DefyingDestiny

He was not trying to save his family. Li Rong saved her family by pushing them from the limelight: prevent the Shaungguan Empress marriage bid and loosen their grip on the crown prince: simple.
SRQ knowing about the SGY-SRH crown prince, the corruption cauisng the treasury to be empty and the coming famine in the south; didn't try to prevent any of this or cleanse the clans or imperial family of future troubles. He doubled down on their traitorousness and started messing with the crown prince selection putting his family in the line of fire even earlier than the 1st life.
He was trauma responding: after spending the last few years of his life in the 1st life as a slave eunuch, lower than lower, he wanted to stand on the heads of the imperial family and Li Rong as well. He let her enter what would be a failed marriage, waiting for it to break her. All the while planning to cut her access to power: being the elder sister of the crown prince and then the Emperor, the thing that got her through years of loneliness in the palace.
He had taken steps to prevent PWX from climbing up in his career regardless of being the Prince Consort, so he could look down on him as well. This would have stopped him from reversing the crown prince depositiion which he knew was coming as well as prevent his rise to being the Prime Minister.
His plans would allow him stand high and look down on everyone that was able to rise above him in the first life as he became the decision maker and real power behind a powerless or fake Su Emperor.
The reason he didn't and couldn't choose any other path was purely out of need for vengeance and his inflated sense of self importance and greed.

For the most part, PWX gets excerpted from responsibility for how things go down in their first life. However, while the Crown prince descends into madness PWX is his right hand man. He provides the network and structure that both Li Chuan and Li Rong use that keep them in power.
He is fundamentally against the noble court structure and feeds Li Chuan's desire to destroy it. He fails to save his marriage and causes Li Rong to lose faith in love and to develop even more negative feelings towards the commoners class: as his actions in marrying her and pretending to love her while having someone else in his heart, come off as "climbing" up and the "doing anything for power" behaviour she has been indotrinated to believe all commoners would do when placed "above their station". Their antagonism for years in court is fueled by his desire to break the noble class and show her that he is as worthy as any of the nobles to be her consort, and her belief that he is a scoundrel and conniving dog that is manipulating her brother to lift up the commoner class. Li Rong is focused on PWX and does and says things to Li Chuan through the lens of herself and PWX rather than seeing the Emperor's POV is different. She forces him to marry and stabilise his harem because she has done so herself: PWX and SRQ are stable, so why can't LC stabilise QZZ and SGY. After breaking up with PWX she didn't breakdown, so why is he breaking down after ZZ dies? Li Rong's antagonism with her husband falls to her brother while PWX's antagonism for his wife rubs off on Li Chuan.
Li Chuan's falling out with his sister from a political side is clear, they are on opposite sides but on a personal side, while she had no reason to understand that she was slashing at her brother emotionally, he was drinking insults in his backyard and at court and feeding off of PWX displeasure in his wife's "infidelity" and opposition. By the time the supposed assassination occurs, in his mind big sister Li Rong no longer existed.
PWX is a new upstart in court and doesn’t realky understand the politics of noble marriages, their familes and court dynamics as the rest of them. They were born into it and he is a brilliant mind that has studied about it. He helps Li Chuan to stabilise the north and quell the famine in the south but the cost is instability and chaos. He did climb up using the emotinal gap Li Chuan had to achieve his dream of a reform but inadvertently fed Li Chuan's hate for his sister and the nobles.
While Li Rong, The Emperor, the Empress, SGY and the rest of the noble class created Li Chuan's demons; PWX was the one to empower it, allowing him to avenge QZZ while achieving his political goals and laying waste to the noble class.
PWX as an ambitious and brilliant outsider to the imperial and noblest class could never have anticipated the level of toxicity of the nobles, the level of viciousness the Prince would reach or the utter chaos the country would experience by simple choices he made in his personal life and work.
This aspect of PWX is never really explored. His own regrets for the way things went down in the first life and he better understanding of cause and effect in the imperial family is an important factor in his 360 change in personality and goals in the 2nd life. It's not as simple as being in love with Li Rong and wanting her back. The fact that his choices as a member of the imperial family will change the world around them and the need to be ore deliberate and careful with those choices..

There are many shows were the finale was a villain fest and people still loved it. This was just done poorly. As a villian he was neither smart enough or cruel enough. He was misguided and he was the one guiding himself. If they showed in anyway how he was forced to make the choices he made like Li Chuan in the 1st life, we could have sympathised with him. If they had shown that he was simply a terrible person like SYR in The Double, it would have been thrilling and we could cheer at his death. If they had shown him finally understand that even if he won he wouldn't get the girl or his clan like Rong Hao (the villian) in LBFAD it would have been satisfying. But they gave us a big pile of nothing.
As a villian and a character with the 2nd largest screen time after the titular character, he was a waste.

You know what's even more twisted about supporting Prince Su. The plan was to force him to have children early and then kill him as soon as he had an heir. The toddler new emperor would be under their control for up to another 20 years and then repeat cycle. To achieve this piece of madness any courtier with even a shred of conscience would definitely die. And this was the wonderful world our dear SRQ envisioned.
Even before this terribly evil plan faced a major hiccup like Prince Su dying, our wonderful Mr SRQ had prepared a backup: a doppelganger on the throne. A fake Emperor would be even easier to control. And to add insult to vomit, the chosen Empress and consorts would be from the Ist class noble houses; imagine all those women who have been raised to believe they are immortal fairies too good for 2nd rate noble houses, having to live with a mongrel Emperor- a matter that had already become public knowledge before his ascension: The harem would have been insane. Our dear SRQ who grew up in the noblest of houses knows this but..... as long as the noble houses can keep draining the lifeblood of the nation in impunity he's happy.
This supposedly smart Mr SRQ was planning to execute a plan that would keep his clan's neck on the chopping board because the moment another clan grew to power or an emperor freed himself, they would have to cleanse the Su Clan for daring to mess with the royal bloodline and knowing the royal secrets.
Li Rong wanted to protect the Shaungguan Clan, she took steps to make them backdown and stop antagonising the Emperor and cleanse the clan of criminals while SRQ took steps to double down on their treasonous and evil actions.

A drama is different from a novel. A plot or truth about a character even if not known by the audience or other character should be forshadowed in some way. For example: In The Double, all the screentime "wasted" on SYR had a massive payoff when you find out he is pure evil. Suddenly you want to rewatch all his scenes to see if you can notice just how insane and cruel he truly is. The scenes given to SRQ instead of other character does not have the same effect. From the beginning everyone is almost certain he came back as well and so his actions and words don't make sense. What does he want? Why does he want it? It's one thing for the character like SRQ to lack self awareness but for the camera to lack understanding of the character is unforgivable.
A commenter who has been saying they love this show, says she skips SRQ's parts and he has the 2nd largest screentime🫢.
This would have been a great show with their changes, if they had honestly made SRQ the ml. The show like another commenter said would have been about the ill fated love between SRQ and LR: Impossible in their first life becase of both Emperors and usurped by PWX in the 2nd. Rather than showing unexplained longing looks, give the character plots and let's watch them fail as he falls into madness and despair, which would make the finale fire scene the ultimate payoff.

Near the end of the drama, we got to see so many character's perspectives but by then there was no time to really explore. Considering the middle was so draggy they definitely could have storyboarded the drama better. They failed to effectively tell anyones story or complete the arc of most of the main cast.

Li Chuan was the best character on the show by far. I feel he delivers everything they wanted to show for SRQ. The pressures of fate and how he fails to live up to his conscience or his love. I'm looking forward to seeing Lui Xu Wei in more dramas.

Twinty isn't a bot!!!

Me all through watching this:🤭😊☺️😚🥰😇😊🫠🤭😜😊😊😚😚🥰😍😘🤩😊😊😊😁😄😊😊

At ep 24 and its still wonderful. I'm saying the same prayer. Please be great till the end🙏🙏

Seeing Xu Kai and Gao Han alone in that scene in front of the computer took me back to Falling Into Your Smile.
Like in a parallel universe, if Si Cheng and Lao K instead of following their passion to play esports they listened to their parents and became a doctor and a business man instead 🤣🤣. They haven't shown them but Yi Chen's parents seem to be exactly like K's.
Si Cheng didn't change much still fabulous and domineering but K became really lame😅; I guess he's missing Lao Mao and his rebellious spirit.

Wow. There's a novel that I'm looking forward to its adaptation and on the MDL page we are discussing the possible casting. So people are really going to down vote it when their favs don't get the role? Wow, I'm scared!

The best thing SRQ did in the novel was give the solution for the reform before he "died". But this drama pretending to be about SRQ doesn't show it. This drama pretending to be about SRQ doesn't show his struggles and heartbreak, it just shows his lack of wisdom and his unwillingness for himself or the nobles to take accountability for their blatant corruption. They don't show any of his pressure or temptations to act the way he does or his conflict or fears to maoe his many bad decisions. They just show him take actions that emphasize his rotted soul that are easily countered and resolved. Why? What is the point? What does he learn? What do we learn? No additional scene explain his character better or justify his unwillingness. Even his arc is not completed.

I LOVE second chance. I love second chance and time slip/transmigration and powerful fl dynamic tropes. I was so looking forward to this....

I would have been arguing with in the beginning because from the novel, she loved PWX and moved on from the sml but the drama, tells somewhat of a different story. Anyone who expected the fl to be smart and ml to be powerful and the sml to drive the story but not be the centre, might find themselves disappointed with or in denial about the drama. Lots of people have alot of the love for the characters, so when you and other viewers bash them like this it's hard to hear and swallow but their drama version's are really not great/likeable characters.

It was inexplicable for Li Rong as well. She was ready to turn on her brother (not in the novel) and field a fake Prince Su because he killed her in a past life at the time of his death after a lifetime of clashes but she and PWX would jump into fire (not in the novel) for the man who started a war, the man she said she would personally kill if PWX died, the same PWX bled out from the wound that man caused, in this life and who conspired to kill her and ascend a fake heir in the past.
It is such poor storytelling for your main character at the finale to be so stupid and illogical and irrational.
Why was she trying to save him? If there is no reason considering she could turn on Li Chuan but apparently not on SRQ, even while with PWX, then she is illogical and mad. Is that really the main character of this story? The struggles SRQ went through, were they that intense to justify his actions and her sympathy? There were bodies lining the palace for his actions but she wanted to jump into fire whilst pregnant to save what??????? I was cry laughing almost through the whole finale

Neither watched or read Peach Blossom. I hadn't started watching cdramas when it came out and I'm not convinced I'll enjoy it, so I'll pass. The Double has WILD flirtation, one misdirect candle kiss (kiss not shown) and then after marriage intimacy. For skinship- flirting with fans, striptease, wearing his clothes, hand holding, bridal carrying, hugs... they tease you mercilessly with the anticipation.

Saying something nice about TPR: Lui Xu Wei's Li Chuan was a pleasure to behold.

This is the 2nd drama adaptation I read and then watched. The Double was my first and I was ridiculously impressed because the novel had many issues with it's plotting and pacing. Seeing the story improved via an adaptation was one of the most enjoyable experiences I have had and so I had unrealistic expectations from The Princess Royal. My biggest complaint is that they made a poor story worse, in my opinion but I am willing to concede that I was uninterested in the story they wanted to tell and blinded, in my heart and eyes, by the story I wanted to see.
They ended this story with the fl, who would run the country, attempting to jump into fire to save her ex-lover who had just started a war and was evading living with his mistakes by burning himself alive whilst her husband held onto her and also attempted to jump into the flames to save her ex-lover. The female lead, the titular character was rarely ever shown to be independent, smart or decisive and they made sure to remind us of that fact at the very end of the show, right before they made her the ruling monarch. The fact that this character change was a "creative" decision deviating from the novel makes me, understandably.... annoyed?

The character was stupid in the novel. I had hoped they would give him some depth or something in the dram but they made him more ridiculous. If they had showed him slowly go crazy as his perfect plan of easily deposing the crown prince and marrying the princess in 2-3 years when her marriage fails was being ruined by what he comes to realise as returned Li Rong and PWX, I would have enjoyed it but no! Just random shots of him being snide and looking slightly gassy?...I'm not sure what the actor or director wanted to show but I didn't get it

It's particularly frustrating for novel readers because the essence of the story is lost and it all becomes about how SRQ is coping with the past life. And that doesn't make sense with how they started their story and who they claimed where the main leads. If from the beginning it was his POV the audience would have accepted that was the story they wanted to tell.
For example in The Double, unlike Marriage of the Di Daughter, alot of focus from the beginning was on SYR's POV. The audience is forced not to consider him a side character, you are forced to care about what he is going through, so by the end, even though you don't want to see him die with s much attention and care my the production team, it was consistent with the story they chose to tell.
However, the same can't be said for The Princess Royal. They added scenes that were not in the novel arbitrarily, adding nothing to explain the character better; cut out scenes that would have shown the CP progression, making their "romance" fall flat and making the leads feel unlikeable. The characters in this story are not your easily likeable characters in the first place, all of them are self serving and twofaced but you retold the story to make them even MORE unlikeable??????
At SRQ final scene after starting a war we are forced to watch our ml and fl try to jump through fire to save him from the fire he started to kill himself????? WHY????????????
It should be a good drama, it looks really good and the performances were competent but it is likely to be forgotten as soon as everyone's emotions cool down because the story was poorly presented. It feels like it would be those dramas people suggest when you have nothing else to watch and you watch it and say "oh that wasn't bad" but it had the potential to be great.

Wow