YMMV / Ruslan and Ludmila

• Alternate Character Interpretation: There are readers who can't stand Finn, who a) doesn't get it that Naina doesn't love him; b) decides to put a love spell on her; c) dumps her the moment the spell works as he sees she is now old and withered. However, he can also be viewed as The Atoner who has realized all that and tries to fix the consequences of his Create Your Own Villain idiocy.
• Moral Event Horizon: One has to feel sorry for Naina, who is driven crazy by Finn’s rejection after he himself cast a love spell on her. However, when she decides to kill Ruslan and help Farlaf marry Ludmila (bonus point: subjecting Ludmila to the same fate she herself had been avoiding for ages), just because Ruslan was helped by Finn, it definitely crosses the line between Tragic Villain and Ax-Crazy.
  • It’s even worse in the opera when she attempts to kill Ratmir, who has, at that point, nothing to do with Finn whatsoever.
• Signature Scene: In the very first lines of the prologue, the learned cat walking on ^note "on" as in "on top of", not "chained up with it" a gold chain which is tied around a green oak. Practically everyone in Russia had to read it at school, and it has been quoted and parodied in Russian media to no end.