YMMV / The Royal Masquerade

• Broken Base:
  • The story's setting in Cordonia instead of a real-life location has divided players. Some players think the story is fine being set in Cordonia because that means less effort for the writers to come up with a Renaissance-era story while minimizing the risk of artistic license. They also think an interquel bridging The Crown & the Flame and The Royal Romance is necessary to explore the time period in between the stories. Others think it was a missed opportunity to show a more vivid view of the Renaissance, and they don't mind the occasional artistic license.
  • The ending was incredibly contentious with fans, with a fair amount finding it downright disappointing. After everything Julia went through to become queen, Damon assembles an army to incite a civil war against her and she gets the choice of either giving up the throne entirely to Fabian (a character introduced at the near literal last minute) or marrying Fabian to remain queen. Many fans were displeased at how the former choice makes her journey All for Nothing at best and an outright "Shaggy Dog" Story at worst, and the latter prevents her from marrying Hunter or Kayden. Some, however, defended it as an "interesting" moral quandary to make the player choose between love or power. A third contingent accepted the ending with the stance that the writers had to wrap up the story the best way they could because the book wasn't getting a sequel, and that was the most they could do under the circumstances.
• Fan Nickname: Damon has come to be nicknamed "Dammit Fierro" for how obstructive he is to Julia at every turn, up to attempting to start a civil war to dethrone her after she's crowned queen.
• Iron Woobie: Both Kayden and Hunter.
  • Kayden was born illegitimate and thus grew up as The Unfavorite with an uncaring, classist father who always favored his/her half-brother Cyrus, to the point that it was normal s/he slept in the stables whenever the Vescovis had guests. Kayden was initially at least close to Cyrus, but Cyrus eventually broke off their sibling bond and became exactly like their father.
  • Hunter's father, Damon, was nothing but neglectful and distant when not pushing around his children as his pawns to win Queen Kendra's favor in court. Then Hunter's twin sister, Renza, betrays him/her to their father, causing Hunter to be disowned and stripped of heir status and the House Charm solely for expressing love to Julia. This leaves Hunter as an outcast in his/her own family and forces him/her to go against said father and sister in the fight for the throne, leading to Renza's death—which, even after all the evil she's done, Hunter isn't happy about.
• Jerkass Woobie: Renza could qualify, depending on how charitable you feel. She was raised with Damon for a father, who only paid attention to his children when using them as pawns as court to get Queen Kendra's attention and always favored Hunter over her. Hunter mentions having been chosen as heir to the House and the throne at the same time that Damon had Renza married off to a nobleman, meaning that she had to see her twin be handed two positions of power while she was forced to marry a stranger. With all that in mind, it's little wonder she turned out to be so bitter and power-hungry.
• Love to Hate: Cyrus is well-liked for being an entertainingly obnoxious villain and the source of many hilarious one-liners. Renza is also regarded as fun to hate after she reveals her true colors.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Cyrus is revealed to have already crossed it when he hired the assassin who killed Queen Kendra.
  • Renza shows her true nature this way when she reveals that she was poisoning Julia ever since their first meeting and, when Julia refuses to go along with her plans for the throne, locks her in a room to die.