First few episodes seemed a bit hackneyed plot-wise, but as it goes on, this is really gaining depth and momentum and proving very watchable indeed (especially in the absence of anything much else around at the moment) - I've binged to episode 9 and waiting for net dollops.
I actually like that the two leads don't have generic looks and voices, and they certainly have chemistry.
I really do hope though that this won't prove to be the third drama this year where ZWY ends out losing out romantically, this time because of the (fake) sibling connection - though I'm betting on that actually all coming out. And I actually wonder if he too is going to prove to be unrelated to the Luo family - if this was a k drama his love of learning would tag him as a long lost crown prince, but I'm guessing that would be ideologically offensive in modern China, so perhaps not!
I don't think the amnesia LMT was any way near submissive to CJ. She literally told him he's not her type, to…
Lol, please don't rely on dr google for assessments of the effect of amnesia on how you act!
First, while injuries causing amnesia don't automatically also affect the brain's personality centres, they can.
Secondly, and more importantly in this context, totally unsurprisingly, even when basic personality isn't affected, amnesia does affect the sense of self, and continuity with past and future - someone who has no memories has no identity in effect. And that inevitably affects behaviour.
Add to that the effective prison she was in - 'guided' in correct behaviour by Nannie and carefully watched over and rewarded for doing what he wanted her to do (viz brainwashing, or coercive control). So it is unsurprising that she behaves and sees things rather differently after she regains her memories.
If she handled CJ's faults graciously, it was because she was aware of the power imbalance: she thought he was her husband and courts could enforce that; he had to grant her a divorce, it wasn't up to her.
That said, I take your point that she did at times push at the limits of her situation.
But the fact that CXZ is a arguably a good catch, and that she likes him does not mean she has to marry him - consent requires two to tango!
Talk about pandering to male entitlement - just because he loves and wants to marry her doesn't mean she has to…
You wake up not remembering anything, brain damaged, and so adapt to the environment in order to survive. And he supplied one of his housekeepers as a guard and instructor, plus had spies set up all around the house both to stop her escaping and to try and catch her putative partner, the bandit chief.
So she wasn't in her normal state of mind, where we know she was fiercely independent (enough to lead a large band of men on the Mountain!) and not super soft and loving to anyone, even her grandfather with whom she has the closest relationship.
Moreover, if you don't know what your options are, how can you make free decisions? She is told she is married to him, which in that society meant a whole lot of duties.
And no, if she marries the Prince, as a Princess historically she wouldn't be able to run her own businesses etc - there were strict rules about what each class could and couldn't do, and in essence, nobles could not be merchants.
there is no overall plot though. this drama is romance thru and thru
The novel actually does have an underlying plot, albeit very much in the background (it's all linked to the iron smuggling thing), and there have been indications that it is meant to be there in the tv version, with very token appearances of the key protagonists (Prince Sui, wheelchair brother). Just not developed at al...
Have to say, the show really is dragging this out - while the slow path to forgiveness might be realistic, watching it is pretty excruciating, especially given the lack of any advance in the overall plot (admittedly the source material of the novel doesn't bother with that much either, just strings the conclusion on us at the end) , and the also ultra slow burn of the other side romances, viz Emperor and Empress and Marquess and Ms He.
The drama might have been better for going the traditional route of making more of the potential love triangle with the Emperor. But given they didn't ever show her with him, or giving serious consideration to him.
Or it could have decided to flesh out the novel's underlying plot that ties the whole story together.
Alas, it did neither, and the result is a very very slow moving, making it all hang on the acting of the two mains. They are both pretty and engaging, but there is a limit!
dropping this sh1t from my rate 10 will give it 1 fck the FL for dragging it for so long she's likable till ep…
Talk about pandering to male entitlement - just because he loves and wants to marry her doesn't mean she has to agree!
Marriage for her means sacrificing her freedom, and that would be especially true if she married a prince. Yes she cares about him, and possibly even loves him. But there is no law that says she should forgive him and sacrifice her own ambitions just because he likes her.
She's happy having set up her own household and running her business - why can't he just accept that no means no!
Dont be delusional...come out of your fantasy and check the reality....faking your appearance and telling lie…
Yes he pulled her out of the water and got her a doctor. But then even when thinking that she was married to the bandit leader, he pretended to be her husband. How can that ever be morally right? He could have just captured her and set her up in a situation to be rescued - instead, if she really had been married he ruined her life.
Prince of Huaiyang has a different surname to the Imperial family ie he is not a member of the royal family, but the Prince of fiefdom.
Child Emperor was presumably youngest, with CP much much older brother, certainly not impossible for older brother to have his own grown sons with an 'uncle' much younger than them, if the previous Emperor lived long enough. Chinese clans often had such situations, not lest due to multiple wives/concubines etc.
Forgive him for what? Lies? But just the fact that she used him to save her over and over, even in Episode 23…
Pretending to be someone's husband, especially when in reality he thought she already had one - and thus making them your mistress - is not just a lie, in that time period it would destroy any chance of a future she had. His kind offer to dump her in a buddhist temple for the rest of her life as 'compensation' doesn't really seem to me to cut it.
I personally would never be able to forgive him lmao. but as this is a fictional cdrama, the best result would…
I don't think we can assume she would have behaved that way towards her real husband - amnesia does strange things to a person, and you will naturally pander to those who tell you they have saved you and you owe them everything...And is destroying a woman's reputation - implicitly perhaps raping her since it can't be consent if you don't know who you are sleeping with - in order to catch a criminal ever really legitimate?
Yeah, he should've locked her up in prison for colluding with Lu Wen and ambushing his troops after a truce was…
Except that the 'bandits' were actually pardoned some time back and turn out to have been supporting the rightful Emperor who has now reclaimed his position...
In the beginning, his actions were justified. Especially because of the distance he kept with her. He needed to…
Rubbish.
You wake up with out any memories so you adapt to try and survive. And he spun her a story about using up all his family savings on her recovery, put in place a guard to train her in 'appropriate' behaviour.
If he had told her the truth and then divorced her, she would have accepted it - instead he created another fake narrative saying he was leaving her for heroic reasons, so of course she didn't accept it and did what all the other army wives did (and more and better because she is who she is).
As for her supposed crimes, we don't actually know what they were or how serious - all we know is that there was a robin hood element to it. And given that the bandits were all pardoned (and their leader actually turns out to be the rightful Emperor and she seems to have known that), no crime at all.
I personally would never be able to forgive him lmao. but as this is a fictional cdrama, the best result would…
Agreed. In this scenario, unless Stockholm Syndrome had set in, hared to see how you could ever agree to marry someone who did what he did to her. But in c dramaland...
I can't believe people are defending his actions or seeing ML as somehow redeemed because he wants to marry FL in face of parental opposition!
If he genuinely respected her, he would fess up and give her the choice about what she wanted to do. FL points out that what he wants to marry is not the real her, just the domesticated bird in a cage version of a doting wife he has forced her to be.
Personally, I'm hoping she turns the tables on him nicely...that said, if he wakes up to the fact that she is actually his equal in battle and treats her accordingly, there is hope!
Feeding us only one ep bites though is killing me.
What ๐ฎhe lied to her about every damn thing in their relationship, finally karma is getting him .๐คทโโ๏ธ๐ฌ๏ธ๐ช๐ช๐ช๐ช
But did he actually bother to tell her the situation and ask her what she wanted to do?!
This is a woman who ran away from a marriage she didn't want, and would probably have decided to do so again in the circumstances.
And given that he is the person who basically tarnished her reputation (given she was pretending to a concubine to herself, she would have been able to clear her name if she wanted until he made her play wifey).
Hmm, but FJ completely ignored FX for his first twenty years of life, and only tried to bring him to the capital…
I still don't see it.
Once it comes to the crunch he is certainly a reformed man when it comes to Sizhe, but he needs to make up for the fact that neither he nor his wife bothered to find out why Sidhe was rushing off early each morning and returning home late at night for over six months (and was actually running, albeit unwittingly, a people trafficking organisation and evil brothel)!
When it comes to FX its true that he is very supportive, going along with whatever FX asks him to do, but I think FJ acts more like a courtier to his king than a father to FX.
He certainly spouts the rhetoric about him being a Fan and his son to the Emperor at various key moments, but I think the sub-text in those cases is that it is surely mainly a reminder to the later that in fact this is the Emperor's own son we are talking about here, the product of years of effort to protect and not someone to be thrown away.
And in his various court encounters, FJ basically just does what FX tells him to (even to taking poison!), in some cases without asking for an explanation in advance.
FJ never actually works proactively for FX using his connections and networks for example, or speaking up for him in court the way PM Lin attempts to, his only recourse throughout the series has been lobbying the Emperor (or using his resources) and/or CPP. By contrast Emperor deploys his help both in hidden ways and less so (for example giving him cover for the Spring Examinations, offering him the Ye shopkeepers, then the flower viewing event to solve the deficit problem, etc etc).
Moreover at most of the crucial moments in this season, FJ has deliberately sat back and not played the father role, the most notable case being after the Chrysanthemum viewing assassination, when FJ sits at home not entering palace or allowing Madame Liu to, while emperor restarts his qi, threatens the imperial doctor, and when the girls are dithering, makes the first surgical cut!
Emperor also always tries to include FX in those 'family' events, notwithstanding the dysfunctional nature of the Imperial family manifested at those lunches and toasting the chrysanthemums while waiting for an assasination attempt!
FJ certainly presents as a more amiable father like figure, perhaps the one we'd prefer to have when there isn't a crisis on than the scary Emperor, but I think the Emperor is perhaps the more effective father in some ways.
I actually like that the two leads don't have generic looks and voices, and they certainly have chemistry.
I really do hope though that this won't prove to be the third drama this year where ZWY ends out losing out romantically, this time because of the (fake) sibling connection - though I'm betting on that actually all coming out. And I actually wonder if he too is going to prove to be unrelated to the Luo family - if this was a k drama his love of learning would tag him as a long lost crown prince, but I'm guessing that would be ideologically offensive in modern China, so perhaps not!
First, while injuries causing amnesia don't automatically also affect the brain's personality centres, they can.
Secondly, and more importantly in this context, totally unsurprisingly, even when basic personality isn't affected, amnesia does affect the sense of self, and continuity with past and future - someone who has no memories has no identity in effect. And that inevitably affects behaviour.
Add to that the effective prison she was in - 'guided' in correct behaviour by Nannie and carefully watched over and rewarded for doing what he wanted her to do (viz brainwashing, or coercive control). So it is unsurprising that she behaves and sees things rather differently after she regains her memories.
If she handled CJ's faults graciously, it was because she was aware of the power imbalance: she thought he was her husband and courts could enforce that; he had to grant her a divorce, it wasn't up to her.
That said, I take your point that she did at times push at the limits of her situation.
But the fact that CXZ is a arguably a good catch, and that she likes him does not mean she has to marry him - consent requires two to tango!
So she wasn't in her normal state of mind, where we know she was fiercely independent (enough to lead a large band of men on the Mountain!) and not super soft and loving to anyone, even her grandfather with whom she has the closest relationship.
Moreover, if you don't know what your options are, how can you make free decisions? She is told she is married to him, which in that society meant a whole lot of duties.
And no, if she marries the Prince, as a Princess historically she wouldn't be able to run her own businesses etc - there were strict rules about what each class could and couldn't do, and in essence, nobles could not be merchants.
The drama might have been better for going the traditional route of making more of the potential love triangle with the Emperor. But given they didn't ever show her with him, or giving serious consideration to him.
Or it could have decided to flesh out the novel's underlying plot that ties the whole story together.
Alas, it did neither, and the result is a very very slow moving, making it all hang on the acting of the two mains. They are both pretty and engaging, but there is a limit!
Marriage for her means sacrificing her freedom, and that would be especially true if she married a prince. Yes she cares about him, and possibly even loves him. But there is no law that says she should forgive him and sacrifice her own ambitions just because he likes her.
She's happy having set up her own household and running her business - why can't he just accept that no means no!
Child Emperor was presumably youngest, with CP much much older brother, certainly not impossible for older brother to have his own grown sons with an 'uncle' much younger than them, if the previous Emperor lived long enough. Chinese clans often had such situations, not lest due to multiple wives/concubines etc.
You wake up with out any memories so you adapt to try and survive. And he spun her a story about using up all his family savings on her recovery, put in place a guard to train her in 'appropriate' behaviour.
If he had told her the truth and then divorced her, she would have accepted it - instead he created another fake narrative saying he was leaving her for heroic reasons, so of course she didn't accept it and did what all the other army wives did (and more and better because she is who she is).
As for her supposed crimes, we don't actually know what they were or how serious - all we know is that there was a robin hood element to it. And given that the bandits were all pardoned (and their leader actually turns out to be the rightful Emperor and she seems to have known that), no crime at all.
If he genuinely respected her, he would fess up and give her the choice about what she wanted to do. FL points out that what he wants to marry is not the real her, just the domesticated bird in a cage version of a doting wife he has forced her to be.
Personally, I'm hoping she turns the tables on him nicely...that said, if he wakes up to the fact that she is actually his equal in battle and treats her accordingly, there is hope!
Feeding us only one ep bites though is killing me.
This is a woman who ran away from a marriage she didn't want, and would probably have decided to do so again in the circumstances.
And given that he is the person who basically tarnished her reputation (given she was pretending to a concubine to herself, she would have been able to clear her name if she wanted until he made her play wifey).
Once it comes to the crunch he is certainly a reformed man when it comes to Sizhe, but he needs to make up for the fact that neither he nor his wife bothered to find out why Sidhe was rushing off early each morning and returning home late at night for over six months (and was actually running, albeit unwittingly, a people trafficking organisation and evil brothel)!
When it comes to FX its true that he is very supportive, going along with whatever FX asks him to do, but I think FJ acts more like a courtier to his king than a father to FX.
He certainly spouts the rhetoric about him being a Fan and his son to the Emperor at various key moments, but I think the sub-text in those cases is that it is surely mainly a reminder to the later that in fact this is the Emperor's own son we are talking about here, the product of years of effort to protect and not someone to be thrown away.
And in his various court encounters, FJ basically just does what FX tells him to (even to taking poison!), in some cases without asking for an explanation in advance.
FJ never actually works proactively for FX using his connections and networks for example, or speaking up for him in court the way PM Lin attempts to, his only recourse throughout the series has been lobbying the Emperor (or using his resources) and/or CPP. By contrast Emperor deploys his help both in hidden ways and less so (for example giving him cover for the Spring Examinations, offering him the Ye shopkeepers, then the flower viewing event to solve the deficit problem, etc etc).
Moreover at most of the crucial moments in this season, FJ has deliberately sat back and not played the father role, the most notable case being after the Chrysanthemum viewing assassination, when FJ sits at home not entering palace or allowing Madame Liu to, while emperor restarts his qi, threatens the imperial doctor, and when the girls are dithering, makes the first surgical cut!
Emperor also always tries to include FX in those 'family' events, notwithstanding the dysfunctional nature of the Imperial family manifested at those lunches and toasting the chrysanthemums while waiting for an assasination attempt!
FJ certainly presents as a more amiable father like figure, perhaps the one we'd prefer to have when there isn't a crisis on than the scary Emperor, but I think the Emperor is perhaps the more effective father in some ways.