Why Do Villains Underestimate Heroes In Fantasy Novels?

"If I touched you, you’d never go back to him." Arden's words rang in my head. My breath caught. Now that I was out of the palace, nothing stood between us. No gilded cages. No cameras in every corner. No Ivana breathing down my neck. Nothing to stop him from making good on those words. And the worst part? A traitorous part of me was curious. What if he was right? Arden was Richard’s brother. The wrong man. The forbidden man. And yet my body betrayed me. My heart beat harder just thinking about him. My lips tingled at the memory of his voice, his smirk, the way his eyes had lingered on me like he saw everything I tried to hide.

Obsessed with werewolf novels? So was Natalie Stewart, a typical 25 year old freelancing artist who spent majority of her spare time reading trashy werewolf books online. Over the years, she’d come across countless styles and variations of the classic tropes, enjoying every twist, heartbreak and steamy matebond moment the female leads would go through. But as Natalie unfortunately meets an untimely death, dying in her very own kitchen during a home invasion, the last thing she expected was to wake up inside the body of someone completely new. Someone beautiful and entirely unrecognisable. However, not everything is as perfect as the flawless stranger staring back at her in the mirror. Because as Natalie comes to terms with her new body, it doesn’t take long for her to discover someone else. A girl with clear signs of mistreatment and neglect, her skin flushed with bruises that peek out from under her ragged clothes. Looking at her, Natalie quickly realises she is no longer in the world she once knew. A place of modern luxuries and ordinary people. In fact, it’s far worse than she could have possibly imagined. Because she’s now trapped inside the last werewolf novel that she read. But she’s not Aurora, the goddess-chosen white wolf girl of prophecy with magical powers. The one who will escape her painful enslavement, find her Alpha King second-chance mate, and overcome obstacles to prove their love for each other. No... she has woken up in the body of Scarlett. The villainess who will get in her way.... and one who won’t live to see the end of the book.

I transmigrated into the role of a gorgeous villainess, tasked with tormenting my childhood buddies. I forced Maddox, Mr. Tough Guy, into putting on a sexy dress, essentially killing his chances of a social life. I grabbed the bottom of the ever-aloof Zane and made him red in the face. I kicked Damian, the crybaby, into the ground, and all he could do was glare at me through his tearful eyes. My aggressive antics only fueled their resentment. “One of these days, I’ll get you.” I winked at them without a care. “I’ll be waiting.” The day they crossed paths with the female lead would be the day I left this world. Their revenge didn’t scare me one bit. Little did I know, the time would come when I would be proven wrong. While I scrambled to get away in tears, he said softly, “Save your strength. The night is still young.”

She died once in fire while the man she loved watched her burn without a single step forward. Elena Vale was the villainess of a romance novel—written to be hated, destroyed, and discarded at the end of the story. And she did die exactly like that. Until she woke up at the beginning of it all. The night of the Arden Charity Gala. The night everything was supposed to start. This time, Elena remembers everything—every betrayal, every humiliation, every moment she was written to lose. But instead of begging for survival… She chooses revenge. Because if the world insists she is the villainess, then she will become one they cannot control. A woman who does not beg for love. A woman who builds power instead of tears. A woman who turns her ending into a beginning of destruction. And as she rises, something strange begins to happen. The male lead who once ignored her starts watching. The heroine who was supposed to replace her starts trembling. And the system that once promised her survival begins to warn her: [WARNING: Villainess behavior exceeds original plot limits.] But Elena is no longer afraid of the story. She is rewriting it. And this time… she will be the one they fear.

My wish was to get through college without being noticed, as a scholarship student who did not fit into the elite and flashy lifestyles of students here. That was my one goal, but I guess we don’t always get what we want. I always wanted to fall in love with the hero, but instead, I got the villain, a charming devil. Brooding and dominant, he tested and pushed me to my limits. He was the only one to see through me with his cold gaze. I was not supposed to fall for him despite our past. I wasn’t supposed to crave his touch, his presence, to feel him, but some things are just out of our control. In an elite school, full of polished students, dark deeds behind the walls, betrayals, secrets, and lies, I was meant to fall in love with the hero but instead got the fucking villain.

The dagger goes in before she understands her consort is the one holding it. ——— My consort is the one holding the blade. I fall into the Forbidden Zone with his voice in my ear — *You were never going to be the queen this kingdom needed, Rose is everything you are not* — and every stroke downward the Hollow drinks my color, my voice, my breath. As I sink through the dark I understand, in a rising tide of memory I can no longer outrun, what I refused to see: my cousin Rose has been his lover for three years. My uncle Rick has been my father's killer for seven months. I hit the Hollow's floor among the skeletons of seven women who came before me. I should die there. A black pearl pulses in the dark and asks me one question. I say yes. What rises from the Forbidden Zone is not the princess they pushed. My scales burn blood-red shot through with molten gold and piercing teal, edged in obsidian. My voice shatters coral when I choose. I can drain a merfolk's power until their scales grey to driftwood, and I can shift any being between human and merfolk form. But the pearl hungers. Black veins creep across my chest with every life I take. And the throne I want back? It was never the prize. It was the trap. ——— Will Irene become the villainess her kingdom fears? Or will she remember the girl they buried long enough to choose what kind of queen to be? And the older sister who has been waiting two hundred years to use her — what happens when Irene decides the family she was born into is not the one worth dying for?