The Villainess Captured the Grand Duke Review
Title: The Villainess Captured the Grand Duke
Creators: PORIPPI, PPYAP, and Dorong
Genre: Romance Fantasy
Themes: Transmigration, Stanning, Save a Doomed Character
Chapters Released: 53, ongoing
Where to Read: Tapas.io (or app) https://tapas.io/series/the-villainess-captured-the-grand-duke
As with any genre, romance fantasy manhwas have developed several popular tropes. Tropes can stir a sense of familiarity and interest in a reader even before you get into the meat of the plot. I’ve found that they can either be cliché and boring or used in imaginative and fresh ways that get your heart fluttering. For me, The Villainess Captured the Grand Duke, is definitely one of the good ones!
The tropes used in The Villainess Captured the Grand Duke are the “cold Duke of the north”, a “stanning female lead”, and having a “white lotus”. Although these are common tropes, this story goes deep and gives clear and rational reasons for their use. For those who don’t know about these tropes, I’ll give a brief explanation.
Cold Duke of the North: It is extremely common for a romance fantasy manhwa (particularly ones set in a medieval period) to feature a male lead who rules a northern region filled with monsters. This male lead is typically a warrior who is scary, reclusive, and stone-faced.
Stanning Female Lead: This is when a female lead of a manhwa was a super fan of one of the characters in a novel she was reading. Typically when the female lead wakes up in the novel (either through reincarnation or transmigration) she immediately sets out to find her favorite character. She is extremely devoted to an almost creepy degree.
White Lotus: A white lotus is a person (usually the original female lead) who appears sweet and good when reading the novel. Once a transmigrator enters, though, you discover they’re actually a manipulative, conniving schemer.
Let’s start with our stanning female lead. Schueur Nethli is a transmigrator. When she lived in South Korea her parents died tragically. She was left with a large insurance policy and a horde of greedy relatives trying to take it from her. During this turbulent time, she found the novel “The Duke’s Daughter Who Makes Flowers Bloom”. As she read, she was envious of the second male lead who was unable to feel emotion. She hated being constantly disappointed by her scummy relatives’ betrayal and wished she could stop feeling too. However, she found that “though it began as jealousy, at some point, I found myself rooting for him.”
What started as a wistful envy turned into a deep sense of connection and loyalty with this fictional character. In her heart, her greatest desire was “for the Grand Duke to know what happiness is.” One day she opened her eyes and realized she’d become Schueur, the eldest daughter of the Nethli Dukedom and minor villainess of the novel. When Schueur’s cruel and greedy father threatens to disown her, she cheerfully agrees, turns on her heels, and walks out the door.
Since she left behind all her worldly possessions in her quest to meet Grand Duke Reigrein, she has nothing but the clothes on her back, a plump rooster, and a ring box. The first episode of the manhwa is a hilarious blend of chaos, effusive exclamations of love, and cold-faced rejection.
It doesn’t take long for Schueur’s bubbly personality and eternal devotion to her favorite character to worm their way into your heart. What I love about Schueur’s character is that her dedication to Reigrein is pure, heartfelt, and completely unrestrained. Her optimism is infectious. She’s also the most shameless woman I’ve ever seen. And yet, her bluntness is adorable and she makes me smile endlessly.
Although Schueur at times acts freely (even recklessly) questionable it’s because her “cold Duke of the north” is destined to die. The Villainess Captured the Grand Duke is set in a kingdom with the ruling Waker family stationed in the central region and two ducal families, Nethli of the South and Vlen of the North. The eldest of both ducal families wields a sword aura to protect the kingdom.
The sword aura is very different in the two families. The Nethli family sword aura blooms flowers of protection that only take energy and willpower to create. On the other hand, the Vlen’s deadly sword aura, used mainly to wipe out monsters that populate the North, is fueled by emotions. And by “fueled” I mean their sword aura literally absorbs the emotions used to create it, leaving the wielder a nearly empty husk.
Reigrein Vlen is at the stage where he’s used his sword aura so much he has very little emotion left to give. Without emotions he can’t use sword aura, making him vulnerable to the monsters he is sworn to kill as the leader of the North.
Schueur is determined to help Reigrein regain his emotions and save him from his tragic fate. Now, I’m sure most of us would want to prioritize helping our favorite person remember happy and good emotions. Unfortunately, Schueur knows that time is running out. As she points out, “Awkwardness, irritation, annoyance, anger… any emotion is fine.”
This means no matter how ridiculous a thought or scheme comes to her she will throw herself wholeheartedly at him. Why, she even offered the love of her life a rooster before getting down on bended knee to propose to him. (Gosh I nearly fell off my chair from laughing when I read that for the first time.)
No one could have blamed Reigrein for tossing out the rooster-bearing crazy lady who proposed at their first meeting. Yet he simply sent her to a guest room and even assigned a maid to look after her.
Recently an unusual and unexplained spike occurred in the monster population. Nearly a year had passed since Reigrein could muster enough emotion to create a sword aura. After meeting Schueur he felt a glimmer of an emotion his aide identified as irritation. Recognizing the importance of even a hint of irritation, Reigrein goes along with Schueur’s proposal. The only stipulation is that she continues to act in the same ridiculous manner so his emotions will return.
Schueur reacts like a true fangirl to Reigrein’s acceptance of her proposal when she asks, “Then I can legally stan you, your highness?” To clarify a little more, a “stan” is an obsessively devoted fan (usually of a celebrity). They live, breathe, and die for their chosen favorite. The master of the magic tower in this story sums it up nicely when he remarks, “Every sentence coming from her mouth starts and ends with the Grand Duke.”
Some people find this intense devotion unsettling, such as the forever exhausted Jess, an aide to the Grand Duke. Jess rudely states, “Your highness, I’m afraid she must have an uncanny fetish.” While that may be true for some stans (I mean, the word is derived from “stalker” and “fan”), it’s not for Schueur. Schueur is one of the purest examples of a stan I’ve ever seen. Her driving force is Reigrein’s happiness, no matter the cost to herself.
While the servants and Reigrein’s aide find Schueur’s behavior excessive and shocking at times, Reigrein takes her requests in stride. Although he lacks emotions he is surprisingly patient with her. For example, Schueur makes no secret that she is amassing a collection of Reigrein-related items. In Episode 3 she asks her maid for one of the shirts Reigrein often wears. She then offers to exchange it (even though it belongs to him) for the pen he used to sign their marriage certificate and he accepts the “trade”.
Reigrein takes it a step further even and says he will provide her with anything she requests. A bouquet of flowers for every time he swings a sword? Done. One of his winter cloaks? Doesn’t bat an eye. Although there are times when he will put his foot down. Even then, it’s never in a cruel way and it’s usually just a “not right now” instead of a firm no.
Personally, I think that Reigrein is an absolutely marvelous male lead. He’s strong, charismatic, responsible, and (he believes) hopelessly flawed. Schueur gives him hope, even if he can’t recognize it as such. It’s touching to see him claw through the mire of impassivity to grasp the emotions trickling into his life.
My favorite quote from Regrein comes from Episode 11 when Reigrein is preparing to leave for a monster raid. He says, “After meeting Schueur… everything has begun to irritate me. It irritates me when she falls within my line of sight… and it irritates me when she doesn’t. Still, it’s better that she stays where I can see her. Otherwise, who knows if she might freeze to death somewhere. Is this what resignation feels like?”
Yes, Reigrein joins the ranks of dense male leads. But in this case, it makes total sense. He’s gone a year with only the barest wisps of recognizable emotions. So naturally he has a hard time differentiating and recognizing that maybe it’s not just irritation. In later episodes, it’s obvious how much he appreciates and even relies on Schueur. He’s also fiercely loyal and often defends her against malicious rumors.
Said rumors stem from the third trope of this manhwa, the white lotus Erina Nethli. Personally, I don’t really like this trope. Female leads turned bad just annoy me in most cases. However, Erina makes for a compelling villainess in my opinion.
Erina is Schueur’s younger sister and the original female lead of the novel. She’s also the only second-born child to ever inherit the Nethli flower-blooming sword aura. There are allusions to the fact Erina should not have this power many times throughout the manhwa. Although Schueur does have some power herself. Schueur can make wilted flowers bloom, as well as bring out the latent power of the flower to help others.
Since Schueur’s priority is to bring Reigrein happiness, she doesn’t care about Erina taking her place as the head of the Nethli family. However, Erina is ambitious. When her ambitions start negatively affecting Reigrein, Schueur doesn’t care about following the original novel. She will do whatever she can to protect her precious Grand Duke, no matter who she’s up against.
Schueur’s motto is “I’d rather have regrets after I’ve exhausted my options than regret that I never tried.” Honestly, attitudes like that are so inspirational to me. I love Schueur so much and hope that if you read The Villainess Captured the Grand Duke you will come to love and admire her as well.
The quote that really wraps up this novel for me is when Schueur reflects on how she truly feels about Reigrein. She says, “There aren’t many people who can inspire you to go on living just by existing… The Grand Duke’s existence gave me strength to keep going. That’s why I want him to be happy no matter what.”
Such a beautiful and pure sentiment makes me wish for nothing but for Schueur to succeed in her goal and for them both to find the happiness they deserve. The Villainess Captured the Grand Duke is a fun, wacky, heartfelt, and inspiring manhwa that is guaranteed to give you warm fuzzy heart flutters. You may even find yourself laughing out loud and getting several sweet and romantic heart flutters as you get further into the story.
Do you have a favorite stanning female lead? Thank you so much for reading! Have a fluttery day
