Highlights

• Dark, morally gray characters in manhwa offer intricate plots and character development beyond traditional protagonists.
• Female protagonists like Leonia and Artezia display cunning, manipulation, and dark actions to achieve their goals in the manhwa world.
• Characters like Sayeon and Rena display twisted personalities, enjoying manipulation and inflicting harm on others in their stories.

Dark, morally gray characters are popular for several reasons. They offer a journey separate from a traditional protagonist, often involving more intrigue and mystery, leading to more complex plots and character development. These characters also tend to have an edgier aesthetic that many people enjoy and emulate through art and cosplay.

In manhwa, dark heroes are quite common, often in the form of a young man seeking revenge by any means possible, and the brutality demonstrated in these stories may be alarming to some readers. While they may not be as overtly violent as their male counterparts, there are some female protagonists who prefer the darker path to get what they want.

9 Leonia Boleotis

The Male Protagonist's Lion Cub

Having a child on this list may seem strange, but Leonia is actually a young woman reincarnated in the body of a girl. Because she has an adult mind, the experiences she went through when she was an isekai for the first time created more resentment than fear. Leonia's evil is evident from the beginning of the story, when she asks the duke to execute her attackers in the most painful and cruel way possible.

Being in a child's body, however, seems to affect her personality. She still exhibits childish behaviors and characteristics, so her dark side doesn't surface very often. Leonia isn't really an anti-hero. She's just an innocent person whose trauma has made her more willing to inflict harm on others as she sees fit.

8 Artesia Rosen

The villain lives again

When it comes to dark female characters, the most common type is scheming and manipulative. Artezia "Tia" Rosen is a member of the royal family and, to place her brother on the throne, murdered, manipulated, bribed, and threatened countless people, resulting in death and human suffering.

Her cunning was so impressive that she was betrayed by her brother and then rescued by revolutionaries to overthrow the monarchy. Even in a new timeline, she uses her tricks to bring down those who betrayed her, and her evil actions make her question whether she is allowed to be a mother.

7 Medea Solon

Your throne

Medea is the heir to the duchy of Solon and, from birth, has been trained to be the best with the goal of greater political power. She wields her nobility like a sword, rigorously punishing those who commit errors and humiliating those who try to defy her. However, despite all her austerity, she is quite compassionate and noble.

In her story, she earns a harsh reputation for being harsh and seeking more power at any cost, but Medea doesn't carelessly harm innocent people or coerce the public. She even befriends her supposed rival, Psyche, even going so far as to save her later in the story.

6 Sayeon Lee

Hand jumper

In Sayeon Lee's world, there are certain people called aberrants, born with an abundant amount of energy that manifests in superhuman abilities, and she hates them. They often commit crimes and harm people without reason. The problem is that Sayeon is also an aberrant, and her entire family is involved in the aberrant underworld. Because of this, her personality ends up becoming distorted.

Although the story is still just beginning, it's clear that Sayeon is becoming less and less concerned with how she does things. She asks her teammate to mutilate another intern. She uses her powers to test people and use them as experimental subjects. Although she may not realize it, she's enjoying manipulating the people around her.

5 Clean Rubles

Regina Rena: The Unforgivable

Most dark and evil characters aren't born that way. It's through some drastic event or long-term abuse that their personalities become twisted and vengeful. For Rena Rubel, this happened when she was twelve. Her father sacrificed her for power, and she was thrust into a literal hell called the Tomb, a place ruled by the undead, for six years. She became a ruthless warrior.

Rena became incredibly powerful and resilient, capable of destroying multitudes of undead and consuming poison without ill effects; her power rivaled even that of the king. Her dealings with demons made her a violent and cold-hearted killer, but she still retained some of her kindness and compassion.

4 Larcy

I will fall with the emperor

Despite being the eldest son of the royal family, Larcy was tricked into participating in a war against the empire and was ultimately betrayed by his family. This leads to his execution, but he somehow returns to the pre-war era. To avenge his family, Larcy marries the emperor in place of his sister, with plans to invade his homeland.

Larcy possesses vast magical power, a trait that attracted the emperor in her previous life, and she unleashes it whenever she wishes. From maids to nobles, she solves their problems directly with fire and flames, even going so far as to burn the emperor's other mistresses.

3 Estelle

The lady's dark secret

Estelle was a saint who possessed an enormous amount of divine energy. Her benevolence and charity won the support of many. The exception was the nobility, who shunned and harmed her. Due to her greed, Estelle was sacrificed to the Devil in exchange for wealth and power, and faced 600 years of torment in the underworld.

After 600 years, Estelle decides to become a demon, signing a pact and returning to the surface where she would destroy the kingdom that abandoned her. She uses her magic to possess, hypnotize, torture, and kill people.

2 Rita/Verta

Depths of Malice

In most fantasy manhwa, the protagonists are desperate to survive. How they do this varies depending on the character, but most often, it's in a way that doesn't harm others unless necessary. Rita isn't one of these protagonists, and to avoid death from tuberculosis, she has a fortune teller switch bodies with the young noblewoman Verta Alberhart.

With a new, healthy body, Rita begins to seek revenge on all those who wronged her and her mother, orchestrating events that would incriminate her enemies. She intends to harm and kill anyone who stands in her way.

1 Karen Heyer

The Crimson Lady

When someone is transported to the world of a novel, it's assumed that completing the original story would let them leave, especially if they hadn't died in their original world. For Karen Heyer, this wasn't the case. She spent many lifetimes trying to escape, but in each timeline, she died young. After experiencing death so many times, she finally gave up.

Karen's mind became twisted and nihilistic. Nothing mattered to her anymore because her life would be reset anyway, so she began killing without reason, enjoying the thrill of inflicting her pain on others. By doing so, she hopes to achieve an alternate ending to her story and finally escape.