Pictured: the protagonist, Eris Miserian
A young woman from our world finds herself in the body of Eris Miserian, the villainess of a novel she once read. She already had a crappy life to begin with back in her world, but the life of a villainess proves to be even more difficult. Desperate to return to the life she knew, she searches for a way to achieve this after her first attempts prove fruitless, as she can't die through conventional means. The only way she can truly die is if she follows the story's plot to the end and plays Eris' original role without any deviations. However, Eris' new personality is drawing the main character and her love interests into her orbit, and they may become the biggest roadblocks in her plan to return home. With the help of a witch and her loyal knight Anakhin, Eris is determined to die and get back home...no matter the cost.
Kill the Villainess is a Korean fantasy webtoon, based on a web novel by Your April and illustrated by Haegi. The series ran on Kakaopage
for 96 episodes from April 2nd, 2021 until October 16th, 2023, with 6 spinoff episodes shortly after for a total of 102 episodes. A complete English translation is available to read on Tapas.
Kill the Villainess includes examples of:
- Above Good and Evil: All witches seem work like this. As oppressed women who broke the shackles of the world that tormented them and ascended to higher states of being, they tend to do as they please. As such, for the main witch of the story, it’s very hard to gauge where Medea aligns morally. On the one hand, she is a genuinely friendly and charming woman who runs a legitimate fortune telling business and can have small moments of humanity like being offering a candy piece to Eris after convincing her to drink a revolting potion when they first meet to being comically surprised when Anakhin and Eris break into her house while she's out by literally breaking the door to get in, even scolding Anakhin for it before she shows she isn't mad by casually fixing the door with her magic and then offering them tea. She even shows a liking to children in the end of the story with her interaction with Kintia, whom she makes the offer to become her apprentice and a possible god. On the other hand however, she does show WHY she shouldn't be meddled with or threatened, as she is still a witch and is one of the most powerful ones. One of her known monikers is simply "revenge", and the type of deals she makes with her customers revolve around them getting revenge for lost loved ones as her offer to the recovered Helena and her deal with Emma reveals much later in the story.
- Affectionate Nickname: Helena calls Alecto "Alec", as a sign of their closeness. However, it's more likely than not that she only gave him this nickname as a means of placating him and his unwanted advances. When Helena becomes Empress, she drops the nickname as she no longer has to pretend to like Alecto.
- The Ageless: All witches, including Medea, gain immortality alongside their magical powers when they ascend to witchhood. Dragons are also immortal. Jason also becomes this after he kills a dragon; in retribution, the dragon's mate (who was supposed to be slayed instead of her mate) curses him to live out a dragon's lifespan in his human body.
- Attempted Rape: Alecto's unwanted advances escalates into him nearly raping Eris, as his father orders him to bed her as she cannot simply leave the arranged marriage if she ends up pregnant. This leads to Eris killing him in self defense, which then almost hastens her near ascension into a witch, were it not for the help of Medea and her sisters turning back the hands of time before the assault. Eris is left with the trauma of what happened, knowing that aside from Anakhin who went back in time with her (and Medea and her sisters), she’s the only one who remembers what Alecto did, which adds further reason for her to hate him; she now knows he’s fully capable of such evil, even if it no longer happened.
- Awful Wedded Life: The Emperor and Empress' marriage becomes this after the Emperor with help from Eris's father, framed and executed their oldest son as a traitor.
- This is how Helena and Alecto's marriage is fated to end, as the former drops her Stepford Smiler mask and becomes indifferent and dedicated to the job as the former Empress was, while the latter realizes to his horror he's about to enter a similar marriage to his own parents and that Eris, the only person who truly loved him, is gone forever.
- Balancing Death's Books: An inversion. Individuals killed before their time have their fate replaced by another via the world's own law, the Principle of Causality. Original Eris ceased to exist in her own body when she made her wish for death, and around the same time, Jason slew a dragon as per fate's dictation. The Principle of Causality took the dragon's soul as payment for Original Eris's wish but because she didn't die as she was supposed to, New Eris was taken from another world to replace her and fulfill her role until the time came. Later, the Principle of Causality allowed the slain dragon's mate, who was the dragon he was supposed to kill, to curse him with the lifespan of a dragon, ie immortality, as punishment for her mate's murder.
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Alecto wanted Eris to be gone from his life forever, as he loathed her for being the daughter of the man who helped his father kill his older brother under false treason charges and ruined his parents marriage as a result. Even when she showed her sincerity for loving him, he despised her so much that he told her outright how much he hated her and openly showed Helena his love for her. Well, he got what he wanted alright…right after Helena, now his wife at this point, revealed that she actually despised him and had no inkling of being his lover. And with him now aware that the Original Eris was long gone already and the New Eris he had tried to pursue also despised him, he now has absolutely no one left who truly loves him like the Original Eris did.
- Bodyguard Crush: Eris picked Anahkin as her knight because his character was loyal to her in the original story, so he could be trusted with her secrets. Both of them gradually fall in love, to the point where on her request, Anahkin burned Eris's body after her execution to make sure she couldn't be resurrected, despite him being torn about doing this. He then willingly followed Eris to her world after he was killed protecting her burning body from being saved by Jason and Hubris.
- Cessation of Existence: Implied to be the fate of the Original Eris. Medea tells New Eris that the Original Eris made a wish for death out of despair for not receiving the love she always sincerely showed Alecto and it was granted. But the Principle of Causality had to ensure Eris died when she was supposed to, so in addition to the dragon that Jason had slain around the time that she made her wish, to make sure that Eris's intended fate was followed through, New Eris was taken from her world to fill the role until the time came. When New Eris is angered by Alecto one too many times, she decides to stop pretending and reveal who she actually is to him. When Alecto asks where the Original Eris is, New Eris admits she isn't sure, but knows that she's gone forever from this world and Alecto was the one who drove her to this point. New Eris leaves Alecto behind as he realizes what he's lost in the Original Eris and laments how she was a "terribly lovely thing to lose".
- The Chain of Harm: A major theme in the story. Alecto treats both the Original and New Eris poorly because her father had his brother executed which destroyed his family and caused his parents to be distant from him. Original Eris in turn bullied Helena viciously. New Eris and Helena are the ones who break the chain.
- Comfort the Dying: Inverted. Helena dies forgiving and comforting Eris, knowing that her death is needed for Eris' freedom.
- Deal with the Devil: Played with since the "devil" in question is actually Medea who is a witch, but the way witches act in this world is no different from traditional devils anyhow. Medea makes a deal with Eris to help her go back to her world in exchange for helping Medea find "something". What this something isn't exactly elaborated on, even when Eris asks herself, beyond the fact that Eris helped Medea find a specific person that she had been seeking for quite a while to eventually become a god. It isn't until after Eris returns to her world and Anakhin eventually joins her that we learn who this person is: Anakhin's little sister Kintia, who is destined to one day become the world's most powerful woman and of course, is the one that Medea wants to make into a god, in her attempt to save the world from a Fate Worse than Death once the story concludes. We also learn that Eris isn't the only one who made a deal with Medea. Emma, Eris's maid who had raised her like a daughter and was the only person who truly loved her, upon learning about the fate of her original master after realizing New Eris wasn't her, decided to make a deal with Medea to enact karmic revenge upon the men who hurt both Original and New Eris. She pays for this by offering herself as a familiar to Medea, and when she does pay up she becomes a brown cat, commented by Medea as not being too different from her former maid profession anyhow.
- Deconstruction: Of the Reborn as the Villainess subgenre as a whole. It certainly starts the same as most of these stories, with Eris's new soul awakening in the body of the villainess of the last story she read. However, despite her old life not being perfect, New Eris has no desire whatsoever to change the story (especially since the laws of the world actively prevent her from doing so) and actually wants to go home right from the beginning. She also quickly realizes she holds no love for any of the love interests, due to her single-minded determination to return to her world and also the fact that they themselves are not as heroic as they initially seemed on paper when you actually get to know them. She only allows herself to truly bond with a select few people, mainly Anakhin, Kintia, Medea, and to a lesser extent, Emma and Helena. Everyone else as far as she's concerned mean nothing to her on a personal level. She especially hates the male love interests, particularly Alecto, whose stubborn refusal to end the engagement despite his open hostility toward her makes him a particular eyesore to New Eris, even disregarding the fact that he's the reason she is even here because his constant cruelty to Original Eris, who genuinely loved him, eventually broke her, leading to her wishing for death out of despair, which was granted and forced New Eris into this world to begin with. New Eris truly starts to loathe Alecto even more following his rape attempt on her which had to be undone with time travel magic after she accidentally killed him and almost became a full witch following that.
- Determinator: While she wavers because of the violence and cruelty she has to commit to get there, Eris never gives up on her mission to die and return back to her world.
- Dying to Wake Up: The protagonist believes this will allow her to return to her old life. However she's not allowed to derail the plot of the book, and her efforts to end her own life fail. By following the original novel's plot, Eris is indeed able to go home by being executed for killing Helena and framing herself as an accomplice in the deaths of the Emperor and Empress.
- Enemy Mine: The Empress despises Eris because of how her father helped the Emperor orchestrate the death of her oldest son Laetatio, yet is genuinely surprised when Eris reveals she wants to put Helena in the position of Crown Princess due to having lost love for Alecto. At first the Empress is reluctant to align herself to Eris and only considers it out of revenge; but the Empress becomes overjoyed and fully aligns with her when she eventually reveals she not only wants to punish her father for his crimes and join him in that punishment, but to also give the Empress that which she wants most: a death that will destroy the Emperor and also kill him in turn. It becomes somewhat sweet when after she gets the poisoned tea set from Eris, she willingly lets her know about an escape passage, just in case she does change her mind on death, though Eris declines the offer, intending on seeing it through to the end. The Empress calls Eris "the witch she had been long waiting for".
- Entitled to Have You: All of the suitors towards Helena and Eris. A specific example is when Jason tries to rescue Eris from prison only for Eris to point out that Jason's not doing it out of the kindness of his heart but because he's trying to invoke Rescue Romance and that Eris would have to be in a relationship with him because she's indebted to him.
- Fate Worse than Death: The male love interests get hit with this by the end.
- Alecto ascends to the throne but is rejected by Helena and is burdened with the knowledge that his love for her was always one-sided on his part and that the Original Eris, who truly loved him despite his mistreatment of her, will never come back.
- Jason tries to kill himself but learns from Medea that the mate of the dragon he slew had cursed him to live out her mate's lifespan...which is forever since dragons are immortal and the Principle of Causality prevents suicide before your intended time, meaning he will live to see the legend he made of himself fade into nothing and all his remaining loved ones die.
- Hubris expends his divine powers in his attempt to save Eris's body but after he fails, he is rapidly aged into an old man, but will still live out his intended lifespan, while also driven mad by delusions, as his fate now mirrors his mother's.
- Oh, but that's not all. Even the world itself is destined for a fate like this as Medea explains that once Eris does leave and the story she's part of concludes, time will halt and the world will begin to cave in on itself, bringing about an apocalyptic disaster. Her solution for this revolves around finding a worthy person whom Medea can train as an apprentice and hopefully ascend to godhood so that this can be averted. And after both Eris and Anakhin leave the world, Medea finds that person: Kintia, Anakhin's little sister.
- Formula with a Twist: Unlike many transmigrated modern era people, who swiftly grow to enjoy their new life, Eris loathes being stuck in a novel and desperately wants to find a way back to her previous world, even though she self-admits her old life wasn't really all that great.
- Happily Adopted: Played with. Kintia and Anakhin share no blood between them, but that doesn't stop them from addressing each other as siblings. The reason this is played with is that Anakhin had chased away her abusive father who had tried to beat her for allowing Anakhin into the house back when he was still a wandering knight. The father never came back and Anakhin decided to become her guardian as thanks for her giving him a place to stay.
- It's All About Me: What the motivations of all three love interests boil down to:
- Alecto's unwanted advances causes pain and resentment in both Helena and Eris and never stops to think about how his actions might affect either girl, only caring about his own feelings and desires. This bites him hard in the ass later after New Eris tells him of Original Eris's fate and following her own death, Helena drops her mask of loving him and shows her true indifferent feelings for him. This makes him realize he has no one to love him anymore and that Original Eris, the only one who truly unambiguously loved him despite his terrible behavior around her, is forever lost to him.
- Jason’s interests in both Eris and Helena are because he sees them as Damsels in Distress who need his help, even if they don’t want it. He also loves the hero worship that slaying a dragon gave him. Him losing Eris and then discovering he’s been cursed to immortality because of his dragon slaying deed means that one day he will be forgotten by everyone, and all his loved ones will die without him, essentially punishing him for his attitude and ensuring his hope for becoming a legend is doomed to never last.
- Hubris's need to save others is because he could not save his mother from ending her life. While his intentions were noble, his needs grew twisted as he fell in love with the New Eris, deliberately ignoring the fact that she’s his half-sister and trying to prevent her from leaving the world because he wishes to be with her forever in their next life. His attempt to resurrect Eris sucks all his divine power away, turning him into a feeble old man stuck in a small room similar to the one where his mother killed herself and driven mad by hallucinations of both his mother and Eris. He can never save anyone ever again.
- Incest-ant Admirer: Hubris is Eris' half-brother. He knows this and still pursues her anyway, under the excuse that because Eris's current soul isn't the Original Eris, that it's okay. She rightfully calls him out on this as regardless who she is soulwise, this is still the body of his half-sister, and his feelings are still disgusting, especially because Hubris is a priest, whose chastity is not supposed to waver for anyone.
- Incorruptible Pure Pureness: Zigzagged with Helena, the original novel's protagonist. She's a kind and gentle heroine who genuinely cares for everyone around her. She especially cares for Eris despite their previous history, even comforting her as Eris kills her because she knows the latter doesn't want to, but needs to in order to fulfill her mission to go home. She holds no hard feelings for the soul within Eris's body after she revives from the dead and learns about her situation from Medea, the witch who helped her and is even happy for her. However, Helena holds no love for Alecto whatsoever, nor the other love interests, as their desire for her is only because they see her as a fragile Damsel in Distress whom they feel obligated to protect, whether she asks for it or not. Due to that and her past as a former noble, Helena is a Stepford Smiler who has to do what others tell her to do in order to survive.
- Jealous Parent: The Emperor is this. He and his aide, Eris’s father, framed his eldest son, then Crown Prince Laetatio, of treason and executed him. When the Empress demands he tell her why he did this, he stated that she was all he ever needed. This is partly why the Empress is distant with her second son, Alecto, since she doesn’t want the same thing to happen to him.
- Lady and Knight: Eris and Anakhin, though it also has shades of Mistress and Servant Boy.
- Lady Looks Like a Dude : Kintia, Anakhin's little sister, dresses herself in a very masculine way with her clothing choice and hairstyle, but is confirmed very quickly in her introductory chapter to be a boy despite this. This is also, if you can believe it, plot relevant as Medea reveals near the end of the story, that Kintia is destined to one day become the world's most powerful woman and is deliberately sought out by the witch as a potential god candidate to help save the world from it's Fate Worse than Death.
- Laser-Guided Karma: Thanks in part to the deal that Emma made with Medea, but also their own flaws catching up to them, each of the three "love interests" are hit with this by the end of the story and during the side stories:
- Crown Prince Alecto didn't care much about his future duties as Emperor, only caring about spending time with his one-sided true love, Helena, and sticking it to his fiancé, Eris. He ends up becoming Emperor after his parents died in a Murder-Suicide orchestrated by his own mother and has to order the execution of his ex-fiancee (and whose original self was the only one to love him unconditionally until his mistreatment of her finally broke her). When he finally sees Helena again, she stops pretending to love him and moves on, reminiscent of what happened between his parents, leaving him completely alone in the world with no one who actually loves him.
- Jason wanted to leave a mark on history, relishing in his title of "Jason the Warrior" and all the attention that entails. After losing Eris, he tries to end his life, only to discover he's in a similar situation as Eris was at the beginning: he cannot kill himself but it's not just because the world's own laws refuse to let him. As Medea reveals, it's because the mate of the dragon he slew, who was the actual dragon he was supposed to kill, had cursed him with immortality for the murder of her mate, ensuring that he will live to see the world (and anyone else he loves) forget about him as time marches on. The legend he had hoped to erect about himself will inevitably fade away while he remains untouched by time and unable to end it all.
- Hubris is known for his beauty and kindness, wanting to save others. He uses so much divine power in his selfish attempts to save Eris' body that he rapidly ages physically into an old man, unable to use anymore of his powers afterward, not even to heal the smallest most menial cuts on his own body. He's locked in a small, dark room (similar to where he found his mother's body after she committed suicide) and because his body didn't break down like a normal elderly person's body would after this overuse his powers, he is left still a young man internally and has to live the rest of his life this way. By the end, he has gone mad and begun seeing hallucinations of his mother when his eyes are open and visions of Eris when they are closed. He is left forever pining for Eris, who never loved him in the first place, and who he knows he'll never find again.
- Love Cannot Overcome: Eris' mother, Quies Miserian was an Emotionless Girl who could not see the point of living and found no joy in life, which caused great worry for her deeply concerned parents. As a last chance to hopefully give her something to live for, they arranged a marriage between her and Eris's father, Knieval Axel. Unfortunately, the future Marquis fell hopelessly in love with her, to the point of abandoning his own family name to marry into the Miserian family instead. He then tried to invoke the Defrosting Ice Queen trope in hopes of earning her affections, against even the wishes of Quies' parents who said that it was okay to just leave her be, but he stubbornly refused out of his one-sided love for Quies and of course failed miserably. He grew angered and bitter, turning to all sorts of hedonistic lifestyles like gambling, drugs, alcohol and even other women in a desperate attempt to get her attention in any way, but to no avail. When she got pregnant, the Marquis thought things would finally begin to look up...until after she gave birth to Eris, where Quies allowed herself to waste away since she had fulfilled her martial duty of giving her husband his heir and saw that there was no more need to stay alive, despite his protests and begging her to stay. It was on her deathbed that Quies finally made the first and only request that she ever gave in her life: for her husband to preserve her body and all her belongings and hide them away in a place only he knows, far from the world's eyes. Supposedly, she also asked to have Eris be made into the Crown Princess so she would be at the highest possible seat, but Eris finds it more likely that this is just the Marquis trying to delude himself into thinking this was what his wife always wanted as a way of denying that she never could love him.
- Love Transcends Spacetime: Anahkin's love for Eris is so strong that his tears upon being killed for burning her executed body is what allows him to cross dimensions and reunite with Eris in her world.
- Loving a Shadow:
- The main love interests don't care for Eris as a person but merely obsess over what she represents to them regardless of her actual wants and desires. This also applies to Helena, whom they see as a Damsel in Distress who needs their protection despite her own disinterest in them.
- Marquis Miseran loved his wife Quies but it's not clear if he actually loved her or what he wanted her to be. He hated the part of her that was indifferent to everyone even though she and her family were upfront about that from the very beginning. He spent his marriage trying to change and fix her only to fail time and time again. He even deluded himself into believing that the first and only request she made in her whole life - which also happened to be her death wish - of preserving her body and hiding away all her belongings from the eyes of the world in a place only he would know MUST be a sign that she had some care for him.
- Meaningful Name: Most of the characters have meaningful names pulled from Greek mythology - Eris, Helena, Alecto, Hubris, Jason, Medea. In fact, it's more significant when a character averts this trope - Anahkin notably is one of the few exceptions as he doesn't have a meaningful name.
- Medium Awareness: Eris finds herself in the body of a villainess in a romance novel. She knows how the plot goes, and uses that to help her move things along the way she wants to, so she can die and return back to her world. Medea is also aware of the world not being what it is, though it's worth noting that considering her goal of finding a potential candidate to raise to godhood to save the world from collapsing in on itself and causing the end of everything once the story itself is done, she handles it far better than one in her position would be expected to.
- Murder-Suicide: Later in the story, with help from Eris, the Empress kills herself and the Emperor with a poisoned tea set. Before they die, she makes him know in uncertain terms that she will never forgive him for what he did to their oldest son. He in turn, accepts that, as he really only wanted her in the end as his wife, though he quickly begins to panic when after he asks if she will become his wife in their next lives, she laughs in his face and tells him that she would never even consider it as she hates him far too much now.
- Never Given a Name: Interestingly enough, despite getting to know the life of the soul currently in Eris's body, from her strained relationship with her parents to her aimlessness in her old life, we never actually learn the real name of said soul, hence why she is called Eris on this page and being referred to as New Eris when both Erises are addressed. This is actually something that is treated by her as a problem as it's a sign that her soul is acclimating to Eris's body and that soon, she will become unable to fully remember her old life and will fully think herself as Eris. She also forgot what she used to look like after all.
- Not Afraid of You Anymore: Implied with Helena's relationship with Alecto. They might have been childhood friends, but Helena knows that Alecto still is the Crown Prince, and someone who holds her life in his hands and can do whatever he washes with it while she cannot do anything to stop him, even if he doesn't recognize it and believes it to be mutual love on both ends. She therefore does what she's told to by Alecto and the royal family, in order to survive in the palace, even though she doesn't actually like him romantically. Once Helena becomes Empress and gains the political power she needs, she immediately drops the mask, rejects Alecto and focuses exclusively on her royal duties.
- No Ontological Inertia: A literal example as Medea reveals that after Eris leaves and the story ends, time will cease to move forward and the world will be trapped in a Fate Worse than Death. Part of the price that Anakin and Eris must pay for their wishes to Medea involves them helping her find a potential candidate for Medea to train as an apprentice to be a future witch and a god whose power can sustain the world, though neither of them know who that candidate is, just that Medea eventually tells them she found one by the time their wishes are about to be fulfilled. And who is the chosen candidate? Anakhin's little sister, Kintia.
- Only Mostly Dead: In the original story, Helena is resurrected by magic after Eris kills her. Since Hubris used his powers trying to resurrect Eris, instead Helena is this trope and wakes up after being in a coma.
- Our Witches Are Different: Witches in this world are women who have been so oppressed that their suffering allows them to break the laws of the world that already restricted them and destiny itself, granting them immortality and magical powers. There are currently nine witches in the world's existence, including Medea, the main one who helps Eris throughout the story. They aren't related by blood, nor do they enact a coven system as they do as they please for their own individual desires, but they all do consider each other to be sisters and are on seemingly amicable terms with one another to ask for help and give it as they need it. Eris apparently has the potential to become a witch herself and almost does when she accidentally kills Alecto following his rape attempt on her. Thankfully, some timely help from Medea and her sisters allow the hands of time to be turned back so that Eris doesn't complete her ascension as it would had permanently trapped her in the world forever if she it had finished. Interestingly, Medea admits that she wouldn't had minded Eris becoming a witch as it meant they would technically become sisters and she does like Eris quite a bit, but she still helps Eris to return home because she knows it's what Eris wants.
- Prematurely Grey-Haired: Alecto's hair turns white from the stress he felt after hearing the deaths of Helena and his parents. Eris even notes that he looks just like his father as a result.
- Prince Charmless: Alecto is not kind to Eris, even when she hasn't actually done anything particularly villainous to warrant it. This attitude of his is directed at Eris solely for the crimes her father committed against his family, crimes she herself didn't seem to be aware of. This eventually drove the Original Eris to make a wish for death out of despair, which was granted and as due to the necessity of her death being on time, as part of the payment for the wish, forced the current Eris, the protagonist, into Original Eris's body.
- Rags to Royalty: Deconstructed as the story explores the inherent power imbalance in a Prince romancing a commoner. Helena can't reject Alecto's advances at all without bringing about his possible wrath for refusing. Furthermore, his attention isolates Helena from the rest of the nobility, as nobles resent the upstart woman seducing the prince, while the maids resent Helena for being treated differently. To add more problems, Alecto is too lovestruck to realize this imbalance in his and Helena's relationship, and the logical consequences that follow. Helena is forced to bear with the nobility's bullying and rumors alone, as Alecto doesn't really do much to actually solve the issue, like give Helena a chance to stand on her own, since he doesn't actually want that deep down and wants her to be his pure and innocent one true love forever. Helena is eventually able to win over everyone once she becomes Empress and focuses on her duties, though Alecto comes to regret it because Helena reveals her true distain for him in the process.
- Rapid Aging: This is what happens to Hubris at the end of the story as a result of the curse placed on him after Eris' death. He will still live a normal lifespan, but with the appearance of an old man, without his powers, and his mind driven mad by how his fate has mirrored his mother's.
- "Reborn as Villainess" Story: Eris woke up in the body of a story's major antagonist. Unlike most stories in this subgenre, Eris doesn't want to be stuck in this world and wishes to return home to her world, even though her old life isn't really that great either. She manages to succeed in the end, despite the effort of the other characters, mainly the "love interests" to save her.
- Reincarnation Romance: A deconstructed example. Hubris tries to trap Eris in the world and plots to find her reincarnation after death so that he can finally be with her without the chains of blood relations. Eris, who has never loved him nor wanted his advances, is repulsed by his plan.
- Stepford Smiler: Helena. As a maid from a disgraced house, Helena is well aware that she has no power over and freedom from the people in her life, including Alecto, whose unwanted romantic affections are a source of resentment yet she also sadly can't say no to. She has to pretend to be cheerful and carefree as the only way to survive in the palace. Thankfully, she drops her mask of loving Alecto as soon as she becomes the Empress at the end of the story.
- Taking a Level in Badass: Helena is forced into the role of a Damsel in Distress by Alecto's unwanted advances for the near entirety of the story up until the end of the story, after Helena wakes from her coma following Eris stabbing her. Now the most powerful woman in the Empire, Helena becomes Married to the Job and reveals her true indifference towards Alecto, effectively transforming into a copy of his mother, the late Empress, whom he resented.
- Taking the Bullet: A dragon was driven to madness due to being a reincarnated human who despite initially being okay with it at first, eventually couldn't handle the banality of immortality. A witch informs him that another dragon is destined to be slayed by a human, and that he can end his suffering if he interfered with that dragon's fate. He does so and the mad dragon dies peacefully; but it turns out the dragon who was actually supposed to be killed was the former's own mate, who in retaliation and grief for her mate's death cursed said human (Jason) with immortality, which he discovers after he tries to kill himself after his beloved Eris dies.
- There's No Place Like Home: Eris' goal in the story, which is to die like the original Eris did in the novel, which will return her to reality. She acknowledges in the beginning that her life isn't exactly perfect there either, but she still prefers it over the world she has entered. Considering what Medea tells her later about what will happen to the world itself once Eris's role is done and the story she's part of is completed, Eris is absolutely right in wanting to leave, as is Anakhin for following Eris's final order of coming with her to her world after he dies protecting her body from being saved.
- Unwanted Harem: Eris gains the twisted affections of the original three love interests, but she wants nothing to do with them. Her real love interest is her loyal knight Anakhin, who follows her orders without question, respects her decisions even if he doesn't always like them and eventually follows her to her world once her mission is complete and he dies ensuring that.
- Unwanted Rescue: All three of the suitors try to rescue Eris from prison for their own selfish reasons. Since Eris' death is her only way home, she does not want to be saved and is forced to ask Anakhin to burn her body just to make sure the death sticks.
- Yandere: Hubris becomes this over the course of the story, even though the object of his obsession is his half-sister, Eris. Alecto and Jason also have shades of this towards Helena and Eris.
- The biggest one, however, turns out to be the Emperor himself towards the Empress. He, alongside Eris' father, framed his oldest son Laetatio for treason and had him executed, all because the Empress loved her son more than him. This forces her to be distant towards her second son, Alecto, so that he doesn't suffer the same fate.
- You Can't Fight Fate: Fate can be changed but going against the Principle of Causality often requires a horrific price - unless you manage to bargain with witches, and even then that alone requires them to be interested in you to begin with.
