Orithian

Just hanging out for the last ep now. The Starry Love really does do almost everything right!!! 🥰🥰🥰

Yeah, I could write a books worth of ranting about how badly disappointed in this series I am, and it's many, many failures...
But I got the main bugs out of my system, and will now try my best to delete it from my brain.

Rant: Dedicated to the writers/directors/producers who produced this steaming pile.
Not the actors who did the best they could!

This show fails spectacularly in many, many ways.
Characters: With a *very* few rare exceptions fail to learn or grow in any way, and indeed many seem to regress and only get worse.
ChongZi is the worse example. Her first iteration I think, is the least offensive. She was a beggar, and joined the sect to protect others, but with that history I can see why she defaulted back to simply wanting to stay safe and protected with her Master. Still a whiny btc.
2nd interaction doesn't have that excuse. She grew up in a good family. She still always speaks of protecting other people and her Master, but she almost never acts on it. Her only thought is to cling to her Masters side, even if that will cause him trouble. It's like the moment she meets YinFan her higher brain functions all cease working, and she becomes a human leech.
She constantly believes and trusts the wrong people. Sulks because her Master killed her once. Is told to her face by Wang Yue that he manipulated everything to get her to where she in, implying also her death/s...And she *still* chooses to listen to him and the Demons???
She has immense power, but instead of using it to protect the people/things she cares about, instead whines as they are killed/hurt/demonized and doesn't do anything about it. She's incompetent and only fights when it comes to her Master, she's otherwise apathetic. Her biggest onscreen actions, apart from the end, are when she kills her would be rapist and burns down YF's house. She does try to help Zhuo Hao, but even fails to get that right and instead endangers Qin Ke instead.

Yin Fan: Inept at protecting his own disciple because he spoils her rotten. Has no one to blame because he indulges in her every worst instinct. Fails to take his own poisoning seriously and never gets it under control. Never
stands up to the bastard sect elder who is murderously biased against his disciple. When he imprisons CZ he *knows* how insanely biased all the sects are, but still never goes to check on her, or have someone he trusts check? Despite saying how important CZ is to him, is never willing to walk away from the Sect in order to save her, and take her far away. Also whatever hideaways people have, they have only ever seem to be in the next valley over. Not the next country over....

ChongZi & YinFan have a mutually destructive, parasitic, toxic relationship. They indulge, feed off and inflame each others worst behaviours and are unable to apply any kind of ration thought or brakes on each other.

Wang Yue: Omnipotent, Omniscient, and no one ever gets the better of him...Even in the end, he just gets banished back to his own realm in 5 seconds!

Qin Ke: Is the least problematic main character. He stands up for CZ, fights for her, supports her, and unlike YF is willing to walk away from the Sect for her sake....His biggest problem is being in lust with CZ in the first place.

Plot: convoluted and many things happen for the sake of plot, and not because the character would have normally chosen that action.

Worldbuilding fails:
The Immortal Sects are unforgivably stupid, selfish and bigoted, and are basically super powered bullied masquerading as Heroes, because they hog the "Pure" air and fight...
The Demon's who, it's implied, prey on mortals because they have no choice, in order to survive without going completely insane/die, due to only being able to consume the "Impure" air.
World Physics/Magic mechanics are nebulous, poorly conceived and most happen, again, for reasons of plot, and not internal logic or consistency.

MuYan's death wouldn't have started a war. Remember he was already under threat of death for being the previous King's family + stealing the Seed of Flame. Also countries normally aren't super eager for war without something *very* tangible to fight for. In this case, he did his best to make sure the Qi had to move southif they wanted to survive, meanwhile stirring up enough trouble locally to make sure that the Qian would refuse to allow any treaty or partnership with them.
He wanted the two races to fight in order to, if not wipe out the Qian tribe completely, then to severely dent it's population. Since he was worried that the Qian would eventually simply become too strong to tolerate the Qi.
There's a certain ruthless elegance to MY's entire plotting. He puppeted others successfully for a decade in order to plunge two countries into a war of anihilation...
My biggest issue is he risked his peoples own overall survival and chances in that war by releasing the poison into North Shou. Last thing any sane leader would do is damage the health of your own troops. Unless he planned on releasing the antidote once war aactually broke out.
It's a pity CPWY was the charade, as honestly, going by that last episode, that actors far better than MY's one. However I'm really interested in seeing what they pull out for a second season.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I suspect the problem all along *was* that he was too much his fathers son. His father was overthrown precisely for being far too brutal and ruthless a ruler.
MuYan displayed all the signs later on of having that very same mentality.

I think if I had a job surrounded by *that* much eye candy. I could probably put up with some sacrifices. Not to mention all the local good food.
It's not like I'd be moving to the UK/US, with little to no eye candy/decent food. 😈😈🤣🤣

Nope!!! That was kinda satisfying. Normally I *do* see everything coming a mile away. But they deliberately didn't telegraph this in anyway...Unless it was in the suspicous *lack* of MyYan's direct presence prior to the last ep. He'd been lingering around like a ghost, so I was wandering how they were going to tie him in. Just did not see it coming like that...

I console myself with the idea that maybe I can get a job in China applying lip balm to all these hot actors who desperately need some..... 😇😈🤣

If MuYan had let SJ experience the dream directly from his POV she would have been too suspicious it was a setup. But a random victim, who's Qiyuan stone had been taken from them by the badguys and made it's way onto the black market? That was more believable bait for the scooby gang to make sure they investigated the events on the ship.

Also, technically, ChiLan, Wen Ying's ending *might* still be up in the air.

It seems MuYan also inherited his fathers bloody minded ruthlessness, more's the pity.
ChiLan became the Qi King, and Wen Jun became the Qian Crown Prince. Han Zheng married Su Jui Er and became an Inspector with her...for now.

He disappeared. Unwilling to fight his friends to the death. But also to try and force the war to happen by making sure they couldn't get the antidote from him, and probably to cause more trouble at a later date.

This isn't the first C'Drama I've noticed were the poor men-folk all have chapped lips. At least the women have lipstick/balm to protected them, but the guys seem to be constantly sporting chapped lips.
...Still appallingly *luscious* dry chapped lips however.
*Fans self*
*fingers crossed* for a S2!!!

I think the show actually gave a reason for Han Zheng's immaturity when it came to romance, in that Qi people matured at 60. So ...technically he *is* an angsty teenager. Which is why he tended to blow up when his hormones/emotions over Jui'er came into play. Wen Jun actually made a snarky comment early on regarding that, I think, insinuating that Han Zheng was just a little kid when it came to romance, despite his apparent greater age.🤣🤣🤣

This show was *very* good at dropping subtle, and not so subtle, red herrings all over the place. I also suspected Wen Ying initially, but then went Nahh.

Also if it takes you several days to finally get over your sulk, and research the mess that was bad enough to cause your boyfriend to freak out, cut of all communication and hermit up in a small town, then I have serious doubts about the actual place he holds in your heart.

Also some of the "medical advice" makes me twitch. Not to mention the way it deals with things like ptsd and depression, as something that can be fixed with a few sharp words and a positive attitude???
I'm really only hanging on for Xiao Zhan as this point...

Seriously, can we just ditch SanSan? She is the *worst* best friend ever. Her advice is only ever *every* bad cliche out there. Not a single ounce of sense or actual experience. Ep 17 and she's throwing out more roadblocks so far than Gao Xi & Shao Jiang combined!!! Ugh.

This is now one of the few drama's in ages where I don't FF through the opening and closing credits, and instead listen to the tracks all the way through. I *still* can't get enough of this OST!