"And everything was perfect, until… I was brutally stabbed! And woke up as a baby!! In a world full of magic, misogyny, and morons…"
— Plot recap from the season 2 trailer
34-year-old Suhee Kim is murdered, and awakens as Sanghee Kim, a newborn princess in a different, misogynistic world.
They Say I Was Born a King's Daughter is a fantasy/comedy webcomic by Legna Kim, adapted from the novel of the same name by Bi Chu and started in October 2016. The Korean version is available on Kakao Page (where the first 17 chapters can be read for free).
This webcomic provides examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Hunsang Kim to any of his daughters (except for Sanghee after she wins him over, and Sangah, who has magic powers). The Emperor is even more abusive towards Lady Freesia.
- Academy of Adventure: The Institute of Magic in the Empire that Sanghee and Hwanseong attend in season 2.
- Aerith and Bob: Korean and Western names coexist in this world. Compare and contrast Sanghee, Jinsu, Hunsang, and Dongsoo to Alex, Chris, William and Freesia.
- Age-Gap Romance: In Korea, Suhee and Jinsu were presumably around the same age. In Goryeo, however, Jinsu is 13 years older than Sanghee.
- Alliterative List: From the plot recap of the season 2 trailer:"And everything was perfect, until… I was brutally stabbed! And woke up as a baby!! In a world full of magic, misogyny, and morons…"
- All of the Other Reindeer: Since Sanghee spends most if not all of her time with her brothers than her sisters, she doesn't know the "proper" princess etiquette. As a result, the girls scorn her (to the point of an attempted poisoning) and suspect foul play and manipulationnote .
- As Suhee she fared just a little better, being ostracized by other women but pursued by rich men.
- And Now You Must Marry Me: Sanghee is sexually harassed by Prince William in this manner which causes a major international incident between Goryeo and Fanrèl.
- Amnesiac Lover: Sanghee finds her old lover, Jinsu Han, in the second world, but he has no memory of her. He gets better.
- Arranged Marriage: Established as commonplace, including Sanghee with Jinsu for some awkward moments.
- Attempted Rape: William tries to have his way with Sanghee after being rejected by Freesia, but it escalates into attempted murder when she slaps him in self-defense.
- The Beautiful Elite: Sanghee often comments on the attractiveness of the men in the royal family and other high-ranked positions.
- Beauty, Brains, and Brawn: Sanghee's three older brothers respectively:
- Hyungseok, the oldest brother, is the most mature and empathetic of the three. He's also Sanghee's favorite brother in terms of personality and looks.
- Hwanseok, the second-oldest brother, is studious, analytical, and outwardly cold.
- Hwanseong, the youngest of the three, is hot-headed, impulsive and the best fighter of the three.
- Becoming the Mask: We don't know much about Suhee's real personality, but as Sanghee, her acting like she's enamored with her mysogynist relatives over time turns into genuine affection towards "King Scumbag" and "the royal brats" once they begin thawing out.
- Big Brother Bully: Hwanseok and Hwanseong Kim antagonize their younger sister, Sanghee, almost from the moment she is born. They call her 'Mutt' and Hwanseong enjoys making her fetch like a dog. They see no problem in verbally degrading her or pushing her around. This is somewhat Justified as that is simply how they are expected to act within their culture. When compared to how the other princesses are treated, their treatment of Sanghee seems downright loving.
- Big Brother Instinct: Sanghee's older brothers are protective of her, but Hwanseok takes this to Knight Templar Big Brother territory.
- Big Brother Worship: Sanghee acts as though she is completely enamoured by her older brothers Hwanseok and Hwanseong, and is more than willing to heap praise onto them given the opportunity. In reality, she finds both of them annoying and rude. In her internal thoughts, she refers to them as 'brats' more often than not. However, she genuinely adores her eldest (and nicest) brother Hyungseok.
- Big Damn Heroes: Alex saves Sanghee from being expelled by proving that she didn't cheat in her decoding exams.
- Big Sister Instinct: Sanghee doting on her younger twin siblings qualifies, but she shines most when defending 8-year-old princess Choi from being abused during her coming of age party.
- Despite not being related, Freesia does her best to protect Sanghee during her time in the Institute of Magic. Sanghee even calls her "big sis".
- Blood Knight: Hwanseong. His default response is to attack with brute force and magic. Hunsang Kim also has shades of this. Like Father, Like Son...
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Two instances:
- Jinsu being brainwashed into a Frion Knight by the Empire to eliminate Sanghee.
- Freesia is brainwashed by the Emperor to power the Frion Knights with her magic, leaving her catatonic until she's ordered to attack Sanghee and the Goryeo army.
- Brainy Baby: The reincarnated Sanghee comes off as this due to still retaining her past life's memories and adult knowledge.
- Bully Turned Buddy: Dongsoo starts off acting antagonistic toward Sanghee and even works with Prince William to try and get her expelled. However, after almost getting Sanghee expelled and/or executed he becomes close friends with her, and is eventually integrated into Sanghee's friend group.
- Cannot Spit It Out: William stalls until the very last second to apologize to Sanghee for assaulting her because he simply can't fathom apologizing to a girl.
- Censor Steam: Used in a scene with Jinsu in the shower being pensive.
- Character Development: Oh yes. Not just the men in Sanghee's life, but Sanghee herself becomes less distrusting and internally disparaging over time.
- Child Prodigy: Sanghee is treated like one for her ability at mathnote and translating ancient manuscriptsnote . She really was quite bright in Korea, but with the knowledge she has a grown adult from an advanced society the difference in education is simply laughable.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Jinsu's best friend disappears from the story after Sanghee's second coming of age. He returns briefly when Jinsu attempts to get him to marry Sanghee for her safety, then soon disappears again (but continues to appear in group shot jokes about the amount of men who fell in love with Sanghee).
- Comically Missing the Point: The Special Knights and the King's council, whenever Hunsang does something for Sanghee, indulge in some mental gymnastics to justify or make some sense of it.
- Cool Old Guy: Alex, Sanghee's tutor. He's 72 in his introduction, one of the least misogynist characters, and evidently adores his student.
- Coordinated Clothes: Hwanhyeok and Sangah generally wear similar clothes, with the only difference being gendered bottoms.
- Crapsack World: Outside of the Goryeo palace, women are marginalized, raped with no way to report it, and enslaved on cotton plantations, to name a few.
- Curb-Stomp Battle: Basically any brawl or war that Hunsang or Hwanseong participate in starts and ends in their favor.
- Custom Uniform: Downplayed in season 2. Sanghee wears a long skirt in her Institute of Magic uniform instead of the pants the other (all male) students wear.
- Daddy's Girl: To the point that Alex coins the term, much to the bewilderment of other scholars.
- Damn You, Muscle Memory!: Sanghee's ability to natively read Korean, when even the best scholars struggle comprehend a few words. As a baby she tries writing in Hangul but manages to write in Goryeo's alphabet instead.
- Damsel in Distress: Sanghee, constantly. It always makes her family and friends stand up for her.
- Defrosting Ice King: Sanghee's father Hunsang and brother Hwanseok are otherwise stoic and cold except toward her. Sanghee can make her father openly smile and laugh while Hwanseok always tries to hide his smile.
- Alex calls this phenomenon "Sangheeology".
- Deliberately Cute Child: Sanghee deliberately acts like a cute, friendly little girl that no one could possibly hate in order to make people cherish her. It keeps her safe and gives her more power to hopefully improve her status in a meaningful way.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Hunsang Kim disabled a fucking dragon with a single punch.
- Dude Magnet: Sanghee, both in her present and past lives. As Suhee she attracted rich men, as Sanghee she manages to charm her sexist family.
- Dying Declaration of Love: As Suhee is dying, she realizes her love for Jinsu and tries to do this. She eventually gets cut off though.
- Easily Forgiven: Sanghee to (almost) anyone who mistreats her, not that she has a choice though.
- Eating the Eye Candy: As much as Sanghee dislikes most of the men around her, it doesn't stop her from noticing how good-looking many of them are.
- Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: More like men cannot comprehend women, or at least treat them like actual people.
- Hunsang's overprotectiveness of Sanghee is seen by most as a display of power (even by the Emperor) rather than extreme fatherly devotion.
- Exotic Extended Marriage: Polygamy is extremely common in the setting, perhaps due to the huge 10:1 gender imbalance. Hunsang Kim has 30 wives.
- Exotic Eye Designs: Chris has square pupils for some reason.
- Father, I Want to Marry My Brother: Sanghee uses this technique to suck up to her father, Hunsang Kim. She declares that she wishes she was a hero so that she could marry her 'daddy.' It works.
- First-Person Smartass: Sanghee's internal thoughts are fully of all the snarky things she wants to say but can't.
- Friend to Bugs: Prince Hwanhyeok and Princess Sangah both have an affinity for catching bugs and often refer to them as cute. They often offer bugs as gifts to family members and express the desire to keep certain bugs as pets. Hwanhyeok is even shown cherishing venomous insects.
- Gender-Restricted Ability: Only men have the ability to use magic. Hyungseok however, is one of the few men who cannot use magic. Freesia and later Sangah and Sanghee are the only female exceptions who can.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Jinsu is unable to understand why he's so mad at Chris getting closer to Sanghee.
- Good Cannot Comprehend Evil: Sanghee thought William was romantically interested in Freesia... Nope. He just wanted to marry her to have magically strong children. When she rejects his proposal, Wiliams decides Sanghee is the next best thing and tries to force her to marry him.
- Good Feels Good: Sanghee notes that saying nice things feels good when she actually means them while bonding with Lady Freesia.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Freesia and Chris. Averted with the Emperor.
- Half-Identical Twins: Prince Hwanhyeok and Princess Sangah, who are alike in hair and eye color, height, and even magical powers, which are normally reserved for male characters.
- Happily Married: Suhee and Jinsu, until she was murdered.
- Heel–Face Turn: Dongsoo starts off as Sanghee's main bully, but sees the error of his ways after aiding prince William in trying to expel Sanghee from the Academy, apologizes for his bullying, and befriends her.
- He-Man Woman Hater: Nearly the entire setting of the comic, with a few exceptions. Somewhat Justified because the women are considered inferior for not generally have magic powers, except for Lady Freesia and Princess Sangah.
- Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Sanghee's counts, from being treated like a dog by her brothers to her father constantly kicking her away as a baby, and she takes it all in stride (outwardly, internally she really wants to punch them in the gut).
- Hired Help as Family: Sujin is Sanghee's maid since infancy and she's genuinely devoted to the princess, even defending her whenever the other maids gossip about her and accompanying her often in the palace and during outings. Sanghee returns that fondness.
- Humiliation Conga: William, after attempting to rape and murder Sanghee, is beaten up by (the royally pissed off) Jinsu and Hwanseong, forced to apologize to Sangheenote after having his father's life threatened and misses an important exam due to his punishment for the incident. THEN he is expelled from the Institute and gets his kingdom annexed by Goryeo after messing with Sanghee again.
- Hypocritical Heartwarming: Sanghee's older brothers. No one messes with their mutt except for themselves.
- Insult of Endearment: Hwanseok and Hwanseong call Sanghee their "mutt".
- Jerkass: Most of the male characters. Heck, even most of the princesses towards Sanghee.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Hunsang, Hwanseok, and Hwanseong Kim, who all generally treat women with disdain, but eventually surprise even Sanghee with what they do for her.
- Lighter and Softer: In comparison to the original novel, the comic is more lighthearted and changes some of the more harsher aspects. Sanghee manages to charm her family and some of the Special Knights a lot faster and Freesia is merely Brainwashed and Crazy and returned to normal as opposed to turned into a breeding mare and dying of childbirth complications.
- Long-Haired Pretty Boy: Alex. Well, as pretty as an old man can be anyways.
- Manipulative Bitch: A heroic example. Suhee is forced to act as the overly cutesy, adorably naïve princess Sanghee to avoid most of the scorn that comes with being a woman in Goryeo, and hopefully distill some of the rampant sexism in the way. No one in the royal family, let alone the outside world knows that the King's beloved daughter is on the defense 24/7 and that the Big Brother Worship she engages in isn't sincere.
- Massive Numbered Siblings: Sanghee has four brothers and thirty-three sisters. Many other characters introduce themselves as the 'seventh son of X' or 'eighth daughter or Y' so it can be assumed that it is quite commonplace to have large amounts of siblings.
- Morality Pet: Invoked by Sanghee with her sweet and innocent bootlicking to her "daddy" and older brothers. It pays off as she gets older.
- Muggle Born of Mages: Even though all thirty-something princesses until Sangah are all powerless, the real example is Hyunseong, who, being the eldest male child of the King, has never gone through an awakening or gained magic powers, leaving him a constant target for kidnapping in his youth and feeling worthless.
- Nice Guy: Sanghee's oldest brother Hyungseong, her tutor Alex, and Prince Chris are nothing but pleasant. Freesia is a female example.
- Nom de Mom: All the princesses (with the exceptions of Sanghee and Sangah) use their mothers' surname instead of the King's.
- No-Sell: Chris can see through the Special Knights' invisibility.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Sanghee, especially in the Institute of Magic where she pretends to have a hard time understanding the "ancient language" they're studying (Korean). Chris doesn't fall for it.
- Offing the Offspring: King Hunsang isn't averse to executing princesses who have failed him or threatened his beloved Sanghee.
- Out of Focus: Sanghee's mom Seoyeong Kang and the thirty-something other princesses. Justified due to the setting.
- Pair the Spares: Since Sanghee is clearly Jinsu's forever girl, Freesia gives up on him but starts having feelings for Dongsoo after his Heel–Face Turn that he reciprocates.
- Papa Wolf: Sanghee's father will literally conquer entire nations if she is ever threatened or harmed. Other men are aghast at far he goes for her sake.
- Parental Favoritism: Obviously the 3 (later 4) princes, but Sanghee manages to earn a spot.
- Past-Life Memories: Sanghee starts off with hers from her former life in South Korea. Jinsu fully regains his later on.
- Pet the Dog: Ocassionally the princes and King do or say nice things to and for Sanghee. In a non-directly Sanghee example, Hunsang expressing to Seoyeong Kang that he's glad that she borne him a daughter.
- The Power of Love: Prevalent in the comic, from Jinsu breaking free from his brainwashing and amnesia to Hunsang Kim's main motivation to attack other kingdoms' armies.
- Rank Scales with Asskicking: Hunsang Kim, the king of Goryeo, has unrivaled magical power, with princes Hwanseok and Hwanseong in second place. The Special Knights, though also very powerful, are no match for them.
- Rebellious Princess: Sanghee earns so much more privilege than the other princesses that they attempt to "put her in her place" when she turns 8, invoking the wrath of the princes. While Sanghee rebels in the sense of being so close to the royal men in a sexist world, the other princesses rebel by scorning and abusing Goryeo's "treasure" to the point of an attempted assassination.
- Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Hunsang Kim slowly dissipates several sexist customs (from women being banned from certain buildings to the princesses getting their own hall) to please and coddle Sanghee.
- Sheep in Sheep's Clothing: After the fiasco with Prince William, Sanghee has all the right to distrust Prince Chris even as he tries his hardest to be friendly and supportive towards her. Later on, Chris is revealed to be sincerely interested in Sanghee as a friend, with no ulterior motives besides (futilely) romancing her. DoubleSubverted with the reveal that he's possessed by Suhee's killer in her former world, and the real Chris is fighting for control.
- Lady Freesia is introduced as a kind, fair woman, but her desire to marry Jinsu causes Sanghee to dislike and distrust her. Turns out, Freesia is as sweet and caring as she appears, and decides to stop pursuing Jinsu a while after befriending Sanghee.
- So Proud of You: Sanghee to her brothers when they do something nice to or for her. Hunsang to Sanghee as well later on.
- Tall Poppy Syndrome: Sanghee earns so much more privilege than the other princesses that they attempt to "put her in her place" when she turns 8. Hwanseok quickly puts a stop to this by threatening to execute all of them.
- Theme Naming: The princes, Hyungseong, Hwanseok, Hwanseong and Hwanhyeok.
- To a lesser extent, Sanghee and Sangah.
- Traumatic Superpower Awakening: The appropriately called Awakenings happen when a man develops his magic powers, and they come out as a mild headache. For women like Freesia and Sanghee, though, these headaches are taxing to the body.
- For Sanghee in particular, she develops a healing and recharging aura after her class is ambushed in an ancient ruin by trolls and she's unable to fight alonside them.
- Too Dumb to Live: Really William, after what you pulled on Sanghee the first time, what did you think would happen if you went after her again?
- Trademark Favorite Food: Hwanseong is addicted to chocolate. He will often do things for Sanghee in exchange for chocolate or ask her for chocolate as a reward. When he was younger, his chocolate addiction was so bad his father put a restriction on how much he could eat in a day.
- Tsundere: Hwanseok acts like he thinks of his little sister as a stupid mutt, but really cherishes her and even drinks poison for her at one point while pretending he was just punishing her. He also gets upset when she seemingly doesn't give him a present, only to go to her room and have difficult maintaining his poker face at the cute letter she gives him.
- Turn the Other Cheek: Despite being upset for being mistreated and distrusted by the other princesses, Sanghee advocates for them getting along and tries to save some of them from being punished or even executed. As an adult and the then crown princess, she refuses to partake in the systemic abuse of her younger sisters by the eldest ones, and it pays off.
- Unintentionally Notorious Crime: William thought he was propositioning a bog-standard princess, not knowing that this particular girl is King Hunsang Kim's daughter and the treasure of Goryeo.
- Hwanseok invokes this when ordering the Institute to expel Prince William for stealing Sanghee's notebook because it contained the Goryeo's Royal Seal (which could be used to fake official orders).
- Unto Us a Son and Daughter Are Born: Hwanhyeok and Sangah Kim, Sanghee's younger (full) siblings who are born shortly after she turns 9.
- Warrior Prince: Hwanseong Kim, who becomes Goryeo's youngest knight at age 10 and, later, a battalion commander.
- What Is This Thing You Call "Love"?: The princes and the King himself are unable to understand why they care so much about a simple princess. Freesia even notes that "love" isn't a very used word when it comes to Jinsu's feelings for Sanghee.
- Yandere: Suhee's killer was motivated by his rejection.
- You Are Better Than You Think You Are: Chris doesn't truly know why Sanghee downplays herself so muchnote and tells her that she can be herself with him and he knows she's more capable than she gives herself credit for.
