L13

Lost all patience with this drama when the FL stayed in a relationship with a man she had ZERO interest in for EIGHT episodes while KNOWING the man she liked liked her back. Insanely stupid.

Also the choice to have her finally break up with her so-called boyfriend (whom she couldn't even bring herself to kiss) only when he HIT her (and her boss still had to step in and tell her to dump him) was so cheap. She had absolutely no reason to be in that relationship in the first place and the implication that, if only Su Weiran hadn't become physically abusive, she would have stayed with him indefinitely despite having a much better and more meaningful rapport with the ML, just because SWR and her best friend pressured her into going out with SWR a couple of days before the ML confessed to her, is, like, anti-romance. Romance only works for me when I can tell the people involved want to be together! Why should I root for a FL who places no importance on her own feelings and actively sabotages her happiness for no reason?

I agree; great chemistry and adult intrigue between the leads to start with, but terrible decision-making from the FL and typical jdrama nonsense toward the end making you root against the main couple. All I want is one jdrama with sexy angst where the leads (especially the FL) visibly want to be with each other, actively choose to be with each other and do not hurt each other for the sake of pointless self-denial. I don't understand what jdramas have against female leads who know what they want.

I love the blackbellied ML type, but what I love even more is the idea of a blackbellied ML AND FL. This sounds really entertaining; I hope they do justice to the premise and give us witty banter and elaborate intrigues from both protagonists.

It sounds like the husband will be the actual obstacle (which will be fun!), so it stands to reason the MIL should be an ally to the FL; without her support, she probably wouldn't get many opportunities to win over the ML and prove herself.

This stuff should become clear later on, but as per the webtoon, these women can see other people's future by touching them. That is how they can influence the life of anyone they meet. However, they, uh, imprint on the first man they ever touch and can bring that man great luck/do more for him than for other people.

So the chairman bound Seulbi's mother to himself when they were young and used their special connection and the luck she brought him to become mega successful. He intended to bind Seulbi to his son when she came into her powers as an adult so she could serve his son the same way her mother served him. That's why he only hired female caretakers for Seulbi and her mother; he didn't want to risk another man touching Seulbi before his son.

However, the first man she ever touched turned out to be Sookwang, which is why the chairman got really mad. Then he tried to kill Sookwang, thinking if SK was dead, his son, Minjoon, could still bond with Seulbi and take SK's place as her special person.

Also, these women reproduce on their own apparently and only have daughters, so Seulbi is not related to the chairman or Minjoon. (I thought this implausible detail was a weakness of the webtoon's premise, but I guess the author really didn't want us to think the chairman is into incest... As if he's not awful enough anyway.) And Sookwang is not Misoo's child.

In the webtoon, he is kind of indecisive and regretful but still goes along with his father's decisions until the end of the story, when he ends up helping the main characters and working against his father. But he'll be useless for the majority of the drama if it sticks close to the original.

The superficial comments about his looks are because his face is busted from plastic surgery (as is Lee Joon-gi's, incidentally; if HIY went to his doctors and told them to make him look like LJG, it would explain a lot).

I think it's much more pertinent to criticise the delusional and harmful fantasies this drama encourages by romanticising a teacher-student relationship. Korean drama keeps perpetuating the notion that single women past the age of 30 need a younger manic pixie dream boy to save them from suicidal depression and loneliness and make them see their own self-worth by helping them recapture their youth. Normally I just think that whole attitude reeks of age-related insecurity rather than empowerment, but I don't comment; however, when the other party is the FL's student, it's fucking gross. I teach undergrads and the idea of having a refreshing "healing" romance with one of them to boost my self-esteem is nuts to me. That's not how it happens, ever, and these two characters have nothing in common and shouldn't be together.

Teacher-student relationships are inherently unbalanced and romanticising them as "fuzzy and cozy"/centering the teacher's emotional needs rather than the impact on the student is really creepy.

The original opera is about Zhao Pan’er saving Yinzhang’s character from a bad marriage. The romance here is an original addition, so we have nothing to go off. But I’d be shocked if we got a sad ending given the tone of the drama so far.

Pan’er noted he’s “under 30” once. I also pegged him at around 28.

The mouth, chin and eye shape, plus ZLS also has a strong nose, though it’s a different shape.

They do look kinda similar; I’ve also been thinking this. It’s not a commentary on who’s more beautiful, talented or charismatic.

Wow, now THAT sounds plausible to me! (At least in dramaland, where crazy coincidences are normal, I mean.) He said he never met his intended. What if their engagement was dissolved when ZPE's father was stripped of his position while she was still a child, and that's why they never got to meet?

The trailer and teasers look fun and give off that old-school wacky romance vibe that some classic kdramas had. (I'm talking about fantasy romances like My Girlfriend Is a Gumiho, Queen In-Hyun's Man, Legend of the Blue Sea, etc.) I've read the webtoon and it's okay but nothing special IMO; however, the retro kdrama vibe of the trailer gives me hope the TV adaptation will be more exciting than the source material.

I feel like the ML being the secret love child of the most powerful politician in the realm is already cliche enough. If that circumstance, which is already a scandalous secret, was just a cover for him being a secret legitimate son of the emperor, that would be WAY over the top. Plus, 1. the emperor looks too young to be GQF's father (though I know actors' looks don't always match their characters' ages) and in ep. 20 his son, the crown prince, is said to be 12 years old, so the crown prince can't be GQF's twin, and 2. if GQF was revealed to be a prince, then he would have to enter the palace and become personally embroiled in palace politics. Even if he found a way to renounce his royal heritage and live a humble life in peace, the road to that resolution would be a huge distraction from the main attraction of the drama, which is Zhao Pan'er running a teahouse with her best friends and sharing intimate moments with GQF.

Basically, for dramatic, logical and narratological reasons, this theory doesn't make sense to me.

Qi Mu lowkey kinda sus with how he's been delaying taking down Lei Jing and pushing GQF to focus on Minister Xiao.

I don't think he'll turn out to be as righteous and untouched by corruption as GQF thinks he is.

Celebrity actors with huge cult followings (like Wang Yibo, Dilraba Dilmurat, etc.) whose fans function as unpaid PR agents and are constantly trying to game popularity polls, drama ratings and engagement metrics, spamming comment sections, reporting people who criticise their favourites' dramas, etc. These fans usually detract from online discussions because they don't really watch dramas for the story/characters but for their fantasy boyfriends.

I really like the cast, romantic premise and time period. It would be a shame if this never saw the light of day! Between this drama and Night Wanderer, all the good romance dramas set in the early 20th century are getting shelved.

His father either didn't marry or abandoned Gu Qianfan's mother when GQF was a young child, and to spare him the stigma of growing up without a father in such a patriarchal society, his maternal uncle claimed GQF as his own child. That's why no one knows Minister Xiao is his real father (though I suspect Minister Xiao will offer to recognise him officially before the end of the drama).

Song Yinzhang's status is lower than Pan'er's because she is still registered as a sex worker. In this period of Chinese history, sex work was seen as a threat to public order but also as a social necessity and so the government ran brothels to ensure it happened in a controlled environment. The government recruited workers by pressing female 'criminals' (or relatives of criminals, as in Pan'er's case), debtors, slaves, etc. into service.

Song Yinzhang is one of those women, and as Pan'er pointed out in one of the early episodes, SYZ won't be allowed to buy out her contract and become a free woman until she is 35. She can't have the designation of 'registered musician' removed until then.

That said, as we see from the drama, SYZ's advanced musical skills mean she's more valuable to the government as a pipa player and teacher than as an ordinary sex worker, so she doesn't have to sleep with patrons if she doesn't want to. She's also earning good money for herself, which is going into her savings account. So she's not forced to give up her earnings or to have sex with anybody; she simply can't terminate her contract and stop being a musician. And being a registered musician comes with restrictions on whom she can marry (technically, she can't marry at all until she buys out her contract, but Pan'er argued to the court that Zhou She had kidnapped SYZ, which is why she wasn't punished for running away with him and had her rights as a divorcee recognised) and low social status.

As Zhang (?) Haohao's relationship with the imperial guard guy shows, women in SYZ's line of work do sometimes get male patrons to give them gifts and money in exchange for showing affection (and possibly having sex with them), but SYZ hasn't done that... yet.

This is all quite confusing for a modern person, but sex work in East Asia has historically been related to entertainment and the performing arts. Sleeping with patrons, dancing, playing music, pouring drinks, having witty conversations, and sitting prettily while the men around you dine and talk business were all seen as different aspects of the same job. Not all sex workers did all those things, but doing even just one or two of them was enough to attach the stigma of sex work to you and mark you as unsuitable for traditional courtship and marriage.

If you watch kdramas, you've probably come across modern echoes of this prejudice in derisive references to 'bar girls,' who are hostesses hired to entertain all-male parties in nightclubs and pour drinks for them. Often, that goes hand in hand with being sexually available.

Lastly, I've described all this as an East Asian phenomenon, but the same blurred line between sex work, service work, and the entertainment industry exists and has historically existed in other parts of the world too, including western Europe. Famous female actresses and singers were basically considered glorified prostitutes in Europe in the 19th century. It's just that the prejudice against them was not based on bureaucratic arrangements by the government like in Song China. (Although government-run brothels also existed in various parts of Europe in the Middle Ages, for example, and probably in other time periods I'm less familiar with.)