The Princess of Convenient Plot Devices, Vol. 4

By Mamecyoro and Mitsuya Fuji. Released in Japan as “Watashi wa Gotsugou Shugi na Kaiketsu Tantou no Oujo de aru” by B’s-LOG Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Sarah Moon.

The plot of this book can basically be summarized as “fallout from the previous book”. Octavia wakes up to find herself back in her room at the castle, which is good… but she’s not allowed to leave the room, which is bad. What’s worse, Klifford is also being confined, and not “in his room”. Not only was Octavia wounded while he was guarding her, which is something that normally leads to being punished, but there’s a conspiracy to attack the royal family, and Octavia’s brother Sirius is convinced that Klifford is part of it. There is, to be fair, some evidence, but for the most part the main reason is just “I hate him”. Now Octavia has to talk herself out of her room, talk Klifford out of the dungeons, and go on the city tour that she was supposed to do before the party from the last book went all pear-shaped. And, oh yes, the King has revealed she discovered the True Crown.

This gives us a much closer look at Sirius and what his deal is… is what I’d like to say, but because so much of this is from Octavia’s POV, and she’s still having trouble figuring him out, it’s less than I’d like. This is not helped by the fact that she’s still trying to lay over the characters she knows from the BL series and the actual people that she has met as Octavia. One example is Hugh, Sirius’ guard, who in the series was one of Octavia’s allies in her support for her brother and Sil’s hot romance, but here is a lot more mysterious figure. In fact, he could stand to be a bit less mysterious. There’s a mystery culprit in this book that we don’t find out about, except it’s super obvious. In fact, probably deliberately obvious, given brain teaser questions like “what if your master gives you two opposing orders, which one do you follow”?

There is, of course, also the romance part of this book. We get occasional stabs at Octavia trying to find a “fake boyfriend” to save herself from a terrible life, but her lack of awareness about Klifford and his feelings is starting to seem very familiar to those readers who dread “oblivious” protagonists. I mean, they’re even sharing each other’s dreams! This actually leads to one of the scarier parts of the book, as Octavia dreams of Klifford being beaten nearly to death and then literally tossed in the water in a sack to drown, and it’s harrowing (she wakes up and can’t even hide from her maids the fact that she had a terrible nightmare). As for Klifford, he sees a young Octavia stare at this world’s equivalent of a Sakura tree – except it’s not the Sakura tree she knows, it blooms in autumn. He is despairing seeing her mourn the family that she has lost forever, even though he’s not sure why.

So yeah, still good, and the next book might wrap up this arc? Maybe?

The Princess of Convenient Plot Devices, Vol. 3

By Mamecyoro and Mitsuya Fuji. Released in Japan as “Watashi wa Gotsugou Shugi na Kaiketsu Tantou no Oujo de aru” by B’s-LOG Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Sarah Moon.

Again, my favorite part of this series is just out of my reach, which is everything that is happening in it, minus Octavia’s internal blathering. Don’t get me wrong, her narration is not all that annoying once you get used to it, and helps to drive home the fact that 95% of the time she’s improvising desperately rather than having a grand master plan. But I do love seeing her from the outside. Without that narration, she looks exceedingly crafty, mysterious, powerful, and possessed of knowledge that she just should not have. She does not behave the way than anyone thinks she should, her support for her older brother leaves much to be desired, and she comes across as… well, as a villainess. She’s trying to get a fake boyfriend so that she isn’t used as a womb to give her older brother an heir, but to others, she’s… well, trying to become Queen. Which is worrying, given the kingdom’s secret history.

After the revelations of the previous book, Octavia is a lot less keen to make Rust Byrne her fake boyfriend, given who he resembles. Unfortunately, he’s now very interested in her, in particular because she doesn’t react the way almost everyone else has when they see his face. To her surprise, the King is another one who reacted the same way that she did. Unfortunately, as they try to have a chat, traitors are trying something at the party, and have to be put down by armed guards. What are they after? And why is Sil now missing? The answer will draw Octavia into (pardon me, I’m so sorry) a web of mayhem and intrigue. Because there’s a secret room that has a passage to a different, even more secret room. And there are even more traitors there… including Sil? Maybe?

So many villainess books have some variation of “you can’t fight fate” built into them, with the villainess trying hard to change her destiny and the story itself fighting back as much as it can, even when that makes no sense in terms of how reality actually works. Here we see the past starting to repeat itself, despite Octavia’s intentions. And there’s no denying that Queen Idealia, the queen who was written out of history, has a lot in common with her. Hopefully not including being murdered by her brother. And of course there’s also the past of Klifford’s family, which everyone is still boiling mad over. What this means, I suspect, is that at the end of the day everyone’s going to see Octavia finding the tomb of the missing powerful and beloved Queen, discovering the *real* royal crown, and asking her uncle to present it to the King himself but say that she found it, as a massive power ploy. Not exactly what she’s intending.

Basically, if you like gambit pileups and a lot of handsome men, this is a fun little series. I read it for the bits in between the text.

The Princess of Convenient Plot Devices, Vol. 2

By Mamecyoro and Mitsuya Fuji. Released in Japan as “Watashi wa Gotsugou Shugi na Kaiketsu Tantou no Oujo de aru” by B’s-LOG Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Sarah Moon.

This is one of those “everything is the same as the previous volume, until it isn’t” volumes. For the most part, the first three-quarters of Book 2 are the same as most of Book 1. Octavia is attending a ball in the hopes to find a (fake) boyfriend, and has someone in mind who will be there. Unfortunately, she’s dealing with the fact that everyone else sees her thinks she’s some sort of evil spectre with supernatural influence on the lives of everyone she meets. Most of this volume deals with her learning about this, and trying to use it for her own ends, with limited success. (Octavia’s life can sometimes be described as the “I’m a Genius!… Oh no!” meme.) Then we get to the point where she’s about to achieve her goal and meet the guy she’s come there to see… and actually seeing him terrifies her so much that she flees immediately. Then… the rest of the book happens.

Octavia, with her bodyguard Klifford about about 8 other guards (she *is* a princess, after all) is on her way to a ball held by noble Rosa Reddington, where she will hopefully get to meet Rust Byrne, the person she’s tagged for her “get a fake boyfriend” plan. On the way there, though, she meets up with Sil, who is about to have a tragic carriage accident, and rescues him. Sil is going to the ball as well, without telling his lover Sirius. He wants to find out about his real family… something he says that Octavia secretly inspired him to do. (This is true, but it was mostly by accident.) Once at the ball, it becomes apparent that Rosa has engineered for Octavia to dance with someone, because it turns out that any dance partner she’s ever had has either risen to glory or fallen to destruction. This is news to Octavia. And then there’s the man she supposedly came to meet…

Of all the light novels I ever thought I would comp[are this series to, The Saga of Tanya the Evil was certainly not one of them. The last quarter of the volume, though, reminds ,me quite a bit of the start of Tanya. Octavia recalls her death, and has the obligatory meeting with “God” afterwards. Except that God is an asshole. And says her death was an accident, but he can’t be bothered to revive her because her soul isn’t that important. This causes her to get angry… and the negotiation that follows upends this entire series. That said, the biggest takeaway that we get is that Octavia, whose attempts at bettering her life were mostly centered around herself, is now going to try to better her life by changing the entire kingdom. That’s definitely going to put her up against her brother, and probably the majority of the nobility, but it’s also the only way to get back at God. She may even have to become a villain.

So yeah, still loving this series a lot more than I expected. Can’t wait for the third book.