Rooting for the villain in The Remarried Empress? Webtoon readers know why Rashta won't keep your sympathy
The Remarried Empress drama wants you to feel for Rashta in the first few episodes. The webtoon has a long list of reasons that won't last.
Disney+ and Hulu premiered The Remarried Empress on November 4, 2026, with four episodes, and two more arrive every Wednesday through November 25. Shin Min-a plays Empress Navier, Ju Ji-hoon is Emperor Sovieshu, Lee Jong-suk is Heinrey, and Lee Se-young plays Rashta, the runaway slave whose arrival blows up Navier's marriage. Director Cho Su-won called Rashta "a character with a complex narrative," per Soompi, and early on she's easy to root for.
Readers of Alphatart's web novel and SUMPUL's webtoon know where her arc goes. Big spoilers for the source material ahead.
Why Rashta starts out sympathetic
Her backstory is genuinely brutal. Her own father sold her into slavery to get out of his debts. At the Rimwell estate, she had a baby with Alan, the heir, and the viscount told her the newborn had died, then handed her a dead baby to hold. Her son, Ian, was alive the whole time.
When she ran away, Alan refused to go with her because he didn't want to lose his inheritance.
She ends up in the palace by accident, injured in one of the emperor's hunting traps. Sovieshu takes her as his concubine, and at first she tries to befriend Navier and copies her manners because everyone says the empress is kind. Navier, who has no interest in befriending her husband's concubine, freezes her out.
Where it turns
As Rashta's position at court gets shakier, she starts protecting herself at everyone else's expense, and the webtoon keeps a running tally:
- Lady Nian: Rashta ruins her reputation so people will stop gossiping about Rashta's own past.
- Her maid Delice: Rashta has her tongue maimed so she can't tell anyone how Rashta treated a pet bird.
- Her maid Arionne: Stabbed, because Rashta feared she would reveal Rashta's planned escape before her trial.
- Phix: The fellow slave who lost an eye helping her escape the Rimwell estate. Rashta has him murdered for knowing too much about her schemes.
Phix is the one that ends the debate. He's the only person in the story who paid a real price to get her out, and she kills him to keep her secrets.
Rashta's backstory is the most sympathetic thing in The Remarried Empress. Her body count is the reason that backstory stops working.
Her daughter, Glorym, doesn't escape it either. Rashta, traumatized by the first baby she was handed, panics when she's given Glorym to hold and throws her to the floor. After that, Sovieshu keeps her away from her own child.
Don't miss: What happens to Sovieshu in The Remarried Empress? He keeps the throne and loses everything else
How her story ends
Rashta's fall comes through a paternity test. The result says Glorym is Alan's daughter, not Sovieshu's, and Rashta is arrested, convicted of treason and sentenced to life in prison. Much later, it emerges that her scheming ally Duke Ergi bribed the priest to rig the test, so Glorym really was Sovieshu's child.
Rashta never learns that. In her cell, she starts hallucinating her victims and her past, and she takes her own life with a poison pill. In her last moments, she convinces herself everyone she hurt has forgiven her, and that her children and the first baby she held are playing together. Sovieshu has her cremated and scatters her ashes.
That's the trick of the character. She's a victim, a schemer and finally a tragedy, in that order, and the webtoon makes you feel all three. The drama is only four episodes in. If you're on Team Rashta now, enjoy it while it lasts.
Previously we wrote: A Love Other Than Yours: who ends up together after that finale?