In Beware the Villainess by Soda Lee, illustrated by Blue Canna, and adapted by Berry, Melissa not only changes her path, but also the heroines’. She is initially determined to live a quiet life, but then realizes the male leads are trash. They are obsessive and stalk the heroine, so Melissa decides to protect the heroine from the male leads instead with her strength and power.
In The Condemned Villainess Goes Back in Time and Aims to Become the Ultimate Villain by Bakufu Narayama and illustrated by Ebisushi, the duke’s daughter Claudia is condemned and sent to a brothel—due to her half-sister’s trickery—and dies. When she wakes up in the past, before her half-sister arrives at the manor, she begins to prepare for her younger sister’s arrival, charming her father and brother to be on her side while utilizing what she learned in her past life.
Additionally, they start gaining autonomy. Some villainesses start businesses or sponsor talented individuals to make an income outside of their family’s reach. They also begin to use their family’s rank, often a duke’s, to reshape how the people treat them. For example, in Perks of Being a Villainess by Mango Kim, illustrated by Yoteh, and adapted by Mindo, instead of resorting to petty tactics like dumping wine on someone or allowing herself to be intimidated by others, the main character—Deborah—uses her newfound rank as the daughter of a duke to dissuade people from looking down on her. She also started a coffee shop franchise.
In another example, 7th Time Loop: The Villainess Enjoys a Carefree Life Married to Her Worst Enemy! (Light Novel) Vol. 1 by Touko Amekawa and illustrated by Wan Hachipisu, Rishe learns how to be a merchant, an apothecary, and a knight. She builds various skills and continues to use and acquire more knowledge, despite dying and going back in time to the moment her ex-fiancé publicly shames and banishes her as he takes a new fiancée.
The central characters of villainess stories humanize the villainess and reconceptualize what we think of as a villainess. The protagonist begins to see how the environment shapes the original villainess into who she is. They see how the villainess was actually wronged by their fiancé and took it out on the heroine, or witnessed how the maids, knights, and family members treated the villainess and why she resented them. She goes from a struggling teenager who doesn’t know how to use her power and transforms into someone who can adapt, plan, and change how people perceive her, altering her fate. Villainesses are no longer petty and obsessing over a boy who does not love them; instead, they are strong, independent fighters.
In Not Your Typical Reincarnation Story by A-jin and Doyosay, for example, the protagonist wakes up as Edith, who is arranged to marry the second son of the duke and betray him by order of her father who is trying to acquire power by preying on their downfall. Instead, she decides to marry him in name only, and watch the story unfold as her husband falls in love with another. However, despite the story following the original almost exactly and Edith not taking an active role, she gets framed for things she hasn’t done. She must plan how to resolve each situation, relying on her knowledge of the original story. She also relies on logic to prove that she is innocent to not only the main characters but also the side characters going as far as to be under constant surveillance. This story really brings in a lot about the original Edith, and how history set her on her path as a villainess.
Villainess manhwa and stories became so popular that they’re now their own genre, for good reason. They depict women receiving a bad hand and then turning their luck around as they face their future head-on. I love this genre because of that. These stories show that young women can overcome anything, even their seemingly inevitable doom, if they try and look inward. Just because someone said you are a villain doesn’t mean you are one, and just because someone wrote your story doesn’t make it a prophecy. Our fate is in our hands.
Natalia Williams, Pine Reads Review Writer