The Rise of Phoenixes Episode 22

storytelling shortcuts

it's totally okay to use storytelling shortcuts, but 3 aspects quite bothered me. What is the point of having the short scene where the emperor and his eunuch read the letter and decide to hurry to the palace? is it just to break the scene at the palace? what is the point of allowing feng zihwei to be so stupid as to protest some killing? just to create tension between her and ning yi? and then again so stupid as to get herself held at sword point? was it just so the relative value of feng zihwei could be weighed against the intensity of ning yi's goal to kill chuan? just to bring the characters all into relation to one another? maybe i'm a bad storyteller because i adhere to logic... and maybe in truth people are stranger. and finally the scene of flagellation in front of the coffin is an odd place to bring together the ring, the flagellation and a little coffin talk. it just doesn't seem historically sensible. but i suppose entertainment is not always meant to be logical, or life-like. sometimes it is just a tool to move attention and emotion. for the storytelling shortcuts, i reduced the rating from a 9/10 to a 7/10.

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