Kateoz

Third Prince looking even less like Emperor material in ep 29 - either FX is going to have to be miracle worker in his mentoring, or they are going in a different direction to the novel.

Though that leap forward! Could since first prince going wow...

thank you - wonderful not to have to endure the torture of either waiting another day or watching with machine subs!

The late night flower raid was hilarious - I had a boss like that once! And its moments like these that make the Emperor look more human, even if is just to get the loot by one means or another!

Technically still incest even if a child is adopted and their is no blood relationship.

That's not what season 1 said. And in any case, whether they were formally married or not makes no real difference in terms of potential to be a prince as I understand it. The son of the Empress has precedence, but after that all are of lesser status, though rank of mother can make some difference in the stakes (but not a big issue since it is easy to elevate the notional status of the mother, even after her death!).

Got to love the 'invention' of treasury bonds, and the sales pitch presentation, complete with powerpoint slides in ep 26! Every scamming business scheme you've ever seen...

Yes but its the nominal mother or matriarch - technically all of the children of concubines were considered to be the children of the wife. Lady Liu's situation is odd because actual wife died, and so presumably no barrier to her becoming the matriarch, and she certainly has the social status for it, yet it hasn't formally happened.

Yes I thought that too - presumably that the emperor would grant such a favour to FX is one more nail in their 'he favors FX too much' what is going on list.

Yes except for the fact that the Emperor was trolling them both, and FJ knew it - summoned to say he could get married, not because he had breached Emperor's edict (and Emperor clearly knew everything that had been set up, hence the Eunuch waiting for them before they could even return to the city...).

And I think Emperor cares for him in his own way, its just a much tougher love approach (and yes, all his children are both his children and tools for the Empire!). Its worth rewatching that episode in season 1 where Emperor retreats to Taiping Villa after withdrawing the troops protecting FX, and wakes up suddenly in shock from a nap at the moment (so it seems) that FX is in most danger...

I agree its an oddity, especially as she doesn't seem to be aware of Fan Jian's relationship with the Emperor. I assume the reason is to protect FX's status as eldest son, and thus might have been ordered by the Emperor???

Wow 26 is a power packed episode, finally married, lots of Uncle Wu Zhu, and plot most definitely thickens.

But can anyone enlighten me on why the princes looked so shocked at the Emperor's gift - I get that emperor's personal calligraphy is a big thing, but surely not that surprising as a wedding gift??

Episode 26 just confirms that she isn't the wife!

But back early on in season 1, FX made a comment about her not being the main wife, hence he and Ruoruo calling her the equivalent of aunt rather than mother. And I thought there was some comment about the oddity of her accepting this given her status (but it maybe I'm confusing the series with the novel!).

Fan Xian is eldest and was passed off as Fan Jian's illegitimate son (ie son of a concubine or some other person) who then died at his birth (though in reality of course he is not a blood relation relation to Fan Jian , Ruoruo or Sizhe; instead son of Emperor and Ye Qing Mei as season 1 makes clear).

Fan Jian actually married Ruoruo's mother, who also died at some point; Fan Sizhe is Ruoruo's half brother, son of Lady Liu.

One of the subtleties of the family situation I've never quite grasped is that Fan Sizhe's mother seems to be a concubine, not wife (presumably to protect FX's status???), so Fan Sizhe's assertion (early in season 1) that he is the legitimate son and Fan Xian wasn't never quite made sense to me (but I probably just don't understand the subtleties of ancient chinese family systems!).

fair points

I'm not sure its a silly gag - she is clearly an alcoholic and that's what they do! But she may well deserve to be as traumatised as she clearly is, if they are following novel backstory!

Lol.

In terms of head counts though, Princess Royal, CP and Second Prince seem way ahead of Emperor.

Emperor, at least as far as we have seen so far, only takes out those who he views as direct threats.

Princess Royal on the other hand in season 1 consigned a bunch of palace ladies to the lake for the crime of seeing her with Chancellor Lin, orchestrated numerous assassination attempts on FX, had her maids commit suicide to protect her, and then topped it off in this season in that totally horrifying scene preparing her wedding 'gifts'.

Second Prince, aside from threats etc to FX, in season 1 slaughtered all of Chancellor Lin's men after that picnic meant to test out whether FX had a martial artist on tap. And CP slaughtered all his own guards plus an entire town.

Of course, as you say, it may just be that Emperor is equally murderous but we just haven't seen it on screen as yet, but so far at least he has been presented as wanting FX to toughen up (you can't afford to be softhearted), but seems to kind of respect his concern for the lives of ordinary people.

But in the novel none of the people Emperor relies on were in town (he and FJ were out fighting, CPP somewhere else), and YQM had allowed or encouraged Wu Zhu to go off and fight the temple, leaving her defenseless - now some of the absences may have been deliberately engineered, but some just taking advantage of circumstances.

And while it is pretty clear Emperor absorbed at least understood some of YCM's philosophy (remember that discussion with Princess and CP in season 1 on maintaining the illusion of royal family's special status), her ideology represented a clear threat to the royal family and the nobles, so not at all surprising that assorted vested interests sought to take her down.

I wouldn't be surprised if in the series they modified the backstory a bit, and made him actually innocent of her death, but unable to punish all of those involved to the extent he would like because of their untouchable status - I always wondered whether Eunuch Hong for example was actually the Dowager's prison guard rather than servant per se for example; and clear that Empress was heavily punished (thus her light phobia, and hasn't seen Emperor in years).

I don't think the Emperor was seriously trying to kill the Chancellor (as Chancellor himself explains to FX) - rather this was about giving Chancellor Lin as chance to take back one of his previous moves in their chess game (as the Chancellor is so fond of doing!) and cough up the list of his network.

No way that all those heavily dropped hints from CPP, troops conveniently ready to intervene etc happened without the Emperor's implicit or explicit orders - and apart from the game with ex-Chancellor Lin, this was meant to be another learning experience for Fan Xian as well (apart from solving the puzzle of the black knights movements, a lesson on their role, plus they've all been trying to tell him to learn to be more ruthless, and not to trust the Emperor completely), which he passed, hence the summons (which everyone was terrified about) was actually about rewarding him with his marriage at last...