Yidenia

She was never objectively smart; she never got away with anything and she wouldn't have been able to pull off most of her stunts in real life because of physics. She was always a bit of a Mary Sue where every "good" character in the show was on her side because she happened to be the main character, but realistically a lot of the things she did would have alienated all of her allies, especially the Emperor and Empress, who have no real reason to tolerate her except the story needs them to. The other characters in the show are far dumber than she is though, and the show went at great lengths to make this clear to us, so in that sense she's smart, but it's relative. For an issue like what we saw recently where being relatively smarter doesn't cut it, simply being less stupid compared to those around her isn't enough to prove that she's intelligent so it's really glaring. But I don't think she was ever smart. She was just naughty and that was entertaining, but you try dismantling a bridge in secret when you weigh as much as each log. She only succeeded in anything because the writers deemed she would, not because it made any sense.

She's always been pretty dumb to be honest, it's just that she was never as dumb as people expected her to be. A lot of stunts she pulled only worked out through the magic of writer's bias. She literally never got away with anything, whether it's dismantling the bridge, framing her aunt, even setting the princess's robes on fire, which, honestly, wouldn't have caught fire in real life—you can't just aim a candle at a piece of cloth and expect it to erupt into flames, it would more likely put itself out first. A lot of her actions had serious consequences that the show just didn't portray through the magic of plot bunnies, such as the fact that that collapsing bridge could easily have led to serious bone fractures and concussions rather than simple humiliation and this would absolutely implicate the host family. There is also no Emperor in history who would tolerate a lesser noble endangering his own daughter and nearly giving her severe burns, no matter how much the princess might have deserved it or how much he cared about the foster son who chose this bride. The other examples are only different because the show did a great job of keeping them self-contained so that we as viewers had a pretty clear idea of what each cause and effect were, and they were all within the scope of CSS's knowledge as well. With the Crown Prince and court politics though, we as viewers were given an impression that the Crown Prince was involved in a picture that's incomplete even for us, so it's absurd to suggest CSS has any idea of what she's doing, and it's even more ludicrous that LBY would support her ill-informed decisions. This part wasn't done very well, in my opinion; something went wrong with the script, or the editing, but it feels like the show itself glossed over the results and was just not as fun to watch, unlike the others where she was just as shortsighted but at least we can be assured that within the reality of the world, it's considered creative.

I love how Wendy is a bigger fan girl of our duo than all of us combined.

I honestly didn't see the ending of the drama as the actual ending. It seemed more like the previous parts of the episode were a foreshadowing of what's to come, while the ending is actually in the present, which is not the chronological end of the story, and the happiness lies in their decision to live in the present and to take happiness from the decision they have made in choosing each other without worrying about what this might lead to or the consequences outside of it. Which is not necessarily happy, it's just a choice that was made and allows for some interpretation of whether things will truly go down the way of the episode or they'll be different somehow. I do agree that the last part dragged on a little bit; it seemed like the director wanted a lot of stuff to be conveyed through them looking at each other and giving the viewers a chance to fill in the conversation ourselves, but for me it just looked like these two were making eyes for no reason and it would have been really awkward without a soundtrack to fill the silence.

Yi San's first wife was Deok-Ro's sister, who died. Deok-Ro wanted to believe foul-play because said sister was young and otherwise healthy; the show implied that she actually died from loneliness because Yi San neglected her, and Deok-Ro felt guilty because he knew that Yi San already loved another and yet still shoved his sister into the role of first wife in order to further his own ambitions. There was no evidence of an actual assassination, so he thought to frame the Queen Dowager and place the blame on her. This sister was supposed to be queen, but it may be that she wasn't actually coronated yet because she was so young, or because the Queen Dowager was still occupying the Central Palace (which was reserved for the Queen consort), but for whatever reason the show did not refer to her directly as a queen even though she was the first consort.

The kings in these countries, as well as emperors, were allowed to take in multiple concubines because the priority was to sire heirs, and much like breeding horses, a man can impregnate multiple women but a woman generally carries only one at a time, and viably at most two; particularly back then the maternal and fetal mortality was high, so pregnancy beyond twins stands a huge chance of killing everyone involved. Due to high infant and childhood mortality (in the US before the mid 20th century the mortality rate for infants was 50% before the age of 1, so the statistics for this period in Korea was probably about the same), it's best not to keep all the eggs in one basket, literally. Further, marriage was a way to forge political ties, and though the show did not delve into the complex relationships between the king and members of his court, concubines served to solidify alliances between the royal household and other noble families, which was necessary for a king to maintain authority over his court.

I don't know, I think being in love is a feeling you simply have, but giving into that love and letting that guide your decisions is a deliberate choice. Maybe I'm reading too much into things. I just see that in real life, forging relationships are often separate processes from feeling love on its own, because you don't always have control over your feelings, but establishing relationships and claiming roles to allow those feelings to grow are very much choices. I personally feel that for a servant whose life is so often at the behest of someone else's whims, these nuances can be important, even if they seem pretty inconsequential to others

As for the king being devoted to her…I don't know if she'd necessarily see that? We see that as viewers but she doesn't necessarily see the whole context. Plus, just because he's devoted now doesn't mean he'd be devoted later, so for me personally I can see how a servant might choose to never take the chance of giving in to her feelings only to be discarded later. If she never tried, she'd never know the pain of losing that affection, and if it were me I'd probably do the same, because at least I maintain my self-worth and would never have to endure that feeling of becoming unimportant to someone I chose to trust to value me.

As for her candor, I see your point. Again, I feel the writing could have been better; I was just assuming that the writers were trying to work around social etiquette or something. I personally wouldn't have done it this way if I were writing the script, but maybe the writers thought this made sense. Also, people aren't necessarily consistently candid with someone, particularly when it involves their own vulnerability, and what I got out of her rejection was Deok-Im was scared of being hurt. I can see how someone might feel she wouldn't expose this vulnerability to someone who could hurt her most, and frankly, with the way Yi San just demands she agree to be a consort, he hadn't demonstrated enough regard for her side of things to deserve that trust *shrug*

My problem is the opposite; I see no reason why she WOULD eventually marry the King (unless forced, which…isn't very romantic). The show made it clear that being wed to the king is not a happy ending. I do agree that the dialogue doesn't quite convey what her reservations were, probably because they were straddling between clarifying things for the viewers and keeping things realistically courteous between servant and master (she can't outright say to him that she thinks he wouldn't love her properly, so naturally she'd be vague) but I did not get the impression that being trapped in court was the reason for her reservation; it was simply that her heart was the one thing she possessed that she had full control over. In front of a king, a subject's life and body could be used and abused against their will, and in a society like this one where the king was so much more significant than a servant (no equal rights in this society, obviously), sometimes the heart was the only thing one can withhold from someone with that much power. Agreeing to marry the king, for Deok-Im, meant giving him her heart. Also, a lot of servants felt a sense of purpose in their duties; as a consort Deok-Im's day-to-day routines would change drastically and her role would be very different. Even without viewing through the lens of modern philosophies, this wasn't a decision to be made lightly; Deok-Im witnessed first-hand the sort of politics that happen in court, and how quickly a king's favor can be turned away if one is not smart enough, so in my view it actually makes a ton of sense for her to reject him. The problem is the dialogue in the show; she gave a vague answer to Yi San which was probably appropriate for the context; she couldn't be honest with him as long as the two of them remain unequal, but that's all the viewers got, and was almost worse than if we didn't get that at all. If there hadn't been any scenes between Yisan and Deok-Im involving the latter explaining herself, and she just kept saying she had no aspirations to become a consort, I feel like this would actually be easier to believe; more of a show-not-tell scenario where the viewers could sense for ourselves what she's thinking and we'd pay more attention to what she's been witnessing rather than her own excuses. If I had written the script, I'd have given her some confidante or someone to whom she could express that she wanted to keep the one thing she had full agency over, even if she had no control over anything else, or that she would have been able to spend more time with the king as a servant rotating on shifts rather than a consort who might eventually be neglected for decades at a time, and that would have allowed her to be more candid. They didn't give us that, though; they gave us interactions where Deok-Im is obligated to be confusing in the name of not outright offending the King, and no other avenue to express herself, so we're also left pretty dissatisfied and frustrated.

I agree the writing was a bit sloppy, though I feel I can believe what Deok-Im was trying to say; for her character there's still a difference between being choosing to withhold your heart even if there is no one else you're allowed to give it to, and handing your heart over to someone who could never do the same in return. I actually don't feel this particular reason is that anachronistic. Modern views aren't necessarily unique to modern times and women wanted to protect their hearts as much back then as nowadays; in fact, often the heart was the only part of them they can protect, and there were recorded instances where servants rejected becoming a consort because they felt more fulfillment from a life of having daily duties as opposed to being a consort whose only purpose is to look pretty and have children. A lot of times, when a woman really loved a king, she actually had more chance of spending time with him as a servant than as a consort, because as a servant she'd be near him regularly as a rule, but as a consort, the king could eventually forget about her as he dealt with other consorts vying for his attention, and there were consorts who wouldn't see their husband for decades at a time. But the writing was kind of sloppy and didn't convey this very well; they do face the challenge of being unable to directly say this because no servant would ever say so to their king. Still, I wish they did, since we are in a fictionalized account of history and this could have been an opportunity for the two of them to connect on a level that transcends master/servant relations and makes their love real. At this point, I am actually rooting more for Deok-Im to stay away from the king than to get together with him, because I don't feel like their affection for each other is based on anything real. I remain unconvinced that Yi San truly knows Deok-Im as a person, and I think Deok-Im still hasn't gotten proof that Yi San is the sort of person he has been working to become. Some of the humor bits almost work against conveying this relationship too, like Yi San's constantly at a loss as to what Deok-Im's reservations stem from, while Deok-Im is constantly trying to draw boundaries to see if Yi San would respect them. A true romance should have much more trust and understanding than this.

Just realized Xu Bojun played Wen Ruohan in Untamed. I’m both surprised and not surprised.

Ooh, good one! Perhaps the organization had been planning something that he was investigating and they arranged for him to be framed, discredited and silenced (permanently)!

In this particular case, yes, the revolutionaries are the communist party. There were many parties at the time, all considered revolutionaries by the contemporary government of the time, which was a remnant of the imperial regime. The warlords were part of this remnant; that was why so much attention was paid to their thumb rings, which were status symbols of the Manchurian aristocracy, as they were derived from the rings used in archery which was a prestigious skill for noblemen to master. The status symbol was inherited even after the Emperor was overthrown and was used by officials of the time to indicate that they were part of that aristocratic society. The term revolutionaries is very broad, and included the nationalists (Chiang Kai Shek's party), but we know that they were referring to the communists in this case because the Pei's were discussing negotiating an alliance and the son was later noted to be a comrade in Liao's group (and Liao had specifically mentioned that he was from the Communist party; he gave this speech about Communist values in an earlier episode), so it was kind of indirect, but it's also pretty certain.

Probably not, but in reality he would probably make the better husband lol. Tan Xuanlin's so crafty, if he decided to stray he'd probably be able to cover it up. Guangyao's so square that he would never think to. When it comes to marriage, I'd want someone who would require less work to entertain. Wanqing's able to keep up, but family intrigue's the cause of all her woes; I can't really imagine she'd want that in her own marriage. Not that I'm saying she's unreasonable for not choosing Guangyao, who's got his own issues (and would have earned her the worst father-in-law), but lol I'd worry equally for either guy, just for different reasons.

Again, I am not arguing your point that grudges do little but expand the hurt to more victims. I think the Chinese netizens are getting out of hand (and it's the netizens, not just the government; there's no question the government's involved, but the true folks who really brought ZZH down were the fans). But I just find that suggesting WWII is something that people should just forget about just because it seemed to have happened too long ago is just…asking for a little bit much. Particularly since, as I mentioned, that narrative's not actually over, there continues to be developments, they're just not made accessible to you because you're not part of that narrative.

Honestly, if you believe the Japanese does not bear a grudge against the US, you might be unpleasantly surprised. The main reason Japan acts friendly to us is because we are currently occupying Japan; they don't have their own military, because the US has established bases on their islands to keep their citizens and their government under watch. The reason the US is occupying Japan is because of WWII, and Japan has never stopped trying to kick us out, they merely haven't had the means, but as soon as we lose our foothold, guess what they're going to do? Again, in many ways, WWII seriously isn't over for a lot of people as it is for folks like us, who get to treat it like a tale of a self-contained event that only lives in history. I mean, even we aren't actually letting that era go, otherwise we'd have pulled out of Japan by now. We're also occupying Germany and have US military bases keeping the Germans in line as well, and Germany has a totally new government, in contrast to Japan. Again, for some, the war ended a lifetime ago. For others, it's much closer. China and Japan have continued to have complex dynamics since WWII and that narrative has not finished. To them, it's not something they can just "move on" from because it's literally in their lives right now.

WWII wasn't that long ago you know. Like, the younger people who grew up during that time are maybe around 80-90 years old now, so if you have the more experienced (and highly-positioned) government officials estimated around 60 years old, their parents may have been raped/tortured or an aunt/uncle/grandparents might have been killed too. Also, unlike Germany that disposed of the Nazi regime and established a new government and society, Japan's actually the same government and society. So they're basically still the Nazis, and currently, Japan's schoolbooks are rewriting history, teaching Japanese students that the rest of East Asia had asked to be occupied and the various war crimes did not happen. In many ways, WWII has not ended just because the physical fighting had stopped. I'm not supporting the blacklisting, but I find your suggestion that WWII is so old that people should just get over it already a little unrealistic. Even now, people literally go home and they eat dinner with survivors of WWII. My own grandparents are both survivors of WWII; my grandma told me about hiding under floorboards while Japanese soldiers searched houses for nubile girls to rape. My grandfather watched Japanese soldiers shoot his neighbors. For some people, that period is a lot closer than it is to others. So I guess the answer to your question is…old enough to still be touchy about WWII :/

He was trolling her. He pretended she was his wife when she was his captive earlier in the series in order to avoid suspicion.

Lol I actually prefer him this way; he looks more elegant, and in this case for a soldier during the 1920s, he probably looks more accurate. I think food wasn’t as plentiful and Chinese men might even be shorter on average bc they didn’t eat enough.

Yeah those scenes are more eyeroll than suspenseful or whatever. At least they're only in the beginning episodes, and their presence seems logical and consistent with what is happening in the story and what the characters are trying to achieve.

Most Chinese men smoke. I wouldn't be surprised if all the actors you know also smoke. The air pollution is pretty much as bad if not worse than cigarette smoke so the rhetoric about increased risks of cancer doesn't deter these people. It's just they usually don't show the smoking on camera or in the media, but yeah. It's probably safer to assume anyone of the Chinese actors on this website is a smoker in private.

Lol the Chinese generally did not find the music Chinese. Nor anything about that opera very Chinese. The Chinese didn’t find the original Mulan Chinese either, nor did they like it, just because there were some pentatonic songs in the cartoon. They also don’t find the Chinese elements others appreciate terribly exciting; it’s about as novel for them as Disney action movies are for us. Granted, they tried to make something they liked with the Mulan remake and it was underwhelming, which might not bode well for this movie, but Turandot doesn’t speak to everyone the same way. And the plot, which is the basis of everything that’s different about this movie other than the medium and lack of singing, was one of many things about that opera that the Chinese themselves had zero input in. Of course they’re not going to keep the same highlights you value. They are marketing to their audience too, and their audience has true Chinese stories to express their culture through. Turandot to them is just an exotic tale some European happened to choose to set in China. It wasn’t quite cultural appropriation, exactly, but even Puccini’s efforts into bringing Chinese styles and elements into the opera does ring with a bit of European superiority, like Chinese music and culture weren’t something whole and deliberate but something Western music can just dismantle and pick out parts to claim for its own, so the Chinese have no reason to find anything intimate about a move like that, much less respect anything Chinese about the opera as sacred. To their own viewers, the opera itself was always just a flashy bit rather than anything profound and would find it totally lacking if they infused too much “Chinese culture” in it. With this kind of foundation, they wouldn’t feel it necessary to add in Chinese elements that feel Chinese; what would that even mean, anyway? Confucianism? The parts foreigners found distinctively Chinese were the parts the Chinese themselves found unimportant and boring, but the parts that really express the Chinese spirit in a way only the Chinese can tell it also can’t be conveyed through Turandot’s story. From the behind the scenes, though, it looks like they took some pains to incorporate other cultures, Calaf’s whitewashing notwithstanding. But, I suspect it would be the right thing for you to skip this movie, because I don’t think the interpretation is meant for people like you. It’s not an adaptation meant for those the opera had truly resonated with; again, it’s more inspired by it. Plus, if it does turn out like the Mulan remake you’d have dodged a bullet lol