DramaAjumma

I also agreed with Hong Deok-ro's assessment of the situation -- counting on the king's goodwill and favour to maneuver themselves out of any troublesome consequences of any reckless actions. Everyone does that to one degree or another I'm sure but yeah, Deok-im can't exactly take the moral high ground even in the name of "saving a friend". She's certainly not above playing politics when she has to.

With these sorts of parallels it is hard to be sure if Deok-im genuinely loves the King. A lack of trust precipitated her actions to save her friend and led her to go over his head. I don't buy the accusation that he deceived her. He was planning something in secret. Does she have to be privy to everything he does -- he's the King.

The way Hong Deok-ro is written tells me that the writer of is capable of depth and nuance. He has been one of the more interesting characters in this story even if he goes completely nuts at the end. But I don't know how I feel about this Sung Deok-im especially the one that's emerged out of the last couple of episodes. There's a part of me that thinks Yi San should just move on and find someone else. However, the heart wants what the heart wants I suppose.

At the moment I'm rather more cognizant of Yi San's perspective. At least there's clarity driving his behaviour.

"she is acting 21st century girl in 18th century that seems out of place"
That's my entire problem with the push and pull.

Didn't work for me either because of the set-up. All that ill-will and distrust. Meh.

That actually makes sense. The historical Deok-im rejecting the king for that reason makes a lot of sense. It rings true.
This particular Deok-im with her claims to independence and wanting to hold on to some measure of autonomy seem so out of place and incoherent. I didn't like her that much in Episode 14 to be honest.

Although Hong Deok-ro's head should have rolled.

Jun-ho was really impressive in Episode 14. Yi San really rose to the occasion and filled his kingly robes.

I think your point about the fact that she should have spoken up when Yi San raised the issue of having a family with her is spot on. If she was so adamant about maintaining her independence she should have said so from the start. Then the audience would have seen a more consistent thread. She's never been afraid to offer her opinion before so why now especially if she really does care about holding on to whatever freedom life affords her.

I'm in full agreement with you. I made the same point yesterday but most commenters thought I was just saying that it didn't make sense that she would turn Yi San's down.
I never once said that. All I said was the I have trouble buying into her RATIONALE for rejecting Yi San repeatedly despite her actions. To me those are two different things. Rejecting a king's offer of marriage is one thing. The reasons for rejecting him is another. I don't think the reasons are very well or consistently presented and feel jarringly anachronistic.

Maybe it's not a problem for some but it is important to me because I am asked to accept the push and pull based on her misgivings which aren't very coherent. Are they trying to appeal to modern sensibilities? She's a court lady and despite the title, she's practically a slave to the royal family, something that was established from the earliest episodes. In some episodes she brings up rank and status and in other episodes she claims that she needs her independence.

It's such an important part of the narrative to me and should be better presented in my view. No wonder he's confused. I'm confused too. The only logical explanation is that she doesn't really know what she wants. Like he says, her words and her actions don't match up. Like you say, I don't understand her either.

This is a decent show but this issue prevents me from being enthusiastic about it.

I don't mind all that. I'm just not a fan of his timing of long shots.
That's just me.

I can see why she might not want to be his concubine. However, the way the show frames the push and pull, she sounds like she doesn't love him sufficiently to make that leap. That she values her individuality above his need for her companionship. Nothing wrong with her knowing her mind but again, anachronistic. That's how it comes across to me.

If she was fobbing him off say because she didn't like his ruthlessness, or she was reluctant to get embroiled in palace politics, I'd have no problems. Plus the show is making Yi San such a sorry almost pathetic figure. My understanding is that he was a reformist monarch.

My problem is not that she's rejecting him but HOW she's rejecting him.

I know that. That's not my problem with the show. I was expecting the push and pull. But I find Deok-im's reasons for rejecting the now King odd. It's very individualistic and modern. Not quite what you'd expect of a Joseon servant of the late 18th century. I would be much more convinced if she rejected him because she didn't think herself worthy.

I have a like-indifferent relationship with the show. The romance is undoubtedly well done but I feel it's achieved at a cost to almost everything else in the show. I've only just discovered that this is based on a novel which explains a lot because at times it does feel like a piece of fanfiction. Good fanfiction but not much more. The Deok-im character is jarringly anachronistic. I continue to find her reasons for rejecting Yi San rather unconvincing.

One Way Ticket brought back memories of my school days. LOL. Dear me... With what's going on in the world right now, I feel a certain nostalgia for the 80s.

I don't have any real issues with the performances across the board. The leads are doing the best with what they've been given and directed to do. The awkwardness works for me because the circumstances with which the romance is blossoming are such that there has to be some hesitation on Soo-ho's side. He is a man on the run with plenty of secrets. What bothers me more is Young-ro's naivete and overt expressions of interest -- when she doesn't know who he is nor is he really in any position to reciprocate.

My biggest issue with the show so far is the direction and camera work. The way the show uses long shots and close-ups at certain times, don't sit well with me. Like the paper aeroplane folding scene which is supposed to be a bonding moment and I really wanted a close up there. There's also the bicycle scene. I wasn't satisfied with how that sequence was framed and presented. I'm hoping though that there's an explanation for that later.

By now it should be clear that there are multiple agendas at play and that the show doesn't whitewash the corruption of the political class in both the north and the south. It looks to me that the two main lads here are just pawns in a larger chess game.

That's precisely the point I was trying to make in my previous post. You're beginning this discussion with the assumption that the showrunners deliberately courted controversy. There's no proof of that yet. Nobody outside a few select people have actually seen the entire product not even the individual who made the original accusation I imagine. The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

I'm not trying to defend Big Media here but it isn't only JTBC that is capable of having an agenda, it's also people on the internet. And let's face it is that person representative of the entire population of South Korea? Is there only one Korean perspective on all this?

I'm not interested in the slightest as to what the show might be doing. Neither am I interested in what someone thinks the show might be doing. Right now, as a member of the viewing public, I am only interested in what the show is actually doing.

I don't agree with analogy. Again, we don't have enough information based on two episodes to say that the showrunners set out to be controversial or to be politically incorrect. We don't know what's actually more important -- the politics or the romance ie. which informs which.

Two episodes is insufficient evidence for me to say one way or another about the relative importance of the historical context to the romance. It's like reading the first chapter of the book and saying the writer made a mistake in the world-building.

I put to you that the only reason why you are saying that the politics is irrelevant to the plot or that the show invited unnecessary controversy is because somebody has already coloured the entire debate by accusing the show of whitewashing the politics in the drama -- an accusation that hasn't been proven at this point -- before anyone has had the chance to watch the entire thing. Few of us have come to the show without undue influence.

I have little doubt that if we had come off the street without any knowledge of all the background noise, we would have watched this with much more of an open mind about where things are going and the give the show the benefit of the doubt for the narrative to play out before commenting too decisively.

I feel the same as the OP of the Twitter thread you linked to. Nothing I've seen in the first two episode can be construed as "distortion" and the NSA is definitely depicted as a shady organization committing serious human rights abuses (which I gather was common practice) when pursuing suspects and/or interrogating them. Equally shady are the political class.

It's not a bad thing to open up debate and discussion. But generally I find that S.Koreans are pretty honest about their history and they seldom gloss over the flaws of their leaders. Just about every drama delves into corruption in high places. I've watched many K dramas about injustices perpetrated at the highest levels some based on true accounts but none have been embroiled in such controversy.

Re-opening old wounds? As an outsider I can't say one way or another. This isn't the first K drama to deal with this era and egregious political corruption. There have been others but for some reason this one is getting the lion's share in terms of publicity and notoriety.

All of this might be moot and Snowdrop might not end up being that interesting artistically. But we won't know unless we get to see the whole thing and for everyone to judge for themselves.

I think you should be very careful about judging people by their viewing choices. Maybe people don't like to be told what they should or shouldn't watch. They could be reacting to that. Maybe they are genuinely curious about whether these claims by detractors are true. Maybe they are. But we don't know if those claims are true since we've only seen 2 episodes of a 16 episode drama. Besides everyone has their own subjective take and interpretation of art. Unless you know someone who has seen all 16 episodes and can credibly provide detailed recaps, I'd like to make my own assessment thank you very much. There's insufficient evidence at this point to say definitively that the show is being insensitive to the sufferings of victims of the regime. Even if they were being insensitive they should be criticized on the basis on actual scenes from the show and not from hearsay.

I like to do my own thinking on such matters.

What's happening is that they're trying to manipulate events in order for the population to look at their candidate more favourably.

It's a constant rehashing of the same o'l same o'l. We're not getting anywhere. We just have to agree to disagree. Ignorance is not the problem.