Just Something About LynLyn

Suitor Armor Vol 3 (2025)

By Purpah

Publisher: Ten Speed Graphic

Admittedly, the two recent volumes of Suitor Armor weren’t my cup of tea. However, the third installment of Suitor Armor caught my attention. It’s the most thought-provoking volume yet. Suitor Armor Volume 3 covers episodes 39-51. (Episode 51 is the season finale in the webtoon format.) This volume delves deeper into the fae lore and Lucia’s character, causing our main protagonist, Lucia, to have an identity crisis. 

V Provides Agency and Power to Fairies In Their Darkest Moments

In this volume, Lucia and Modeus secretly visit the black market to meet V, a “friend” of the imprisoned faerie, Quinn. Upon meeting V, Lucia learns the harsh fate of fairies.  For the rest of their lives, fairies are subject to discrimination and suffering. Fairies are forced against their will to have their wings removed. Humans conduct the most brutal and inhumane form of wing removal on fairies. This painful procedure destroys a fairy’s spirit and displaces their identity as fairies. With the loss of their wings, fairies are labeled as “elves,” eradicating their fae heritage. 

Rather than giving humans the power to control them, fairies seek out V to surgically remove their wings. Even though the procedure is still brutal, V’s services are ethically humane as they give fairies the power to control their fates.

When Lucia meets V, she instantly assumes V is a monster because of his horrendous actions to remove a fairy’s wings. V argues that his surgical services are voluntary and that fairies use his services as a means of survival. If fairies do not remove their wings of their own volition, humans will remove them in a much more brutal fashion. Thus, V’s services provide fairies with a means to exercise agency. Fairies have the power to choose who will strip them of their wings: V or a low-life human. 

V and Lucia’s interaction displays the importance of free will and the power of choice. In this world, fairies do not have any agency over their lives. Humans control the lives of fairies. As a reader, I couldn’t help but correlate the fairy wings to a woman’s body and the challenges we have in making decisions about our bodies in this political climate. In the case of fairies, they should have the power to decide who can remove their wings. Yet, sadly, fairies do not have that luxury.

Lucia Learns The Dark Truth About Her Fairy Origins

Furthermore, volume 3 explores Lucia’s fairy heritage. In the first two volumes, Lucia was eager to learn about her fairy origins. She was blooming with excitement to learn about magic and explore the fantastical. Yet, when she meets V, rather than finding a sense of belonging to fairies, she discovers how ignorant she is of the persecution of fairies. She begins to despise herself and question her life among humans.

Lucia’s inner monologues evoke shame and affliction. She feels guilty for being ignorant about the mistreatment of fairies, while continuing living a lavish life inside the palace. Lucia has a naive outlook on the relationship between humans and fairies: she didn’t see how severe the ill-treatment of fairies was by humans. She cannot earnestly relate to them. She cannot identify as a fairy because she has not lived through the hardships that they experience from war and discrimination. Lucia is clearly in a vulnerable state of mind as she struggles to navigate her position in the worlds of fairies and humans.

Coincidentally, Lucia’s identity crisis is similar to the lives of multiracial individuals. Mixed-race individuals may naturally identify more with one cultural heritage than others, and this may be due to multiple factors, including lifestyle, social groups, and physical environments. As a personal preference, an individual may or may not have a desire to explore their roots, but still face significant barriers towards these identities. This volume has serious undertones in contrast to the other volumes. 

Grim Atmosphere Represented in the Black-Colored Pages

The gloomy tone is not only evident in the content but also in the choice of formatting. In previous volumes, the panels and images were strategically placed on a white background page, conveying a more cheerful and bright mood for each scene. However, the black market and ballroom scenes were positioned on a black background page. The black pages convey a more melancholic atmosphere. The publisher made an ingenious decision to use a black page as the background. It plays into the darker undertones of the scenes, which isn’t easy to do in a webtoon format. 

Volume 3’s conclusion left a reader, like me, speechless. We are introduced to a villainous character, Lord Ricon, King Reimund’s uncle. Lord Ricon despises fairies, and he is last seen harassing Quinn. Lucia and Kirsi also got into an argument due to Lucia’s close relationship with Modeus. There are a lot of unexpected twists in this volume. Suitor Armor Vol 3 was released on August 12th, 2025, and is now in bookstores near you.