the deceased couple had.
- Villain Protagonist: Sasha, Lethias and Benya, as the main viewpoint characters and protagonists of the story are this as they are originally villains in the original "War Wagon on Fire" novel. Sasha initially attempts to stray them from losing their heart and innocence but unfortunately, the tragedy Sasha tried to prevent ends up being inevitable and Sasha decided to actually play herself as villain to get her revenge.
- You Are Worth Hell: Sasha's confession to Benya has her say that no matter who he becomes, she will always love him and is willing to go to hell for it.
- You Can't Fight Fate: The reincarnated Sasha is hit with this when despite her efforts to keep up morale between the Serpentine children, Estelle's death was the driving point that led to Sasha deciding to screw trying to be good and decided to be a villain to take and earn the happy ending that she and the brothers deserved.
