Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion

Episodes 1-2

Why did Raeliana end up at the duke's mansion? Because otherwise, she was doomed to die from a surfeit of arsenic and damned if she was going to put up with that nonsense, especially since this is her second life. This story, based on a South Korean novel and its manhwa adaptation (the latter of which is being released in English by Yen Press' Ize imprint), falls under a subgenre of the reincarnated as the villainess form of isekai: heroine Raeliana has been reborn in the world of a novel she read, but not as the heroine or the villain. Instead, she's a side character, the friend of the heroine whose untimely murder kickstarts the story, but the thing is, she's already been murdered; that's how she ended up in the book in the first place. And quite frankly, “plot fidelity” doesn't seem like a very good reason to go quietly into that good night for a second time. To that end, she decides to kill two birds with one stone: she'll find a higher-ranking nobleman to fake an engagement to avoid death at the hands of her current fiancé, and she'll be done with the whole thing long before the heroine even enters the picture. Easy, right?

As of the second episode, I imagine at least a few people are rooting for her to do her time with Duke Noah Wynknight and then run off with Sir Adam Taylor, the knight the duke assigns to her as part of their bargain. The question, though, is whether Noah will likely let Raeliana go once their contracted six months are up. Although it looks like she's the only manipulator in this picture (at least from her perspective), I'd wager that that isn't the case. Noah is naturally taken aback when she approaches him and threatens him into negotiations based on her political knowledge from the book. Still, when they meet in his study in episode two, it looks like he's setting up a test for her. In her defense, she picks up on that fairly quickly; the prominent display of his not-quite-right chessboard is a way for him to better understand what's going on. If she's as intelligent and cultured as she appears, she'll notice that the board isn't set up for a traditional game, and if she can make the leap to what it actually is, he seems to have decided he'll hear her out. Plus, it isn't a terrible plan for him to have a fiancée, either; as a duke, he's likely to be swamped with what romance novels call “matchmaking mamas,” which could get in the way of his work. Raeliana would act as a nice deterrent to other women.

That's not the only nod to the show's pseudo-19th-century setting. Apart from the level of technology (the kitchen is an excellent example of this, and ice cream recipes have existed since at least the early 18th century), Raeliana's fiancé is slated to kill her with arsenic to gain control of her dowry and family's money. Colloquially, arsenic was known as “inheritance powder” because it was so frequently used in that exact way, at least in the public imagination. In episode two, Raeliana also scoffs at her former fiancé's family suing her family for “breach of promise,” as reported in the newspaper. While she's almost certainly just disgusted with him in general, that it was reported on in the paper isn't likely to do him any favors since historically only women could make use of this now-extinct law to sue men because as “flighty” creatures, women were allowed or even expected to change their minds.

Amidst all this, it's wonderful to see that Raeliana's parents are 100% supportive of everything she does. We don't see that very often, or at least not often enough, and hearing them tell their daughter that they were afraid she was sacrificing herself to make them happy is heartwarming. It's unclear if they realize that their “original” daughter was replaced by a Japanese woman named Rinka (changed from the original Korean name and setting), but they really do care, and I'd like to think they'll support her no matter what. It's a shame that this doesn't look fantastic – it can be uneven artistically, and everyone seems to walk incredibly slowly – but stick around because this should be a good story.

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Why Raeliana Ended Up at the Duke's Mansion is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.