CAUTION: REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK. Why cant people seem to be able to write a proper strong female lead? This is a question Ive often wondered to myself as I read tons of webtoons manga and books and as I watched countless films and television shows. It keeps me up at night sometimes because I dont have a good answer to this myself. While writing cool male characters is easy writing intriguing and likeable female characters is a daunting challenge. Its not as simple as genderbending the perfect male character and turning him into a female since its a matter of double standards. Certain aspects that make a male character attractive like being physically strong or acting crassly insensitive are not regarded as favorable traits to be found in a woman. Due to societal standards people see a girl and expect her to act wellbehaved and proper and be charming in some way or another. In these modern times where feminism is on the rise that sort of outdated mode of thinking is frowned upon and even shunned. Female power am I right? A girl can wear a mans britches in this day and age. But is that really the answer? Even with this rightful abandonment of the olden ideal of a refined and gentle and often submissive female writers havent been able to consistently pull off this reinvented powerhouse female character to serve as role models for future generations to emulate. Im not saying they dont exist entirely but theyre certainly few and far between. Take a look at Disney for example. All of their new princesses from 2000s and onwards are falling somewhere in the range of despicable to mildy tolerable to neutral. Absolutely none of them stand out for any good reasons because theyre just not groundbreaking characters. And then theres Merida who is basically a genderbent adolescent boy being especially insufferable lacking any sort of maturity and causing all the woe in her own story. She was Disneys first attempt to set a new standard and they failed miserably. Its not enough to make a female character strong in physical strength alone or have her otherwise skilled in something that is typically a mans sport archery in Meridas case. Being female is not a character trait. While trying to appease the growing demands of feminists writers often seem to forget the basic principles of what makes a good protagonist. To be a believable character you have to be humanlike you have to have feelings and be able to emote them and you have to have deep meaningful relationships with others. Otherwise its not a good character at all. Its simply a caricature. Thats why Merida looked good on paper Independent girl who is the best archer in all of Scotland and needs no man in her life but ultimately failed in execution. And its the same reason why Pauliana Winter similarly falls flat in this webtoon as well. You have a good concept but the subsequent poor sense in story direction killed any chance of her becoming a solid character in her own right. The introduction of Pauliana in Emperor and The Female Knight was promising. Abandoned by her parents she was sent to serve in the military to fight in a long ongoing war without a foreseeable termination. Although she was a girl she learned how to fight well to survive in the allmen army of her country and she had an innate sense for military tactics which allowed her to rise steadily through the ranks despite her peers constantly looking down on her simply because of her gender. When she was kicked down she stood back up again and again because shes a hardy fighter who doesnt give up. Shes not really doing any of this because of her steadfast loyalty to her own country no nothing so glorious as that shes doing this because she wants to live and to protect the lives of the men whose safety rests on her shoulders. If she makes a wrong decision not only will she die but so will her comrades. This is the harsh life she has to pull through for many many years and shes not optimistic that the war can be won. She feels that she will likely die on the battlefield fighting for something that had rather slim odds of success to begin with. Everything changes when the King of Acrea Lucius I ambushes her army and captures her alive. Pauliana sacrifices herself so that the rest of her squadron can escape and she prepares for an honorable death having already done her utmost as the remaining commanding officer. But she is not executed for Lucius sees her raw talent and wants to have her by his side as he conquers the other kingdoms in order to unite the continent under his rule which has never been achieved before in history. He knights her and she swears to him her undying fealty to his cause of which she sees great merit in. No point of prolonging an interminable war between multiple countries if its possible to bring it to a quicker end by forceful unification after all. This sort of practicality in Paulianas blunt and quicktoact nature is what Lucius greatly admires her for and despite the protests of his other knights he resolves to make great use of her in the future to achieve his own ambitious goals. In this unexpected turn of events the King of Acrea has gained a stalwart ally and Pauliana has found a proper purpose in which she can energetically put her own life on the line for. They make a great team and Lucius values her unique insights and solutions to various problems that present themselves in their conquest notably in an instance where they had to cross a wide river on foot to attack a castle surrounded on all sides by water. And there was a case where the surrendering enemy king attempted to assassinate Lucius during a ball where all weapons were prohibited and Pauliana protects him with the short swords she hid under her ungainly dress. More time passes until finally they have succeeded and all the lands are now under the reign of Lucius I. As they stand on the cliff together gazing upon the sunset that bathes his newly unified country in its peaceful yelloworange glow Lucius I smiles at Pauliana and realizes that he loves her. Wait what? Whoa whoa back up. That literally came out of nowhere. There was zero buildup to this so how can you expect readers to buy in to your sudden dramatic shift in story? I mean sure most people see a girl character and a boy character fighting through thick and thin together and youd expect them to end up as a couple eventually. Eh personally Im sick and tired of this cliche but other people just to love to eat up this overdone BS. Romantic love always trumps platonic love familial affection and mutual respect doesnt it? Its like without romantic love Eros the world cant go on anymore huh? This could have been a great story about the friendship Philia or even selfless love Agape between a young emperor and his loyal knight which transcends their mere malefemale dynamic but no its predictably gone down the route of your commonplace gardenvariety love story. Yuck. Color me disappointed already. Thats not discounting this webtoons story entirely right off the bat per se but with this particular set up I saw so much more potential than it actually managed to deliver. Why cant you take the road less traveled by by others? Make it unique and stand out from the heaping towering pile of milquetoast romantic love stories that constantly get churned out like massproduced garbage. I dont know about you but I want to read something unexpected fresh and original. Yes it takes a lot more effort and planning to execute a well thought out story thats laced with twists and turns and free of stale tropes but it most certainly can be done and it will be worth it in the end. Write something you enjoy writing and bring to it to life dont settle for substandard mediocrity just to earn a paycheck. Your readers will thank you for it and youll gain a steady fanbase if you do. Thats also why as readers we need to stop being content with frivolous things like representation or inclusivity we consumers who use our hardearned money and valuable time to read or watch someone elses work should make it clear to these producers that we wont be content with a lazy attempt to placate us. We demand quality not quantity. Even if it takes longer to perfect the story we will wait for you if it will give us maximum enjoyment. We dont want hurriedly pushedout trash that aims to strip us of our wallets contents. But I digress. So yes Emperor and The Female Knight is not a pioneering attempt to cast aside the expectations of its readers its more of a lifeless medieval take of some version of Mulan. Mulan and Pauliana have a lot of similarities. Theyre both female warriors who serve in a menonly army and face very high hurdles as a result of their gender. Females are regarded as the weaker sex because theyre not going to be as physically fit as a man and theyve been assumed to be overly emotional and cannot think straight due to this misconceived stereotype. Of course both Mulan and Pauliana crush their male compatriots discriminatory expectations and instill in them a newfound admiration for what they were able to do for their country and as a woman no less. But while Mulan is forced to hide her true gender and does so successfully for ten years Pauliana makes no attempts to disguise the fact that shes a girl. I think this has its advantages and disadvantages but this webtoon didnt capitalize on the advantages of this limit removal here. Successfully masquerading as a man for ten years without being discovered takes real skill and cleverness of which Pauliana clearly does not possess. Thats fine not all women are that brilliant and perhaps all the men in Mulans time were dumbasses like Liang Shanbo. Paulianas situation allows a lot more freedom than Mulans. Her story seems to take place in some fictional medieval European country where the patriarchal society is nowhere near the level it was in ancient China in which females would be shunned and/or executed for participating in what was considered to be an exclusively male activity. So Pauliana doesnt hide the fact that shes a girl since she doesnt need to fear the repercussions of being killed for simply being one. However she is not like Mulan because she is unabashedly NOT feminine. She is a tomboy through and through. She only somewhat vaguely looks like a girl because she has female body parts but she is completely masculine to the point that its not a strength its a weakness. And this is precisely the problem with the new types of female protagonists were starting to see more of these days. We have unrealistic female characters who are that in name or principle only but there is nothing about them that is feminine besides their physical appearance perhaps. Removing their emotions to make them a talking robot human doesnt make a strong character. It is not even a character. It is a walking 2D humanoid who speaks but means nothing. How can you be proud of something like this? Take a look at the Marvel Cinematic Universes Captain Marvel. Sure she can fly and blow up spaceships with her hands but is she acting anything like a girl? You can easily change her to be a duck and it would still be the same bland flat character. If you think that removing a characters emotions makes them strong you are completely wrong. All humans have emotions regardless of their gender. It is one of the most defining traits of our species isnt it? Thats why we say were superior over the other animals because were aware of the fact that we are able to acutely feel things that cant be attributed to physical sensations alone. Taking it away is reducing your socalled emblematic female protagonists soul to ruins. We will never care for them because theyre not human and never will be. Mulan embraced her feminity and she succeeded in all of her endeavors. Pauliana rejected it all and her character was irrevocably crippled as a result. By the time the author realized their mistake it was too late. Everyone regardless of their gender has both masculine and feminine traits and its completely alright to embrace them as they are because it makes you uniquely you. Using these different qualities to your benefit in appropriate situations will make you a selfassured individual. With masculinity theres hard power which is typically shown by physical prowess or aggression used to make opponents cower in fear. With feminity theres soft power which is using kind words and keen understanding of others to coax them to act the way you want them to useful for dealing with those who wont bend to brutish strength alone. Understanding that strength is not always external in presentation and that the ability to sense and harness ones emotions is not a weakness is key to creating a great heroine. Empathy is a virtue and females are far better at it than men because of the way their brains are wired. Its what made Mulan abandon her loom and don on her fathers armor despite the risks her actions posed simply because she didnt want her ailing father to die and she was willing to do so in his stead. It is a purehearted sacrifice born out of the profound love a daughter has for her father. In complete contrast Pauliana doesnt have a shred of empathy. Her actions are all selfish in retrospect and her heroic behaviors dont stem from her own goodwill towards others because she doesnt have any deep emotional bonds with anyone. Sure she used herself as bait so her old army comrades could escape Luciuss forces but its more out of obligatory duty not because she actually cared about them. Its to save her own dignity as the commanding officer in charge a The captain goes down with his ship moment because she didnt believe that the war could have been won by her former country anyway. To reiterate Mulans sacrifice stems from deep love while Paulianas is charged with pure adrenaline for a desperate last stand see the difference? So while it was an admirable action it wasnt one that humanized her as a feeling person and this sort of emotional apathy of hers will continue to pervade throughout the story afterwards. Desperation is not human willingly choosing to die when you dont have to is. This is not to say that Pauliana is a completely stoneskinned individual who doesnt feel any emotions at all but its just that when she does its not enough. Her strongest character quality would be her steadfast loyalty to her new liege but its not explored outside of her constant declarations of this fact to everyone who will listen so it rings rather hollow. What is particularly grating though is the fact that shes a blockhead with rocks for brains so that her initial response to anything unfamiliar is either I dont get it or Huh?. Outside of the one instance where she helped Luciuss army ambush the castle across the river which honestly wasnt all that brilliant since it relied on chasing down an absurd folk tale Pauliana shows no intelligence whatsoever. She may be able to spar with swords hunt and make animal traps but she cannot use her head. Luckily for her she is never confronted with a dilemma where her brawn cannot win over the situation in her favor because might makes right right? So there we have it Pauliana is meathead who fights good and doesnt think first before jumping into action and shes the Emperors most loyal vassal. Woohoo. Sounds like a shounentype protagonist anyone? Because it is and it doesnt work. Not for a heroine and certainly not for a believable female character because all youve done is genderbent a guy and made him a girl then stuck a rushed haphazard romance on top of it. With the start of Season 2 which is inexplicably much longer than the more creative and obviously rushed arc of Season 1 the webtoon continues to proudly broadcast its inability to pull out the best traits of Pauliana sinking it deeper into the swamp of mediocrity. Pauliana is regulated into a bumbling buffon with no authority and no say in the matters of the state which I guess is understandable because she doesnt know how to do shit besides fight which quickly gets her suspended as the Emperors imperial bodyguard. I already forgot the reason why Lucius didnt just marry her straightaway but its some contrived dumb BS only serving to drag out the story and also because Pauliana is completely oblivious to the fact that shes a girl and therefore men can actually be attracted to her. I think there was something about how she cant bear an heir to the throne because shes infertile blah blah. So instead of marrying the love of his life Lucius settles for second best which is marrying three noble women who all want to get into his pants to become empress. And they do because I guess Lucius is horny from not being able to get into Paulianas and he impregnates one of them but then it turns out to be a phantom pregnancy so he tries again and he succeeds with concubine 2. What does Pauliana think about all of this? Shes overjoyed as shes assigned to be the head of three concubines bodyguard unit and she is ecstatic that she can serve the Emperor again by protecting his wives. Sigh. Oh and they all become close friends because the concubines want to learn from Pauliana how to impress the Emperor to make him sleep with them as shes the only female hes close with and Pauliana wants to learn how to act appropriately in social situations like giving congratulatory baby shower gifts. Yawn. If Pauliana was actually a person with real growth she would not be blissfully content to serve as a concubines tea buddy and gossip over who likes who she would be fighting to get a more prominent role within the ranks of the imperial guards. Instead shes happy with the status quo and she no longer needs to put her life at risk or do anything meaningful to demonstrate this supposed strong loyalty of hers towards Lucius I. Even as she wonders why girls cant learn swordfighting she doesnt opt to petition the Emperor to change this or take the initiative to start her own squad of female warriors. Its like she forgot any and all purpose in life and thats when you know shes completely beyond salvation as a character. Lucius barely makes any appearances in these plodding chapters as Pauliana and the three concubines carry on with their bland lackluster relationship. I couldnt even tell you who they are because theyre all basically the same character only serving as flimsy hindrances to Luciuss true goal of eventually marrying Pauliana. Its a given that Lucius will never love these three ladies so theres no point of getting to know them in depth and similarly all three of them dont love Lucius either. Theyve all been sent as political marriage partners and their only goal is to become pregnant become empress and subsequently gain power and glory for their family. Theres virtually nothing stopping Lucius and Pauliana from getting together except the author needs to make more money so lets just keep milking it as long as we can eh? Like a creep Lucius has a doctor constantly checking Paulianas lady parts to see if she can miraculously bear children and when she does Im sure hes going to dive right in. Somewhere along the way the thick head of hers will realize that her loyalty to him has turned into love Im sure. And screw all those other girls he can divorce them as soon as he gets his ultimate wish. He has come to realize hed rather have Pauliana over his own country if he could have chosen between the two of them again. And what was it that made her so desirable and his one true love? Ierno scratches head uhhhh... She can kick butts and kill lizards? The art of this webtoon is boringly average. It is not bad but it doesnt stand out in any way shape or form. Only Pauliana and Lucius have unique character designs. Everyone else is the about same with different hairstyles and eye colors and they might as well be stick figures with how unimportant they all are in the grand scheme of things. Supporting characters come and go never dwelling long enough in the story to make any memorable impact and new ones pop up quickly to replace the old ones. The panels are laid out in a plain manner and its a slog to read through because neither the art nor the story compels me to want to read the next panel. Pauliana was drawn with purposefully masculine facial features and she doesnt look like a girl. At all. I read that in the original web novel in which this was based on the character had brown hair and brown eyes which I guess was smart of the artist to use creative license to change it to red hair and green eyes so she wouldnt look like a supporting character which would be bad. Because Pauliana in the second season might as well be a supporting character with her inactivity thus far. Lucius looks feminine in contrast perhaps to starkly contrast the reversal of their gender roles but the story doesnt deliver so none of this means anything. Also thats just a stale trope to pair a masculine woman with a feminine man and the opposite but thats standard I suppose why cant they be symmetrical equals instead of perfectly opposed pairs huh? Just because Pauliana has abs doesnt mean the Emperor cant be buff too? Long story short Emperor and The Female Knight is a disastrous work where the leading heroine sheds all her initially unique characteristics in favor of turning her into a ridiculous testosteronefilled caricature only to then have her degenerate into a worthless love interest waiting in the wings for her moment to shine once again. Which is when she falls headoverheels in love with the lecher Emperor. I almost cant remember what I liked about her in Chapter 1. Ah well. Better look elsewhere for a badass female protagonist because Pauliana is not one. Overall Breakdown: Characters: 2/10 Story: 3/10 Art: 5/10 Lore/Worldbuilding: 2/10 Enjoyment: 2/10