Vaidehi

I'd go as far as to say this isn't much of a romance drama at all. There is a love story here but the overarching point of the show is to dissect the status quo. One of the few shows that looked at godhood through the lens of privilege & oppression. Ruyue is the proverbial Prometheus of the story who steals fire from gods to give to humanity. She refuses to be an unmoved god in heaven condescending the mortals & their struggles instead stands with them even at the cost of her relationship and her standing as a Supreme Goddess. The underlying thread is discussing the theme of obsession. Love that has soured coz of loss or wrong expression. Ruyue loved her son & the loss of that son made her vengeful. Jiusi loved Ruyue but he couldn't communicate & his actions inadvertently harmed her. Honglian loves Li Mo but devilizes fully when she realizes that he doesn't love her the same way/ prioritizes altruistic love over romantic love. Ling er's father loves her but he's controlling. The main "villain" loved his family but he devilizes to avenge their deaths. All the stories are talking about love gone bad. Interestingly they also draw parallels between the main "villain" & the hero Ruyue. Ruyue looted heavenly artifacts to revive her son & Xiao Jingshan cultivated to immortality & ascended to heaven only to erase the name of his family's murderer. Jingshan seems to have a real kinship w Ruyue. The tail end of the story is each of them learning to give up their obsession & make peace with what is than hope for what could be. That's why Ruyue changed the past but the future didn't change. She simply made their lives better where in time they were. Even if utimately things ended the same way they had more moments of peace & happiness before the end. I wouldn't classify this as a romance or even a plot driven xianxia. It's a character driven xianxia. The stakes are high but power is never the crux of the struggles. Xiao jingshan didn't become evil to rule the world he did all that to do sumn as small as erasing one name off a pillar. Ruyue didn't loot heavens to be powerful. She did it for her son. That made for a very interesting watch.