I don't like the way the character is written, and no, i'm not a fan of the ML and FL. I don't see the chemistry of them on and off screen.
The don't touch me trope is well established in Kdrama land. I've seen many Chaebol's, God's, Kings who do not want to be touched, or don't seek out human contact too much, so this isn't unique. So I had no issue with LG aversion to touch, regardless of his reason.
And in a realism sense, sure, I get it that he is afraid of being poisoned, you don't really need to have a traumatic experience to have this aversion. It was common practice in many literature that people from royal blood, tend to have food tasters, and are careful not to have people touch them, that's why they are often surrounded by bodyguards and etc... Once again, I have no problem with this, because i've seen this done a lot of times in other medias.
LMH's character is written to be a godlike being. There really is so much stuff in the past 13 episodes supporting this. Which I thought was quite interesting. Back in Monarchial Japan, back in the old old times, I read that there was this kind of godlike worship. And even also in Egyptian times with pharaohs, they were seen as actual gods. But key word here is ancient times. This is suppose to be modern day Corea, so seeing such archaic monarchial ideologies just bothered the heck out of me. LG is not only treated as a godlike being, he acts like it. Being an omnipotent ruler has made him have this air of superiority towards everyone. I did not see any redeeming qualities for LG until late in the drama, the last few episodes.
I mean, if you really want to get into details, and show factual evidence in the drama of my problems with LG as a poorly written character, we would be here all day, and it would never end TBH.
The writer later introduced "some" weakness to LG, but it's even arguable if those things introduced were weaknesses at all since LG's acting could not sell them as weakness
Anyway, I will stop here, I appreciate you are a KTEM fan, and LMH fan, more power to you. I am just not.
I've been considering writing a fan fiction of KTEM on how I would write the story lol, but it might take too too long, since I won't be able to salvage much of the original plot lol!
the comment section is funny, I agree lol! I especially love LMH fanboys, they are the best. Apologies if you…
haha good old Jangmi :)
My watch list is Shinjae, Lee Rim, Jo Eun Sup/Yeong, Jangmi and PM (I love her potential, not what the writer has done to her, still hoping for some redemption arc).
My Skip list is LG, TE, Noh, Prince, Henchman, all filler characters.
I'm a softie, doesn't take me much to cry. I've recently watched Master's Sun and was bawling at a lot of parts.
Maybe i'm old fashioned, I like my romance like a warm bowl of jjigae stew, rather than instant noodle speed.
Big props to you my friend for even bother on reading that post. I just looked at the poster name, wall of text, and said in my best Arya voice, "Not Today".
Don't you think that woud have been cool if that was the case? It woud be a bittersweet ending for sure, as we'll see some people from World A and some people from World B coexisting in this new world.
Which is why i'm so disappointed in KES, all she had to do was just plagiarized some other concept out there to create something better than what we see.
the comment section is funny, I agree lol! I especially love LMH fanboys, they are the best. Apologies if you…
Not a fan of Lady Noh, and when she collapsed, I didn't understand it that much either. The relationship of Noh and the Prince being LG's basically mom and dad isn't fleshed out very well, that is why when the death came, I could just not feel any emotions at all. I almost laughed at LMH crying scenes.
I understand that the writer wanted to present LG as this rock, who shows no emotions, who is super confident in himself and shows no cracks, until these big tragic things happens. I've seen this done well in sooo many Kdramas, that when the big emotional hindrance comes, bam your crying along with the ML. This isn't one of them. The buildup, the flashbacks, the emotions were all so poorly acted, fake, that I could not feel any emotion but laughter when watching these scenes.
Sorry for the harsh words lol, I'm not a rock! I do cry in kdramas when it's warranted, not just because the OST is sad lol.
the comment section is funny, I agree lol! I especially love LMH fanboys, they are the best. Apologies if you…
The whole point of Prince Buyeong's death can be summed up in 3 words.
"LMH Beautiful Cry"
All it does is to show us this super cool, super omnipotent guy, is fragile also, and he can cry like crazy to make us say awww. That's it, basically to humanize him.
But I agree the way the prince + his family is treated is a travesty. The whole show, you never felt the King had any real connection to his uncle.
In fact, my friends and I take turns making fun of LMH character, he has the same voice, same emotion the whole series. It's always this monotone, cool, cold sounding voice, regardless of the situation. Even his crying scene during the Prince's death felt so fake.
I am predicting the 3 following things for the last 3 episodes.
Prediction 1:
I find that even in a world of guns, there is a big emphasis on the sword LG and LR are using. Being called tiger sword or not. Which only means one thing, we will be ramping up to an extended epic sword fight scene, with hopefully decent fight choreography. But this is the way I am imagining it. Since we are told time stops longer and longer, it will eventually reach a point where time stops are longer than an hour maybe.
We enter a scene where it is raining or snowing (best way to show time stops full effect). It's established that LG is ruthless and has no qualms on killing people, and LR is LR, so this is undoubtedly a fight to the death. There are people around LR and LG frozen of course. LR and LG are only ones not affected by time stop, so they are doing this epic fight scene where everything but them are frozen. Then LG kills LR and time resumes.
Prediction 2:
The henchman of LR has sooo much screen time, So I kinda doubt he will die too quickly, he will also get a small mini fight scene. The question is though, will it be Shinjae who kills him or will it be Jo Yeong. My money is on SJ to close out his arc, assuming it does turn out he is related to LR in some way.
Prediction 3 (also a theory of mine):
The two parallel world combines into one time line. Which one it will be, i'm guessing the Kingdom of Corea one. Like yoyo kid says, there is only one world.
When the flute was broken into half, so did it create two worlds. So when LG kills LR, and he combines the flute, the two worlds become one and the other world, Kingdom of Korea cease to exist.
In fact, there is foreshadowing from Nari that when there are doppelgangers, one always has to die, because this is the law of the univserse. Which supports my theory about the worlds combining into one. We may end up that in this new world, we end up not with Eunsup and Nari, but Jo yeoung and Nari.
In the end we are reminded that this is meant to be a fantasy/science fiction drama, where the world of Corea is our main world. The drama showing aspects of PPL like The Alley and BBq chicken are the writers way of breaking the 4th wall to say. To kind of include the viewers into the world KES has created in Corea.
And in the end the viewers representative, in this case TE, is brought into the fantastical world of Corea to get married to an omnipotent being in LG.
Can't wait till this show comes in my country's Netflix so I can see why it have negative feedbacks. Usually,…
the negative comments are deserved. If you want a time killer of a show. Or a show you can watch while doing something else, then this show is for you.
I just finished episode 13 and seriously had to ask myself why am I still watching this drama? Mainly cause the…
the comment section is funny, I agree lol! I especially love LMH fanboys, they are the best. Apologies if you are one of them :)
I'm honestly just watching the last 3 episodes to see if shinjae or PM will have neutral/happy endings, but i'm not holding my breath.
I think of the scenes that really bugged me, was in episode 11, where I kept thinking how it was so bad that Prince Buyeong family had to move out of the royal court. But then KES wrote the son as a giant douchebag, only so that we can elevate LG to be this benevolent, super nice guy, who cared more for the Prince than the Prince own son. I'm like WTF, so disrespectful, so now we are suppose to hate the son cause he is money hungry douche? What for? to show LG is benevolent?
Then as a show of contradiction 1 episode later, LG orders the villains to be killed in cold blood. But hey, rememeber we showed you that LG is benevolent, so it's ok if we kills defenceless people because we showed you he is good person.
it's a good theory, but will just make SJ life more tragic lol
No ofc it doesn't add anything, but i'm quite certain KES for the remaining 3 episodes are just going to throw plot twist after plot twist to increase the complexity of her show in a bad way.
At least plot twist, regardless of how stupid it is, will make the last 3 episodes a bit more interesting. If there are no remaining plot twist, then we are in for 3 more boring episodes/
It' a minor controversy at best, and is being parrotted by KTEM defenders as the ONLY reason it is not doing well in ratings.
If anything, KTEM is as nationalistic as it gets, Corea having 5th best GDP? free visa to all Coreans offered by China for saving one fishing boat? Showing of Corean military might, and how japanese as cowards against the might of Corea? they even made an effort to cast the japanese cast actor in an unfavorable light. All pro Korea imagery really. So I don't understand your point here really.
If anything, I can imagine japanese people not being so keen on watching this as KTEM just portrays Japan as barbarians itching to invade Corea, and how Corea is superior to them in every way.
IF anything, the MAJOR reason this is pretty much flopping, aside from the non-existent romance, is simply this. For a 16 episode drama, it took way too long for it to get good. I'm talking episode 6 or 7 before you can get excited, some people woud even argue episode 11 before it gets good.
Guess what, a majority will watch maybe max 3 episodes before dropping, some even drop after the first episode. A great drama grips you from the start, or at least from episode 3 on out. so eventhough the drama has gotten better, it has already lost the interest of many first responding viewers.
Also keep in mind it's not like there were no other shows during this timeslot, so it was easy for people to just change the channel.
While on netflix, if you started late, you can just binge watch and enjoy without interruption, which is maybe the way the show shoud be enjoyed.
Here's the thing, Everyone in the drama says he's inteligent and logical, the writer writes him this way. But his actions are so contradictory the tags intelligent and logical.
How is crushing on a picture remarkable? If anything I woud describe it as obsessive, which makes me wonder on the Kings mental state.
I can crush on LMH because he is hot and attractive, but I would not let that Crush dictate the next 25 years of my life, and ignore my duty to have heirs or find a wife, as we can see the old court lady has been placing talismans for god knows how long. Someone who lets a crush on a picture for 25 years has some serious issues with him/her imo. I would not describe it as admirable.
He often comes off as narcissist with a god complex, and it's not just me who thinks this, other commenters have been saying the same thing, which means that is what viewers are kind of seeing as well.
Noted on the beheading joke. But comparing LG to the red queen just adds to this poor mental state IMO.
Exactly what makes LG a good judge of character? because he is suppose to be smart and logical? No, the way he treated the PM was very misogynistic. And it is such bad taste specially when we are led to believe that she is suppose to be someone of powr, until we are shown she isn't just a rubber stamp.
The PM is just thinking what everyone else is thinking TE makes lame jokes but the king is laughing? It's because TE could step on dog poo and the king would laugh, TE could ask why the chicken cross the road, and the King woudl swoon. TE could shaved her head and he would her more. It's because since episode 1, the king was already head over heels in love with TE, not just I like you, but I love you to the nth degree. Which is why everything TE does is endearing to him, he's on cloud 9 since day 1, 1 second after meeting her. And no, this isnt' some reincarnation deal like in Goblin or anything, it's just a plot device to get the romance started early.
Just no, books cannot ever replace, the guidance and love real parents will have. Lady Noh in the very end, eventho we see LG treat her like family, she isn't. Same for the Prince, who cannot be really that happy, considering he had to send his actualy family away due to what happened to LG. Or are we forgetting that part? The reason LG ended up being the perfect man, is because that is how KES wrote him, period, that's the only reason.
So SJ love was ordinary and does't fit this drama because this is a scifi drama? And since this show is fantasy/science fiction, the way they fall in love needs to be out of this world also? lol, ok. I can't wait for the next star trek, where the captain falls in love with a picture from 2000 years ago, because you know that's how love in sci fi should be portrayed to be real.
Yeah SK audience only watch korean shows, because shows from Europe, US, Canada and etc... would be WAAAAY over their heads, since those foreign shows don't do normal kdrama formula, and they are way behind in how the top shows are written.
Actually, using that argument, GOT wouldl be waaaay over their heads, and probably no one in Korea every watched it because you know, it would be over their heads with it's lack of kdrama formula, and it's over complicated plot. Only us international audience have the savvyness to appreciate the masterpiece that is KTEM...
The don't touch me trope is well established in Kdrama land. I've seen many Chaebol's, God's, Kings who do not want to be touched, or don't seek out human contact too much, so this isn't unique. So I had no issue with LG aversion to touch, regardless of his reason.
And in a realism sense, sure, I get it that he is afraid of being poisoned, you don't really need to have a traumatic experience to have this aversion. It was common practice in many literature that people from royal blood, tend to have food tasters, and are careful not to have people touch them, that's why they are often surrounded by bodyguards and etc... Once again, I have no problem with this, because i've seen this done a lot of times in other medias.
LMH's character is written to be a godlike being. There really is so much stuff in the past 13 episodes supporting this. Which I thought was quite interesting. Back in Monarchial Japan, back in the old old times, I read that there was this kind of godlike worship. And even also in Egyptian times with pharaohs, they were seen as actual gods. But key word here is ancient times. This is suppose to be modern day Corea, so seeing such archaic monarchial ideologies just bothered the heck out of me. LG is not only treated as a godlike being, he acts like it. Being an omnipotent ruler has made him have this air of superiority towards everyone. I did not see any redeeming qualities for LG until late in the drama, the last few episodes.
I mean, if you really want to get into details, and show factual evidence in the drama of my problems with LG as a poorly written character, we would be here all day, and it would never end TBH.
The writer later introduced "some" weakness to LG, but it's even arguable if those things introduced were weaknesses at all since LG's acting could not sell them as weakness
Anyway, I will stop here, I appreciate you are a KTEM fan, and LMH fan, more power to you. I am just not.
I do not envy KES position, how do you wrap things up in 3 episodes.
it's a completely different story imo. Goblin was more well written, and didn't have a million characters.
I've been considering writing a fan fiction of KTEM on how I would write the story lol, but it might take too too long, since I won't be able to salvage much of the original plot lol!
My watch list is Shinjae, Lee Rim, Jo Eun Sup/Yeong, Jangmi and PM (I love her potential, not what the writer has done to her, still hoping for some redemption arc).
My Skip list is LG, TE, Noh, Prince, Henchman, all filler characters.
I'm a softie, doesn't take me much to cry. I've recently watched Master's Sun and was bawling at a lot of parts.
Maybe i'm old fashioned, I like my romance like a warm bowl of jjigae stew, rather than instant noodle speed.
Don't you think that woud have been cool if that was the case? It woud be a bittersweet ending for sure, as we'll see some people from World A and some people from World B coexisting in this new world.
Which is why i'm so disappointed in KES, all she had to do was just plagiarized some other concept out there to create something better than what we see.
I understand that the writer wanted to present LG as this rock, who shows no emotions, who is super confident in himself and shows no cracks, until these big tragic things happens. I've seen this done well in sooo many Kdramas, that when the big emotional hindrance comes, bam your crying along with the ML. This isn't one of them. The buildup, the flashbacks, the emotions were all so poorly acted, fake, that I could not feel any emotion but laughter when watching these scenes.
Sorry for the harsh words lol, I'm not a rock! I do cry in kdramas when it's warranted, not just because the OST is sad lol.
"LMH Beautiful Cry"
All it does is to show us this super cool, super omnipotent guy, is fragile also, and he can cry like crazy to make us say awww. That's it, basically to humanize him.
But I agree the way the prince + his family is treated is a travesty. The whole show, you never felt the King had any real connection to his uncle.
In fact, my friends and I take turns making fun of LMH character, he has the same voice, same emotion the whole series. It's always this monotone, cool, cold sounding voice, regardless of the situation. Even his crying scene during the Prince's death felt so fake.
Prediction 1:
I find that even in a world of guns, there is a big emphasis on the sword LG and LR are using. Being called tiger sword or not. Which only means one thing, we will be ramping up to an extended epic sword fight scene, with hopefully decent fight choreography. But this is the way I am imagining it. Since we are told time stops longer and longer, it will eventually reach a point where time stops are longer than an hour maybe.
We enter a scene where it is raining or snowing (best way to show time stops full effect). It's established that LG is ruthless and has no qualms on killing people, and LR is LR, so this is undoubtedly a fight to the death. There are people around LR and LG frozen of course. LR and LG are only ones not affected by time stop, so they are doing this epic fight scene where everything but them are frozen. Then LG kills LR and time resumes.
Prediction 2:
The henchman of LR has sooo much screen time, So I kinda doubt he will die too quickly, he will also get a small mini fight scene. The question is though, will it be Shinjae who kills him or will it be Jo Yeong. My money is on SJ to close out his arc, assuming it does turn out he is related to LR in some way.
Prediction 3 (also a theory of mine):
The two parallel world combines into one time line. Which one it will be, i'm guessing the Kingdom of Corea one. Like yoyo kid says, there is only one world.
When the flute was broken into half, so did it create two worlds. So when LG kills LR, and he combines the flute, the two worlds become one and the other world, Kingdom of Korea cease to exist.
In fact, there is foreshadowing from Nari that when there are doppelgangers, one always has to die, because this is the law of the univserse. Which supports my theory about the worlds combining into one. We may end up that in this new world, we end up not with Eunsup and Nari, but Jo yeoung and Nari.
In the end we are reminded that this is meant to be a fantasy/science fiction drama, where the world of Corea is our main world. The drama showing aspects of PPL like The Alley and BBq chicken are the writers way of breaking the 4th wall to say. To kind of include the viewers into the world KES has created in Corea.
And in the end the viewers representative, in this case TE, is brought into the fantastical world of Corea to get married to an omnipotent being in LG.
I'm honestly just watching the last 3 episodes to see if shinjae or PM will have neutral/happy endings, but i'm not holding my breath.
I think of the scenes that really bugged me, was in episode 11, where I kept thinking how it was so bad that Prince Buyeong family had to move out of the royal court. But then KES wrote the son as a giant douchebag, only so that we can elevate LG to be this benevolent, super nice guy, who cared more for the Prince than the Prince own son. I'm like WTF, so disrespectful, so now we are suppose to hate the son cause he is money hungry douche? What for? to show LG is benevolent?
Then as a show of contradiction 1 episode later, LG orders the villains to be killed in cold blood. But hey, rememeber we showed you that LG is benevolent, so it's ok if we kills defenceless people because we showed you he is good person.
What a contradictory writing for LG lol.
At least plot twist, regardless of how stupid it is, will make the last 3 episodes a bit more interesting. If there are no remaining plot twist, then we are in for 3 more boring episodes/
I'm a bit surprised tbh, I didn't know LMH had so many loyal fans, I don't really get the hype, but I guess he is beloved more than I thought.
If anything, KTEM is as nationalistic as it gets, Corea having 5th best GDP? free visa to all Coreans offered by China for saving one fishing boat? Showing of Corean military might, and how japanese as cowards against the might of Corea? they even made an effort to cast the japanese cast actor in an unfavorable light. All pro Korea imagery really. So I don't understand your point here really.
If anything, I can imagine japanese people not being so keen on watching this as KTEM just portrays Japan as barbarians itching to invade Corea, and how Corea is superior to them in every way.
IF anything, the MAJOR reason this is pretty much flopping, aside from the non-existent romance, is simply this. For a 16 episode drama, it took way too long for it to get good. I'm talking episode 6 or 7 before you can get excited, some people woud even argue episode 11 before it gets good.
Guess what, a majority will watch maybe max 3 episodes before dropping, some even drop after the first episode. A great drama grips you from the start, or at least from episode 3 on out. so eventhough the drama has gotten better, it has already lost the interest of many first responding viewers.
Also keep in mind it's not like there were no other shows during this timeslot, so it was easy for people to just change the channel.
While on netflix, if you started late, you can just binge watch and enjoy without interruption, which is maybe the way the show shoud be enjoyed.
How is crushing on a picture remarkable? If anything I woud describe it as obsessive, which makes me wonder on the Kings mental state.
I can crush on LMH because he is hot and attractive, but I would not let that Crush dictate the next 25 years of my life, and ignore my duty to have heirs or find a wife, as we can see the old court lady has been placing talismans for god knows how long. Someone who lets a crush on a picture for 25 years has some serious issues with him/her imo. I would not describe it as admirable.
He often comes off as narcissist with a god complex, and it's not just me who thinks this, other commenters have been saying the same thing, which means that is what viewers are kind of seeing as well.
Noted on the beheading joke. But comparing LG to the red queen just adds to this poor mental state IMO.
Exactly what makes LG a good judge of character? because he is suppose to be smart and logical? No, the way he treated the PM was very misogynistic. And it is such bad taste specially when we are led to believe that she is suppose to be someone of powr, until we are shown she isn't just a rubber stamp.
The PM is just thinking what everyone else is thinking TE makes lame jokes but the king is laughing? It's because TE could step on dog poo and the king would laugh, TE could ask why the chicken cross the road, and the King woudl swoon. TE could shaved her head and he would her more. It's because since episode 1, the king was already head over heels in love with TE, not just I like you, but I love you to the nth degree. Which is why everything TE does is endearing to him, he's on cloud 9 since day 1, 1 second after meeting her. And no, this isnt' some reincarnation deal like in Goblin or anything, it's just a plot device to get the romance started early.
Just no, books cannot ever replace, the guidance and love real parents will have. Lady Noh in the very end, eventho we see LG treat her like family, she isn't. Same for the Prince, who cannot be really that happy, considering he had to send his actualy family away due to what happened to LG. Or are we forgetting that part? The reason LG ended up being the perfect man, is because that is how KES wrote him, period, that's the only reason.
So SJ love was ordinary and does't fit this drama because this is a scifi drama? And since this show is fantasy/science fiction, the way they fall in love needs to be out of this world also? lol, ok. I can't wait for the next star trek, where the captain falls in love with a picture from 2000 years ago, because you know that's how love in sci fi should be portrayed to be real.
Yeah SK audience only watch korean shows, because shows from Europe, US, Canada and etc... would be WAAAAY over their heads, since those foreign shows don't do normal kdrama formula, and they are way behind in how the top shows are written.
Actually, using that argument, GOT wouldl be waaaay over their heads, and probably no one in Korea every watched it because you know, it would be over their heads with it's lack of kdrama formula, and it's over complicated plot. Only us international audience have the savvyness to appreciate the masterpiece that is KTEM...