Your Girl

What Makes a Heroine? A Reflection on Ye Pingjun

I consider The Lament of Autumn a masterpiece, albeit one with its flaws. What I particularly love about this drama is how deeply it draws you into the lives of its characters. It is an immersive experience where you don't just watch their emotions unfold; you feel them. Every joy, frustration, heartbreak and disappointment somehow becomes yours.

Interestingly, much of the conversation surrounding this drama has centred on Yu Changxuan, who is also a favourite of mine. I particularly admire Cheng Lei as an actor, and his performance in this drama is yet another reason to appreciate his talent. However, I want to take a different direction with this review. I want to talk about Ye Pingjun.

What makes a heroine?

Ye Pingjun starts out strong, bold and clear-headed. These attributes were a major part of her appeal at the beginning of the drama. However, as the story progressed, I began to notice how subtly these very qualities were taken away from her.

Her assertiveness, which initially made her admirable, gradually became overbearing in the eyes of some viewers. This was particularly evident in the scene where she slapped Yu Changxuan, having misunderstood his visit to the refugees. Those who had initially rooted for her boldness began to find her too much.

It made me question the purpose of this character shift. Was it necessary to make us gradually accept her seeming irrationality? Meanwhile, Yu Changxuan's character arc was being developed progressively, and I would argue that this happened, to some extent, at the expense of Ye Pingjun's character.

Was the drama beginning to push a gender contrast, or am I overthinking it?

Now, back to the question: what makes a heroine?

Ye Pingjun, despite being widely unappreciated as a character, is someone I see differently. I see her, I understand her, and I empathise with her as a woman. To me, she represents many women of her era.

Does a woman's story become irrelevant simply because she cannot achieve the traditional heroine's victory? Must a heroine always win, overcome every obstacle and emerge triumphant for her story to matter?

I think The Lament of Autumn attempted to show us the rather pitiful circumstances of women in that era. And while I believe the drama did not execute this message particularly well, I could see what it was trying to portray.

Ye Pingjun tried. She had dreams, aspirations and ambitions. She wanted to win. She wanted to become something beyond what society had already decided a woman could be. But she was held back, repeatedly, by circumstances beyond her control.

One of those circumstances, ironically, came in the form of Yu Changxuan, a man who wanted to love her but, for much of the story, could not understand what loving her truly meant.

She knew that being with this man, under the conditions he demanded, could cost her the very dream she was fighting to achieve. She did not want to be reduced to simply being Lady Pingjun, a woman defined by her relationship with a powerful man. She wanted to be more. She wanted to write, to be recognised, to have her work read far and wide. She wanted an identity of her own.

But Changxuan wanted her. He wanted to have her, even when having her meant caging her.

He himself acknowledged that he could not offer her the pure love, equality and respect she deserved. It was only towards the end that he began to understand what it meant to love her in a way that did not diminish her.

And this is where I find Ye Pingjun's story particularly heartbreaking. Her struggle reflects that of many women of her time who dared to dream of freedom, independence and a life beyond the limitations imposed on them.

Yu Changxuan got to live through his dreams. His ambitions, achievements and personal journey were clearly woven into his character arc. But what about Pingjun?

Even when she seemed to have developed feelings for him, she struggled to accept him fully. She resisted acknowledging him and giving him her heart, perhaps because, on some level, she understood what surrendering herself to that relationship could mean for the person she wanted to become.

Then comes another development: she becomes his wife, loses her memory and gradually assumes the identity of the gentle, seemingly perfect Lady Pingjun. The wife of a deputy general, loved and adored, standing behind her husband.

Yes, she is loved. Yes, she is cherished. But she is now at home.

And I find that incredibly sad.

This was not the Ye Pingjun we were introduced to at the beginning of the drama. This was not the woman whose boldness, dreams and ambitions first drew us to her. It felt as though the woman who wanted to make a name for herself had been replaced by the woman society expected her to become.

To me, this is where her story reflects the fate of so many women of that era.

So, I ask again: does her struggle, her inability to attain her original desires, and her failure to become the prominent writer she dreamed of being make her any less of a heroine? Does it make her story irrelevant?

Absolutely not.

Her story matters precisely because she tried. Because she wanted more. Because she fought, even when the circumstances surrounding her made winning almost impossible.

I believe the drama eventually gives us a glimpse of her achieving her dream, albeit much later than I would have liked. She finally gets to pursue that ambition beside her husband, rather than simply existing behind him. It is a development I appreciate, but I cannot help feeling that the drama could have done so much more to communicate her individual journey.

And that, for me, is one of its biggest shortcomings.

The drama did not effectively establish Ye Pingjun's perspective as an independent narrative. As a result, many viewers ended up interpreting her entire story as a complicated love story with Yu Changxuan. Meanwhile, Changxuan's journey is presented much more clearly as both a love story and a story of personal ambition, dreams and achievements.

Why couldn't Pingjun receive the same narrative attention?

I choose to celebrate Ye Pingjun. I choose to empathise with her, not necessarily because I agree with every decision she made, but because I understand the woman behind those decisions. I understand the dreams she was trying to protect and the life she was struggling to build.

She may not have been the conventional triumphant heroine, but that does not make her any less worthy of being celebrated.

Despite its storytelling flaws, The Lament of Autumn remains a drama I would seriously recommend, particularly to viewers who are not necessarily looking for a fluffy romance but are willing to engage with a story that provokes thought, invites questions and leaves you reflecting long after the final episode.

I will definitely be rewatching it.