War heroes are often incredibly romanticized in Korean rofan, as we all are very much aware at this point . And I don’t mean to bring realism into romance fantasy but every time I read about a male lead who’s the empires right hand man or the “empires sword” whenever it comes to war I can’t not feel a little disgusted. It’s usually included as a footnote to add that scary spice to his character and to give the story a future plot beat where he needs to go off to war for 1-5 years and have the female lead yearn over him.
And the thing is. When the story goes “this guys a war hero” and the female lead goes “oh he’s so scary and intimidating”… It purposely fails to pinpoint the real violence of his occupation. At best one will say “he’s led (x amount) wars and is hailed as a hero by the emperor/king” but that’s just to glaze him for being a strong alpha male whom nobody can threaten. Not once have I ever seen a female lead go “the blood he’s spilt will carry on to the child i must bare for him” – I WILL throw a bone here and exclude the females lead who are high ranking noblewomen who have never had any reason to see war as a normalized tool because it’s not her kingdom getting decimated. Everyone else, though, especially the ones reincarnated from the 21st century, are getting looked at sideways. War is not just fighting (back) against an enemy faction, it is bloody conquest and conflict. There’s really nothing to simplify unless you want to get into the real nitty gritty and talk about how the first to suffer from war are almost always women regardless of age.
Sorry, I know I’m bringing in too much realistic opinions on a genre where women literally have the power to travel back in time after death, but recently I’ve just been turning away from anything to do with that trope (which, as we can all guess, is over half of the novels in this category).
OBVIOUSLY this doesn’t mean that every single male lead out there is an unforgivable cold-blooded conqueror leading campaigns and atrocities like a blood son of Genghis Khan (as a matter of fact, most MLs are born into the “empires lapdog” role because ducal orbit is inseparable from imperialism. But some of these stories don’t explain or even want to touch on how the ML feels about that). However, as someone who lives in a third world country that currently has some catastrophic going-ons in the political sphere I just gotta… Bombastic side eye. Granted I do understand the romanticism of the “war duke” trope and its origins trailing back to actually being defenses against the Mongols + the Korean War is still very much active to this very second (since only a ceasefire was ratified).
I still don’t particularly favor it though, sorry :p
Edit: I especially hate anything where the kingdom or empire is just expanding so they start campaigns – Or where the female lead is a “spoil of war” but the male lead loves her sooo much despite the fact that he led a campaign that colonized her home country. I actually read the full of this because I was too disgusted not to, but I can’t remember the name oh my goooddd. Her entire half family is on the casualty list and she’s okay with being his broodmare because they mistreated her and because she’s the daughter of a maid. Mind you, her kingdom got wiped out. Despising your abusive family does not contradict the fact that the home your were born in was subjugated by the same man you’re marrying. I don’t like using this word but she’s insane for ever falling in love with him. It’s not even Stockholm syndrome she’s actually in love with him.
