YMMV / The Abandoned Empress

• Ass Pull: The story's handling of Aristia overcoming her trauma comes across as this to some, feeling rather abruptly resolved especially in regards to Ruveliss, even amongst people who support the final pairing.
• Audience-Alienating Ending: No matter the good art or story, most discussions will only have people discuss of the ending, rather than anything good about the series.
• Awesome Art: Story disputes asides, it's generally agreed that the webcomic's art is gorgeous.
• Base-Breaking Character: Ruve is single-handedly the biggest point of contention amongst fans in the entire story, to the very point where he completely overshadows just about every other element in the story. The biggest reason for this is whether or not fans decide he's culpable for the actions of his alternate self, and whether or not it's believable that Aristia fell for him again as an adult/late teenager.
• Broken Base:
  • The massive complaint and argument that is bound to be found when talking about The Abandoned Empress is the ending. Specifically, the fact that Aristia ends up with Ruve. This caused many a reader to stop reading after they found out about the ending due to the abuse that the original Ruve had put on her and believe that even if he changed in the new timeline, they don't accept it as it comes across as an Unfortunate Implications that Tia ends up with the man who abused her in the past (I.E, the original timeline), and would rather have Tia be paired with Carsein or Allendis. However, there is a second party who are accepting it with the argument that Aristia is paired with a Ruve who changed and end up being kinder towards her due to for-want-of-a-nail effects in play, and shouldn't be held accountable for the actions of the original timeline Ruve, considering them as different individuals. Then there's the middle ground: those who find the fact uncomfortable but still continue to read despite knowing that regardless to see how the webcomic adaptation handles this and eventually accepting how the matter is handled or they don't.
  • Another point of contention is the poison plot point: is it a plot device used to completely excuse 1st Timeline Ruveliss's actions against Aristia? Or is it merely an explanation as to why his abuse got worse, and the story wasn't excusing anything?
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Many a reader would rather have Aristia to be paired with Carsein or Allendis than Ruve.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Early on in the webcomic's run lot of people, knowing the end pairing, openly stated they'd much rather see Aristia end up with Allendis. Allendis, who was later revealed to be a violently obsessive yandere who almost gets Aristia killed before he realises his obsession with her is only going to hurt her, and has to remove himself from the situation entirely to keep her safe.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Because the webnovel comes out first, a lot of readers are at least aware of the ending that Aristia is paired with Ruve.
• Moral Event Horizon: The Ruve of the first timeline sails across this as the first chapters of the novel and webcomic depicts his abuse of Aristia in detail. He neglects Aristia, rapes her, hits her, preemptively disowns her child, kills her father, torments her with his death and finally kills her. This while Aristia and her father support and help him unconditionally (she manages the kingdom and he leads his knights). It's one hell of an Establishing Character Moment and likely contributes to the reaction many readers had once they learn the ending that Aristia ends up with Ruve in the new timeline, which opened up a can of worms and puts Ruve in a Base-Breaking Character position.