Anoif

It is, there’s a proper name for it. I rewatched it, in Ep 33, NH mentioned it. Zhuangzi’s butterfly dream. Basically a famous parable illustrating the difficulty of distinguishing between reality and illusion. In the story, the philosopher Zhuangzi dreams he is a butterfly, enjoying the freedom of flight and unaware of his human existence.

Yeap, defo a less convoluted but also a less intricate version of Inception…. I mean the fact that she restarts and loops should have already been a hint. Eh wait, I actually didn’t really get that butterfly thing. Was it insinuating a butterfly effect or something else?

lol, I was wondering about the exact same thing….

But I think based on some of the explanations below, it’s possible coz to begin with both versions are alternate reality versions, meaning logic and physics laws cease to exist. So basically NH and NF existing in the “modern world” is plausible because that modern world is a fictional one anyways. It was written by that girl that was typing on the laptop in the end. That is the “real” world, i.e the one we are watching the drama in right now….

Hence the title “A dream within a dream”….. I mean wot they did at the end reminded me of the movie Inception….

The turning point for the ML is so much better in the novel, a lot more realistic…. The way it happened in the drama was kinda random and weird actually…

Yeap. It was just super weird, and just became such a forgettable plot in the second half….

Not only that I actually found some of those novels kinda weak in terms of plot…. And they have like a zillion chapters….

I feel sad for this novel, would have been nice to watch it as a TV adaptation…. I think the FL is very unique….

But they weirdest thing is they actually followed the plot from the novel quite a bit in the first half, and then it almost became a completely different drama after she got amnesia…..

To be fair, I don’t think all the novels/webtoons selected for adaptation are good, I actually find a lot of those novels not that great either. But for this one, the source material itself is pretty unique and solid…

I still don’t understand why they didn’t follow the novel…. The novel’s plot and characters were so good. It almost needed no rewriting, probably just some minor touch-ups so that it translates better on-screen…..

Why didn’t they follow the novel…… the plot and characters in the novel were so much better…..

Yea, I rolled my eyes on the amnesia too. I’m like shitz, why did they do that….

But can you really love someone you don’t trust? I can’t though actually…. Tbh I tried imagining it and I actually find it very confusing and quite scary actually. I probably can be in love with a person and not trust him, but I won’t get married to that person coz it will eventually just be pure torture once love fades and time passes. In the novel because they do detail their inner thoughts, it actually gave me a new perspective… I actually think it defines a new meaning of ‘love’. I think TaoHua actually loves herself the most, and she can love different people and different things, romantic love for her isn’t like the typical Cdrama or C-novel kinda utmost priority. Like she can just give up on it because she has other more important things to do…..

I think it won’t be much higher anymore because the plot now is quite similar to Prisoner of Beauty, which was also released recently… that one had a strong cast….

They did stick to quite a lot of things, but they changed the FL significantly and the sequence of events in the plot, like for example they brought forward when ML knows about the poisoning… also they changed the small details of the plot. But once you change a lot of the small details, then these add up though…. It will accumulate and totally change the story as a whole….

I still think they should have left the FL as promiscuous, flirty and just…. I mean they should have just stuck with both ML and FL debating trust vs. being in a marriage vs. Loving someone…. I think the novel was unique in the sense that it was echoing modern marriages/relationships whereby trust vs. benefit vs. a marriage…. Can you be in a marriage, in love, but actually you don’t trust that person….?

I finished it….. have you watched the latest episodes? They basically changed the tone of the drama…. Like they maintained a lot of things, but they changed the FL character by a lot…. And it altered and skewed the feel and vibe of the drama….. but I think some of the removal is likely to pass censorship….? But this just makes the drama kind of plain because the current trope and genre now has been produced before in other C-dramas, unlike the novel which was quite different and unique….

Damn…. The novel is actually really good. I’m pleasantly surprised.

Not only that, I find it unrealistic because I’ve never seen a person like that in real life. A person who loves no one else but himself, yet he makes an sole exception for another person, in this case, his mother…. It just makes me question the drama every time his extreme scenes with his mother are on….

I loved Wrath of Time. I felt that was the best. That story and plot was more original and less cliche. This one was good, no killing off characters but Pan Yue Ming as Hu Ba Yi had quite a few subsequent productions. I felt this was the best and as it goes they were somewhat rather disappointing because they had a formulaic approach…, so the plot was sort of on repeat but with a different background, setting.

I’m a big MereBear fan too! I love all the Extras she’s posted.

I remembered that bit. Ah right, so it’s about taking out his army… ok, that kinda makes sense, but before he declared like he will help Zhang Hai….. he basically lied right? So he knew who the 3rd guy was all along? And he was already ZBW’s ally before he left the Capital?

When did he decide to help Zhang Hai again? When he said ok, let’s destroy the seal? But then why did he lead Zhao BingWen to the entrance of the cave then? So actually all along he was lying to Zhang Hai and he is an ally of Zhao Bing Wen?

It was a bit rushed. I didn’t really feel anything when he died, aside from being surprised and then I was like….. damns, that’s unfair.

Actually I was a bit confused about Zhuang Zhi Xing though.

Yea, I got that bit…. But it was still very……. Underwhelming. I mean as much as it was poetic justice, he never went through any suffering, unlike everyone else, be it the protagonists or antagonists…. Everyone suffered mentally, or physically, or both…

I thought so too. I’m like wot…… after all that, and that’s how he dies? Left me kind of baffled. I still think it would have been more fitting if he stabbed him with a dagger as a closing….