HelenAce

I liked her till ep 31. She realized that it was useless to have feelings for XJS and I thought she was finally understanding her mistakes, but then she became stupid again in ep 32. She is just blaming XJS for existing.

Regarding the matter of the throne, if XJS has learnt his lesson from the beginning episodes and doesn't try to harm innocent civilians and he has a turning point with all the death camp soldiers and he sets them free, I am willing to give him some grace.

Otherwise FCY feels like the most level headed out of all the characters excluding FL and ML. Let him be the Emperor of both Susha and Jinxiu.

There is no argument in that. The death camps were of course an inhumane act, but I dont believe that was a system created by him alone. Was he using that system? Yes.

I am pretty sure, Queen dowager and Emperor have their own camps. All of them are pretty twisted in that family. And what he said at the beginning was true unfortunately. If he were softhearted he wouldn't be able to survive. It takes a twisted person to survive a twisted family.

He is 70% an asshole 30% sincere to certain people.

He never used her. She offered, he took that opportunity to leave. Why would he not? But he didn't tell her directly or indirectly to steal the token or manipulate her with false affection. He didn't even know she did that. But even then he told her to reconsider her choice. Short of throwing her out of the carriage, he did everything.

Its true she is hurt, but it was out of her own actions. Not because anybody used her or manipulated her. Even in that last minute she could have ditched him and stayed in Susha, but she was acting like those trashy MLs who can't understand 'NO.'

If that were to happen, even for a drama I'd find that weird. Because she is still not level-headed. She is still chasing after petty grudges the moment she got a little power instead of trying to secure her safety

Again if she had not tried to mess with him first, I dont think he would have tried to kill her either. She is just mad he didn't return her feelings, but he very honestly told her from the beginning that he couldn't. Did anyone force her to marry him?

She did it herself and now she is blaming him? Sure, he needn't have slapped her, but she was also trying to force her feelings upon him. If it had been the other way around it would have been called borderline harassment.

It's true. He is not a good guy, but he is not downright evil either. He wants to usurp the throne from XJY, and fight for his survival. He doesn't want to rely on the hand out antidotes that sick brother of his is giving him and his main feud with Susha is because he is trying to survive. If there is no use for him, he'll just be left to die.

So, I don't view all of his actions as wrong. After all he is just trying to survive and it is not wrong of him to want to survive.

Does that excuse his unreasonable decisions towards the civilians in the beginning? No. He might have been desperate but still no. But in any case I find it stupid that FXY decided to butt in on something that she could've just ignored. She is in a foreign country with no one on her side. Her first priority should be to secure her own safety through any means possible. Instead she decides to headfirst jump into the feud between the two brothers.

I dont think she is in any position to take it out on anybody right now.

First of all the talk with the Queen was necessary. He couldn't show he had any type of favourable feelings towards her in any way. That would alert the Queen mother that he has plans to send her back. Its not like the Queen is on his side. Secondly, I am pretty sure if FXY hadn't gotten her priorities wrong and targeted XJS with no reason he wouldn't have turned on her either.

This girl is wising up and dumbing down at the same time. Best course of action would be to make use of both brothers. If one doesn't work use the other as insurance and leave.

She should know enough by now to tell the political situation in Jinxiu is not that good either. She cannot trust or rely on anyone there.

First of all the talk with the Queen was necessary. He couldn't show he had any type of favourable feelings towards her in any way. That would alert the Queen mother that he has plans to send her back. Its not like the Queen is on his side. Secondly, I am pretty sure if FXY hadn't gotten her priorities wrong and targeted XJS with no reason he wouldn't have turned on her either.

This girl is wising up and dumbing down at the same time. Best course of action would be to make use of both brothers. If one doesn't work use the other as insurance and leave.

She should know enough by now to tell the political situation in Jinxiu is not that good either. She cannot trust or rely on anyone there.

Okay, FXY needs to get a serious reality check. Xia Jing Shi can be blamed for a lot of things, but not the "death" of brother & father. Ironically, XJS has been the most sincere with her. Right upfront, from the very beginning, he told her that he wouldn't be able to love her. He said he can give her status/respect but not love. He has told her that multiple times. She was not forced into this.

In fact FXY is the luckiest princess in all C dramas combined with this "princess married off to faraway land trope" because her father completely left the choice to her. No subtle emotional blackmail or anything. Brother even went the extra mile to make sure XJS was detained in Susha. XJS didn't manipulate her into stealing that token. She did it on her own and even when she offered he said even if she did this 'he wouldn't be able to love her'. He even said she could stay behind, and he would be willing to take the blame for anything that happened in the future. There was a disclaimer shoved right into her face in capital letters the whole time those two were together.

Even as they were leaving he told her multiple times to reconsider her decision. C-drama brothers are mostly useless in this type of scenario but FSG tracked them down to the last minute and went after her to get her back. He was literally begging her to come back, but she decided to threaten her own brother with her life on her own.

All these were her own decisions. XJS didn't force her to do these, but now that her little bubble got cracked she takes it out on XJS? Its his fault her stupid brain couldn't process rejection?

Where did he try to kill the princess? She is the one that is trying to kill him first.

I think there is a deeper reason why XJS rebuffed FXY advances and keeps insisting that he can't give her the love between a wife and a husband (Dont think its just the default SML character setting). I think someone put out a novel spoiler earlier and it is starting to make sense while also not making sense. Perhaps back then FL already knew and didn't mind? If that spoiler is true, hope they are adapting it into the drama as well because it looks like they are sprinkling some hints about it here and there and that really elevates XJS's character by a lot.

I can't tell if her character development is getting worse or better. She has finally cast aside her delusions of love with XJS, but hey, that took way too long and she blames him for being hypocritical when she is being more like one.
He warned her several times, and gave her several opportunities to leave, but she was the one who adamantly decided not to.

Based on the present, I felt it would've been wiser to ally with XJS instead of the Emperor, but she hates him now for something she decided to do previously. But yes, it does seem that the Emperor is easier to control than XJS, and can give her quicker benefits- maybe she recognizes that.

We dont know the context for now, but in the ep 32 preview it seems like she is going against XJS purposefully because she is spiteful that he slapped her when she went and put her foot in that trap herself just seems like she has not that level-headed and is just acting on emotional impulse like before.

Like, girl, leave yourself some options. I don't think you're in a position to burn the XJS bridge yet.

Those who have watched the donghua or read the manhua first. Is watching the live action worth it or will it just ruin it?

I watched the first live action and kind of regretted it, and dont want to go in for the same because the Zhu Ye arc is my favourite out of all the arcs and the drama being longer I am kind of hoping for a closure for Baiye (I think he is called Hongye in the drama).

I understand the drama might change a couple of things, but I am hoping they keep the important parts and at the very least ML can beat that shitty traitorous son of a dog Jin Renfeng to oblivion after everything he did to the Dong fang family and give Huaizhu and himself a decent chance at the relationship instead of jumping straight to the kid.
Please let me know.

CHS acted incredibly well with what he was given. CZ's character in the beginning was quite meh and one dimensional but I would definitely not put that on the actor. In the end, he is the second lead, the story writing was in such a way that it does not upstage the main lead (its pretty common in c-dramas) but as the story gains more depth you can really see how he shines.

If we are talking role wise - CZ/Mo Li role has a higher difficulty scale when it comes to acting and CHS pulled it off amazingly. Not to say JY/FY is easy, but when compared to CZ/Mo Li there are different requirements.

Mo Li's conversations with Chong Zhao - The actor is not interacting with someone beside him, but with someone in his own head. Essentially he is interacting with himself - To accurately act that out in a shoot is so difficult especially in the scenes where there isn't even much dialogue. Ep 39 is a great example for this. Especially in the scene where BX turns to look back at CZ/Mo Li (We can see how his expressions fluctuate between CZ and MoLi)
JY/FY ARP did do good job, but his roles story wise were all in separate segments. So if we compare the complexity of the roles CZ/Mo Li is higher.

CHS and ARP have around the same or a tad lesser level of experience, (I dont think CHS has had BOY kind of exposure yet) but CHS seems to have done more experimentation with his roles and it shows in his acting.

ARP is not a bad actor, but I dont think I have seen him in many diverse roles. I feel like MM is the first where he has taken on a more challenging set.

Its not bringing down. Its just personal preference - some people like main couple, some people do not like main couple. Some people like second couple, some people do not like second couple at all

For me I liked that they didn't do that love triangle nonsense. I felt that it made the drama better...Everyone has that one thing that made them watch and continue the drama. Some watched it for Mu-jiu, some dropped it after mu jiu died - (if they say I only watched it for Mu-jiu, for me mu-jiu carried the show does it mean it is bringing down the other characters. It is natural to be unhappy if your fav character dies... ) There are dramas where main CP dies (does majority like it?) but that does that mean the other characters are being brought down? why take it personally?

Its just personal preference. The main CP is not bad, but for some people they watched it for the second couple - So yeah, for us, second couple carried the show - if it had been the same stupid love triangle I would have dropped the drama because I have watched a lot of chinese dramas like that and that trope has become so sickening (even ALP was like that) - I love Chang hua sen as an actor and his character in this drama was also good so I am extremely glad they didn't waste his character's potential and gave him a separate love line. So, I would say I continued watching because of Chong Zhao and Bai Xi's story line.

Chang Hua sen and dai lu wa are starring in Tales of Dark river too, but unfortunately Dai Lu wa only has a guest role - it would be really amazing if someone could see the potential and bring those two back as leads in another drama!!!

She does not speak in the sense she does not open her mouth to speak. Like I said she transmits her voice directly to the mind. They could have followed a similar approach where we can still hear what she is saying or what she is communicating but by giving her voice a different quality or tone so we can still feel the difference or see the difference that she is not speaking with her her mouth but with her mind.

The drama could have deviated by making a great impact for her character in the future where we can see that when she finally speaks with her mouth using her own voice it would signify she had finally come to terms with her past mistake.

One of the biggest characteristics of Tushan Honghong is that she does not speak. She directly transmits her voice into their heads. I am surprised they did not incorporate that into the drama. Of course not everything can be the same as the original, but the fact that she does not speak has a significant emotional weight to her character, her past and her future motivations.

It is also a sign of her absolute authority in Tushan.

While this may be more of an aesthetically pleasing drama, I feel like this removed significant potential of development for her character in the drama. Its the first episode I am already sort of disappointed.

It is explained in the donghua that different emotional motivations affects growth of the spirits. Strong emotions like love, anger, sorrow affect their power and growth.