Skibbies

The romance is central to the story but not the focus. It's also kind of unusual in that there aren't much conventional fluff. Def no secondary couple that gets focus. Have you seen Nirvana in Fire? There's more otp scenes than that but it's also the level of romance focus you can probably expect.

The misunderstanding pile up in last few episodes was definitely goddammit. I sort of see what they were going for, if they had more episodes, it probably could have made it transition better.

The father-son relationship have been splendid throughout the drama and I loved them a lot (between Emperor and his other sons too). The supporting cast is ace.

Ethan is too sleazy for them, esp in the beginning, (it's his smirk) there are more people who like him than Yang Mi though, I think he's fine, even though his face pulls me out of the drama sometimes orz. The starting (mostly drama original) arc is bit slow + they damseled Fuyao and she comes off as a fairly tropey character. It can feel pretty predictable. The OTP casting really doesn't match the book and their characterisations are pretty different. I think the drama got better but people don't stick around dramas for 10, 20 episodes for it to get better. The way it fused characters and arcs were pretty well done but for a female lead drama, some of the female characters were pretty terribly written (my bby Ya Lanzhu! Pei Yuan also had more depth and shorter appearance in the book, ) The pacing could also be bit better.

There was a huge fuss about the initial test where Fuyao name was put into the cauldron plagiarising harry potter (it's drama original), but that was a serious stretch to me (as a harry potter fan, neutral towards actors), it was probably antis picked up by various popular ent weibo that fueled the hate.

Yang Mi have lot of antis because she tend to act in a lot of "idol" drama and doesn't necessarily improve her acting, and she gets into a lot of scandal/drama, basically overexposure and bad rep. She also was CG'ed in/use a lot of standins for scenes, which spells unprofessional sooo (I don't know if this is true or not). This is the third drama I've seen her in, I think she was decent in it? As long as you don't pull me out of the drama, it's fine. and she doesn't.

Douban is pretty harsh towards cdrama in general, esp if it features any actors that rely on a large fanbase (lots of fans and antis that skew ratings + their companies buying ratings) Anyways, I wouldn't rate the drama 4, but I wouldn't rate it 8 either, let along close to 9.

The others have more suffering or just sad endings. She likes to write realistic-ish characters and relationship, so none of it is fluffy.

Yeah it's that novel. Probably the happiest of her novels, come to think of it.

not really. I'm still stuck in this drama hell, trying to finish some previous dramas I started too. I'm generally pretty picky about cdramas and none of the ones I like are romance focused. My recent favourites are My Huckleberry Friends (realistic-ish ensemble high school drama) and Die Now (interesting games like liar games). Tienstin Mystic is interesting too though not a fav (neat crime solving drama with fair bits of chinese mysticism, plot gets messy near the end though).

I think it's absolutely marvelous, but it's a very different drama from Ashes of Love (or most cdramas you see tbh).

He was a very fun character, though at times he was little jarring because he felt like he belonged in another drama (he was in the middle of court while they were suspecting Ning Yi isn't a prince. or anytimes Ning Yi and Zhiwei are at the same place, he just can't follow along. poor kid)
RIP on the last episode, if it helps, there's some very nice acting scenes in there?

She didn't really have a choice. She HAD to be become a Tiansheng princess so that Shaoning wouldn't have to marry to a foreign country, marrying to Jinshi is like the only way she could live. Of course, that might not matter to Helian Zheng, which is why she's blunt about her refusal. She specifically went to battle when they married (the excuse was to help him stablise his position, but they just got married.) He knows about her feelings but he still feels indignant, which is fair but why does she get blamed for acting how she always have been?

I've seen her getting blamed for smiling and being nice to Helian Zheng and Ning Yi saw, she was literally doing her job as an empress and she still got hate, a girl can't win.

I think the ending make sense for her characterisation. Where it fails is she doesn't see through everyone's evil plot and schemes, it feels like she's caught in a whirlwind and couldn't get out. which IS what essentially happened, but for a better audience experience, they could use far less sudden events. I just don't think her character was the only one that suffered. Like christ, what was that Helian Zheng death, excuse me? He died to cause more last minute misunderstanding? What an insult to his character.

For Yang Mi, only RoCH is wuxia and she had a guest role. TMPoB and Chinese Paladin are both xianxia which is different. Fuyao toned down its wuxia elements significantly that it ends up being less wuxia-ish than Chinese Paladin.

I thought she was fine towards Helian Zheng, she's just very blunt about her refusal. She's pretty blunt in general. I think she was hoping that he wouldn't dwell on her. I'm not sure why you think she's a whiner? snivelling I probably agree with since she end up crying a lot (thanks scriptwriters!), self centered is debatable, she's no more self centered than any other characters in the drama., they are all pretty flawd and that's what I like about the drama. I do think the execution of the last 7 episodes pretty terrible since it needed far more build up and foreshadowing for lot of the characterisations to work.

李添诺 Li Tian Nuo. He did an incredibly good job for what amounts to a guest role. I saw people wishing he played Jin SiYu or 4th prince. https://weibo.com/tiannuo https://movie.douban.com/celebrity/1334556/

More of a general comment. Our protagonists in this drama tend to screw up more than you expect, in this case, Headmaster Xin was trying to damage control the entire time, and turn the situation to be more favourable towards Ning Yi even when it got out of hand. I really like multiple parties with different priorities here clashing tbh, even on "our side", Xin and Ning Yi and mum and Zhiwei all have their own agendas.

Yeah, He Lei is right, he's pretty new to the industry and is managed by Chen Kun's company. No one made a page for him yet I guess. This is his weibo: https://www.weibo.com/u/1087757850

The book is constantly referred as mary sue book on Chinese internet. It pops up a fair bit in drama discussion when people mention the book. I mostly poke around douban and weibo. If you are talking about where you can read the novel, just look up 凰权, there's txt and read online sites floating around.

Zhiwei actually studied for years but yeah she's intelligent and have values that's not really from her time period. She does look like a young boy while crossdressing though so I have little qualms with that, especially when I think her teacher just teach her. She did some dumb stuff in the beginning. Some of it is from the book (she's more overpowered in the book so it's just a thing). She only has two love interest in the drama, Ning Yi and Helian Zheng, the other people all have their own agenda and aren't love interests?

Ahhh it's just a common arcetype because that's what gets past SARFT. especially his characterisations as an emperor near the end. It's not that he's so good at revenge, let's go for the throne. It's more power is a means for revenge (as it was in the book), and he was pushed onto the path for the throne because of people that worked for him. It's also the only way to ensure Zhiwei is safe. (this isn't really clear in the drama but it's his motivation in the book and Ning Yi does want both power and love around ep 50).

It was slated for 50 then expanded for 70 episodes. They shoot that much content because they don't know what would pass. I honestly think they have to take quite a bit of responsibility on how the drama came out.

@appleeye: Novels go through different authorities from dramas. Movies are subjected to different restrictions too. Prime time and historical dramas are the strictest, and they gotten stricter this year, it's a miracle this drama even aired. Both Yanxi and Ruyi were shooting for tv slot, but neither could get past the restrictions so they aired online. Also it was originally a web novel, from 2010, less restrictions then, less restrictions online.

Your description of Ning Yi fits novel Ning Yi to a tee. He is more defined as the drama goes, he didn't actually want the the throne in the beginning, he just wanted revenge. He's pretty consistent throughout the drama, he probably kept the most out of everyone from the book, but a more toned down version with added weakness.

As for Zhiwei, she is an entirely different person from the book one. I actually think it was interesting they decided she could see past revenge, and it fits her more, she's not ruthless like in the book and she never felt like she was part of Dacheng. More importantly, this OTP had trust for the most of the drama, the book OTP only had trust in Minhai and it was promptly broken via unfortunate circumstances. I have gazillion gripes about the last 10 episodes so I'll leave it. She's basically powerless though (because they couldn't let her revive her kingdom. ugh), and even then she's not passive. she saved herself in Dayue. She's less consistently written than Ning Yi, for sure but I think her characterisation holds till uhh idk ep 65? The effects of all those people dying just gradually take their hold on her instead of immediate which is how that ending happened. She take deaths lot harder than book Zhiwei and blame herself more.

idk why you call this Zhiwei Mary Sue tbh. Is it because she's smart but naive? splunky and daring doesn't really go against that, it's part of being young. I mean, it's a common archetype but it's not...sue-ish. It's just little funny because I've had to consistently defend the novel for being mary sue (lots of love interest, OP, too pretty she has to cover her face, lots of descriptions about apperances and flowery language)

The comparison to NiF is largely because the initial arc had similarities. It's also a rare political drama that semi appeal to younger audience, thus the comparison. That and because NiF have become the recent year historical drama standards. Its themes are pretty different though.

Apologies. the nope is meant to mean it's a sad ending. Some people think it's ambiguous but I think that's wishful thinking. The drama uses the about half the novel as framework with sprinkles of the 3rd arc, the characterisations are also pretty different.

Nope. The novel have a happy ending though so people have been using that to smooth over things.

The synopsis is actually kind of misleading because it's novel synopsis, and the drama focus is on Ning Yi. You are definitely going to get that arc in next 3 episode though.