Baby MJ

Bokyeon couldn't fall in love or get married to a man like a normal peasant girl though she was forced to live outside the palace . Just because she had been a court maid.

When he took another woman , the feeling she felt what I think is Sadness, not Jealousy.
( Remember her talk about Won Bin with him ).
We feel sadness when our Ex ,we still have feelings for , get another girlfriend .
In her case, it would be worse cause she knew he loved her too.And the fact ,he had to take another woman to bear the royal heir because of her rejection to become his woman and make family, must be painful to her too.
But she did try to bear the sadness cause she chose her freedom over him at that time and knew that was the cost of her choice.


Also San having another woman was the thing Deok Im couldn't say anything whether she accepted San's proposal or not.
Even the Queen couldn't say anything to a King if he took another woman.

Who was she to say anything ?
She was just
a court lady becoming a low rank concubine.

We had seen the torn emotions of our Crown Prince Yi San and how much he loved Deok Im as a woman ,so the viewers were impatient with Deok Im 's hesitations .
But if you imagine the picture as a whole, the one who would lose in
their relationship of 18th Century Joseon is Deok Im.
That's why she took her time to make her choice between her love and freedom.

Imagine she accepted the proposal immediately, San would get the woman he loved as one of his harem.

Even when he lost interest in her or if she didn't give birth unfortunately , he could still take another wife cause he was the King.

But on DI side , she would lose the freedom of a single woman after living as his concubine.

There goes the Sentence
described in the novel
'The King Only Takes '

Though exiled from the palace, she was still a court maid, meaning she couldn't run away from the rules of being One completely.
( Remember Bokyeon couldn't live the normal life of a maiden even after she had left the palace after Yeonjo 's death .
BY was not as important to Royal Family as DeokIm yet she still needed to obey the rules of Palace.

Red Sleeves are sadly like the symbolism of Fate in our life which we can't avoid, they were the handcuffs for court maids until their death.

Like I Said , the drama hadn't shown the POV of FL efficiently in later parts of the story ( Like stone throwing in early parts of drama ), some couldn't fully understand the FL 's tiresome repeated rejections and her motives and felt frustrated by it.


First , as I can understand , for Queen Dowager's offers, the QD came from the Noron faction and her interest was different from Jeongjo / YiSan in term of politics.
If DeokIm accepted her offer , QD would become her master and DI had to obey her commands .
Obeying some of those could mean betraying San who was her master and also the man she loved .
So how could she accept QD's offer while knowing these facts

Umm Good question.
Why do we like it?

The drama has perfect acting .directing , cinematography and music.

Like the male lead said in earlier episodes , 'Are we captivated by its poetic presentation ?'

The drama isn't perfect by any means. Its biggest defect lies in the screenwriting as I always discussed in the forum.
But its defect is always hidden by other great aspects of the drama , esp male lead's Junho acting.

The first 6 or 7 eps are perfect, lose steam in middle and ending becomes emotional again.
Personally I would say the drama didn't know which point of view , it wanted to focus.
The novel based on was written from Female Lead POV.

But the earlier episodes decided to focus on Male lead POV ( his struggles and all ) ; the screen writer added her own creatic story which didn't fare well in the middle,so she decided to end the story like novel again.
Also time and episodes limit lead to rushed ending.

So , overall, story writing seem to be a bit uneven.

Those who don't like RS are mostly frustrated with our female lead.
This is valid because story wasn't presented from the FL point of view in most parts , so the viewers couldn't understand her well.

PPLs who love RS like me ,
What do we do ?
We try to fill the gap by reading short pieces of novel translation and history to imagine our FL POV.
From the information,we imagine her dilemma of choosing the man she loves or her freedom.

This is the story of two lovers , who loved each other,yet they were separated by the dazzling prison called Palace and associated responsibilites.
Palace Romance which doesn't seem like normal puppy sageuk , but realities and difficulities of Life mixed together in that story.

My final conclusion after watching the series for the second time is
' They would be better if they didn't meet each other from the start '.

A free spirited girl like Deok Im was tangled up in the Journey of San ,who bear the responsibilites of a country on his head.

In this day and age , San may be the one who has more to lose because he is the one on high socal ladder.

But unfortunately , in Joseon 18th Century , Deok Im was the one more to lose ,as she lost her freedom since she chose her life as a king's woman because of her love for San, yet she couldn't have her man as a whole .

Some compare the Red sleeve against Chinese High Budget Production Drama 'Story of Yunxi Palace ' and its heroine ' Ying Luo ' to Deok Im.

Chiness dramas are almost always preproduced ,which make the pacing a lot better if it's a good story
,also they are high budgetly produced ,so no wonder they look good.

Red Sleeve on the other hand is a live produced drama.
Before the airing, though MBC wanted a drama on its channel to be successful , they seem to think it would be 'The Veil ' not the Red Sleeve.
They didn't think Red sleeve would be highly popular .
So they planned 16 episode drama.

Actually 16 episodes will not
be enough to tell the Tale of Yi San , never in my opinion.

After the drama's success , even if MBC wanted to do extensions ;the schedules of our main leads would make things difficult .
Another question is ' Paycheck for extended episodes should be the same in their conflicted schedules ?'
Many things to consider and we were lucky to have 1 extended episode.

The drama was mainly for Korea viewers by the way. So they decided to skip the known history parts .
So for us who are international viewers , the story is a little incomplete unless the viewer is versed in their history.

For the comparison of Yingluo to Deok Im .
How should I say it . I tend to disagree.

Though based on the same Confucian system, while chinese emperor had absolute influence over their ministers and people , Joseon Kings never had that kind of power over noble class.

Based on the foundations created by Joseon designer 'Jang Do Jeon ' , the power of Joseon kings were always counter checked by Sadabu Scholars and Noble class.

Meaning the Joseon King never had much freedom as a Chinese Emperor had and it also include the privilege of favoring a woman.

Yingluo was fine with having the favor of her emperor while Deok Im won't be ok with just San's love. She needed to have the Queen's support who came from Noble class.

Also the tragedy, it was not that Deok Im didn't find the silver lining .
She did find her silver lining with her son, the Crown Prince and San's love.
But her son unfortunately died and San's Harsh words after that tragic death took a toll on her too.

I would say rather than Ying Luo, the last moments of our female lead were a tad similar to that of OP in Scarlet Heart.
A collection of tragedy after tragedy and her emotional collapse was the result of it.
She still loved our male lead, but couldn't stand the pain for being with him.

San is the master of the palace and Deok Im being the maid of that place, yet both of them are bound by the rules of that dazzling prison.

They weren't free and their love was supposed to be bound by the rules from the start.

Deok Im knew cause she read a lot and she was a woman living in the palace since she was a child.

After marrying San, her whole life depend upon San's favor and childbirth .
I feel bad for her cause she couldn't even use her talents anymore. ( transcribing , making money etc )

' Will it be better if they didn't meet from the start ?'
This is the question lingering on my mind after watching the whole series.

First Friday Saturday without Red Sleeve.

On the fun side, the rose petals bath room plays as cameo for three times LOL.

Also her eventual acceptance of his proposal , I think two things push her to make that decision.

1.First is Dekro's death.

We face Death here and there everyday. But the death of certain people in your life can make hidden thoughts surface on your mind.
Like I wish I could do that before his death etc etc.

Even imagination of your own death can happen and you want to try everything you wish at that mournful time. ( this happens to me a lot ).
You don't want to dwell onto uncertain things that have not happened yet and just wanna grab little things that make you happy.

2. San's Thank You speech

As much as we understand San cherish her , we
saw he kind of lowkey forced her into giving the
answer he wants .
I think it's part of his nature as a king.

But that' thank you' speech makes her feel
his real sincerity for once and may make her feel like his equal.

She spoke her mind on episode 4 after she had known his real status as a CP.
She just wanted him to offer her a sincere apology.
I think little things work for Deok Im.

As much as I am frustrated with the show's pacing and Deokim's constant rejections , I find her rejections realistic .

The king's affection is dangerous.

1.After being a part of His Harem ,it's like having a target on your back because you become involved in Court Politics whether you want it or not.

2.The king is a man and as like some men,his affections can change.
If he becomes bored with you and find another woman, he can abandon you easily and there's no loss on his side while as a woman of the harem, you can't even angry with him and the best thing a consort can hope when you fall out of favor, is not to get killed by his whim on your slight mistake.
On the other hand , as his woman who loves him, you will be left heartbroken and become a ball of hatred but cant do anything.

That's what happened to Anne of Cleves with Henry VIII .
We see that in the harem of chinese emperors .

3. The King is the father and husband of whole country before becoming a woman's husband .
So for the country sake ,he will calculate every move and some of these moves may hurt the woman even if it's unintentional .