Happy or Sad ending for you?

For me it is certainly happy ending tinged with a bit of wisfulness, but I don't see how we could have a better one.

For all those who want BongHwan to remain in the Queens body, I like to ask you a sincere question.

Would you be willing to go back few hundred years in the wrong body and you have to have sex with someone you like, but of the opposite gender you are attracted to??

BongHwan liked the king, didn't love the king in a romantic way. that was So Young.

I think he is incomparably better off with that end rather than being stuck in a woman body.

Bonghwan suffering from the first part of the series is played for laugh, but if it was taken seriously, then his suffering is massive.

We now support (at least in some part of the world) transgender people because we acknowledge their suffering of being stuck in the wrong body, so imagine adding the time period. How can you say that Bonghwan is better off being stuck in the queens body???

People can get over heartbreaks. He will be fine in modern day.

Happy ending for me or at least the best ending possible. I'm tired of the whole Cheoljong only loved Bong-hwan and therefore this is tragic. Nope, totally disagree with that. This is a complex story, with so many layers and simplifying is just ignoring what this is about. It's about identity, about love and trust in any form. We saw toxic ones (Byeong-in for So-yong, Hwa-Jin for Cheoljong) and we saw real ones (Cheoljong, So-yong and Bong-hwan):

Cheoljong’s layered love for both So-yong and Sobong — not as two separate people, but as a merged, evolving identity.

Bong-hwan’s inner conflict and bittersweet transformation — his confusion, love, grief, and quiet growth are so often overlooked.

So-yong’s reclaiming of self — not just surviving but finally thriving, by integrating all the pieces of her fractured past with new strength.

There's no doubt that the king loved So-yong, the original one. They are people who faced each other several times, first as children in a difficult period of their lives (he had lost his family, she felt lost on her birthday which coincides with her mother's death) when they brought comfort to each other, and when So-yong saved his life... Then in Bamboo Forest (Secret), we discover they met again and fell for each other as adult... So pretending Cheoljong didn't love So-yong is definitely not understanding the story. He does love her. When Jo Hwa-Jin asks him at the beginning (when he's still at odds with Sobong) if he loves the Queen, he says he can't love her and she under exactly how it was meant. Yes, he loves So-yong and we all know she loves him too. The one reason she decided to die in that lake was to free him from her and he understands when Sobong confronts him early (also about why he wants to kill him, even if at that point he doesn't understand all the complexity as he doesn't have So-yong's memories yet)... 

That being said, Cheoljong also fell in love in with Sobong. It's all of this new queen he loves, the quiet part as well as the brash, irrational part (at least for him). Sobong knows things So-yong's could not have known. But at no moment, we're only having only Bong-hwan when this happens. Slowly from episode 7, So-yong is gradually making her presence felt. It's more and more two consciences sharing one body (I won't say two souls as it is indeed possible that Bong-hwan is the reincarnation of So-yong and so there might not be two souls and that could explain a lot of things). Bong-hwan is mostly in control but not always. When the kiss changes in episode 9, it is So-yong taking over. He says it clearly, same for their first night, not saying that Bong-hwan didn't play a part in the whole thing, as the next day in the kitchen he's more than confused, about how much he liked it even though it wasn't really him leading things for his side (big debate about who leads this body, her, him, the hormones lol)... And this is when there's no more separation in the feelings or at least it becomes murky for Sobong. Does he love the king because So-yong loves him or does he loves the king just like that? He sees him for himself, but also through the love she feels. It has to be extremely confusing... I do think Bong-hwan loves Cheoljong as himself, I do think he also love So-yong and he wants just for her (even though the person confronting her father, Byeong-in and Cheoljong after the dip in the lake is So-yong and not Sobong. She's finally completely back, leaving the ghost of her past self down the lake and back to settle scores. Her emotions allow her as often to take over her body for a while. Does So-yong love Bong-hwan? she likes him for sure, he helped her immensely, but I'm not sure if it was love... 

As I said Cheoljong loved all of his queen, the little girl who saved him, the woman he saw under the snow and who tended to his injury and the crazy cooking queen who never gave up. And we know he misses the later we see it when he looks at his dictionary with a sad frown. Something is missing (Kim Jung-hyun added his own adlib at the end of episode 20 to reinforce this), he liked the quirkiness, the craziness, the extravaganza and he misses it. But saying that he doesn't love his queen and he only loved Sobong/Bong-hwan is also absolutely ignoring the story and its complexity. At the end he believed Sobong that he was from the future even if he didn't understand all that. He believed that this was not only So-yong he had in front of him, but also someone else he loved also. 

So the ending is bittersweet for Cheoljong, it's bitter for Bong-hwan because he's finally back in a new timeline because his adventure has changed his world (Cheoljong and So-yong have made changes as the Google search shows us, they worked hand in hand to bring forth a new country), but he has lost people he loved and cared about, now he needs to find his place in this new existence, with his new him that isn't quite who he used to be as he learned to love truly, freely, with no fear. Only So-yong has a perfect happy ending somehow. She's also changed, she saw no way out when she jumped in the lake and at the end Bong-hwan showed her one, she could retake control of her life and finally be herself with the man she loved and now allowed himself to finally love her (without Prince Yeongpyeong constantly whispering in his ear that he couldn't allow himself to love her). 

But there's hope for Bong-hwan, his story doesn't end there. He's not the same and he can find his soulmate too now that he's not afraid to love anymore. It's a brand new world and I would have loved for a season 2 to show us that. Maybe get us the proof he was indeed So-yong reincarnated, that maybe he'll meet Cheoljong reborn (that was his wish in Bamboo forest).