Sazz O

Absolutely spot on! A lot of the changes they disagree with make the show stronger. Also the complaints are exaggerated. While there are a couple of episodes in the human realm that devote a lot more time to side characters, it was not as bad they are making it out to be. Its not like we had a Legend of Fuyao scenario where the main character was not even in one of the episodes at all. Moreover failure to fully develop side characters in Fuyao dragged down the drama.

Oh okay. It just seems like most people have drunk the same kool-aid that XF is this poor noble hero that was unfairly killed by his evil brother.

I understand that she's his mother but thats no excuse for XF willful blindness. I don't expect him to have her put in jail or killed, those are extreme measures, even I wouldn't do it if that was my mother. However, if he had acknowledged his mother's wrongdoings earlier he and Night could have worked together to neuter the Empress by reducing the power and influence she has so that she's unable to abuse it to harm others. He could have made sure that some of her evil schemes backfired and force (not literal physical force) the Emperor's hand so he has no choice but to punish her, which can be to confine her to her palace, demote her, etc. It is not unheard of for an Empress to be punished because of a concubine. The country will not collapse if this happen. She did end up in prison for trying to kill JM and the country did not come to ruin.

Moreover, he did threatened her after he found out that she tried to have JM killed in the mortal realm. If he could go this far for his lover why not for his brother?

Also, I'm not surprises that you, and undoubtedly many others, interpreted XF offer to Night as him trying to do right by Night, But it wasn't.
One, XF never wanted the crown and by offering it to Night, he wasn't being kind nor was he losing anything of importance. If anything, XF will be doing himself a favour by getting Night to take the position being forced on him. Also, did Night tell him he wanted the crown? No. The only thing Night explicitly stated that he want was JM and if XF truly felt guilty and wanted to make it right, He would be giving up on JM not the crown that he never wanted. In fact, this is something XF should have done when JM agreed to the engagement. Any decent human being would have thought to themselves that 'I should back off because my brother who has led a difficult and lonely life because of my mother deserves at least this one thing that he wants'. However, the thought never even crossed XF's mind and he steamrolled over their engagement. That's a shitty brother right there.

Two, it is too late to give up the crown. Like Night said, XF has no say in the matter. Why now? Why not give up when he was being groomed to be Emperor? If he never wanted it, why not back out when he was given opportunities to become the army general and Night was pushed out? So, why now? - Night has something or someone that XF wants and he realised that in order to get it he needed to give up something in return, which leads to my third point. The offer came with strings attached. It was by no means a generous offer out of the goodness of his heart, XF wanted JM in return. Night quickly guessed this and told XF he didn't just come to offer him crown. All in all, the offer was an insult and you can see in the next scene that Night was rightfully offended.

At episode 33 I'm more than halfway into the drama. That is enough time to develop an understanding of the dynamic between the characters and their relationship. Its not about how many episodes you've watched but whether or not you're paying attention to the characters.

XF protects evil when it is his mother. He protected her when he found out she has a shadow guardian, he protected her from Water immortal after she literally just tried to kill JM. Like the three wise monkeys, when it comes to his mother, XF 'sees no evil, hears no evil, and speaks no evil'. This was evidenced in ep 16 after Rat immortal was killed and Night try to tell XF that his mother was on bad terms with Floral immortal before she died and XF tried to defend her. Night basically called him on his bullshit and told him that they both know his mother and what she does, and that she will never let anyone that disobey her go. When you take this with the fact that just a few episodes before she tried to kill JM just for speaking out of turn at her birthday, and even went as far as to have her chased to the floral realm, it is incredibly jarring that XF would even consider defending his mother at the slightest mention that she may have harmed someone.

I am not criticising XF for failing to act when he wasn't in heaven. That's illogical. I am critising his failure to act when he was in heaven. Even if he was around when the drama with Night's mom went down, nothing would have change. Unless, XF was willing to face up to reality and acknowledges what kind of person his mother is, whatever efforts he make to help Night would be inadequate and superficial. A real life example would be a company wanting to increase the number of women it has in senior position, but said company refuses to acknowledge the role of sex-based discrimination in preventing women from being promoted. By willfully ignoring sex-based-discrimination, the company becomes complicit in the mistreatment of its female workers and any effort to help them will likely fail unless they acknowledge the root cause. This is the same here with XF.

What about Night? Are you seriously asking why a victim of abuse did not stand up to their abuser when said abuser is hurting others?! What power do you think Night, as a victim, has over his abuser to stop her hurting others when he can barely protect himself from her abuse. Do you really not see how unfair you're being?
Also, there comes a certain point when victims of abuse say enough is enough and starts fighting back. For Night, it was the death of his mother at the Empress hand and there's nothing wrong with it. How anyone can frame that as a negative is beyond comprehension.

It seems many, especially those that have read the book, started watching this drama with fixed ideas about who or what is bad and good. Many view XF through rose-tinted glasses and, like the character himself, they ignore evidence that shows that he is an incredibly flawed character whose downfall was brought upon by his willful ignorance. I'll go as far as to say, other than the evil Emperor and Empress, there are no villains or heroes in this drama just flawed characters.

After watching episode 33 I now understand why Night turned on XF and feel like he is justified in doing so. Very important dialogue between Night and Empress. As the Empress made Night pay for what his mother did, its only right that her son, XF, also atone for her sins. Moreover, for Night to end the tyranny of the Emperor and Empress, he needs to get rid of XF as well. Those three are a package deal. As I mentioned before, XF is complicit in his mom's wrongdoing, not for what he did, but for what he failed to do. It is very clear that no matter how evil they are, XF will never stand up for what's right and would instead fight to protect them. So, for Night to succeed, he got to go.

Absolutely spot on @Sirena!
He has done more and put himself out there for JM than his own brother.
"he never went out of his way to let his brother share anything with him. What XF wanted, he took with total disregards to others even his brother" - This is, in a nutshell, XF main flaw. He is selfish and mostly motivated by self-interest.

He does not want to be crown prince then Emperor because it benefits him not to be.
He goes out of his way for JM and less so for his brother because it benefits him to do so.
He slept with JM because it was what HE wanted, consequences be damned. Where was the constraint of filial piety here? He did it because he knew he could get away with it , just like he could get away with helping RY more if that was what he truly wanted.

You can even say XF has been spoiled by his parent. He is so used to things coming his way that that he thought JM was no exception. Once, the engagement was agreed by JM herself, in front of XF, most brothers (especially given how close they were) would have been conflicted about chasing their brother's bride and at least try to back off and get over her but no, not XF. He just carried on pursuing her and it was in this moment that you honestly see how XF truly perceive RY. He may love his brother but like everyone else, XF has come to view and treat RY as less than. Like a doormat that he can walk all over without any blow-back.

Hmm, thank you for raising such valuable points . I haven't thought of it that way before. Perhaps XF is doing it to protect his brother.

I should clarify that by 'steadfast and forceful' I do not mean he should deal with her in an aggressive or accusatory manner but that he should be more persistent and resilient in his approach because he is often quick to yield to her. Of course the Empress does not seem to be someone that can be easily influenced, but you never know until you try and XF does not try.

Also, XF was not born God of War and General of five armies, he ascended to that position because he was given opportunities to do so like in episode 17, while RY was denied those opportunities. Like I said, the scene in Ep 17 has happened before, yet, it does not seem that XF ever thought to balance the scale. Can we honestly say, with confident, that if both brother's were raised equally, and given the same opportunities, XF would still be God of War and RY just in charge of the night?

Furthermore, there is no indication that as God of War, responsibility for mobilising the army lies with XF alone. If that was the case, why was RY and even Moon immortal there or why was the Empree speaking on XF behalf? The Emperor could have just called XF alone and asked him to go to the demon realm but that was not the case which implies that the task was up for delegation to either of the brothers. Hell, even Moon immortal can offer to go and if the Emperor believes he can get the job done he would have be granted authority over the army.

You're right, we will have to agree to disagree but I do enjoy this conversation and the fact that this drama can evoke such discussions between viewers just goes to show how well written and executed it is. :)

I'm so weird, can't believe I'm shipping Yan You with Sui He. They seem to have history, can anyone who's read the book please shed some light on this?

Look at my response to MusicalVeggies above, XF is doing nowhere near his best to help his brother. I try to put myself in his shoes ask, given his status, his upbringing, his abilities, and his relationship with the Empress, is there more he could do and the answer is absolutely but he doesn't.

Also, RY did not 'steal' JM. She is not some property that you can call dibs on by saying you love her first. In fact, RY didn't start going after JM until he realised that she doesn't have any special feelings for anyone (episode 12 when he asked her if she liked XF, their uncle and the servants in Qi Wu palace and she said yes to all of them).

Of course, after they fell in love in the mortal realm, RY should have gracefully bowed out and not plan to use JM against XF, she deserves better than that. However, so much has happened by then to make RY turn against XF. Sleeping with JM while she was engaged to his brother was absolutely foul. It does not matter that they were in love. XF and JM should have broken the engagement before taking that step. It was a massively disrespectful thing to do. He basically cuckolded his brother. If JM was engaged to any other immortal, XF would never have dared to sleep with her but because he's so used to getting his way over RY, he did not think twice before dishonouring his brother.

I understand what you're saying and I did take them all into consideration before founding Xu Feng wanting. He may not know how evil is mom is towards others but he is aware of how evil she is towards Run Yu.

I know he cannot publicly speak out against his mother but in private he does not do enough. His efforts are, in my opinion, half-hearted. He is not steadfast and forceful in his stance when he speaks to her that it's easy for the Empress to disregard his wishes. As her child, whom she does everything for, he has far more power and influence over her than the Emperor but he never fully utilise it to help his brother.

There are so many things he can do to force his mother's hand without disrespecting her as his mother and Empress. For instance, he can ice her out, distance himself from her and refuse to show her affection until she stop mistreating Run Yu, or more importantly be more self-less and refuse to accept benefits and opportunities that comes to him because they were denied to his bother.

One scene in particular stood out to me and that was the last scene of episode 17 where they were discussing possible disturbance in the demon realm and how to resolve it. In that scene, both brothers contributed to the discussion and offered to go to the demon realm but with the Empress in the Emperor's ear the opportunity went to Xu Feng. Run Yu was ignored, like he wasn't even there and it showed in his face that he wasn't happy at all. This is one instance in which Xu Feng could have put his money where his mouth is and do his brother a solid by suggesting to his father that Run Yu goes instead, even if the Emperor refused, at least he tried. Given that Xu feng has been on countless mission and has proven himself, he has nothing to lose by doing this. He also knows that Run Yu is capable given the fact that they regularly come up with strategies together and from what I can see they both appear to be evenly matched in battle. However, Xu Feng is quite a self-involved person that the unfairness of the situation never even occurred to him and he happily accepted the opportunity that was handed to him. It is also clear that this is not the first time he has done this.

I do not doubt that he loves his brother but I feel like subconsciously, he enjoys the benefit of being the favoured child far too much to do anything of substance to help Run Yu.

I love Xu Feng. He's my favourite character but like his father, he is complicit in the mistreatment of Run Yu. He knows his mother is evil, abuse Run Yu, and has a shadow warrior which she uses to do her evil biddings yet he largely turns a blind eye to all of this. He does only the bare minimum to help his brother and hardly stands up to his mother. If his mom so much as express dissatisfaction with his questioning he immediately pipes down.
When you knowingly benefit from the inequality and discriminatory treatment of others and you do not speak out against it, you become complicit in their mistreatment. Honestly, the fact that Run Yu cares for Xu Feng at all, is a testament to what a good person he is.

COME HERE! Lol, It's small things like this that makes me love this drama.

Dong mae and the hotel lady are total bae. Wish the two will get together and leave Eugene and Lady Ae Sin alone.

Do people have it out for this drama or what? How can the rating be this low with just two eps subbed?!

No.

SAME! It took me a while to realise why she looked familiar. They really did her dirty on Man to Man. I remember people were commenting that she wasn't pretty enough to play the main female character smh.

This drama is not bad but its not great either. I honestly want to love it or at least like it more, but the story is no longer compelling and has become jumbled and long-winded that the earlier interest is no longer there. I just want it over and done with now. Unlike Ten Miles. its re-watch value is very low.
Its very unfortunate because from what I've read about the novel the drama would have been really good had they stayed true to the source material but due to Chinese regulations they couldn't. This is yet another sad example of how censorship stifles creative and ultimately success.

This is laughably bad. It's like watching a train wreck; you know it's terrible but you just can't look away.

PM me as well please :)

Why do most Korean dramas have to be 16 or 20 episodes? This drama would have been better with 12 episodes, especially given how simple the plot is. I disagree with most of the charges levelled against the characters but the length of the episodes did affect the quality of the writing. For me there was no need to bring Joon Hee's father back, unless he was going to atone for his wrongdoings and try to make it right so Jin Ah's mom will have no objections to their relationship. But none of that happened. It seems like Jin Ah just made Joon Hee forget about what his dad did and be on good terms with him without any resolution whatsoever. It's really disappointing that the wheels fell off towards the end because I really enjoyed the drama. The characters and the plot were a refreshing change from the typical Kdrama which I had fallen out of love with in the past year. Oh well, I'm still glad I watched the drama and would recommend it to others.