Manhwa Review: Villains Are Destined To Die

For who wants to read DITOEFTV: https://tapas.io/series/villains-are-destined-to-die/info

If you’re as much of a romance-villainess manhwa fan as me, then we all know how the typical setup goes: A girl gets reincarnated (or whatever variation of that they can think of) and becomes the villainess of the story. Cue to some cliché story where “Oh no, she is different!!” and suddenly every male lead is falling in love while she remains blissfully unaware.

Main premise:

While the premise for this story isn’t that different on the surface, the execution is where it shines. Our protagonist, a broke college student with a shitty family ends up waking up in the dating game she was playing the previous night. She is now Penelope Eckhart , the vile villainess in the story. But here is the real kicker: the Duke’s real daughter disappeared in an accident when she was 12 as a result Penelope was adopted as a stand in. The mission given to her by the game? Make one of the male leads fall in love with her before the official heiress comes back and the real story starts.

Her goal in all of this? Not love. Not revenge. Just survival.

In this game, every route leads to death. Penelope isn’t afraid to use everything in her disposal to survive. Stuck in a game where all options are scripted for her, affection scores of male leads that are zero or in negatives and forced to play by the games rules Penelope isn’t one to give up easily.

Characters:

Penelope is easily my favorite character in this story and with good reason. She’s far from a damsel in distress or a protagonist with no personality. Instead she’s incredibly compelling. When she’s angry, you feel angry as well. When she’s frustrated, so are you.

Penelope is many things; she’s sharp, angry, guarded and constantly calculating. Throughout the story she goes from terrified player to a strategic survivor, which is half the fun (and the stress).

As for other characters in the story - I’m not going into detail to avoid giving spoilers. However I do want to say that they are well written. A few of them have redemption arcs that are worth the wait. If you love that type of slow burn moral growth, then you’ll love this story!

Art:

I absolutely love the art of this story. There’s a good reason why I have Penelope as my profile picture. This manhwa really does a great job at visual storytelling through the art, which makes moments so much more impactful.

Themes in the story:

I shortly want to list some themes that are in the story and that I think are worth mentioning. For people tired off long paragraphs of text, here they are in bullet points:

• Survival: Penelope isn’t aiming for love - she’s aiming not to die horribly and honestly girl has her priorities straight
• Different types of love: Romantic, familial, obsessive, manipulative - the story explores how love can protect or destroy, sometimes at the same time.
• Identity: Penelope is stuck between who she was, who the game wants her to be and who she’s trying to become.
• Agency: Penelope is constantly fighting the cage the world (and the people in it) want to put her in - whether it’s as a villainess, a noble or a love interest.
• Silly setup, serious execution: The premise might sound goofy, but it treats its themes with surprising depth.
• Trope awareness: The story plays around with villainess/dating game tropes but not just to get a good laugh at them. It breaks them down and asks what they actually mean when someone’s life is on the line.

Hey if you’ve read until the end of the blog, thank you! My ending words about this manhwa: it’s an emotional rollercoaster - one that I dearly love, hopefully so will you! (:

Feel free to reach out to talk to me about it or similar stories!

Until my next obsession, Nini xxx