In the post before this one, I posted about a Chinese web novel that promised one thing, delivered for a while then switched it out for something else. Chinese web novels are not the only culprits. Beware of the Brothers is a manhwa based on a Korean web novel that does the same bait-and-switch.
It offers a tale of a woman who goes back in time to her childhood to try and make sense of her difficult and tragic relationship with her adoptive parents and siblings. And it delivers that for a while in sometimes heartwarming, sometimes painful and sometimes frustrating detail. But then… Ugh. Anyway, here’s the summary first:
Summary: Hari, a destitute girl, got adopted by Duke Ernst at 7 years old when she lost her mother. The Ernsts had themselves lost their youngest daughter Arina and sought Hari due to her resemblance to the late girl.
After suffering all kinds of persecution in 20 years of life at the Ernst estate, Hari is about to escape by getting married. But right before the wedding, she wakes up to find herself back to her childhood in that hellish household. Well this time she’s going to live how she pleases and not repeat the tragedies of the past!
Or so she claims, but if that’s what you’re expecting, forget it. While most “back to the past” protagonists use their knowledge and maturity to change things and improve their lives, Hari in Beware of the Brothers isn’t one of those.
So prepare yourself to see a supposed 27-year old acting like a kid most of the time. Sulking, fighting, arguing with her young brothers Eugene, Cabel and Erich. What you won’t see is a former adult trying to prepare herself for an independent life through education, hard work, networking or anything other kind of common sense behavior. When help is needed, she doesn’t even offer to perform basic bookkeeping or writing tasks even though as a former adult she should have been able to do all that.
While she does try and fail to prevent one great tragedy, that’s the limit of her efforts in that regard. It goes to ridiculous levels when she blandly endures physical abuse for no good reason until her brothers save her. What’s the point of the “adult returned to kid” setting if she keeps acting like a kid? The author would have created a better story by simply having this be her first and only life. There are a lot of series like that, where the “isekai” or “reincarnator” setting feels completely tacked on.
Regardless, none of that is my main beef with Beware of the Brothers. For all her clumsiness and helplessness, Hari is still a pitiable figure who thinks her family never cared about her in the first or second life. The slow, frustrating but ultimately rewarding process by which they all admit that they all care about each other, and the brothers explain that they see Hari as their real sister… it was very sweet and heartwarming to read. After all the annoyances, it was like FINALLY! Phew! And the fandom rejoiced…
…until the timeskip…
…which made it clear that the whole “brothers” thing was a lie…
…and Hari is going to end up in a romantic relationship with her older “brother” Eugene.
Back up and let’s review. Beware of the Brothers spent the first 30 or so chapters building a warm and solid family relationship. Then after that it apparently turned into an incest romance series. In other words, the author built the family just to have incest – can’t have incest without family right?
I say “apparently turned” because I stopped reading once I saw a suspicious scene. The usual “bump into each other, ooh he’s so cute” kind of scene. I did a quick search for spoilers, saw the Eugene x Hari ending and noped right out of there.
Well it does say “Beware of the brothers” in the title. It just didn’t use the full version: “Beware of the brothers who may be secretly lusting after their adoptive sister who is a dead ringer for their late little sister.” Eugene is nuts for considering it, but Hari is even harder to understand. For a lifetime and a half, over 40 years, she has seen Eugene as nothing more than a somewhat distant older brother. She was all gung-ho about marrying another, very decent guy. And now it’s suddenly “hey, time to marry my big brother”???
If I were a masochist I would want to see them explain things to their friends, siblings and the society at large, but I’m not one so I dropped out long ago. If you still want to read the series after this spoilerrific post, then clearly incest doesn’t put you off, so enjoy yourself. As for me, and hundreds of fans, we’re just pissed off because the author hid her true purpose so cunningly. If that incest tag had been there from the start, I would never have touched the series. Thus this post is here to warn innocent victims like myself.
On to better, less immoral series!
Thank you for the warning I’m gonna drop it too
Yup. You know the ending, so unless you’re rooting for that pairing, just run while you can.
Wait, I think you don’t understand what incest is. Incest can ONLY happen between blood related siblings, while Hari and those three brothers ARE COMPLETELY NOT. So, how could you say that it’s about incest, that the author cunningly hid? 😂
Technically they’re not blood related. But they spend a lot of time reaffirming their siblinghood and saying how much they value each other as siblings. Only to turn around and get the hots for each other. Plenty of Japanese/Chinese series have that “not blood related falling in love” thing, but they don’t go as far in building a pure sibling relationship first only to subvert it.
honestly disappointed, but not surprised. when they started blushing around each other i was like ‘no way it cant be’ but…. i was prolly expecting too much ;-; its a good thing i began researching the ending right away LMAO and to think i was invested in johannes,,,,,, shdgakjdfshs
I know, he seemed like such a nice guy and a nice fit for Hari, and his family was so supportive too. I’ll just hope he finds someone better.
OMG I JUST READ THE BUMP INTO EACH SCENE AND IMMEDIATELY BEGAN GOOGLING SPOILERS. Before, I thought the MC’s ex-fiancé was the ML. When I read there was no relationship between them, I was so confused. Eugene set up the engagement but they call it off on good terms for no reason?? All those blushing scenes, I legitimately believed he was just shy bc he rarely received affection and was not used to being treated as a child by the MC.
I felt okay with her looking like the dead sister and wanting to be accepted. She was adopted into the fam against her will, but all she wanted was a family yet she’s bullied bc of their mom’s mental illness and her being born that way. It was understandable. When the bro started showing signs, I brushed it off. But that moment when her catches her from falling and he blushes, that’s so not normal for a sibling. It weirded me out. I suppose they dropped hints at the very beginning, BUT THEY’RE TERRIBLE HINTS. I JUST THOUGHT HE FELT BAD FOR HER AND ACTED THAT WAY BC HE SHY OR DOTED ON HER LIKE A LIL SIS
Same here! I thought all the siblings and Hari were awkward and prickly around each other because of trauma and grief, and that they would eventually bond as friends/siblings after going through challenges together. The romance thing caught me completely off-side. You might have seen terrible hints, but I didn’t see any hints at all!!
Well, I was his sibling, I’ll be gladly to his wife 😍
Well yeah, you can say that because you know him as a character, but imagine in real life if your brother… eww, it’s too weird to think about.
Yes Yes I understand what some of y’all are saying like “oh how she looks like your dead sibling blah blah”but remember that first she isn’t blood related and the dead twin sister died at a very young age so you wouldn’t have known how she would have looked now so maybe hari looks nothing like her now only the hair color that’s the only thing right…………anyways I FREAKING LOVE IT❤️❤️🤤💋 and I’m gonna continue to read it through the end I hope she gets pregnant and everyone’s happy😊………..I thank the writer for their masterpiece that has blessed my days🙏🏽
I’ve read a few series with “not blood related” siblings turning into lovers, but to be honest it weirds me out every time. Unless they were adopted while fairly grown or never lived together until adults, it just screams “incest fetish” to me. Well, since the webnovel got turned into a webtoon, that means it was popular and had enough fans. So if you love it, that’s great. Enjoy!
I can’t enjoy reading it after what i saw i couldn’t say it is incest if he didn’t see her as his sister or if his family just took her in but the first arc made it very clear that they think that she is their sister and now i see this at first I thought that the manhwa was about sister and brothers being supportive to eachother after accepting eachother but now i see that she is in relationship with her “brother” i felt sick and grossed
Exactly! She spent two lifetimes trying to accept them and to be accepted as their sister. Then suddenly they’re lusting after each other? It’s just too creepy.
So that is why I couldn’t get past the story when I saw hints of the scene like forcing a CG of Eugene and Hari together. It solified when I skipped to the ending of the novel then lo and behold the two got together and the society does not jinxed them because Eugene is a freaking Duke.
Which is super unrealistic tbh. Like, wtf. That is noble society and no hints or veiled insults of f*cking your nominal sibling and being too much of a greedy golddigger? Like that BS right there.
I also don’t like how the author literally have to force everything to make it work nor let Hari be with Johannes in the first and second timeline. I actually don’t have issues with borderline incest (for foster siblings NOT blood-related only) as long as their relationship is not treating each other as REAL platonic siblings. Like there is a difference, okay?
I actually accepted an incest story where the sister got kidnapped when she was VERY young (like 4 or 5 years old?). Then when she was all grown up as an adult, she met her older brother and fell in love with him. He also fell in love with her and they fell into a very cute romantic relationship. When they found out that they are literally siblings (because a crazy love rival tries to find any loophole to tear them apart) by blood, they cried not because of being ‘ewww’ but because they can’t literally be together. Which is super fine because that huge gap of not being together to formed a strong line that their relationship should be purely platonic became romantic due to that stage where there is no strong sibling connection at all.
When they met, they are ready for dating and considered each other as the potential lifetime partner. The two tried to become like real siblings but can’t because they started as romantic partners not as platonic siblings. It came to the point that the brother tried to control his feelings to go abroad but when he went back, he still couldn’t see her blood related sister as his sister but as an ex-gf and the same goes for the sister who tried to control her feelings for her ex-bf. Then when they couldn’t control it, the brother always invited his sister to their family home to continue their relationship then ended in them running to another country to marry just to be legally together. Surprisingly, or not, this story is a CN story where clichés and crazy plot holes happened. That was the one and only time that I accepted an incest story.
But for this Korean novel, I can’t accept it no matter what even if the adopted card is dangling on my face. It would be fine if there was no Johannes but it hurts my heart author literally has to tear the two apart (by throwing Hari into the second timeline) just to justify Hari x Eugene together forever thing. It also hurts that they already established a strong platonic sibling bonding but once puberty hits then author has to slap that incest right to my face.
I couldn’t fully read or finish it. Sorry.
Honestly incest in general is a huge no-no for me, but I could at least understand the feelings in the case of the Chinese story you cited. I don’t believe all feelings should be acted upon, but there is some sympathy for their situation.
Eugene x Hari have NO excuse. Even for a Duke, marrying his own sister would be expressly taboo is pretty much any country in the world. Even today. Even if she’s adopted, because they’ve been together for so long at that point. Much longer than the original sister Hari replaced. It’s a gross development, and it’s extra disappointing because the series was quite interesting up to that point.
Hey, about the story that you mentioned, could you give the name of it?
The Chinese story munchiedi mentioned? Sorry, I’ve never read it or even heard the title before.
I’m not even bothered by the idea of incest since they’re not blood-related and feelings can change over time but what I find unforgivable about this story was the way the author just keeps forcing things down the reader’s throat demanding they call her turd pie a cake!
Was the world going to implode if Hari didn’t get it on with her brother??? Did she save anyone??? Her existence was so totally pointless she could die and nothing would be different about the world of the story. She’s one of those Mary Sues who’s actually a gold digger but is always in the right because she’s the MC. Seriously the writing of this story thoroughly disgusts me.
I stopped reading a while ago, but AFAIK this is just a slice-of-life romance story, so there’s no great relevance to Hari’s existence. She’s not a grand princess or a powerful lady out to change society. She’s just a kid with a normal life… who happens to fall in love with her older brother (*pukes*). So you shouldn’t expect anything much from her. It’s a pity that her traveling back in time was completely wasted, though.
Thank you for this bc I was realizing that the older brother was catching feelings but I wasn’t sure so I wanted to look for a post where someone spoils the manga now I’m definitely dropping it
You’re welcome. Series like these leave a bad taste in my mouth, so I’m glad to get the warning out.
As I thought. I’ve been searching for some complete manhwa to read and saw this on my on hold list, but I read enough manhwa to question “do you guys stay as siblings?” (really, what’s wrong with adopted child to STAY as siblings with their step brother/sister?! Why everything has to change into romance?! Eventho they aren’t related by blood, they’re raised as SIBLINGS!!!).
I don’t even care if the story is good or not, if that’s how it turned out, then bye.
Completely agree. I actually like warm fuzzy family stories with the over-the-top protective big brothers. It pisses me off when series like Beware of the Brothers bastardize that with their filthy incest.
As a bonus, this series has made me much more receptive to spoilers in romance manhwa. I saw one with an interesting premise yesterday, but I checked and found out that the male lead was the main character’s stepfather (!!) and her stepbrothers were all in her harem, and I just noped out of there. Life is too short.