Say_do

I would not say that he is the best to me though. Especially not after this year of some remarkable cdrama male leads. If they left him as he was in the novel, then he'd be in the running.
But if we take him as an original character, not affiliated with the novel, then he's good. I like that the drama is very loosely adapted in the entire story because then I did not build an expectation that would be eventually crushed, and I can for the most part, watch freely as a new story.

I think they did a good job adapting Yining's character. First they had to work with the age difference from what it was in the novel. She is twice the age of her original in the beginning. And then they had to factor in their somewhat different circumstances. In the novel, Yining was a menace, but she was never chased out of the house. She lived with her grandma that spoiled her rotten and then Lin Hairu that loved her to bits and also spoiled her. Their family situation was also different. They were a provincial official family, not a reputable family in the capital. And the first branch had more power. Also her father did not have much power in their home either. So even though he did not like her, he could not do much to her.

Shenyuan was hated by his family because his mother was vicious. His father has two maids and slept with the two of them. I believe they both got pregnant. But the thing was that the ml's mother killed the other maid. They would have killed his mother and all, but Gu Minglan begged for her because of the child in her womb. So that was how he was born.
After some more years, Gu Minglan gave birth to Yining and she had Shenyuan carry her a couple of times when she was a baby. That was when he grew fond of her. She used to hold on to him and everything. But then Minglan died shortly after and no one took care of Shenyuan again. Mining was doted on by her grandma because she had no mother and she was spoiled rotten. She grew up to be a menace and caused trouble for everyone, especially Shenyuan. Interestingly, Shenyuan did not harm her. He took care of her and everything even after all the things she did to him. That was because he remembered how she was as a baby, so he could not hate her. But she was the only person he liked in that family.

Once, someone sent him a maid that had a habit of disrespecting him. Do you know what he did? He bore it, after all, he had been bearing the scorn of the family for many years, so he was used to not showing any reaction. But this was a maid, so he went out one day and came back with a wild dog that he casually released. The dog mauled that maid to death. When the grandma asked him about it, he did not shy away from it and defend himself as having the right to do it. That was when the grandma started hating him.
Shenyuan read volumes on torture methods for interrogation and used them. He was especially a master at using the whip to torture people. He was not nice, not kind, but was rather cruel and ruthless and everyone knew. He did not beg his family or act like he was subservient to them or at their mercy. He did not make anyone thing of him as pitiful or beg for their trust. He just did what he wanted and was cold and indifferent. They could not read him and they kept away from him.

Seeing what they made Luo Shenyuan in the adaptation was fine because the drama and the novel barely have any similarities. But then Kill Me Love Me dropped and the last four episodes of this show dropped and I'm a little annoyed.
They did not just water down his character, this is a completely new person. Novel Shenyuan does not identify with drama Shenyuan in any way at the moment. We've not seen much of Lu JiaXue, but we can tell he is cunning. In the novel, only Shenyuan was a match for him and vice versa. Here, the only vibe I am getting from the ml is that he is smart. Not ruthless, cunning , menacing or cold.

She was actually 14 and he was 21 when they got married. Their age gap in the novel was 7 years. And it was not an ideal situation because they were all trying to save her. The emperor saw her and wanted her for himself and so her father lied that she was already betrothed since childhood, but because she had not yet come of age, she had not yet gotten married. So they had to look for a suitable to candidate to marry her off quickly before the emperor found out their lie, punished their family and forcefully took her.
And Shenyuan made a promise to her family that he was not going to consummate their marriage until she became of age.

When she was 7, they just built the foundations of all the relationships between all the people. No romance or feelings of any sort was involved. She was also really chubby because the child liked to eat a lot and when she came into her body, her very doting grandma, stepmom and sister liked to feed her a lot lol. Even Shenyuan. No one was happy when she lost weight or ate a little bit lmaoo. So she remained round. She was just adorable.
I wanted to throw all the men to jail. What do you mean you think she's good looking? Even that alone offended me lol.

Yes it is. And I especially like that they gave a second happy ending for the one that lost.

Yes. They changed a lot about the characters. This adaptation is very loosely based.

I don't think people that are very sensitive can actually read the novel. I did not have it in mind that I was reading a romance, but a story. Even I struggled with some things. This is the 2nd novel this year that has made me face the very hard realities of those times.

I don't know about the drama, but in the novel, his nature was not the actual reason. Him being somewhat abusive and being all out obsessive is a product of his great misfortune. It is actually really heartbreaking. It's not like the ml was much better than him in that regard. They were both obsessed with her, and she was extremely attached to the one she loved. If things went the normal or right way, then everything would have been okay, but terrible things happened.

In the novel, it started when she was 7, almost 8. She was actually much older, but her spirit had been reborn into the body of Luo Yining, who was actually her namesake as well. And this was when this little Yining fell into a pool and died. So her spirit entered her body. Shenyuan, the ml, was 7 years older. He caught feelings for her when she was about 12 and he was 19. And many other older guys about his age and even older kept lusting after her even from that young age.
If all those things, the feelings and relationships happened when she was even 15, it would have been more acceptable.

The age gap to me was fine, especially for the historical setting. But this is when looking at the age difference as a number ALONE. Her age with all that happened in the relationships and romance departments had me very bothered. I truly wanted to arrest all the males in the novel.

After the first episode, I am now mentally separating myself from the novel because this looks like it is very very very loosely based on it. I like this method of making it a loose adaptation from the start so that I don't build an expectation and get disappointed later. There are many things I wondered how they'd write because of censorship. I hope it's good all the way through.

I think he found out about her not being blood related when she was like 10 years old, when grandma passed away. But he was not in love with her then. It was after he left for a few years and came back that he caught feelings for her. Although he was fond of her when they were younger because she was the only one that cared about him.
What he said was that he still would have had those improper feelings even if he did not know that they were not blood related.

Lin Hairu was my 2nd fav character in the novel, after Yining. She was so cute and wonderful lol.
I'm glad they changed the ages (not like they really had a choice not to lol) because at some point, till the end, while reading the book, I kept on saying "straight to jail." Left to me, all the male characters, except Yining's father, would have been in lockup.

I was talking about the execution. The original comment for this threat described the holes in the execution and I was talking about ho well done it was in the novel that it made more sense there.

They changed so much for the drama adaptation. And there is one important thing about WZ's sufferings that led to his ending that they removed. It makes sense for the drama, but they still could have done a better build up in the drama.

I don't really know about the drama because I am out of the loop, but in the novel, Tang Yang dated someone for a year. Someone that was a mutual friend of theirs from high school. But they had a bad break up.
Jiang Shiyan dated two people. One they showed in yesterday's episodes, and another one when he went on an exchange program in Taiwan.

I read it, but I am not happy about it. The build up to the ending in the novel was so well done, and the ending was also well done. Reading the comment about what happened seems lacklustre and with all the things they changed and destroyed, I was not interested in a sad ending for the drama.
In the novel, WZ was very very injured. And since he was running out of time and was basically ambushed with PY, he saved PY in such a way as to make it seem like WZ was the one that plotted the rebellion and PY got very injured trying to stop him. And he held down the forte with the emperor so that they would perish together. At that point, he actually had no intention of saving himself. But you will only feel the weight of that if you followed the novel and heard all his thoughts, even at the last moment. So it makes so much sense there.

I need to learn my lesson. Why do I still read the novel before watching the show?
But I really really really can't help myself. I was so firm about not reading the novel for this show and I almost made it, but I still fell for an age old trick from my brain and succumbed lmaooo.