Omg, yes! After portraying a character as evil, most writers aren't able to convince viewers that that person…
Oh absolutely agree about any ruler being a white lotus is laughable. Empress of China was 100% a vanity project by Fan Bing Bing, who produced and directed it. It's definitely not taken seriously by Chinese viewers at all (in fact it has a 5.2 rating on Douban). Though funnily enough all that cleavage was probably one of the more historically accurate thing about it lol; women during the Tang dynasty were relatively liberated.
I agree most cdrama characters are starkly black/white rather than shades of gray like almost everyone is in real life lol, and I can't argue with censorship probably being the main factor (I firmly believe if there wasn't such heavy censorship cdramas and cmovies would be much better quality).
And yep, one of the complaints about Ruyi was the portrayal of Empress Fuca, who historically is well regarded and generally considered by most historians to be beloved by Qianlong due to the sheer amount of poetry he wrote in dedication to her after her death. But like you said, who really knows, women had such low status, court historians didn't really write much about them at all.
Omg, yes! After portraying a character as evil, most writers aren't able to convince viewers that that person…
sorry to butt in the discussion! but I felt like I had to make some comments here: - Wu Zetian is considered "evil" because male historians at the time did not like the fact that a woman seized power and declared herself Emperor. she's definitely not a saint (no one who climbed to a position of power that otherwise was unattainable could be considered a saint, after all), but she has been recently reassessed by historians and viewed in a better light (ruthless, but actually decent ruler).
- There is very little official records on the emperor's harem. Most concubines only get a few lines in historical records: - their birth year + family they are from - when they entered the harem - the birth dates of their children - their death date so to say which concubine was "evil" and which was "good" has always been part of the creative licenses of the authors/directors/screenwriters. There is very little known about Consort Ling, for example, except that she did enter the palace as a maidservant and had several children, which can thus be inferred she was favored by Qianlong for a while. (though, fun fact, in Ruyi they changed her designation to 炩 from the original 令, as a way for the author to acknowledge that they are completely changing Ling's character to be the prominent villain). Very little is also known about Ulanara the Step Empress (Ruyi), as she is famously wiped from historical records. We only know that she did cut her hair, and it was only inferred that that pissed off Qianlong enough to erase her existence as much as possible, based on records of meals served to her before and after the incident (there is even no official portrait of her, even though she was Empress).
Anyways, sorry again for butting in, just wanted to clarify a few things!
I agree most cdrama characters are starkly black/white rather than shades of gray like almost everyone is in real life lol, and I can't argue with censorship probably being the main factor (I firmly believe if there wasn't such heavy censorship cdramas and cmovies would be much better quality).
And yep, one of the complaints about Ruyi was the portrayal of Empress Fuca, who historically is well regarded and generally considered by most historians to be beloved by Qianlong due to the sheer amount of poetry he wrote in dedication to her after her death. But like you said, who really knows, women had such low status, court historians didn't really write much about them at all.
- Wu Zetian is considered "evil" because male historians at the time did not like the fact that a woman seized power and declared herself Emperor. she's definitely not a saint (no one who climbed to a position of power that otherwise was unattainable could be considered a saint, after all), but she has been recently reassessed by historians and viewed in a better light (ruthless, but actually decent ruler).
- There is very little official records on the emperor's harem. Most concubines only get a few lines in historical records:
- their birth year + family they are from
- when they entered the harem
- the birth dates of their children
- their death date
so to say which concubine was "evil" and which was "good" has always been part of the creative licenses of the authors/directors/screenwriters. There is very little known about Consort Ling, for example, except that she did enter the palace as a maidservant and had several children, which can thus be inferred she was favored by Qianlong for a while. (though, fun fact, in Ruyi they changed her designation to 炩 from the original 令, as a way for the author to acknowledge that they are completely changing Ling's character to be the prominent villain). Very little is also known about Ulanara the Step Empress (Ruyi), as she is famously wiped from historical records. We only know that she did cut her hair, and it was only inferred that that pissed off Qianlong enough to erase her existence as much as possible, based on records of meals served to her before and after the incident (there is even no official portrait of her, even though she was Empress).
Anyways, sorry again for butting in, just wanted to clarify a few things!