bnl

As much as I love dramas, this is one of the hardest parts for me over the years. Seeing how toxic/abusive/controlling behaviors are normalized in dramas and how commenters just eat it up.

The difference is that, with Han, it was still her choice. By asking her parents, her parents would ask her, and, even though she was agreeing out of love for her parents, she was still agreeing. With Lin, there was no choice. And, by going to the emperor, Lin made it an irrefutable, irreversible choice of his own - and his alone.

Also, with Han, she'd have much more daily freedom AND be able to live right next to her parents, which is her top priority. With Lin, she gets locked in a gilded cage away from her parents and, now with going to the capital, even further away from them.

There seems to be a lack of critical thinking here. The core theme of this drama is literally women's agency, survival, and freedom within a patriarchal society. Any good drama has people analyzing and picking it apart - because it's making them think and consider things on a deeper level of values and morals.

You "demanding" that people should drop a drama just because their viewpoint disagrees with yours is childish and Trumpian.

The peony one with Yang Zi was pretty long.

Ah this reminds me: He purposely drank from her cup when she got drunk after saving the Lin family from the "pandemic." It was subtly done but I just knew he used her cup on purpose.

People definitely get blinded by a hot ML and/or projecting their own unfulfilled romantic desires into dramaland.

It's like: Take a man you know in your life that you don't have any feelings for. And imagine you've just been forced to marry him. AND he didn't ask you or your parents - he didn't even TALK to you about it! AND you were just beginning to enjoy a fully free life and beginning to have a dream of becoming a playwright - but this marriage forces you into a family structure that would reduce your daily freedoms AND remove your ability to pursue your own dreams. BONUS his family looks down on you and has hurt you in the past! AND you get the great responsibility of having to take care of them and all their BS! AND ABOVE ALL: there is absolutely no way out of this marriage (bc emperor's word is not only law - but law that cannot be taken back). How would you feel then?

I definitely shed a few tears during that scene. Acted so well with just non-verbal too - all the history, all the feels, all that's unsaid and doesn't need to be said.

"her resistance to giving him a chance is literally due to being part of the Shen family." I don't think this is the sole reason. I think it's multi-layered.

It's that (1) he's Lin and there's something bitter in that the family discarded her and her family the first time on their whim and then now forcibly taking her a second time on his whim, (2) that he didn't even talk to (much less ask!) her or her parents ahead of the marriage decree, and (3) she was FREE. Being his wife in a family like his is NOT freedom; it's being thrown back into a cage. Sure, she's not the maid this time, but it's a cage nonetheless.

I think @jcg's comment above yours captures it well: "she has zero romantic feelings for him and he just snatched her in marriage without her parent's consents or hers. I think she considers it highly disrespectful so she felt no obligation to be nice or gracious about it."

I think there's trauma/pain still but not enough to influence her actions - if that were the case, she would've acted out a long time ago while she was a slave.

Well said! Also the drama ITSELF is trying to make a point about all this (women's lack of agency and freedom over their own lives in a patriarchal system) but some people seem to just want to put their heads in the sand.

I think, conversely, being raised by the dowager, so close to the ultimate seat of power actually reinforces this black-and-white thinking. That's why we have so many palace politics/power play dramas! When you've been raised around people that "high up", you're not only surrounded by people who did dirty deeds to gain their power (like the old emperor who just died) but it's constantly reinforced that dirty deeds ARE the way to get power. Commoners and slaves actually have wider view of the world. For example, when Lanxiang asked for her and her family to be freed and the Madam's reaction was shock (like, Why would you want that?!). It shows how out of touch with reality people get the higher up you go.

And to your question: At the end of the day, men hold all the power in Ancient China. The dowager still has to defer to the Emperor and likely others when it comes down to it. The dowager doesn't really have political say most of the time. And also she's not related to the dowager at the end of the day - her father is. And I don't think this lady felt powerless - it's that she is taught and surrounded by examples that "power = doing dirty deeds to get them." That's how the emperor who died came into power and it's how her father retains power - killing/hurting others.

Agreed! I saw an interview with the (badass) director who said that she wanted to portray things as realistically as possible. I really appreciate that about this drama too. In later episodes, there were some more scenes/lines that I've never heard spoken in other dramas, which really shed a light on the reality for unfortunate women and they hit me hard. The drama doesn't shy away from it.

For the FL, the way I see it: She loves her (adoptive) parents. Everything she's done and continues to do is for them. So, at ep 13, it's mostly about survival and doing good deeds for the Lin family so that she and her family can eventually ask to be free. She does know who ML is and, whether she holds a grudge, I think it's complicated. She doesn't hold a grudge in wanting revenge but the hurt/pain/trauma/bitterness is definitely still there. Irregardless, she's focused on freeing herself and her family at this stage.

I need a modern drama with this hair!

When was this hair and how do we bring it back?? https://media.suara.com/pictures/970x544/2024/10/18/48150-liu-xue-yi.jpg

Oh my lordy, came across this photo of LXY with longer hair and 🫠. Boy should wear his hair like this every day: https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcSTop7KvNdgvA-2zcyTJaePko5RprwOEFUwticFQ8NWKocKWSq3LngxIld9&s=10

It's actually good. With all the crap dramas being churned out in the last few years, China government locked down in 2026 and decreed that dramas need to focus on quality storytelling instead of just farming celebrities.

So, unlike most scripts, where only the first few episodes are written in advance and the rest is written (typically rushed/haphazardly) the day of or right before shooting the scene, the cast held script readings for a week, where they had time to ask questions, raise any objections, and have everyone analyze and discuss them together, which actually allows the actors to prepare in-depth. This is the way that pre-production should go and China is now starting to enforce and value this.

Production also spent 4 months on artistic design and 8 months building a 40-acre physical set, which is unusual compared to how the majority of cdramas have been made the last few years, which, again, shows that they're put time and actual thought and artistry into this production.

It would be MORE out of character for her to acknowledge them and put on an act. Those who truly cross her, she has no qualms about throwing it back. Jinqj has hurt her and his family has hurt her since the beginning of the drama. Her silence was her making a stand - that she did not choose this, that this is not okay, and that she is not complicit. That she knows that they aren't happy about it, and that they should know she isn't happy about it either. To pretend otherwise is dishonest and she's always been straightforward. The only exception is when she was a literal slave who had to survive. But this is no longer the case here.

If she had instead gone along with it and kowtowed and all that, what do you expect to have happened - the elders would've accepted her? No. They would've disrespected her/refused to drink the soup all the same and it would have put her in a "lesser"/groveling position than if she just stood her ground, as she did.

Her silence is her saying, I have been disrespected. I give respect where respect is due, but, today--in front of this family and under these circumstances--is not that day.

Amen!!! (And I hope she uses her new status to save Jiu'er.)

THIS. 💯

That isn't always correct since I think someone has to go in and set those. In the calendar schedule thread, others will post the WeTV schedule and it shows that we'll be getting two eps per day for the next week, yay!