This review may contain spoilers
powerful characters pretend to be powerless while villains with zero legal standing run the show
The most offensive part of the 16 episode at approximately 60 minutes each drama is how it treats Joseon-era law like a buffet—the writers pick the rules that torture the characters but ignore the ones that would actually solve the plot.
This slave trap that it constantly promotes shows that it is happy to enforce rigid, archaic "parental rights" and "slave status" to justify a scene where a legendary, high-skilled female lead is reduced to a passive widow waiting to be beaten in a courtyard. It strips her of her physician intelligence and thief agency just for a cheap damsel in distress moment.
Yet, five minutes later, the show ignores the most absolute law of the era which is treason and we are expected to believe a bastard concubine’s son (2ML) can arrest a Grand Prince (ML) and survive.
The Male Lead is perhaps the most frustrating hero in recent K-Drama history.
When the Queen Dowager—the only person with a functioning brain—rightfully orders the 2ML’s execution for arresting royalty, the ML stops her.
The Result of "saving" his rival, he directly causes the next hour of misery. He allows the very man he saved to stand in a courtyard and challenge his marriage proposal. The rivalry isn't "epic"; it’s a self-inflicted wound. The ML isn't a "noble strategist"—he’s a spineless martyr who values a "political chess game" over the immediate physical safety of the woman he supposedly loves.
The chemistry is non-existent because the Female Lead (Eun-jo) has the personality of a dry loofah.
Is it Survival or Stupidity? The show blames her "aloofness" on survival, but it’s actually Noble Idiocy in its purest form. She stands silently in a "Triangle of Incompetence" while two men—one who shouldn't legally be able to speak to the other—fight over her like she’s a piece of furniture.
When the Grand Prince offers a literal royal decree to extract her from a house where she was just almost stabbed to death at the end of episode seven, she hesitates. At this point, her "independence" feels less like strength and more like a lack of common sense.
The show is a mess of shambolic logic. It forces us to endure the nonsense of a high-status Prince being bullied by a low-status bastard, all the while the "badass" female lead stands by and watches.
My final thought: In the warped logic of this script, the father is being framed as a "tragic figure" who thinks he’s protecting his daughter’s moral purity.
The father thinks a Royal Marriage is just a different kind of "ownership" or a political cage.
He is so obsessed with the idea of her being "free" that he’s willing to let her stay in a house where she is literally a slave being beaten.
If the ML asked, "Why was it okay to sell her to a dead man's house of stabbers, corrupted murderers but a Prince is too much?" the father would have no answer, and the plot would end. The writers keep the ML silent to keep the misery going.
The last couple of episodes were decent, but he didn’t make up for the dross that happened before
This slave trap that it constantly promotes shows that it is happy to enforce rigid, archaic "parental rights" and "slave status" to justify a scene where a legendary, high-skilled female lead is reduced to a passive widow waiting to be beaten in a courtyard. It strips her of her physician intelligence and thief agency just for a cheap damsel in distress moment.
Yet, five minutes later, the show ignores the most absolute law of the era which is treason and we are expected to believe a bastard concubine’s son (2ML) can arrest a Grand Prince (ML) and survive.
The Male Lead is perhaps the most frustrating hero in recent K-Drama history.
When the Queen Dowager—the only person with a functioning brain—rightfully orders the 2ML’s execution for arresting royalty, the ML stops her.
The Result of "saving" his rival, he directly causes the next hour of misery. He allows the very man he saved to stand in a courtyard and challenge his marriage proposal. The rivalry isn't "epic"; it’s a self-inflicted wound. The ML isn't a "noble strategist"—he’s a spineless martyr who values a "political chess game" over the immediate physical safety of the woman he supposedly loves.
The chemistry is non-existent because the Female Lead (Eun-jo) has the personality of a dry loofah.
Is it Survival or Stupidity? The show blames her "aloofness" on survival, but it’s actually Noble Idiocy in its purest form. She stands silently in a "Triangle of Incompetence" while two men—one who shouldn't legally be able to speak to the other—fight over her like she’s a piece of furniture.
When the Grand Prince offers a literal royal decree to extract her from a house where she was just almost stabbed to death at the end of episode seven, she hesitates. At this point, her "independence" feels less like strength and more like a lack of common sense.
The show is a mess of shambolic logic. It forces us to endure the nonsense of a high-status Prince being bullied by a low-status bastard, all the while the "badass" female lead stands by and watches.
My final thought: In the warped logic of this script, the father is being framed as a "tragic figure" who thinks he’s protecting his daughter’s moral purity.
The father thinks a Royal Marriage is just a different kind of "ownership" or a political cage.
He is so obsessed with the idea of her being "free" that he’s willing to let her stay in a house where she is literally a slave being beaten.
If the ML asked, "Why was it okay to sell her to a dead man's house of stabbers, corrupted murderers but a Prince is too much?" the father would have no answer, and the plot would end. The writers keep the ML silent to keep the misery going.
The last couple of episodes were decent, but he didn’t make up for the dross that happened before
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