Shen Miao, A Complex Protagonist

By Louise Lansang

   I’ve been reading this translated Chinese Web-novel called The Rebirth of the Malicious Empress of Military Lineage, and it’s amazing. It’s the story of a woman named Shen Miao who wakes up as her younger self after she is killed on the orders of her husband, the emperor, and so she decides to take revenge against everyone who wronged her in her past life. The thing that fascinates me about this story is that it manages to make the audience root for Shen Miao, who is, honestly, not a good person.

            Let’s start by taking a look at Shen Miao’s life before she wakes up in the past. In her previous life, Shen Miao loved the 9th son of the emperor, Prince Ding, a man who was fighting to become heir to the throne against his other brothers. Shen Miao’s parents and her brother are important members of the military, and so their power is respected within the nation. It is because of this power, that she manages to snag the 9th prince as her husband, but it is not a happy marriage. The entirety of it is spent fighting on her husband’s behalf: against his brothers until he takes the throne, through court intrigue against another nation where she is sent as a hostage, and within the emperor’s harem against another woman who becomes essential to helping Prince Ding remain in power. As for Shen Miao’s parents and brother, they all die due to the schemes of Shen Miao’s aunts, uncles, and cousins, so that they can also gain power within the court. Shen Miao also gives birth to two children in this life, who also die due to courtly schemes. Then her husband has her killed because she has outlived her usefulness.

            As the story goes on, Shen Miao does a lot of bad things, like plotting the deaths of multiple people and bringing ruin onto others. Since we know the reasoning behind why Shen Miao is doing what she does, it makes us want to root for her, despite the amount of blood, innocent or not, on her hands.  Her machinations lead to the suffering, and then subsequent deaths of the aunts, uncles, and cousins who were responsible for the deaths of her parents and brother in her previous life. She also out maneuvers the royal family of the nation were she was held hostage, leading to the humiliating death of an abuser from her previous life. She blackmails a man into becoming a spy for her, because he wouldn’t help her protect her children in her last life. And now she’s planning on taking down the royal family due to her grudge against the 9th prince.

            Another interesting aspect of Shen Miao’s character is how the romance between her and the male lead develops. Because of how badly her marriage went in her first life, she’s quite wary about romance in this life. Her main focus is on revenge and protecting everyone that she couldn’t save, so romance is not a priority for her. As a matter of fact, when she and her love interest meet, both of them are more focused on their schemes and plans, and they just happen to keep running into each other while they do so. At first both of them regard each other with a wary curiosity, before Shen Miao disregards his importance to her manipulations, while her love interest regards her as a curiosity to poke at. They keep running into each other, and eventually, he starts to fall for her, while she remains oblivious to his feelings, and her own, up and until they wind up married, which is hilarious to watch.

            Shen Miao is a very emotionally damaged person due to what happened in her previous life, and while her actions are partially due to self-defense, the majority of the reasoning behind what she does is for revenge. She wants to see the people who wronged her suffer, she enjoys watching them suffer, she revels in it. And despite the fact that the audience knows its wrong to root for her sadistic tendencies and their outcomes, we still do, because we understand and sympathize with her. That’s what makes Shen Miao’s story so fascinating to read.