OK, just finished and I have to say this is a great drama. Very well made, well shot, subtle and great characterization.…
Even though the drama focused on characters on the Shu side of the Three Kingdoms conflict and we were supposed to view that state as the good guys, men like Feng Ying, Yang Yi, Li Yan, all the snakes in the intelligence office, etc. were totally contemptible. (Great characters, mind you; the way Li Yan was so manipulative but so easily let himself be flattered and deceived was very entertaining, and his and Feng Ying's willingness to believe that Liu Ying was actually attracted to them was painfully true to how powerful old men behave around beautiful women IRL.) Even Zhuge Liang was kind of annoying.
All these guys were willing to sacrifice, nay, kill: a subject as loyal and capable as Xun Xu, who did nothing wrong but whom their paranoia told them to silence; Chen Gong's father; various low-level intelligence officers; many soldiers; and ultimately Chen Gong himself, who had to die just so their petty power struggles would remain a secret. These guys claimed to do it all for the glory of the Han empire, but as even Zhuge Liang told Yang Yi, that was bullshit. In reality, all the deaths they engineered and all the self-sacrifices they demanded from people who were worthier and more capable than them were meaningless from a military/strategic standpoint. (Well, I take the point that Li Yan was undermining the Shu and had to be taken down, but it didn't have to happen that way.)
On the other hand, the two Wei officials we got a glimpse of, Guo Huai and Guo Gang, were both upstanding and principled by comparison. Like, Guo Huai was ruthless, but he was honest with Chen Gong when he recruited him and gave a cool little speech about the power of the human heart, and Guo Gang was just a nice guy.
And Xun Xu was in love with Liu Ying, basically.
So, my point is, if I were him, after Chen Gong's farce of an execution I would have been so angry at all the awful people around me I would have decided they didn't deserve to win the war and I would have become a double agent for the Wei.
Now, I get he's supposed to be this totally incorruptible character, but honestly. HONESTLY. If in the final 5 minutes of the drama he had gone to a secret meeting with a Wei spy and declared his desire to become an informant, I would have lost my mind. That would have been such a great ending IMO, and it would have reinforced the drama's point that all this heroic death and intrigue amounted to nothing in the end because the leaders of the war weren't worthy of their followers.
OK, I'm on ep. 10 now and the Tianshui governor, Guo Gang, has had such a great character arc--well, I'm not sure if 'character arc' is the right term here because I don't know if he undergoes some great character development as much as the viewer's perception of him shifts radically--from an airhead playboy who lucked into a position way above his level of ability to this guy who was a genuinely good and loyal friend to a traitor and is now suffering for it. The scene where he tells his subordinate that oh, funny thing, my sworn brother Chen Gong is dead... and also, by the way, Chen Gong was White Emperor... and also, by the way, I'm being dismissed from my position for trusting the wrong man, is SO well-acted. You can see how painful it is for him to voice each of these disclosures, how heartbroken and conflicted and humiliated he feels, and how hard he works to take the blows fate has dealt him with sardonic stoicism and leave his position without drama. There's a certain nobility to his character that was evident in his determination to stick by Chen Gong when everyone doubted CG and again in his ability to take the total personal defeat in ep. 10 with grace. And you could see before they parted ways that Chen Gong, too, felt bad for lying to GG in those moments when GG expressed his faith in CG or gave him opportunities to prove himself, even though CG is the consummate spy and never feels conflicted about doing his job.
Anyway, this was a long ramble, but basically, GG is such a great minor character. I hope we see him again before the end of the drama because he deserves to have a final confrontation with Chen Gong.
I just finished episode 8 and I don’t know if I can bear to watch much more of Xun Xu’s stupidity. The fact he let Li Miao manipulate him into signing his own mentor’s death warrant after Li Miao made his untrustworthiness completely obvious the very first time they met, when he told XX he would keep the existence of Red Emperor secret and then turned around and revealed it to the entire agency and put XX on the spot… Like, how can XX still buy LM’s bullshit, and on such a grave matter as Feng Ying committing murder too? “I’ll let you keep investigating, but in the meantime just sign this little meaningless report right here; I promise I haven’t been trying to take down Feng Ying since day one to the exclusion of all work-related concerns.” “Sure, boss.” Just aargh.
And knowing XX is infatuated with the Wei spy posing as a musician/courtesan in Nanzheng I can already tell that even if/after he finally gets a clue about LM, he’ll do even dumber shit for pussy. I can’t, I just can’t. It’s giving me too much stress.
Chen Gong, meanwhile, is blatantly going to die at the end because he’s good at everything and has no room for “development” (i.e. getting less stupid like XX will have to do).
She better do 👍Either her or Lee Tae....I don't know who ,but someone better kill him
I actually think of all the characters who have cause to want him dead, the one who most deserves to land the killing blow is the Queen Dowager. My hatred for him reached new heights when he was manipulating her by pretending to reminisce about their relationship—when he was the one who stole her youth, life and happiness from her in the first place, and exploited her feelings for him to further his political ambitions.
If the writer is on the same page as me, she’ll give the Queen Dowager some character development where she realises how deeply Park Gyewon has wronged her, stops clinging to a fantasy version of him that loves her, and ends his miserable life.
Left State Councillor Park is one of those villains you love to hate, so I can’t begrudge him his victories, but he’s already had too many of them. It’s been six episodes! I need Lee Tae and Yoo Jeong to stop crying every time they see each other and start plotting to take him down. He needs to be taken down a peg because so far *everything* has gone exactly as he wanted. The only thing he hasn’t predicted/had control over is Yoo Jeong’s real identity, so I assume that will be a big part of his downfall. But how? She hasn’t shown a lot of determination to take revenge on him for killing off her family yet.
Mirae's mother is kind of a control freak. She's nice and mostly sympathetic so far, but I fully expect her to flip out and cause some fuckery for Mirae and Hyunjae at least once over the next 46 episodes.
Also, I wonder if MR's brother will get his own romantic interest. He's getting a subplot of his own with the restaurant inspections so far, which could mean the writer has plans for him.
I still don’t understand the problem of female lead why does she want to divorce? Please enlighten me
Her husband lied about many things, including his educational background and the fact he had a child he didn't want Mirae to know about with a woman he was still sleeping with (according to the child's mother at least).
Since their marriage was basically arranged by the groom's mother as a union between two wealthy singles with comparable social status, it was not a love match and they didn't know each other well before they married.
So when Mirae found out about her husband's lies, she had no reason to try to reconcile with him; it's not that someone she loved betrayed her but rather she realised she had made a deal with her husband and his family based on lies and had been conned.
On top of everything else, when she tried to leave him, her husband turned out to be a huge dick.
Honestly, I understand and support Mirae's desire to get a divorce, but at the same time I don't have a lot of sympathy for her. Her troubles show why jumping into a marriage with a stranger based on your families' similar circumstances (or the fact your "levels" match, as Koreans like to say) is a terrible idea.
Just a question: is it that hard to get divorced or get a marriage cancelled in SK? I don't know the laws and…
Until relatively recently SK didn't have no-fault divorce IIRC, which made it much harder for couples to divorce when only one party wanted it. That's what I've gathered from dramas, at least; I welcome corrections.
I dropped Gentleman and Young Lady after two episodes because of how bad it looked and it was sad not having a weekend drama to watch. Then this finally came out and the first episode was exactly what I had hoped for! Fun, not too frustrating or dramatic, multiple couples/main characters I can become invested in. Obviously it’s only one episode, but I’m optimistic.
1 
All these guys were willing to sacrifice, nay, kill: a subject as loyal and capable as Xun Xu, who did nothing wrong but whom their paranoia told them to silence; Chen Gong's father; various low-level intelligence officers; many soldiers; and ultimately Chen Gong himself, who had to die just so their petty power struggles would remain a secret. These guys claimed to do it all for the glory of the Han empire, but as even Zhuge Liang told Yang Yi, that was bullshit. In reality, all the deaths they engineered and all the self-sacrifices they demanded from people who were worthier and more capable than them were meaningless from a military/strategic standpoint. (Well, I take the point that Li Yan was undermining the Shu and had to be taken down, but it didn't have to happen that way.)
On the other hand, the two Wei officials we got a glimpse of, Guo Huai and Guo Gang, were both upstanding and principled by comparison. Like, Guo Huai was ruthless, but he was honest with Chen Gong when he recruited him and gave a cool little speech about the power of the human heart, and Guo Gang was just a nice guy.
And Xun Xu was in love with Liu Ying, basically.
So, my point is, if I were him, after Chen Gong's farce of an execution I would have been so angry at all the awful people around me I would have decided they didn't deserve to win the war and I would have become a double agent for the Wei.
Now, I get he's supposed to be this totally incorruptible character, but honestly. HONESTLY. If in the final 5 minutes of the drama he had gone to a secret meeting with a Wei spy and declared his desire to become an informant, I would have lost my mind. That would have been such a great ending IMO, and it would have reinforced the drama's point that all this heroic death and intrigue amounted to nothing in the end because the leaders of the war weren't worthy of their followers.
Anyway, this was a long ramble, but basically, GG is such a great minor character. I hope we see him again before the end of the drama because he deserves to have a final confrontation with Chen Gong.
And knowing XX is infatuated with the Wei spy posing as a musician/courtesan in Nanzheng I can already tell that even if/after he finally gets a clue about LM, he’ll do even dumber shit for pussy. I can’t, I just can’t. It’s giving me too much stress.
Chen Gong, meanwhile, is blatantly going to die at the end because he’s good at everything and has no room for “development” (i.e. getting less stupid like XX will have to do).
If the writer is on the same page as me, she’ll give the Queen Dowager some character development where she realises how deeply Park Gyewon has wronged her, stops clinging to a fantasy version of him that loves her, and ends his miserable life.
Also, I wonder if MR's brother will get his own romantic interest. He's getting a subplot of his own with the restaurant inspections so far, which could mean the writer has plans for him.
Since their marriage was basically arranged by the groom's mother as a union between two wealthy singles with comparable social status, it was not a love match and they didn't know each other well before they married.
So when Mirae found out about her husband's lies, she had no reason to try to reconcile with him; it's not that someone she loved betrayed her but rather she realised she had made a deal with her husband and his family based on lies and had been conned.
On top of everything else, when she tried to leave him, her husband turned out to be a huge dick.
Honestly, I understand and support Mirae's desire to get a divorce, but at the same time I don't have a lot of sympathy for her. Her troubles show why jumping into a marriage with a stranger based on your families' similar circumstances (or the fact your "levels" match, as Koreans like to say) is a terrible idea.