TaliaToo

Other dramas have the storyline. Maybe those might interest you more

And he looked so resignedly cute as he offered his hair, then his arm.

It takes me several rewatches to get all the conversation and details. I love scenes that make me question characters as I follow along. Wonderful viewers like you help me too! Thank you.

Like I said in my post, this version is a nice rewrite of the novel, which I do not recommend to those who are triggered by rape, especially by the protagonist. The book male protag is a total Black flag. Not even red. Black. I'm "pleased," like I said, and totally captivated with the drama adaptation.

Good point. Nice revision of original novel incident.

Evil Crown Prince minions!

I did. It gave me too much Wei Ying Luo reminders (embroidery was WYL's specialty), even to the prickling of her fingers and look of absolute concentration while the ML/2ML secretly watched. I think it's the whipping, haha. No one could steal that from these two.

It's up to the actor how he/she wants to interpret a scene. The director can give his input (unless it's Hitchcock) but the actor emotes as his own character. That is why there are dozens of versions of Hamlet. That's why we rewatch versions of crazy CEOs on Douyin doing the same drama script of mean CEOs over and over. It IS a WXY thing in all her dramas, even in understated ones like Royal Feast. I rewatch these dramas dozens of times because I love studying scenes and how they are directed/done by director vs actor.

Perhaps not idolish cute. Some don't like her raw inner anger. WXY's characters keep their anger inside until they explode in key scenes.
1) Yanxi Palace when the Empress died
2) The Double when she stabbed and screamed at the evil magistrate
3) KMLM I'm sure the explosion is coming--let's guess, hmm, when she finds out Murong is the Shadow Master perhaps? :D

Can we show some loving words for those dimples. He's the devil but he has dimples. #dies

Well, there is a scene in the novel where he carried her corpse around for three days.... I guess he was quite literal about this threat.... LOLOL

There seemed to be missing scenes from the drama. I'm pretty sure they met a few more times to play Go because of his familiarity with her style. It also goes with their first meeting of him offering her 50000 (Korean money) per game. Not one game.

Then that final scene of his tie after JJ's fall. It was at HIS construction company, I believe. Who made the meeting? DE. How did he know JJ was going there? I'm reading this as DE and DY planning this part of the revenge because both wanted to save the little girl from JJ's meddling forever.

LOL That's too Ying Luo for me, if you know what I mean. Heh.

In The Double, while we waited, we prepared tea because Duke Su loved his tea. In KMLM, I'm not sure--should we bring out our whips? Our automatic arrow-gun? Start biting each other while waiting? I can't decide.
LOLOLOLOL

Hou Ming Hou wouldn't have been able to handle this Hamlet role with that face heh.

His take on it, so far, is excellent. So is WJY's. I'm enjoying the way they have adapted the novel, which was very problematic for me, and I LOVE anti-heros and even this one was painful to read. So far, thumbs up to the drama-writers and director!

This is actually a story about a crime with flashbacks. So each character we meet, we get certain flashbacks and we get to piece the crime together from each one's POV. That's it LOL. So, in the end, this story is character-driven and not plot-driven. We know each character's main drive, including the villain, and we slowly know the past. Notice we still haven't seen the King's flashback. I have a feeling about the Captive Prince's flashbacks...but hey, just a conjecture, having not read the script.

No, I do not recommend reading this novel if one is triggered either. I read it. My question was mainly about the drama itself because I'm interested to see the drama's portrayal of this problematic book. So far, the whitewashing has been very well-done. I'm "pleased," for lack of a better word, with the direction of the anti-hero. The actors have made both the main characters more sympathetic and with just the right touch of crazy to grab my drama-loving heart.

Ah. Good point.

I know. I read the novel too. I'm asking about how it's portrayed in the drama in Episode 1 because I wanted to see how the others viewed it :).