I wish Camillia wasn’t so passive in Search for Camellia Manhwa
I was so excited when Yen press announced he chooses the manhwa Find camelliabecause the initial description makes it seem powerful. It is suggested that it is about a young woman who was stolen from her mother as a child by her father’s wife and forced to grow up and live as a young man as an additional heir as she regains her powers and become your true self again. However, at least in the first episode, Camellia was a passive character and was often pushed to the background, making it impossible for me to enjoy the story.
Editor’s note: There will be spoilers for volume 1 of the series. Find camellia comic below.
Find camellia begins with the kidnapping of Camellia to turn her into “Camellius”. Her mother Laura was a maid in the house of her father, Marquis Gilliard Bale, who had some sort of relationship with him and became pregnant. The Marquis’s legitimate child Kieran has an illness that seems to be getting worse. In reality, Laura ran away from home with “Lia” when an incident occurred that made it seem like she was the reason Kieran was getting worse. So Gilliard’s wife Anastasia hunted down Laura and Camellia, kidnapped the girl and, because Gilliard considered a young woman useless, cut off the child’s hair to raise her as his youngest son named Camellius.
It all started with a desperation that Camellia clearly felt. She longed to see her mother again and kept asking. However, she is only 12 years old. She participates in lessons passively. She was taken out and forced to learn how to shoot a gun. We watch Anastasia and Gilliard talk about her being a replacement in case Kieran doesn’t get better, even after he’s sent away because he could improve by living in another area. Her servant, Betty, lies to her that the “lady” is honorable and allows her to return to Laura if she does what she says. Lord Claude Ihar, Kieran’s friend and another noble, threatens and teases her. She was scolded and abused because of an accident that happened when she was forced to try shooting a gun.
So, throughout the first 169 pages of the manhwa, I felt completely disappointed when reading the first volume. Find camellia. We don’t see any of Camellia’s inner monologue explaining how she will fight back. There was no passion or fire on her part. It’s like she’s a doll being thrown from scene to scene. acts as a plot device for others. I suppose I can see some reasons for it. It certainly creates a tragic story for her. It’s even possible that Jin Soye’s goal is to make people disappointed and angry on her behalf.
But the thing is, I expected things to get better when I got to page 170 and the timeskip to 16 year old Camellia/Camellius. She is about to be transferred to an academy in the city to study. Aside from her initial feelings about this, she instead lamented not having heard from her brother Kieran or Lord Claude in the past few years. Only on page 192 do we see Camellia’s indignation or passion. That’s the first hint that she really could do anything for her own good and strike back. However, a few pages later, when interacting with Eddie, Gilliard, Camellia’s father, Prince Wade, and Lord Claude, we return to her following the whims of others.
I can only hope that Find camellia will appear in future episodes, as Camellia has not had the right to take over at any point in the story thus far. It feels like other people are constantly making decisions for her and pushing her, without any of her actions really being decided for herself. The lack of motivation is frustrating and even infuriating, and I think it will be difficult for me to continue reading if things don’t change in the second volume.
Volume 1 of Find camellia manhwa is available now and Yen Bao will release volume 2 on December 10, 2024.
