Big Cat Unnie

Like I said, YiSan's queen never made an appearance in the drama. She was mentioned as 'Queen Kim' here and there.

The woman who was brought into the palace after Hong's sister death was another royal concubine.

I will tell you as a historical spoiler ( The drama's presentation is not far from it ,either).

As Hong Deokro came to power after Yisan's ascension to the throne, he knew the taste of power and desired more . He would like to become the next king's uncle and arranged his sister to become a high ranked royal concubine in Yisan's harem.

But his sister was hated by Yisan's Queen ( due to his arrogance ) and Yisan was not much interested in his sister ,either ( Jeongjo and his obsession with Deokim ,Royal Concubine Uibin was very famous ). Unfortunately, his sister died of illness without bearing a son for the King.

Hong Deokro didn't give up even after his sister's death. He wanted to adopt the son of Yisan's step brother (as the son of his sister ) and suggested the King to enthrone the child as a Crown Prince.

Both Yisan's Queen and Yisan himself disagreed because the idea was ridiculous and the King was still young ( around 30 ) who could still sire a son.
He hated Yisan's queen for being a roadblock to his plans and planned to assassinate her.

His plan was exposed and he was exiled.

In the drama, Yisan's queen was not portrayed by anyone ( sometimes subtitles make us confused on who is who ).

While I love love Junho's acting and his dashing look here, I am wary of the plot.
Talented actors being thrown out of the window by a bad script, there have been many times in k drama land.

When your s.. life is linked with weird celestial phenomenon , I do wonder how the heaven will turn out after their marriage 😂😂😅😅.

There is a folktale in our country.

''Once upon a time , there was a wealthy man who was always unhappy . Near his home, a poor man lived and he seemed always happy.
The wealthy man was curious of the reason why that man was happy and asked him. He told him that he was content with his life.

Then the wealthy man tried to give the poor man some money to improve his life. After receiving the money, the poor man slowly changed . He couldn't sleep well because he was worried about losing the money.
So finally the poor man returned the money to the rich man and he could become happy again.''

This may not be the most realistic folktale , but this teaches us some people are content with their lives and happy where they are.

Deok Im was kind of this girl.
She was happy where she was.
All the things she enjoyed to do , she had freedom to do them in her place. Nobody seriously forbid her from doing them because her position was not important enough.

(Historically, Lady DeokIm was kind of Lady Hyegyeong's( King Jeongjo Yisan's mother) adopted daughter ,so I believe she had more freedom than a normal palace maid. ( Kinda VIP palace maid with connection )
She was taught to write well and even transcribed together with the King's sisters.)

Back to the drama, at first, this was her duty to protect the prince and she took pride in her job.
It became complicated when she slowly realized he had feelings for her and in her case ,too.

Especially when Deok Im was wise enough to know that a place in the King's Harem was not the fun place with the cat fights .Especially for a palace maid turned Consort like her, the King's favor was the everything she needed to rely on .

The worst part of this drama will be its background music.
The music literally pops up out of nowhere in unrelated scenes.

I love the father more than the son ...even from trailers 😂😂😂

No vaccines for the children of ancient times and a lot of children died from illness, including the Royal ones.
Like others point out, it was possible some of them withdrew from throne fights.

How should I say it ?
If it was a fictional love story, we might leave at the part where they were happy together hearing about their unborn first son like they always do with fictional costume dramas.

Since it was based on real life historical characters, the story had to go on ( after passing this happy moment ) and well, 'Real Life' happened.
We couldn't pretend that the events after this happy moment didn't happen.

For me, the ep17 ending is the ending we could get the best after hearing about their real lives.

And it was based on real life historical figures, so the ending couldn't be changed.
And King Jeongjo was a reformer and every Koreans adored and respected him even to this day.

yeah, the audio story of King Jeongjo love letters left by him became famous after 'The Red Sleeve ' had aired.

The drama is based on true historical characters and events.
The characters in this drama were very much alive in 18th Century.

King Jeongjo's love for his first love , Uibin Seong were well recorded in the texts.
That's why many Koreans love this drama.
King Jeongjo was a good king ( second most beloved king after king Sejong the great ) and he was such a romantic man compared to others in his era.

YiSan, as a crown prince,had to get married to a woman of noble status since young age.
His Queen Consort never appeared in the drama , but his queen was Queen Hyoui.

YiSan's great grandfather , King Sukjong, banned Royal concubines from becoming a Queen Consort since his regime due to Jang Hee Bin incident. So Concubines of court maid origin could not become a Queen Consort after his rule.

You can search wiki or read from talking cupboard.

https://thetalkingcupboard.com/2021/12/31/the-red-sleeve-history-her-story-and-their-love-story/
https://thetalkingcupboard.com/2014/06/15/women-of-the-joseon-dynasty-part-1/

Let him act once in 'Hallyu Bait' drama, he has already been in a lot of dramatic roles and proved his range.
May be that coming drama may turn out better than we expected.

Like you, I also wanna see him in more delicious roles after that drama.

Since you have decided not to watch the drama as the whole, if you are curious what the drama is about and the rave reviews are, you can watch this wonderful edit.
This video pretty sums up the whole drama into 10 minute video.

https://youtu.be/plUm6QsJSss

Unofficial prologue to understand about ML 's family.
https://youtu.be/SaJNaL909eU

I honestly don't know.
If you don't like the ways nor understand how historical characters behave in such genre, I doubt you will like this drama.

At the start of the drama, the grandfather and his grandson behave exactly like those in a royal family , not your usual lovely family in a modern drama.

The same applies to the main couple. On the surface, it is a Cinderella story.
But the power imbalance is highlighted in this drama.
The male lead behaves in a way how a monarch with absolute power in old days would , so sometimes you wanna smack him .

He did thank his costars and Staffs
during PD award and Beaksang award speech.

Although I was happy his APAN win, even I hadn't taken APAN seriously like Beaksang. ( inside joke of giving awards to those who attend).
Also at the time APAN award ceremony was held, Seyoung didn't attend & she was doing another drama with another costar.
As Junho is an introvert like me, I think it would be very awkward for Junho to thank Seyoung ( who was not appreciated for her performance by Juries ) who neither attended nor got the award.
From my point of view, (rather than thanking her) it would be like 'Mocking her'.

Not to upset you more, but you know it is based on true historical events, right?

Pre -antibiotic era, people died too easily, That's what doctors are afraid of when the resistance becomes worse.

The reason the audience are crazy over their love story is (well as a viewer who love the series, I do think the onscreen couple has sizzling chemistry) while you are immersed in their onscreen love story, there were really evidences of Yi San's love in history whether you wanna call it 'love' or 'obsession'.
King Jeongjo's love over Uibin Seong was legendary as there were many evidences.

I do understand your frustration, but cause it is a story based on real historical events and its main viewers are local koreans, some well known historical parts are skipped over ,especially when MBC did not want to produce another long series since they already had 2007 Yi San Long version.

This is why this series is not widely popular to international audience who are not well versed in korean history though it has already got many accolades locally.

My current obsession is 'Lee Junho' who is Ok taecyeon's band mate from 2PM.
Current title holder of Baeksang best actor, and well, he did his solo fancon for 5 days in Korea & Japan like 2 weeks ago.