Aria Roscente

"I wouldn’t have come back like this if you had stopped at that. I would have ended after living foolishly and just being a stupid villain! Why did you make me and my mother so miserable? What the hell is status? What is that? You made me turn the hourglass with a resentful and unjust mind …"

- Aria Roscente to Mielle Roscente (chapter 251)

 is the main protagonist of the series The Villainess Turns the Hourglass. After living a life full of humiliation thanks to her step-sister, Mielle, she is executed, only to be sent back in time. This marks the beginning of her plans to pay back Mielle and her adoptive family as a whole.

About
After Aria’s mother Carin Roscente married Count Roscente, Aria became the stepsister of Cain Roscente and Mielle Roscente. Having received a second chance in life, she begins to develop various schemes to get ahead of Mielle, as well as humiliate her and destroy her reputation in ways that parallel Aria’s downfall in the original line of events. Having been quite frank and spoiled after her initial rise in social standing (among other things, refusing to eat vegetables, deeming them commoner food she had more than enough of), Aria now learns to put on a mask and behave in more efficacious ways with regards to her public image.

In doing so, Aria makes various allies who lead her to experience sincere kindness and affection for the first time in her life. She also catches the attention of Asterope Franz, who respects her due to her sharp intellect and hopes to recruit her as one of his advisors, forming quite a close relationship with him. She remarks herself that she might not have become such a sinister individual had she received such warm and welcoming treatment in her original life. Nevertheless, Aria remains determined to pay back Mielle and does not even consider abandoning her desire for revenge.

Aria is quite intelligent and a fast learner, mastering subjects she had not had any training in in her previous life rather quickly and setting up elaborate schemes to not only destroy her stepsister on a personal and social level, but ruin her in the most humiliating way possible. She is able to turn back time using her hourglass around five minutes every day, though doing so exhausts her severely; she makes use of this power frequently to get out of dangerous situations and put herself in a favorable position with other people.

History
Aria is the daughter of Carin Roscente, a prostitute who managed to raise her social status immensely by marrying into the family of Count Roscente (the richest noble family in the empire) and Chloe Piast, the heir of the Marquis of Piast in the Kingdom of Croa. Upon entering noble society, she was consistently side-eyed, a problem worsened by her lack of knowledge regarding etiquette as a result of her upbringing as well as her spoiled behavior. She spent the rest of her life in the shadows of her sister Mielle Roscente, who was described as the perfect noble lady and, despite not saying so openly, strongly resented both Aria and her mother, plotting to ruin Aria’s life. At some point, Mielle started sending her maids to accompany Aria and encourage her to engage in bad behavior, specifically setting up the narrative of a gentle and elegant noble lady being victimized by her evil stepsister. Ultimately, Aria was executed following an attempt to kill Mielle by poisoning her tea (which had naturally been proposed by one of her maids in the first place), only to be sent back in time around a decade.

Having learned just before her execution that she had been set up, Aria begins to plot revenge against Mielle for killing her and her mother, using her knowledge of the future to build connections (among other people, to Sarah Loren) and increase her influence. This unintentionally leads her to make the acquaintance of Asterope Franz, ultimately falling for him and becoming a close ally of his. She also uses her knowledge of the future to make business investments under the name of “Investor A” that lead her to become one of the wealthiest people in the Empire, building wealth independently of her father. These efforts finally pay off when Asher decides to found an academy for commoners with her help, leading her to go public with her business ventures and becoming engaged to the Crown Prince.

Thanks to her help, the Aristocratic Faction (whose head, Isis Frederick, is Mielle’s key benefactor) loses influence to Asher and Aria, leading Mielle to attempt various schemes to weaken Aria, all of which end up backfiring. Following her involvement in a conspiracy to overthrow the Imperial family, Mielle is deprived of her noble status and, thanks to Aria’s efforts, not executed, but instead sentenced to 50 years of prison, only being allowed to leave when accompanying Annie, who bullies and abuses her. In the final arcs of the main story, Aria executes the final stage of her plan by encouraging Mielle to poison the tea of Annie, leading to Mielle’s execution. Finally, Aria ends up meeting her family in the Epilogue and becomes the Crown Princess of the Empire.

Appearance
Aria is described as an extremely beautiful and attractive woman, gorgeous enough to dazzle the men around her even in the original line of events. Initially appearing rather short and childlike (even more so than Mielle Roscente) due to malnourishment, she ends up growing considerably over the course of the series, almost taller than her adult maids at the age of fifteen. Her figure is slender and rather voluptuous for her age, with a small waist and shoulders wider than her hips. Aria is also noted to have smooth pale skin, large sharp green eyes, sensuous lips, an angular face, and a flawless complexion, though her exceptionally long and full eyelashes are said to be one of her most seductive physical features. She possesses luxurious long curly blonde hair of a more golden color than her stepsister’s, which she generally wears open with loose bangs in the front; however, when disguising herself and going for a casual look in order not to attract attention, she is seen keeping it in a high bun covered by a white hat with the exception of two strands in the front. She is also seen with a mole on her left ear. She is said to have inherited most of her physical appearance from her biological father Chloe Piast.

Over the course of the series, Aria’s attire undergoes noticeable changes. The Aria of the original line of events, having just become of drastically higher social standing, liked to wear colorful and glamorous clothes, leading her to be frowned upon in noble society for her excessive clothing. Upon realizing this was optical poison in the revised timeline, Aria went as far as to burn her clothes, framing it as an accident and purchasing more modest clothes from a somewhat expensive commoner boutique. Gradually receiving more luxurious clothes (albeit still choosing more modest ones when trying not to draw attention or attempting to seduce Oscar Frederick), her choice of attire became more and more extravagant coinciding with her rise in status as one of the most influential political actors in the Empire and, finally, the Crown Princess.

Trivia
Aria means "air" and the melody "Aria" in Italian.

In Albanian, Aria means "treasure" or "gold", basically, something of high value.

In Persian, it means "noble", and "Lioness" in Hebrew.

Aria is also a unisex name, but it is mainly a masculine Persian name.