The Remarried Empress, Season 1

Update: I originally rated this 5 stars, but I'm dropping my rating down to a 3, because for me at least, this webtoon has lost its steam. In the beginning, there was all this tension leading up to the day of the divorce between Sovieshu and Navier, but now that that has taken place, the story seems somewhat directionless and meandering. This is not something I would give much heed to since I'm more of a character-driven reader and being invested in characters is enough for me to read something regardless of the plot. But in hindsight, I only ever read this webtoon for its plot, and now that I am unable to rely on that to keep me satisfied I realized that I'm not as invested in the characters as I'd like to be to warrant a higher rating.

Imo the most well developed character here is Rashta, who also happens to be one of the most detestable characters in the story. So even though she has good characterization, her being so unlikeable makes me unfairly feel a bit bitter since I wish all that character depth was given to either Heinrey or Navier instead.

Aside from Rashta, I hate Sovieshu with all my heart and normally, antagonist characters also keep me engaged in a story as long as their motivations and behaviours make sense. I'd say this is mostly the case for him, but sometimes his hypocrisy and obnoxiousness seems too forced for my liking. It's as if these detestable qualities of his were shown this overtly purely for the sake of painting Navier in a better light. It deliberately created such a black or white mentality between the two opposing sides of characters with very little moral ambiguity to spare, which causes there to be less nuance in exploring the characters' decisions and behaviours. Instead, it created a very cookie-cutter antagonist who seems to just be ‘bad' for the sake of creating conflict in the story, rather than being a fully fleshed-out character who understandably has more unredeemable qualities that end up causing conflict.

Moving onto Navier, she's a nice character to read about and someone who I always want to root for, but at the same time she seems a bit... bland. I wish there were more distinct qualities to her. I don't need a main character to be witty, snarky, funny, or have any remotely ‘quirky' qualities, but I need something. Navier just needs a bit of flair to make her more enjoyable to read about on her own—not someone who's only interesting to read about when she's with other characters who are more interesting than her.

Heinrey is my favorite character here, but even though I adore him, his character unfortunately suffers from the same pitfalls as Navier's. He's got a nice personality, but aside from that all his motivations and everything that makes him inclined to show agency seems to revolve around Navier. I mean, I can tell that Navier reciprocates the interest Heinrey is showing her to some extent at least, but the scale still seems slanted. Heinrey is putting in all this effort and Navier just accepts it and is affable with him; it's as if Heinrey's sole purpose is to merely help out Navier whenever possible and simp for her. I wish he had more things going for him that are individual to him, not linked to Navier. I want him to be his own person.

Overall this is still a very fun and addictive webtoon, but in hindsight, I feel a bit more lukewarm about it.