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Mia Luna Tearmoon is a selfish princess of the fallen Tearmoon Empire who, after being captured in the wake of the revolution that overthrew her, is sentenced to death by guillotine for her numerous crimes. With her last breath, she takes a look at the setting sun as the blade cleaves her head right off.

...Only for Mia to wake up back in her bedroom afterward, 8 years younger. She thought her execution was a dream, but her bloodstained diary, which has everything she had written prior to her execution, reveals that Mia has reincarnated back in time into her younger self. Knowing the fate of her future and scared of having to go through the guillotine once again, she knows she has one chance to set things right, and it's up to her to fix everything bad going on in the Tearmoon Empire, including her own selfish actions, to avoid repeating the same outcome. Hilarity ensues as Mia finds out the hard way that it's not as easy as it sounds, and old habits die hard.

Tearmoon EmpireOriginal title  is a Light Novel series written by Nozomu Mochitsuki and illustrated by Gilse, originally starting as a web novel in 2018 before being officially published in print in 2019, and later localized worldwide by J-Novel Club in 2020.

A manga adaptation by Mizu Morino began in 2019, with an official English translation released by J-Novel Club starting in 2022. A manga spinoff by Naoharu spotlighting Anne and the other servants, Tearmoon Empire: Tea Party for FollowersJapanese title , began in 2023.

An original drama CD was released in Japan in 2022.

An anime adaptation by SILVER LINK. was announced in September 2022, and began airing on October 6, 2023.


Examples:

  • Absurdly Powerful Student Council: The student council in Saint-Noel pretty much runs the school, though it's understandable when you remember that Saint-Noel is composed of royalty and nobility and so the student council is an extension of that.
  • Accidental Time Travel: None of the time travelers in the series intended on it, and figuring out what causes it is a minor plot point, as well as being why Mia refuses to kill any of her enemies in case death is the trigger.
  • Accomplice by Inaction: At her worst in the original timeline, Mia was a lazy self-centered noble who did blow off the hardships and sufferings of commoners because they were not her responsibility. But then a revolt happened and the royal family got executed by the embittered public for events they were framed for which they did not do anything to fix.
  • Achievements in Ignorance: While many of Mia's actions are deliberate to prevent her execution, her deciding to make a school to enroll the certain individual who would make a wheat strain resistant to the cold so she can claim credit for his breakthrough ends up being this. Mia doesn't realize that the school would also help develop other various bright minds in the process that would go on to make great innovations for the empire in one future.
  • Adaptation Expansion: The light novel has additional scenes of Ludwig talking to Balthazar and co. to elaborate on the politics and setting.
  • Age Cut: The anime's opening includes shots of Anne, Ludwig, Sion and Tiona that have the background cut from their circumstances around the time of Mia's execution in the original timeline to their present selves in the timeline started by Mia's Mental Time Travel. The age change is only truly noticeable in the shot shared by Sion and Tiona, as the two age down from adults to young teens, while Ludwig and Anne are already past their respective childhoods even when eight years younger.
  • A Lesson in Defeat: In the new timeline, Mia made it clear that she did her best to learn from some of her past mistakes and is determined to not repeat them. Such as avoiding rude manners in front of other people, making a better effort to socialize and avoid saying things on impulse (sometimes).
    • Even in the first timeline, between the famine starting and her being arrested during the revolution, Mia makes every effort to try and turn the empire's fate around despite being woefully unprepared for any of it. It's to the point that even Ludwig, who in the original timeline thought Mia was more or less worthless, was impressed enough to beg Prince Sion to spare Mia's life.
  • Alliterative Family: The Tearmoon family, at least for the three members we see. Matthias, his daughter Mia, and his great-granddaughter, Miabel.
  • Alternate Timeline: There are many timelines in the story, due to the future diary changing with every action Mia does:
    • Original timeline: Mia is captured by Sion, Tiona and the Revolutionaries when she was 17 after Tearmoon falls to ruin due to financial difficulties, famine, and plague. She is held in a dungeon and tortured until she was 20, when she was put to death by Dion via guillotine.
    • Timeline A: This is the timeline at roughly the start of the series, with Mia having returned to her 12 year old body with her memories intact and her diary from 8 years in the future with her. This timeline ends when she prevents Ludwig from being sent to Redmoon and earns his lifelong support and respect.
    • Timeline B: Ludwig working for the empire earlier and with her support leads to financial reforms, but the plague and famine still occur, causing the uprising and Mia's death via guillotine.
    • Timeline C: In Timeline B, Mia reads her diary and investigates the Newmoon District and prevents a plague, while also having Ludwig stockpile rations in case of a famine. In this future, Mia has some defenders, such as Sion and the citizenry of Newmoon, leading to better treatment but still her meeting her end at the guillotine due to the famine and Tiona, who despite their new friendship would still end up blaming Mia for the massacre of the Lulu tribe and her father's assassination. Also notably, Abel—who in the original timeline had nothing to do with Mia and was assassinated in his own country—instead dies young in this one, trying to rescue her while Anne meets Uncertain Doom when trying to save Mia as well.
    • Timeline D: At the start of Volume 2, a.k.a in Timeline C, Mia reads her diary and makes this timeline by preventing the famine through making a trade route with the Forkroad company and prevents the massacre of Sealence Forest, which also saves Dion's squad. This results in her diary vanishing as she no longer meets her end at the guillotine, instead she is poisoned sometime after giving birth to Miabel's mother.
      • An offhand mention goes to a variant timeline of this in which Abel is exiled from his country, moving to Tearmoon and marrying Mia, who has 8 children with him. This timeline vanishes the second Mia reads about it.
    • Timeline E: Mia meets Miabel, who comes back from the future via a magical copy of Mia's autobiography, which replaces her diary. In this timeline, a mass poisoning at Saint-Noel Academy drives Rafina insane, leading her to create a religious empire to wage a holy war against the Chaos Serpents. This timeline is diverted when Mia becomes the student council president.
    • Timeline F: The Princess Mia Chronicles changes to become significantly thinner, as Mia is assassinated on the Holy Eve festival.
    • Timeline G: After Mia survives the assassination attempt on Holy Eve, a new timeline is created in which instead Sion is killed in Sunkland.
  • Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Every time her father is in the scene, Mia is humiliated by his doting tendencies. It's suggested that Rafina has a similar problem, given how embarrassed she is by the portraits her father commissions of her.
  • Ancient Conspiracy: There was a conspiracy made by the First Emperor of the Tearmoon Empire that would have brought ruin to the empire if left unchecked.
  • Aristocrats Are Evil: Downplayed. They are not evil but most Tearmoon nobles are driven by reputation and prestige and will bully lower-ranked nobles, especially those who are involved with agriculture.
    • While Mia privately holds some degree of classism, she is ultimately a pragmatist who values loyalty and usefulness more. She has also learned from the first timeline that there is no reason to make unnecessary enemies, and as such keeps what negative sentiments she does have to herself.
    • Mia's entourage in the first and second timelines is slightly different because of this. In the original timeline, Mia used a lower ranking noble as her personal maid. In the new timeline, she uses Anne, a commoner, in gratitude for her loyalty in the previous timeline. A lot of nobles find this disgusting, and as such, her current entourage is comprised of nobles who are more open minded, or simply so infatuated with Mia that they can overlook it.
    • Mia's care for the common people is more because she is a Slave to PR than because of actual kindness. Unlike the rest of the aristocracy, she remembers the original timeline in full and is well aware of what would happen if the commoners' patience was strained to the point that they would be willing to die taking down the nobles. A lot of other nobles however fail to see this and increasingly despise Mia for treating commoners too nicely.
    • Esmeralda keeps attempting to act like a snotty noble who can't even remember her maid's name... but keeps messing up by accidentally calling her by it. (Her maid finds it adorable. And maybe a little hot.)
  • Aristocrat Team: Virtually the entire cast (and, by association, the Anti-Chaos Serpent force) composes of royalty, nobility, and their servants.
  • Arranged Marriage: A common occurrence, given that these are nobles and royals we're dealing with.
    • One of the nobles was to be forced to marry into an agricultural kingdom by her father, only for Mia to stop it by offering her to work at her Academy. As an influential professor at Mia's up and coming Academy, she would have a much more significant political reach than a mere political marriage.
    • Sapphias has been betrothed to his fiancee since they were children, though the two ended up falling in love for real.
    • Esmeralda's father arranges for her to be married to a Sunkland noble or rather the Second Prince. At first, she's resistant to the idea, not wanting to leave Tearmoon, and Mia's wary of the political motives behind the move but knows she can't openly denounce the arrangement. With that said, Esmeralda becomes genuinely fond of her partner, so it works out.
    • Ruby ends up in an arranged marriage to a Tearmoon noble, much to her dismay since she's in love with Vanos already — prompting Mia to once again try and find a way to break it up without causing a scandal.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Some of Mia's crimes from her previous timeline range from the severe offenses (abusing her servants and neglecting the plague and famine) to the pettiest of squabbles (being jealous over boys not picking her over other women).
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Mia finds Esmeralda a pain most of the time, on top of resenting her a little for ditching her in the original timeline (unaware that it wasn't by Esmeralda's choice), but when it comes down to it, she realizes that she'd actually be pretty upset if anything happened to Esmeralda.
  • Babies Make Everything Better: When Mia found a book that tells about the future, she learnt that she and Abel made eight children... then unwittingly destroys that future, though she's not too bothered because said future had Abel exiled from his kingdom and she wouldn't want that for him.
  • Badass Crew: The Saint-Noel student council, which doubles as an Anti-Chaos Serpent team lead by Rafina, with royalty of four different kingdoms as well as several of Mia's friends, who are nobles in their own right.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Played for Laughs. Rain cancels the swordsmanship tournament, preventing Abel and Sion's match from reaching a conclusion and leading Mia — who wanted to see Abel win — to complain. She's forgetting one thing, though: after Sion rejected Mia's lunchbox in the original timeline, Mia was the one who pettily prayed that it would rain and cancel the swordsmanship tournament.
  • Because You Were Nice to Me: In the previous timeline, when Mia was locked up in a dungeon and the whole kingdom wanted her dead, one of her maids, Anne, was the only one who treated her kindly, regularly visiting her and attending to her needs, even though Mia used to treat her rather harshly before her imprisonment. This goes to show how much of a Nice Girl Anne is. The princess was so moved that upon going back in time, she decided to repay Anne's kindness by appointing her as her personal attendant.
    • As a rule, anyone who stood with her even after it was clear the empire was doomed will receive her favour in the new timeline. The one exception is Ludwig, the one who worked the hardest to save the empire in its dying days; she doesn't even remember his name at first and headhunts him primarily for his knowledge, not to repay her debts.
  • Beneath Notice: If Mia approaches Chaos Serpent's Hostage Situation with bodyguards, their spies will notice and warn the hostage takers. The hostage takers would then cancel the current assassination attempt and kill the hostage as punishment. But if Mia were to request assistance from an unusually intelligent horse, they probably wouldn't even notice.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Tiona and her attendant, both expert archers, coming after Mia when she was lured out of the academy, delaying and distracting the villain with arrows as Mia flees. Followed shortly after by Sion and Abel, who intervene with swords.
  • The Blind Leading the Blind:
    • Mia asks Anne for advice on romance, since she's inexperienced... not knowing Anne is also inexperienced, her only knowledge on the topic coming from her younger sister Elise's writing... who is also completely inexperienced, being a mostly bedridden young girl.
    • On the flip side, Abel goes to Sion for love advice, even though Sion has zero experience in romance. As a result, Sion gives him advice based on a novel lent to him by Tiona... yes, written by Elise.
  • Blue-and-Orange Morality:
    • A minor example that hits Ludwig's blind spot. Following the arc with the Lulu tribe, Mia directly confiscates some land from the Count who was the cause of the current mess in order to start a public works project. Ludwig is initially unimpressed because it sounds like Mia is picking fights that she probably shouldn't, but the Count is actually thrilled: The whole reason he was making a fuss was because he wanted to increase his prestige and public image. Giving up a small amount of land in order to build a connection with royalty does exactly that. His total assets taking a not insignificant hit are irrelevant compared to having the crown princess pick his land specifically. Ludwig does not think like a noble, so this perfect solutionnote  never occurred to him. It didn't really occur to Mia either.
    • Mia's requests to Count Rudolvon go better than she expects because his mindset differs from that of better-off nobles, including her own:
      • Mia considers that she's boldly Stealing the Credit for one of the acts that made Tiona a beloved figure during the original timeline's revolution by asking him to freely distribute his grain reserves to the commoners if there is ever a bad harvest year, on the condition that he makes it clear that she's the one who asked him to do it. Mia doesn't know that Count Rudolvon had independently considered distributing his grain reserves during previous bad harvest years, only to be told by other nobles that doing so would be seen as an act of rebellion towards the Imperial family since it's technically their reserves. As a result, he's actually grateful to be obligated to distribute the grain under Mia's name, as he doesn't see it as her taking credit for the idea, but giving him permission that the other nobles can't argue with.
      • When Mia tells him that she plans to build a school near his estate and that she'd like his Child Prodigy son to be its first student, she expects him to be disappointed by the news that she intends to also open that school to local commoners and the nearby Barbarian Tribe, hence it will be nothing like sending the boy to the existing Royal School. Count Rudolvon actually likes the idea of his son not needing to deal with the Royal School's high-stakes politics to be able to get an education. He also wants his family to stay on good terms with both the other groups to whom the school will be open and sees all their children going there together as a good way to achieve this.
  • Boarding School: Saint-Noel Academy is one, although while it's where Mia regroups with her friends, it generally averts being an Academy of Adventure as most of the excitement takes place outside of it, not within.
  • Broken Pedestal: Subverted. In Volume 2 When Mia was telling her father that she wanted to claim Viscount Berman's lands for herself and build a town on the land with her title, Ludwig started to doubt her wisdom and his loyalty because he thought it would antagonize Viscount Berman, but his faith and loyalty was reinstated when he saw Viscount Berman crying out of joy. He then realizes that he was thinking too much like a merchant, whereas a noble like the Viscount values the honor the Princess's project will bring him more than the lost land.
  • But for Me, It Was Tuesday: Inverted. Towards the end of the original timeline, Mia felt guilty about the time she unfairly slapped Tiona out of jealousy, which eventually bleeds over into the present. On OG!Tiona's part, she barely remembered the incident both because a) Mia's aversion to pain meant she didn't slap Tiona very hard to begin with, and b) it paled in comparison to all of the other harassment and bullying she'd received.
  • Casual Danger Dialogue: The characters are often prone to this. Dion does it constantly, and Abel, Sion, and Keithwood indulge in it at times. Mia may or may not avert this, depending on whether she's panicking or gone so far that she's achieved zen.
    Sion: Leaves you sort of open, doesn't it, Abel? Not the most practical move, in my humble opinion.
    Abel: No. Not unless you're here, Sion. Which means I'm going in full power, all the way.
  • Chekhov's Gun: The horse shampoo Abel gifted Mia, introduced as just a gag where Mia mistakes it for shampoo meant for her hair. However, it ends up saving her life when she's held hostage by Jem, as it begins to leak on the floor and Anne realizes Mia can take advantage of its slipperiness to escape.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Mia in the new timeline started to learn some extra skills and knowledge such as outdoor survival skills in case she ever had to run off by herself. For the most part, they are just extra bits of knowledge that never see any usage. Until Volume 4 when due to Esmeralda's foolishness, they end up stranded on an island where her knowledge gets put to good use.
    • Just don't ask her about mushrooms. However, even this becomes a Chekhov's-lack-of-Skill in a way, as Mia accidentally poisoning herself with a poisonous mushroom was interpreted as her Jumping on a Grenade to prove that yes, people could be poisoned at the academy.
    • Even the mushrooms come into play in volume 6, When Mia idly recognizes and identifies an extremely deadly red mushroom that absolutely should not be on the Academy Island, although she doesn't recognize the significance of it. It's only mushrooms that are very similar to each other that Mia can't tell the difference from, a common mistake for beginner or book learned mushroom hunters.
  • The Church: The religious authority in the series is the Central Orthodox Church but it has the most presence in the Holy Principality of Belluga.
  • Colourful Theme Naming: Also mixed with Rock Theme Naming. the children of the Four Dukes of Red, Yellow, Blue, and Greenmoon: Redmoon's Ruby, Bluemoon's Sapphias, like "Sapphire" and Redmoon's Esmeralda, like "Emerald". From the end of Volume 5's Chapter 3: Citrina Etoile Yellowmoon, referencing Citrine.
  • Common Tongue: The dominant language used throughout the continent is Continenta.
  • Compete for the Maiden's Hand: In Vol. 9, Sion challenges Abel for Mia's hand, though it's downplayed in that no one actually expects Mia to break up with Abel over the outcome and it's clear that it's largely Sion trying to impart a lesson to Echard about how being a prodigy doesn't mean he's flawless. In fact, Mia spends quite a bit of the duel panicking over how she'll have to reject Sion in front of his court as part of his plan before she even realizes that underneath the first and foremost objective, there are genuine feelings involved in the fight.
  • Confirmation Bias: In-Universe. All of Mia's followers are entirely convinced of her wisdom and virtue, so when they see her doing something that is obviously moronic they will stop and begin trying to make up an explanation for why it's actually a genius strategy. They then accept this wild guess as being the actual truth because it conforms to their assumption that Mia has some kind of basic functional plan.
  • Contrived Coincidence: While Mia did want a way to help other countries with the famine, she had no clue how to handle the logistics. The resources, the technological developments, and those with the necessary skills, all just so happen to assemble themselves under her management. Ludwig assumes Mia is a genius to the point of borderline prescience, and one of his colleagues agrees that the only other explanation for such an absurd chain of coincidences would be reality itself breaking down.
  • Cool and Unusual Punishment: Mia proposes sending the renegade spies of White Crow to the Holy Lady Rafina to receive a sermon from her every day. Most of the White Crows don't get it and interpret it as a joke and so go along with it being indifferent at worst, but Jem, the man who instigated them and laughed at the idea of torture, goes Anything but That!. His reason for reacting so badly is due to him being a zealous adherent to a Religion of Evil.
  • The Corrupter: The group called Chaos Serpent wants to destroy the current order of the world and would corrupt various government officials to destroy themselves and their nation.
  • Cringe Comedy: Mia is repeatedly put in situations where a normal person would welcome spontaneous combustion but holds on due to her position as the princess of the Tearmoon Empire.
  • Cruel to Be Kind: When it becomes clear that something is troubling Mia — her upcoming assassination — and Abel wishes she'd tell him so that he could help, she chooses not to, having already learned that doing so won't prevent her death and instead pushes Abel past the Despair Event Horizon, as having foresight of her death only adds to his guilt of failing to protect her.
  • Deliberate Values Dissonance: Classist views are in full display, with even Mia unabashedly possessing some, although the narration makes it clear that they aren't to be supported. On the other hand, an Arranged Marriage with a notable age difference is treated as acceptable (Esmeralda gets engaged to a boy eight years younger than her, for instance) given that this is nobility we're talking about, and Kissing Cousins isn't entirely frowned upon.
  • Delicate and Sickly: Anne's younger sister Elise has always had a weak body, and spends most of her time resting in bed.
  • Demonic Possession: People who lose reason and act like beasts are thought to have been possessed by demons and are subject to exorcism.
  • Divine Intervention: Ludwig theorizes that God, if God exists, has established a set of rules for the universe. A "miracle" would be a case of God breaking those rules. In Ludwig's opinion, God would only break their own rules very reluctantly, in the event that the Godzilla Threshold has been crossed.
  • "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: The anime's opening, "Happy End Princess", is sung by Sumire Uesaka, but in-character as Mia. In other words, it's as though Mia herself is singing the theme song for her own story.
  • Downer Beginning: It begins with Mia's imprisonment and execution, no less.
  • Dramatic Irony: In the timelines where the Lulu tribe’s forest was burned down, it was due to Mia being scapegoated because she became interested in having a chest made out of high quality wood from one tree. In the timelines where she prevented the Lulu massacre, they willingly donate a tree that is used to make a statue of her.
  • Dumbass Has a Point: The narrator usually has little respect for Mia, but it stays quiet when she's making a valid point, such as criticizing past life Sion's Knight Templar tendencies and occasional hypocrisy.
  • Entertainingly Wrong:
    • Mia asking Ludwig for help for the first time. Ludwig was blown away when Mia answers his question about how much it costs to feed royalty like her and calls her a wise royal when Mia only just answered him based on what Ludwig said in her past life.
    • Mia donating her favorite hairpin. People thought she was so generous that they started calling her a Saint... when in fact, she'd just given away the hairpin so that the rebellion's soldiers couldn't steal it from her later in the timeline like before.
    • Keithwood convinced himself that Mia saw Abel's potential when in fact, it was just Mia trying to avoid Sion due to her experiences in her past life.
  • Empire with a Dark Secret: The Tearmoon Empire's foundational myth and even its very purpose is a malicious lie. Even the Imperial Family, descendants of the First Emperor, forgot his secret, only one of the four Dukes and a secret society allied with the First Emperor know the true reason for its creation. Supposedly, the conquerors who founded Tearmoon were a tribe of hunters, and the military advantage that gave them over the farmers of Tearmoon led them to ridicule the very concept and ban farming the most fertile region in the world. In truth, The First Emperor was an intelligent and vicious madman who swore vengeance against the entire world for some personal tragedy. He conquered the most fertile land and formed the Tearmoon Empire's anti-agricultural culture in order to deprive the world of it during a famine he planned on his followers engineering. His followers would then use the resulting chaos to bring the world to ruin.
  • Everyone Has Standards: Applies to the narrator, oddly enough. While it constantly mocks Mia's low intelligence, cowardice and vanity, it will not look down on Mia's actual good intentions, nor undermine her when she's making a valid point.
  • Exact Words: Mia makes use of this in her bet with Ruby. When they make the bet, Mia tells Ruby that she will claim her sword if she wins. In that case, she meant Ruby’s literal sword. However, after winning their bet and realizing Ruby is in love with Vanos, Mia changes the meaning of the wager to be symbolic, so she has Ruby become a member of the Princess Guard, which works out for both of them.
  • Fair-Weather Friend:
    • The four Duke families of Tearmoon are directly related to the Imperial Family, and are superficially on friendly terms when times are good. But in the first timeline, when Mia begged them for assistance in stabilizing the empire, they would show her up, ignore her, and ultimately abandon her.
    • Esmeralda was the first such friend to abandon her, even if it was at her father's nudging, resulting in Mia treating her coldly in the second timeline.
    • The Redmoon family refused to backup the Imperial Family's efforts to put up a united front against the revolutionaries, because the family's daughter wanted the revolutionaries to take Mia's head.
    • One of Tearmoon's vassal countries, Ganudos, was sworn to provide Tearmoon with seafood in return for military protection. In the first timeline, they reneged on their part of the deal and very deliberately contributed towards the Empire's downfall. Mia notes that they were successful, but had they failed, Tearmoon would have made them pay a price for their betrayal.
  • The Famine: Mia knows from previous experience that one will happen, and a lot of her efforts throughout the story go into making sure it doesn't spell disaster for Tearmoon Empire (and, eventually, the other nations when she realizes she can't just leave her friends to flounder).
  • Fantastic Racism: Subverted. While Tearmoon nobles don't like the minorities in their kingdom, their real issue is farmers — even upstanding nobility of the main Tearmoon ethnicity who are farmers are looked down upon with the utmost disdain.
  • Fatal Flaw:
    • Mia's is Sloth. She's very apathetic and hates having to do any work. In the original timeline this got her executed. It's played with to an extent, however, because when she's made aware of her flaws she will at least try (poorly) to address them, which is why she works to prevent the revolution from happening in the new timeline. This is why Ludwig did his best to plead for her not to be executed: He knew she was stupid, but he also knew that she was trying the best she could in her own way.
    • There are many flaws that the nobles in the story have, but Pride is arguably the biggest. Many of them, especially from Tearmoon, constantly do terrible/stupid things and treat commoners badly because they are driven by it. Mia used to be one of them, but in the new timeline, she has outgrown it and cares little about Pride and appearance and more about results...for the most part. In front of those close to her like Anne, she will still show some pride so as to not disgrace herself or them.
    • In volume 1, Ludwig takes advantage of this by edging them on to contribute funds to build a hospital in the slums after the declaration that Mia had sold some prized possession to fund the project. In order to maintain their appearances of not being cheap, they had no choice but to contribute.
    • One of the biggest problems the nobles' pride has caused is the lack of farming. The Tearmoon Empire is located on some of the most fertile land in the world, and ironically enough, takes as little advantage of it as possible. If they only used a little more of what they had, the future famine would not be a problem, but the nobles treat being told to allocate some of their land to farming as the greatest possible insult. This is due to the Empire's history. The original inhabitants were farmers. But they got conquered by a tribe of hunters, who would then go on to mock the very idea of farming as a sign of weakness.
  • Feminine Women Can Cook: Mia believes this and wants to show off her cooking skills (of which she has none, mind you) to display her "marriageability". It's actually averted as many of the female characters, feminine or not, cannot cook, and the male characters don't particularly expect them to outside of the misogynistic Remno society.
  • Food Porn: Mia is really into food, so expect her to describe her meals. In an afterword, the author even mentions that fans claim that the series should have the "makes you hungry" label.
  • Forced into Evil: The Yellowmoon Ducal family are allied with the Chaos Serpents because that was the mission given to their family by the First Emperor, but they're honestly not really into it anymore either and have in the past attempted to break away. In the present, Citrina is being dragged along by her retainer while personally motivated to help her dad, but her dad is also just sort of a dork seemingly going through the motions. However, it's not really up to them because the Serpents are not forgiving towards rebellious pawns.
  • For Want Of A Nail:
    • With Mia being the nail, specifically. While changing the future for herself is Mia's goal, everyone Mia interacts with for any length of time ends up with significant Character Development, leading them to become significantly better people in the new timeline, which leads to knock on effects since most people Mia interacts with are highly influential nobility.
      • One of the most prominent is Abel, who was in the original timeline a womanizer due to being completely discouraged to try by Sion. In the new timeline, Mia convinces him to keep trying because he can't know what the future has in store, which leads to Abel becoming more confident and assertive in his abilities.
      • One somewhat corrupt nobleman decides to cut down a special tree to make a jewelry box for Mia. This is a pretext for seizing the entire forest, which is currently occupied by the Lulu tribe. Who owns the land is not clear between the nobleman and the neighbor on the other side, Count Rudolvon, so he thinks if he can clear the land and clear out the tribe he can develop the land. In the original timeline, this led to the massacre of the Lulu tribe and the soldiers sent to fight them. The survivors of both groups came to hate Mia for supposedly ordering it, causing great unrest. In the new timeline, Mia ends up opening diplomacy since during her attempts to prevent a plague outbreak in the slums, she gained the gratitude of a young boy who gives Mia his deceased mother's hairpin. Said mother turned out to be the daughter of the Lulu tribe's leader, and Mia dropping the hairpin when getting the army to retreat gives her the opportunity to negotiate with said leader. In the process, she seizes a small amount of the noble's land in order to build an academy. Surprisingly, the nobleman is thrilled about this because it connects him to royalty and grants him the prestige of having the princess's personal project built on his land. The Lulu tribe, the soldiers and the nobleman all become very loyal to Mia as a result.
    • In Vol. 6, Tiona becomes a walking nail as Mia finds that nothing she does is preventing her upcoming death noted in the Princess Mia Chronicles. Thus, resigned to it, she decides that she at least wants to apologize to Tiona for her past deeds... but this single action, which wasn't even intended to alter her fate, becomes the key to saving her life since Tiona becomes her savior.
  • Generic Cuteness: The art style lends itself to this. Mia is described in the narration to be pretty but not that pretty, especially next to knockouts like Rafina, while Abel is described as handsome but not as good-looking at Sion.
  • Girl Posse: In the original timeline, Mia had a conventional one that followed everything she did and with whom she gossiped. In the new timeline, Mia is much less inclined to bullying, on top of Anne's presence weeding out the most classist and/or shallow of the nobles, so her posse this time around is much friendlier. They exist as a handful of nameless characters whose role is usually to bring up minor plots or events that her properly established friends wouldn't such as the upcoming swordsmanship tournament, or to fill out the numbers when she needs supporters.
  • Give Me a Sword: In Vol. 7, as part of the Big Damn Heroes moment, Abel's sword breaks — as he was in such a hurry that he grabbed only a training sword — before Sion arrives on the scene and throws him a real sword.
  • Glad He's On Our Side: Mia often has this sentiment towards characters such as Dion or Rafina... because she very much remembers her past life where they weren't on her side.
  • Good Angel, Bad Angel: Both of Mia's inner angels dress up like mushrooms. When Mia wants to show off what an expert mushroom gatherer she is with the delicious beluga mushroom she found, her inner angel warns her that there is a poisonous mushroom that looks just like beluga mushrooms, while her inner devil reassures her that she should revel in her accomplishment, because even if it is the poisonous mushroom, it is one that will at worst give her stomachaches. Naturally, Mia goes with the bad angel and inevitably suffers the consequences.
  • Good Feels Good: When Mia declares that for her birthday celebration, she wants all of the nobles to throw feasts for their common people, they all oblige not because they want to, but because they don't dare to defy the Imperial Princess... but several discover that having fun with their people and being praised as a "generous lord" is pretty nice, actually.
  • The Good, the Bad, and the Evil:
    • Good: The core cast — i.e. Mia and her allies — who are working to ensure the continent's prosperity and being the active force against the Chaos Serpents.
    • Bad: Your run-of-the-mill nobility, who can sometimes get in Mia and co.'s way due to their self-serving ambitions, but they tend not to be actively malicious and can be swayed and/or used for Mia's benefit.
    • Evil: The Chaos Serpents, who seek the destruction of all order and society.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: While Mia and original timeline Ludwig worked hard to fight against the empire's financial ruin, famine and plague, it's not until 3 or 4 timelines in that they discover, by Mia bumbling around on accident, that all the empire's woes are intentionally being caused by Chaos Serpent, a group of religious anarchists. It's still later that Mia discovers, again by accident, that even Chaos Serpent has something larger behind them: The founder and first Emperor of Tearmoon.
  • Grey-and-Gray Morality: Ultimately, once the reader has the full picture, the conflict between Mia and Sion & Tiona in the original timeline boils down to this:
    • On Mia's part, once the famine struck, most people wouldn't be equipped to handle the situation that she was expected to. Furthermore, she wasn't even guilty of all the things she was accused and executed for. Even if she was, the narration takes her side when she internally criticizes Sion for being schoolmates with her for years and yet never just telling her that she needed to do better, instead dropping a revolution on her head when it was too late. Much like how history views the real life Marie-Antoinette whom Mia's character was inspired by, Mia comes across as collateral damage of a bloody revolution rather than someone genuinely deserving to die.
    • On the other side, even the narrative points out that there were just as many valid criticisms of Mia as there were false ones; she did ignore and/or participate in bullying in Saint-Noel, making it little wonder Tiona and co. thought poorly of her, and she and her father really were incompetent rulers who did themselves no favors. It's suggested Tearmoon did get better once they were out of the picture, and even if Sion hadn't sentenced Mia to death, the revolutionaries would've killed her anyway and so, in a way, he was actually trying to grant her a humane death.
  • Hard Work Hardly Works: In the original timeline, Abel believed this was the case, feeling that none of his efforts would allow him to catch up to the Child Prodigy Sion and giving up as a result. In the current timeline, Mia encourages him to keep trying, as one never knows what the future holds. By the time the tournament arrives, Abel is at least able to hold his own against Sion.
  • Heir Club for Men: By default, men inherit.
    • Ruby's father jokes that, what with her being the most capable of all the Redmoon children, she should be his heir — the implication being that the only reason she isn't already is that she's a woman. To his credit, he would seriously support her as the first Empress in Tearmoon's history, only changing his mind because she's happier in a different position, but the fact that Tearmoon has never had a female ruler until now speaks for itself.
    • Despite Mia being the Emperor's only child, she's not automatically designated as his heir, as it's instead assumed that a male relative such as Sapphias will become ruler. When she presents herself as a serious contender for the throne, it shocks the aristocracy.
  • He Knows Too Much: When Mia comes across a cluster of extremely deadly mushrooms, Citrina pretends to have no idea what type of mushrooms those are. Mia, however, due to her mushroom obsession, recognizes them. Citrina strongly considers killing Mia and Miabel right then and there. But even if she manages to Make It Look Like an Accident, the resulting investigation would likely end up encountering the mushrooms in question anyways, so she is forced to abort Chaos Serpent's plans to kill all the servants with poison.
  • Hidden Depths:
    • Mia may come across as a lazy, arrogant, and selfish princess — and she is — but at her core she is compassionate, hard working, and as Ludwig notes, she will never consciously make the same mistake twice. She also, when given proper motivation, shows significant drive and willpower to learn things. After going back in time, she is also far more mature, less prideful, and more open minded than most nobles, willing to work with commoners without complaint, unfazed by the rougher aspects of life such as the smell of the slums, and with a powerful respect for agriculture and related fields.
      • Even in the original timeline, Mia was subject to this; Ludwig asked her if she had only one slice of cake left, would she either eat it herself or feed the hungry? Expecting her to give one of two vapid answers — take it for herself, or give it all to the needy — she instead agonizes over if it would be ok to eat the strawberry when sharing the cake with the hungry person she's sharing it with. It's endearing enough that Ludwig silently acknowledges that even if Mia's an idiot in way over her head... she's trying. Which was why he willingly tried to prevent her execution to the very end and refused to work with Sion, who condemned her to execution.
    • Not unlike his distant cousin, Sapphias mostly comes off as an Upper-Class Twit, but both Mia and Esmeralda acknowledge that he's a surprisingly considerate dance partner, and Keithwood is surprised to learn that he can cook — a supremely uncommon skill to be found in any Tearmoon noble.
    • It seems to run in the family, as Esmeralda comes off a snooty, typical high class girl, but she's also an Outdoorsy Gal, and it's less that she truly holds classist views and more that she's obedient to authority by nature, believing that it's expected of her to look down on commoners. In reality, she longs for the kind of close relationship Mia has with her maid and ends up being quite happy to hang out with the likes of Tiona.
  • High-School Dance: Saint-Noel has a tradition of throwing a dance party for their new students each year. On one hand, it's what kicks off Mia and Abel's romance; on the other hand, it showcases some of the bullying that goes on towards those like Tiona.
  • Hostage Situation: Chaos Serpent lures Mia to her assassination by kidnapping Miabel and providing Mia instructions to come alone. Since the Mia Chronicles make no mention of Miabel, Mia realizes that Chaos Serpent plans to kill Miabel even if Mia agrees to exchange her own life.
  • Hypocritical Humor:
    • Mia does her best to be a responsible sister figure to Miabel, often scolding her for her behaviour or finding it embarrassing... but more than once, it's a quality that Mia herself is or has been more than guilty of. See: fangirling over Sion.
    • Sapphias warns Mia against trusting Esmeralda, stating that she's someone who can act friendly but be plotting behind your back — blissfully oblivious to how this is also a very apt descriptor of himself, which does not go unnoticed.
    • When Esmeralda acts as though Citrina having to show a bit of leg is scandalous (albeit not directed towards Citrina herself), Citrina internally points out how this is coming from the girl who goes around in a swimsuit in front of her squadron of men every summer.
  • Ironic Echo: "I'm sure you'll find a more suitable partner." When Mia first says it to Sion, it's back when she still holds a grudge and thus is implying that he's not good enough for her. When she says it again while rejecting his confession, she genuinely means it, wishing him happiness and true love.
  • It Runs in the Family: It's indicated that the Tearmoon family is mostly made up of a bunch of narcissistic but ultimately harmless dumbasses. Mia is basically good natured, but vain and stupid. She thinks her father is too self centered to care about the popularity of potential political rivals. Her cousin is an ineffectual schemer that nonetheless is actually a pretty decent employer because he's too scared of pain and blood to actually punish his servants. During his introduction chapter the story even notes his relation to Mia as though this is all the explanation needed for his weirdness.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: While her reputation is freakishly good, Mia isn't really a bad person. Her heart is in the right place, it's just that her brain and stomach usually aren't. If something wrong is brought to her attention she'll usually try to do something about it. And it usually works out somehow, despite her incompetence.
  • Karmic Jackpot: Spanning across timelines:
    • Mia repays Anne's kindness and loyalty in the original timeline by making her her personal maid, consequently ensuring her family's livelihood.
    • One chapter briefly tells the story of Ernst, an utterly ordinary soldier who in the original timeline, when many soldiers turned coat and became bandits, remained loyal to the end and protected a convoy carrying famine supplies at the cost of his life. In the new timeline, Mia — who certainly appreciates goodness and loyalty at this point — rewards him by appointing him to the Princess Guard, even if this version of him is understandably confused.
    • No matter what Mia does, the predicted future of her death by wolves won't change, so she decides to do everything she can to satisfy herself in the meantime. One of her final acts is to apologize to Tiona for something the victim not only couldn't possibly remember, but wasn't even really bothered by anyway. Because it's the right thing to do, even if only to clear her own conscience. This ends up being the final trigger to saving her life mere days later when Tiona ends up with Wistful Amnesia and ends up coming to her rescue.
  • Kiss of Life: Subverted. This is what Mia thinks is about to happen in Vol. 2, after she and Sion nearly drown, but that kind of thing is not, in fact, part of the medical steps he's following.
  • Knight Templar: Several characters in the original timeline fall into this mindset, most notably Prince Sion and Rafina. In the new timeline, Mia induced character growth causes them to grow out of it.
    • In the first timeline, Prince Sion believed that the Imperial Family murdered Tiona's popular father without needing the slightest bit of proof, condemned them for it, and then put them to death in order to please the revolutionaries and Make an Example of Them. Ludwig called him out on it.
      Ludwig: Have you ever been wrong, Prince Sion? Even once? I doubt it. And that's why... You'll probably never understand... how she felt... and how hard she tried...
    • In the new timeline, Mia's efforts prevent history from repeating in Tearmoon, so the masterminds hastily try to recycle their plans in the Remno Kingdom. Using a Frame-Up, they almost manage to trick Prince Sion into going after the Remno royal family. When Prince Sion discovers the truth, he is deeply humbled.
    • In the first timeline, unlike Prince Sion and Tiona, Rafina was fully aware that Mia was only an Accomplice by Inaction as opposed to the actual cause behind the disasters in Tearmoon, but her belief in merciless divine justice made that more than enough for her to sponsor the revolution and encourage Mia's execution. In the new timeline, Mia's rambling causes Rafina to consider her beliefs and the reason for punishment more carefully. She comes to the conclusion that punishment is intended to console the victim and teach the perpetrators their lesson, resulting in Rafina becoming more merciful to wrongdoers in order to enact the latter rather than just punishing them blindly.
    • In a later timeline, Chaos Serpent massacres the school's servants with a mass poisoning. Rafina, already overwhelmed by the sheer amount of responsibility she was under, failed to take countermeasures, having never realized just how The Unfettered Chaos Serpent was in the first place. The damage to her reputation caused her a Freak Out. She proceeded to become a Priest King and attempted to Take Over the World in order to stamp out Chaos Serpent. She ended up causing more chaos, death, and destruction herself than they ever could have dreamed of causing on their own.
  • Laborious Laziness: Most actions Mia makes are to avoid her death flag, in this case, avoid death from the guillotine and to live long. After confirming her actions have achieved that goal, she would be making excuses and doing what she wants to do. Volume 3 implies future Mia refusing to become the Empress since she thought everything will be okay as some future book showed her a good future caused her to let her guard down.
  • Last-Second Word Swap:
    • More than once, it's fairly clear Keithwood was about to swear before remembering he's in the presence of nobility.
      Keithwood: I'm going to need you all to listen up and to fuc... follow my instructions, please.
    • When exploring Sunkland, Bel frequently begins with saying that she's going on an adventure, before correcting herself to say "tour" so that it doesn't sound like she's misbehaving... except it comes out as "adven-tour", fooling no one.
  • Late-Arrival Spoiler:
    • Bel is one of the main characters, but the nature of her existence reveals that Mia actually manages to erase the guillotine timeline quite early on in the story.
    • The synopsis of any given volume goes into detail what happened in the previous volume.
  • Laser-Guided Karma:
    • When the Imperial Family attempted to rally the private armies of all nobles to put up a united front, the Redmoon family turned their backs on them. The revolution did not stop with killing the Imperial Family, and proceeded to kill every noble that hadn't fled the country. When they came for the Redmoon family, they were unable to get any backup, because the rest of the nobles followed their example and only fought for themselves.
    • It goes both ways for Corrupt Corporate Executive Shalloak Cornrogue in the new timeline. Becoming a Fat Bastard, enraged at the idea that Money Is Not Power, causes him to suffer a collapse and realize that his money won't save him from a cold and meaningless death. Whereas sponsoring a scholarship at great personal expense in his more idealistic youth is why a student doctor who took the scholarship is available to preserve him from immediate death and buy him time to reflect on his life.
  • Lemony Narrator: The story is narrated by an omniscient third-party who also is the only entity aware of Mia's true nature. Due to this, the narrator is prone to snarking about all the characters' misunderstandings. However, even the narrator will stay quiet when Mia is actually right or discussing her sincere good intentions.
  • Like Father, Unlike Son: The present day Imperial Family of Tearmoon compared to their founder. The First Emperor was an intelligent and malicious Straw Nihilist. His descendants are a bunch of relatively harmless Upper Class Twits. The First Emperor conquered his position because he wanted to Put Them Out Of My Misery, his descendants prefer to use their inherited positions to enjoy themselves and certainly don't care about some long forgotten grudge that doesn't affect them.
  • Love Makes You Dumb:
    • In the first timeline, Mia was madly in love with Sion. Downplayed though in the stupid factor; as sheltered as she is, she didn't realize that Sion is the heir of a kingdom, which means she would have to marry into his family, but as she is also the only heir of her empire, it was impossible for them to be together. She didn't realize this until the second timeline, at which point she is very very much over Sion and more interested in Abel... around whom her IQ drops by several points, making this trope still applicable.
    • It's apparently a family trait, as her father was also quite lovey-dovey, and all of the Etoiler children tend to lose their cool when romance is involved (Sapphias and Ruby especially).
  • Low Fantasy: Time travel elements and mention of possible Demonic Possession aside, the series is mostly grounded in politics rather than any kind of magic.
  • May–December Romance: Ruby Etoile Redmoon, the daughter of the Redmoon duke, whose age is close to Princess Mia, is in love with Vanos, the vice captain of Dion who is old enough to be called an uncle without being offended by it. A biography of Ruby at the end of a chapter notes that she got married, although her husband's name was lost to history, but that they had three extremely tall and muscular sons, which lead to much confusion for historians trying to figure out which noble she was paired off with. Vanos is repeatedly noted for having a Heroic Build even for a mercenary-turned-knight.
  • Mistaken for Badass: Mia, all the time. Ever since the word about how she had a hospital built in the slums spread, everybody around her is convinced that she's the embodiment of wisdom and a genius who's constantly one step ahead of everyone. But the truth is they're all just over-interpreting everything she says and does in ways that surprisingly work in her favor.
  • Mistaken for Romance: Anne initially believes Mia is in love with Ludwig. The reality is that, while she does appreciate him, it's first and foremost as an asset she can utilize to right the ship of state and prevent herself from being killed.
  • Mistaken for Servant: When she first saw Tiona in the original timeline, Mia assumed she was a servant and ignored her when she was being bullied, assuming she was actually being disciplined for some offense. This put the two of them at odds and eventually led to Tiona being involved in Mia's execution.
  • Mistaken for Undead: When Noble Fugitive Miabel is first transported to the past in the academy, the disoriented girl continues to sneak about like a fugitive, causing everyone to mistake her for a ghost.
  • Mood Whiplash: For the most part, the series is a comedy and light-hearted even during tense moments—with a notable exception in any scenes of the very grim original timeline, which are at times sandwiched between easygoing present-day chapters.
  • My Fist Forgives You: Mia isn't particularly seeking revenge for what happened in the original timeline, but when the Sion of the current timeline is almost tricked into making the same mistake as he did in the original timeline, only in the Remno Kingdom instead of Tearmoon, Mia takes advantage of his shame to make him accept her punishment. Due to the difference in strength and builds, he barely feels Mia's strike, and interprets it as Mia's forgiveness in return for learning his lesson.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: First timeline Tiona refused to listen to Mia's apology when she was on death row because she blamed her for the death of her father. When Mia was posthumously found innocent, Tiona was horrified with herself for refusing to grant the last wish of a woman who was about to die for a crime she didn't commit.
  • My Greatest Failure:
    • As shown in flash-sideways to the original timeline, many of the people involved in the revolution and eventual killing of Mia come to regret their involvement, years afterwards when things calm down.
      • Of special note is Tiona who was lead to believe that Mia intentionally tormented her at school as part of the bigotry against agricultural nobles and had her father killed out of petty spite. Despite Ludwig begging her to meet with and get to know Mia while she was awaiting being put to death, she refuses. After the revolution, Tiona discovers that Mia was framed for the death of her father and the massacre of the Lulu tribe, and thus was not the evil monster she had been tricked into hating. She spends the rest of her life regretting her decisions, a regret so powerful it bleeds into the new timeline after she has a dream of her alternate self reflecting on her life.
      • To a lesser extent, it's also implied that Tiona regretted letting herself and Sion drift apart on the basis that she wasn't suited for healing his emotional scars from the revolution — not so much for letting their potential romance fall apart, but because without anyone at his side, Sion went on to live a lonely, bitter life.
      • Played with in regards to Prince Sion who was subconsciously traumatized by executing Mia and coped by convincing himself that it was a necessary action and became a Knight Templar right up to his deathbed because he couldn't live with believing that he might've caused a grave injustice.
    • In the current timeline, Prince Sion discovers that some Overzealous Underlings in his nation's spying agency tried to Frame-Up the royalty of foreign countries to give Sunkland an excuse to invade, and he almost fell for it. He then resolves to remember that he can make mistakes, and that wrongdoers who are genuinely willing to repent should be given a second chance.
  • My Sister Is Off-Limits: Inverted. As close as Esmeralda and her little brother are—to the point that Mia thinks the latter's Big Sister Worship is probably a problem in the long run—when he was brought up as a marriage prospect for Mia in the past, it never went anywhere in part because it straddled the taboo side of Kissing Cousins but also because of Esmeralda's veto on the basis that Mia deserved better.
    Esmeralda: My little brother... falls a smidge short of her standards. Very short, if I'm being honest!
  • Nepotism: What it looks like Mia is doing to the other nobles when she overpays an associate for distantly imported wheat. The thing is, the nobles would complain about paying higher taxes to store wheat on behalf of commoners for a famine, but if it looks like she's doing a favor for a friend, the nobles aren't hypocritical enough to complain about corruption they themselves participate in, so they let it go. In fact, if anything, it helps them relate to her a bit better, even if it does remove some credibility from her image as a saint.
  • Never My Fault: In the original timeline, both Sion and Tiona thought this way in executing Mia. Thinking that they did nothing wrong in executing her. Both claiming that because the citizens were angry, so it didn't matter if she was innocent or not, and so they did nothing wrong in killing her as that was to be her fate regardless. Even after the truth came to light, Tiona continued to deny her wrong doings at first, however the guilt eventually overwhelmed her and she had to acknowledge that she was wrong. However, Sion never did so, even until the very end as he laid on his death bed all by himself, convincing himself that he did nothing wrong in executing Mia.
  • No Historical Figures Were Harmed: Mia is an Expy to the real life historical figure Marie-Antoinette, or at least the popular interpretation of her. Like Marie, Mia lived a pampered and lavish lifestyle while the commoners outside of the palace suffered from sickness and strife. When even confronted with how scarce food supplies Mia nonchalantly responds "if there's no bread, then we should just eat meat", a reference to Antoinette's apocryphal "let them eat cake". And like Marie, Mia's life gets tragically cut short after a rebellion leads to the execution of the royal family.
  • Odd Friendship:
    • Thanks to meeting through Mia, Ludwig—a bookish bureaucrat dedicated to reforms—and Dion—a soldier with no sense of ambition or any true life outside of the battlefield—end up becoming the historically iconic duo of Mia's supporters.
    • Sapphias is a bit of an Upper-Class Twit, while Keithwood is a cynical commoner vassal, but when Sapphias rescues Keithwood from having to supervise Mia's cooking yet again, the two hit it off and the narration notes that historically, they remained good friends even after Sapphias's graduation.
  • Off with His Head!: Mia's fate in the original timeline — being lead to a guillotine after years of torment in the dungeons after a rebellion overthrows her father's empire. Worse, she remembers every moment of the blade taking her head; avoiding that ever happening again becomes her all encompassing life's mission in the new timeline.
  • One-Steve Limit:
    • This is presumably why the series has Miabel predominantly go by Bel, lest she get mixed up with Mia.
    • In the web novel, Abel's swordsmanship mentor is accidentally given the same name as Mia's father, before the author retroactively changed it.
  • Overzealous Underling: The White Crows were originally a secret intelligence agency of Sunkland intended to spy out information on other countries. But under the influence of a third party, they went beyond their original mission and tried to actively Frame-Up the royalty of foreign countries to give Sunkland an excuse to invade. Prince Sion does not approve when he finds out and has the organization disbanded.
  • Parental Marriage Veto: The Lulu tribe leader had a falling out with his daughter when she fell in love with an outsider, which resulted in said daughter running away from the forest. He's regretful of this in hindsight after learning his daughter passed away before he could ever apologize to her.
  • Peggy Sue: Mia suddenly finds herself 8 years in the past.
  • Poor Communication Kills: In the original timeline, Ludwig tried to convince Tiona to talk to Mia while she was awaiting execution. Tiona, due to firmly believing Mia being responsible for the Lulu tribe massacre and her father's assassination, refused. Had she talked to Mia beforehand, Tiona would have likely learned Mia had no idea or involvement in the two events far sooner, which would have lead her to realize she was being an Unwitting Pawn. By the time Tiona did learn the truth, Mia had already been executed.
  • P.O.V. Sequel: The spinoff explores what's going on around the events of the main series, mainly from Anne's perspective.
  • Primal Fear: Mia instinctively is utterly terrified of Citrina at random instances, but has no idea why. However, from the context, the reader can tell it's because Citrina is a trained killer and is murderously angry at Mia at the time.
  • Prized Possession Giveaway: A variation on it. At a point where the most efficient way to prevent the revolution seems to be investing money in the capital's poorest district to keep it from being the starting point of The Plague, Mia decides to contribute to the budget by selling off her favorite hair ornament. The reality behind the gesture is that Mia had that ornament taken away from her during the original timeline's revolution, so she'd rather willingly put it towards avoiding the revolution than live through having it forcefully taken away from her a second time. While the ornament alone isn't enough to raise enough money, the gesture's apparent selflessness gets used to convince others donate the rest of the needed money.
  • Purple Is Powerful: Purple is the color of royalty; notably, when Mia shows up wearing a purple dress for an important event, people interpret it as an implicit declaration that she intends to assume the throne.
  • Purple Prose: Mia's letters to Abel, and Abel's letters to Mia. Notable because they're so sappy and overdone that multiple spy agencies remain convinced that they MUST be some sort of incredibly unbreakable code, because there's no way the Empire's Wisdom would write like that.
  • Put Them All Out of My Misery: The man who would eventually become the First Emperor of Tearmoon lost everything he loved and decided to take it out by setting into motion a plot that would make the entire world suffer generations later.
  • Real Men Cook: As Sapphias puts it, women like to cook for the men in their lives, but you know what they like just as much? Said men cooking for them instead! Especially important to keep in mind when your beloved fiancee is a Lethal Chef.
  • Religion of Evil:
    • The occasional cult dedicated to the Archdemon, God's enemy, will pop up from time to time, though they usually dissolve quickly.
    • Chaos Serpents, a group of religious (implied to be demon-worshipping) anarchists. They turn out to be behind many of the disasters that befall Tearmoon, Belluga, et cetera, manipulating events to cause rebellions and famines, assassinating key figures, arranging for incompetent people to gain power, all specifically to destabilize the world. Notably, they were a complete unknown until Mia accidentally revealed them, sending one of their terrorists to Belluga for Rafina to deal with. Amongst other things, they have a violent reaction to the teachings of the Central Orthodox Church.
  • Restrained Revenge: A case where Mia does this by accident. She at some point has the perfect acceptable excuse to do a public My Fist Forgives You to Sion and decides to have it double as her revenge for Sion ordering her beheading in the original timeline. However, even her best effort hits so lightly that Sion mistakes the My Fist Forgives You to be just for show, with Mia intending for only the two of them to know that she held back. Sion mistakes the whole thing for Mia giving him a lesson on how to be a true Reasonable Authority Figure and thanks her profusely, while Mia is internally baffled and starts wondering if Sion likes getting hit by her.
  • Revenge Before Reason: The First Emperor of Tearmoon's revenge plot was designed to take place generations after his own time for the Sins of Our Fathers, and his own descendants were to be among the victims.
  • Revolutionaries Who Don't Do Anything: This is a plot point in Vol. 2, where the Chaos Serpents are forced to incite a rebellion earlier than planned in Remno, but because nothing truly terrible has happened yet, the "rebels" aren't doing much rebelling. Instead, the Serpents have to focus more on convincing the Remno royal family that the insurgents are dangerous in hopes that if the royal family unwittingly lights the first spark, it'll fan into a genuine revolution.
  • The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: While the people's sentiments are sympathetic and the Empire's men are hardly clean either — there's a reason why Sion lent the rebels Sunkland's aid — it's also made clear that the revolutionaries in the original timeline could be needlessly violent or cruel. It's mentioned that Sion sentencing Mia to a Public Execution by guillotine was arguably a mercy, since if he'd let her go then the revolutionaries would've just lynched her to death anyway.
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons:
    • Many of Mia's actions in the new timeline are often done with the intention of making things better, and in most cases, her actions do end up benefiting people and in turn raising their opinion of her. However many of them often misunderstood her intentions, believing that she's doing things out for the sake of benevolence, when her intentions usually come off as selfish or impulsive. Examples include:
      • When tackling one of the issues of food, one of her solutions is to...Ask her friend who is part of a merchant family to sell it to her cheaply. However due to lack of financial sense and not helped by being influenced by the costs of wheat during the famine in the original timeline, she ends up offering a lot more than normal. Ludwig and the merchant misunderstand this naturally and think there is more to it. However since it benefits everyone, there are no complaints.
      • Another issue relating to food that she has to solve involves...developing a brand new strain of wheat that is cold resistant. She ends up making a brand new school just to have the excuse to enroll the said student in order to claim credit for his future brilliant invention. She overlooks the fact that the school will end up raising other equally highly competent people as well who in one future contribute tremendously to the growth of the empire. In fact, Sion and Abel upon learning of this end up believing that Mia is thinking so far ahead into the future that they can't begin to comprehend the scope of her wisdom.
      • Dion interprets Mia fainting at the sight of him while being friendly to his scary looking second-in-command to be because the Princess is good at reading people, and can detect that his subordinate merely has the Face of a Thug while being a Friend to All Children, whereas the gentlemanly looking Dion Would Hurt a Child. The real reason the Princess knows that Dion Would Hit a Girl is because he was her executioner in the original timeline, by his own personal request.
    • None of Mia's friends and associates believe her claim that Bel is her illegitimate sister, figuring that it's just her cover story; at best, Ludwig accepts that Bel could be a distant relative. The only one who actually bought it was Abel, who's shocked to learn that, according to the others, Bel isn't closely related to Mia... except she is — she's just not related the way Mia says she is. Presumably, Abel being Bel's grandfather (unknowingly) has to do with his strike of intuition.
  • Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: Word of God explains that some entities, when brought to the past, are more resistant than others to changes in the timeline, and living things are more resistant than objects. For example, Mia's every action can result in edits to her biography her granddaughter brought to the past, but her granddaughter still remembers the original contents from before she came back.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge:
    • The entire Tearmoon revolution was Tiona launching a violent rebellion against the people she blamed for her father's murder. It would only be afterwards that she would learn that the real culprits mislead her into going after the wrong people.
    • One noble, likely nudged by Chaos Serpent, used Mia as The Scapegoat when he massacred the Lulu Tribe to claim their lands. As a result, the surviving Lulus that had been elsewhere at the time joined the Revolutionary Army.
    • Dion made the greatest contributions during the revolution, killing countless loyalist generals and elite soldiers, all to get revenge on Mia, who he blamed for the deaths of his underlings caused by the aforementioned massacre of the Lulu tribe.
    • Due to some incident, the First Emperor of the Tearmoon Empire swore vengeance against the natives of where the empire stands that lasted through the modern times without caring who is in the way.
  • Romantic Ride Sharing: Seeing as how Mia and Abel are both members of the Equestrian Club, they do this often. Mia mentions it as an occasional date activity between them when they're not riding side by side.
  • Rousseau Was Right: At the end of the day, very few — if any — characters are genuinely evil, as even some of the Chaos Serpents turn out to have sympathetic backstories that explains their obsession with destruction, and the series leans hard on the idea that people can be redeemed.
  • Royal School: Saint-Noel Academy is a co-ed, elite school reserved to royalty and high nobility. There is a homecoming ball, and even luxury shops (that sell jewelry or fancy dresses) inside the enclosure of the school.
  • Royals Who Actually Do Something: Each royal character has shades of this.
    • Though there isn't a cultural expectation for the royalty in Tearmoon to be proactive, Mia is forced to be this in her neverending quest to avoid death, since helping her country is the only way to avoid the revolution that leads to her execution.
    • In both Sunkland and Remno, it's expected to be a Warrior Prince. If a royal doesn't personally fight in the front lines and take care of issues with their own hands, they're considered unfit. It's because of this that Sion is so driven by his sense of justice and why Abel leads his first campaign when he's barely in his teens, albeit with the pessimistic idea that he's really just Authority in Name Only.
  • Running Gag:
    • Mia misses out on some Mushroom Stew in one volume. It becomes a life goal of hers to get mushrooms and have a pot of Mushroom Stew thereafter. Sadly, she has absolutely no earthly idea how to pick safe mushrooms from unsafe ones.
    • More than once, Mia expects to have a tender scene with Abel, only for the spotlight to shine on the latter's rivalry with Sion instead.
    • Every time Kuolan is on the scene, he will sneeze on Mia.
  • Sacred First Kiss: Averted after Mia and Sion end up in the river on the way to Remno. Mia expects Sion to give her CPR and take her first kiss in the process (which she'd been saving for Abel). What she doesn't know is Sunkland uses a different artificial respiration technique when pulling someone out of water: turn their head to the side and remove foreign material from the mouth. Mia is less than prepared when Sion forces her mouth open to get her to start spewing out the river water she swallowed.
  • Sacrificed Basic Skill for Awesome Training: While Sion is well on the way to becoming a well balanced master swordsman due to his inherent talent, Abel knows exactly one move and practices it at the expense of everything else. Sion is still the more dangerous swordsman, but the sheer power behind Abel's swings still makes it a bad idea to underestimate him.
  • Secretly Dying: Mia knows from her time traveling biography that she is going to die soon. She also learns from it that if she tells everyone about her impending death in advance, the guilt that they had foreknowledge and still couldn't stop it will drive them mad. So she decides to enjoy her remaining moments and clear her last regrets without telling anyone the real reason she has been behaving strangely.
  • Secret Test of Character: Zig-Zagged. Ludwig's master was giving a test to Mia called "The Three Visits" where it would make Mia wait for Ludwig's master for three days. Secretly, it was a test to make Ludwig see Mia's true nature but it backfired spectacularly.
  • Set Right What Once Went Wrong:
    • Part of the otome villainess subgenre where the villainess protagonist finds herself sent back in time after her downfall to try and stop it happening, albeit with a rather more selfish protagonist than the norm. Princess Mia Tearmoon, inspired in part by Marie-Antoinette, is thrown into the guillotine in the Tearmoon Empire's totally not French Revolution, only to wake up 8 years earlier with her memories and her tattered diary from before being executed. She proceeds to try and prevent, and if that fails, at least survive said revolution, but Hilarity Ensues due to her Spoiled Brat tendencies constantly getting in the way. Helping her is the fact that her diary updates as she makes changes. Others see her as a saint-like figure, despite her true thoughts being extremely shameless and corrected by a Lemony Narrator.
    • Furthermore, Mia unknowingly fixes not only her fate but everyone else's—as after her death, everyone went on to lead unhappy lives, including those who caused her death. In that regard, the new timeline is as much about saving them as it is saving Mia.
  • Shared Family Quirks: It has been stated that for better or worse, members of the Imperial Family, including the four dukes, share blood along with particular personality traits, like a certain amount of airheadedness and a very strong aversion to pain.
  • Shout-Out:
    • Mia, as an Expy for Marie-Antoinette, has some references regarding the historical figure:
      • The Mia from the first timeline died by the guillotine.
      • Never again would she tell people to eat cake when they had no bread.
    • There are also a couple of references to the Romance of the Three Kingdoms:
      • In volume 2, Mia, upon hearing how a band of self-styled revolutionaries named themselves the "Blue Scarves", had an out of place feeling that the name was plagiarized from somewhere. It is in fact an allusion to the Yellow Turban Army.
      • In volume 4, Ludwig's master attempted to re-enact Liu Bei's three visits to Zhuge Liang as a test for Mia, framing it as "that ancient piece of folklore from the east".
      • Again in volume 4, Mia imagined a scenario that was essentially a retelling of Guan Yu letting Cao Cao go scot-free in the aftermath of his defeat at the Battle of the Red Cliffs.
    • In volume 6, in an attempt to avoid dwelling on her impending doom, Mia began to converse with her horse, leading the narrator to quip about the possibility of her being "disgusted by the barbarism of humans and gallop away to join her brethren in the land of the horses", a reference to the Houyhnhnms in Gulliver's Travels. (In fact, in the web novel version of this series, the chapter where this occurred was titled Mia's Travels.)
  • Shrouded in Myth: Mia is considered the greatest genius of the empire and a saint by many for her reform policies, but in truth she usually doesn't have any idea what she's doing and tends to be wildly overestimated by her followers' Confirmation Bias. However, she is actually not completely incompetent or selfish: Sometimes when people are trying to understand her intentions and come up with some wildly brilliant explanation, they're actually mostly correct.
  • Sins of Our Fathers: A reoccurring theme is whether people should be held accountable for their ancestors' sins or not. Mia, for the record, emphatically says no, since she doesn't want to be responsible for the first emperor's actions or vows.
  • Skewed Priorities: The only reason Mia wants to change the history of the Tearmoon Empire is not out of a desire to change her ways, but rather because she's scared of having to go through the guillotine again, as she hates pain more than anything else.
  • Slave to PR: Royalty and nobility tend to be subject to this.
    • As the series progresses, Mia finds it increasingly difficult to avoid taking up challenging tasks, because she has (unwittingly) garnered the reputation of a "Great Sage" and she really does not want to betray the expectations others have of her facade.
    • Pointedly averted with Mia's father, who cares about the opinions of his people far less than he probably should and cares more about Mia's opinion if anything. This is actually what convinces Mia that there was a Frame-Up in the previous timeline, when he was accused of assassinating Count Rudolvon out of jealousy for his popularity, since it would be out of character for him to care. She turns out to be correct.
    • The basis of Sunkland's rule is that their royalty is more just than anyone else. As a result, they can't be afford to be seen as less virtuous than the royalty of other countries — in particular, Mia. Naturally, this mindset causes many problems for Sion, especially in the original timeline.
    • A downplayed case with the aristocracy: when they learn that Mia, the Imperial Princess, donated her favorite hairpin to help build a hospital, they're in turn forced to also offer make donations, since even they would lose face if they were seen as miserly after that.
  • Sleep Learning: Anne uses this to help Mia with her studies, and it proves surprisingly effective.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: By the author's own admission, the series falls very much on the idealistic side, especially given that the plot revolves around averting various Bad Futures and granting everyone a happy ending.
  • Stealing the Credit:
    • Granted, Ludwig would have found it a lot harder to get things done without the Princess's backing, but Mia still gets a lot more credit for his hard work than she deserves.
    • As a favor, Mia asks Count Rudolvon to give her all the credit when he distributes food during a future famine. She is actually taken aback at how eager he is to fulfill her request when she is taking the credit so blatantly and assumes he is a masochist. But from his perspective, he now has the backing of the Imperial Family to protect himself against other nobles, so he is satisfied. It turns out for the best since the people plotting to assassinate him can no longer plausibly blame it on the Imperial Family he is helping out, also putting a wrench on using his death to fuel the revolution.
  • Stealth Insult: When circumstances force Mia to defend Tiona (who she secretly hates due to her actions in the other timeline) from some bullies, she says she cares for all of her subjects, down to the children of slaves. This is her subtly telling Tiona that she views her as essentially worthless while simultaneously making herself look benevolent and magnanimous. However Tiona, who has a big inferiority complex due to her being a new noble from a backwoods region, interprets it as Mia being open minded and accepting of her.
  • Stellar Name: A lot of things in Tearmoon are named after the moon. Not only is the empire named after the Imperial family name, but many of its noble houses are suffixed with "moon" (Redmoon, Bluemoon etc.), and many of the country's toponyms follow the same theme—for example, the capital is outright called Lunatear.
  • The Stinger:
    • Episode 1's post-credits sequence sees Mia looking for the loyal civil servant she remembers from the first timeline, except she can't remember his name (Ludwig).
    • Episode 2's sees Mia preparing to leave for Saint-Noel Academy and reminding herself to stay away from dangerous people who might mean she ends up meeting the guillotine again, like Sion and Tiona.
  • Succession Crisis: The Tearmoon Empire traditionally selects a male heir as Emperor. If the current Emperor has no sons (as is the case now), then a member of a branch family from one of the ducal houses is selected. In the first few timelines, Mia doesn't even try to aim for the throne. It isn't really expected of her in the first place, not to mention that it is way too much work. However, in those timelines, what should have been an easy and smooth succession is messed up, presumably by Chaos Serpent provocateurs, resulting in instability and even Civil War.
  • Summer School Sucks: Do poorly enough in Saint-Noel and you'll be expected to stay the summer. Bel is at first dismayed, though this trope is then subverted when Lynsha points out that it means she can enjoy the school's free hot chocolate every day.
  • Sure, Let's Go with That: A lot of the humor in this series comes from the way people around Mia interpret everything she says or does to be evidence of her status as The Sage of Tearmoon Empire.
  • Take It to the Bridge: In Miabel's timeline where she was chased by Rafina's Holy Empire, Dion and 5 fellow soldiers stood guard on a bridge to allow Miabel more time to escape and killed 280 soldiers before dying.
  • Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Ruby, a duke, challenged Mia, a princess, to a racing duel.
  • Tomes of Prophecy and Fate: Any history book brought from the future to the past and covering the in between pretty much functions as this. Any changes to the new timeline result in said books being edited to reflect the changes. Mia has had two of them to guide her decisions. The first was her own diary, and therefore changing every time she writes something different than she originally did to the present day version of it. It vanishes when her changes end her fate of dying by the guillotine. The second is her own biography, as written by Elise and brought back in time by her grandchild. She briefly wonders why the books' contents change but her and Miabel's memories do not before concluding that it's easy to change a book, but the force or entity that does so finds it more difficult to do so to a living being's memories and thus they will remain intact until either the future settles down or the time traveled person dies.
  • Too Awesome to Use: Remno's Diamond Legion, who are an elite force... that has yet to see actual battle, since the King of Remno doesn't actually want to risk using them. As one person puts it figuratively, diamonds are expensive — raising said legion was costly, so Remno can't afford to have any of its members dying needlessly.
  • Toxic Friend Influence: In the original timeline, Abel was part of a Card/Gambling club, and that resulted in him becoming a less than savory person and alleinating his real friends such as Lin Malong. However, Mia’s influence in the current timeline causes him to avoid befriending those people and instead join the horseman club, leading to him reforging his bond with Lin Malong and developing a romantic relationship with Mia.
  • Undying Loyalty:
    • Slowly, Mia receives the undying loyalty of her followers due to some misunderstandings gone right. The Imperial Guard were loyal to the end in the original timeline, so she befriends them in the new timeline, leading to them forming the Princess Guard, her own personal army. Foremost among them is Ludwig, who resolves that if it ever turns out Mia is not as wise as he believes, he still believes in her inherent virtue and will still stand with her. Which is exactly how the first timeline went.
    • Keithwood to Sion, to the point that when Sion historically becomes the Libra King, Keithwood receives the moniker of Keithwood the Loyal, "famous for his unwavering loyalty" in Miabel's words. Even in the original timeline, he tries to help free Sion's brother from prison not out of disloyalty, but because he fears that executing him will harden Sion's heart for good. Unfortunately, it's actually having to execute Keithwood for this that destroys him.
  • Unrequited Love Switcheroo: In the original timeline, Mia was head-over-heels in love with Prince Sion. He not only continually ignored her while they were in school together but then he was one of the leaders of the revolution that led to her and her family's death. Mia continues to hold a grudge against Sion in the current timeline, even though those actions occurred in an alternate timeline. Despite this, her apparent change in demeanor and now her being the one to ignore him has led to Sion growing infatuated with her instead.
  • Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Viscount Berman inadvertently contributes to Mia's death in the original timeline due to his invasion of the Sealance Forest and the resulting massacre of the Lulu tribe and claiming it was done for Mia's sake to gift her a jewelry box made from a tree from said forest resulting in Tiona, Liora, and Dion, three major players in the revolution, to hold a grudge against her.
  • Use Your Head: Mia used to headbutt Anne in displeasure:
    It occurred to Mia at this point that headbutts might have been behavior that was a tad unbefitting her status.
  • Vengeance Feels Empty: With Mia being The Scapegoat for the Sealence Forest massacre, Ruby convinced her father not to help Mia rally the Imperial Army in the hopes that the revolutionaries would kill her. She didn't regret Mia's death, but she still felt empty inside, because it costed her the lives of her entire family and she didn't get to kill Mia with her own hands.
  • Visions of Another Self: As the new timeline stabilizes, many characters begin to experience parts of the original timeline in their dreams:
    • This comes into focus the most when Tiona is experiencing her extreme regret from the original timeline, where she discovers too late that Mia was framed for her role in her father's assassination, and spends the rest of her life regretting not speaking to her while in prison. This, combined with Mia apologizing for what she did in the original timeline, leads to Tiona reacting significantly differently than she usually would have when Miabel is kidnapped and Mia is lured out to be assassinated.
    • Esmeralda's appear at the end of Chapter 2 of Volume 4. She remembers how she promised Mia a party to cheer her up, only to break said promise due to her family fleeing.
    • Ludwig remembers why his other self served Mia to the end, despite looking down on her foolishness, admiring the fact that despite her incompetence, she struggled to make everything right till her death.
  • War Refugees: The First Emperor of Tearmoon conquered the most fertile land in the world and persecuted the previous inhabitants as mere farmers. The ones who couldn't take it fled and settled the country now known as Perujin. The refugees, fearing that the First Emperor would invade them again to finish them off, preemptively offered a deal. To their great surprise, while the deal was far from fair, the Emperor actually agreed to it, even though he could have taken everything very easily. His reason for sparing them was due to Cruel Mercy from a Misanthrope Supreme. While the Perujins wouldn't receive all the suffering he could inflict, it would still breed enough resentment from them to ensure that they would someday lash out at his own people, whom the First Emperor hated just as much.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: Mia gives an implicit one to Sion after asking if he'll kill Abel if it turns out that Abel is oppressing the people to which he answered yes; that is, a few words and anger in her eyes was enough for Sion to read her intentions. In the series' usual fashion, there are actually two conversations going on here:
    • In the context of the present, Sion realizes that swooping in to save the day and punish evil when the damage's already underway hardly makes him an arbiter of justice, seeing as how he did nothing to try and prevent the situation in the first place, especially when he did see the seeds of unrest coming. It's made worse when he realizes that his country was partly at fault, and it's what gets him to loosen his strict view of justice.
    • On Mia's end, she actually didn't care about the present scenario, but was instead thinking of the original timeline: how Sion spent their academy years ignoring her, only stopping to criticize her to her face when the revolution was inevitable, rather than try and talk her out of her behavior at any point before then when there were still opportunities to salvage the situation.
  • What You Are in the Dark: While Mia's reforms could be argued to be entirely self serving since a stable empire is in her own best interests, an exception does come up at one point later. Believing that she's going to die soon, she decides to clear her conscience by not only apologizing for something the victim doesn't remember, but also something that technically never happened: Slapping Tiona in the previous timeline meant nothing to Tiona since Mia has the physical might of an obese earthworm, but it still bothered Mia because she shouldn't have done it.
  • When All You Have Is a Hammer…: Inverted. Teaching malcontents effective ways to subvert and destroy society is a wonderful way to ensure society gets subverted and destroyed, even if normally they wouldn't go that far.
  • "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Many chapters end with a biography-like entry talking about one of the characters in said chapter, revealing just how Mia's actions changed their lives, or revealing the last moments of people in the original timeline.
  • With All Due Respect: After Mia insults and kicks a tree that is sacred to the Lulu tribespeople (as a pretext for getting the soldiers stationed at the forest to withdraw so they can escort her back to the Capital and therefore keep the situation from escalating to the point of mutual destruction), Dion is forced to carry her out of the forest while fending off arrows. Naturally, he is less than pleased, though he does quickly realize she was forcing a withdrawal.
    Dion: With all due respect, if you have a death wish, you should have said so.
  • Wrong Assumption: In the Empress Prelate timeline, it was assumed that the poison the Chaos Serpents used to carry out their massacre must have somehow been smuggled inside, despite the excellent security, because God's blessing has made the island free of all poison. It is only long afterwards that Ludwig realized that God, if God exists, wouldn't violate their own natural laws and create such a miracle except as an absolute last resort, and starts wondering where the myth came from. He eventually realizes that the Chaos Serpents themselves must have fabricated it to make everyone ignore a poison native to the island.

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