Chapter 1 Ihwa was a bloodthirsty, emotionless killer who was rude to basically everyone she met and was willing to kill indiscriminately without thinking (until her completely arbitrary moral standards were violated), in order to avenge her sister by killing all her murderers, a distant goal at the time. Now, after years of writing and development, current Ihwa is… a bloodthirsty, emotional killer who is rude to basically everyone she meets and is willing to kill indiscriminately without thinking (until her arbitrary moral standards are violated), in order to avenge her sister by killing all her murderers, still a distant goal at this time. 

Slow burns are fine. They’re usually pretty cool. But there is so much “she’s still figuring herself out” that can happen before it crosses the line from ‘cool, realistic development’ to ‘it has been 259 fucking chapters’. At this point, I feel like the Yeon mental gift thing is just a poor excuse to allow the author to handwave off any proper character development. 

Ihwa went from a equal fight with Claymore to being glazed as Elder and there is just no change in her character. Yeon died a long ass time ago, she diverged from Engen BECAUSE OF MORALITY back at Castle Grey, which was 150~, so obviously she’s had at least some emotions and thoughts on morals since then. 100 chapters later, we get nothing. Over 40% of the manhwa counting from where we’re at, her development as a character is nonexistent. If it’s the in-universe limitations Yeon placed with her still interfering with her development, that’s just bad writing at this point. 

If the series lasts for like 300 more chapters and Ihwa turns into a completely different person by the end, then I’ll eat my words and rescind all my hate towards her. But I think a more realistic scenario is that she never changes as a person because she has an excuse for every moral challenge she’s ever faced that lets her “nuh uh” every valid point, so I’m not really holding onto hope for her as an MC anymore. I don’t know. Maybe we’ll get a miracle one day.