brunhilda

It seems to me that his conflict is with society, not within. Embroidery his love and his calling, his safe heaven and connection to the one healthy relationship he had. And because of embroidery being a female craft, he was laughed at and ridiculed. Same as for his merchant status.
Thus, he decides to take his revenge on society – by raping all the young ladies.
His conflict is reduced to class struggle (primary) and toxic gender roles (secondary). Fine, it´s a Chinese drama, I should have expected that. at least it was done gently and naturally, not as artificial propagandistic bullshit.

My issue lies with this – up to that point his main character traits seemed to be perceived impotence and hatred towards women. - The fact he uses embroidery, a traditionally female craft (one of the few things women can use to gain some level of independence and he steals it and makes career out of it – this aspect is more important on the conceptual level fo the story, then on the character level, I guess). The academy his personal garden, the adoration of those girls he carefully cultivates, the rapes, the treatment of his wife (the more she tries to endear herself to him, the colder he gets), how much energy he puts into stopping and belittling any women who doesn’t submit to him, etc. etc. -
I guess it could be tied to his “low self-esteem” to use Rulan´s words. He feels too weak to attack anybody else but the weakest (in his eyes) members.

But… it still seems lacking somewhat. You don’t become serial rapist just to take revenge on society.
I just can´t see where this hatred towards women, this lack of power in relations to women, the perceived impotence comes from. Because the rapes are about power, not sex. And more often than not, the girls didn’t say a thing. It was not the family who suffered, just the girls (given their age, this term is more appropriate than women). On surface level he can explain it to himself as revenge on society but in reality – based on what the story showed us till this point – his attention was on the girls. That´s why he wrote their names, not the family names on those flowers. That´s why he chose girls from all over the society, not just those from families above his station. Etc. etc. They were not means to an end; they were the goal.

In his childhood he had two forming relationships:
Parents – mother merchant, father useless scholar. They argued a lot. She domineering and gaudy. He had to rely on her for money. No career to speak of. But in terms of argument, they were sort of on equal footing. I would expect the father to be completely incompetent and powerless. In relation to outside world as well as towards the wife. That was not the case.

Then there is Concubine Wu as the traditional demure female victim resigned to her fate. For Wu Lian she was the bastion of healthy emotions and safety and all the good in the world. She never lost this position. They broke apart due to outside forces, she retained her innocence in his eyes.

I don’t know, the explanations just… seems lacking.

Or is the hatred supposed to be explained by the fact that his wife was not a virgin when she married him… when he figured out the only reason she married him was because of her tarnished maidenhood, his ego took such a blow, he decided to rape all the virgins he could get his hands on? This one escaped me but not anybody else? It would also fit with the toxic masculinity aspect he embodies (despite his lack of most traditionaly masculine traits - is it supposed to be overcompensation?) If so... it truly doesn’t sit well with me at all. It would tie nicely to the class struggle aspect too, I guess, but… it feels wrong?

If anybody can offer any insights, I would appreciate it.

I have a question about the Wu Lian origin story. So far (ep 20) I enjoyed every moment of this drama, its topic and the way they handled it, but there is something I struggle with in terms of the man´s past...

I agree with you in all four parts of your comment and in general have no trouble with any of the tropes mentioned. Hard to not be fond of tropes when one likes to watch chinese dramas.

My issue with with particular show is not about using tropes, the problems for me lie in using them... superficially and carelessly, I guess. It relied too much on viewer´s suspension of bisbelief. We are told the FL is clever and resourceful, yet she gets into such ridiculous mess half anepisode in? We are told she hates ML, yet gets constantly dragged by him left and right? To prove the ML is strong and capable, we get a sword fight that´s in reality just ridiculous? (And the beam-cutting??) It´s just lazy execution and bad writing - FL gets into the mess just to be dramatically saved, she can´t get rid of the creeper coz he is ML, etc etc. It´s rude towards the characters and the viewers, in my opinion.
And yes, this is a fantasy drama, I do not expect anything profound, artistically or intelectually challenging but I still think we should hold them to certain standards (I do, and then get angry wehn the shows set themselves such a low bar)

My jab at alternative show with the FL leaving was not about me wanting her to be strong independent lady (as you said, this is romance). What I have issues with is the couple dynamic. She repeateadly says no, he ignores her and forces himself into her life again and again. That is not romantic, it´s just unpleasant (to put it mildly). I get there are people who enjoy this sort of dynamic - the overprotective, controlling man & damsely lady. Personally, it always rubs me the wrong way - thus my harsh language in original comment. And in this particular show - it didnt fit with the set personalities. Plus, personaly - those two characters were not well-matched and I couldnt imagine them together, i.e. she deserved much better that a controlling show-of who would impose his image of her past(child at that)self on her.
**side note: you have shows where this dynamic - the protective man, damsely lady - is done right, i.e. doesnt come of as perpetuating certain unhelathy stereotypes. Of the top of my head: Story of MingLan - he saves her a lot and yet, you can see they are matched, there is mutual respect etc , etc. Love betweeen fairy and thedevil (bubbly weak young, bitter strong guy) and again affection, respect tdd (there were some issues in terms of respecting her wishes but nothing too jarring). Eternal love with Nini (same vein, even though I had issues with the ending a bit); I think Joy of life couple was this sort of thing?**

Another - very very important - reason why I am so miffed about this particular drama are false promises. We all know dramaland has many many issues, the ridiculous beauty standards one of them. Therefore, when i got a first FL who has obvious facial scarring who is promised to be clever and independent, I got my hopes up. Then, not three episodes in, she gets swapped with the embodiment of all the toxic beuaty standards (this is not meant as an attack on the actress, the issue lies with the industry; she - as all the others - has to comply to be succesful).... that is in my book false advertising if I want ot be very polite, if not - i would call it spitting on anybody who ever complained about this issue).

Couldnt manage more than two episodes, whichdoesnt seem enough for a review, but i do need to vent, so....
Problems in randomorder:
mary sue characters, lack of character integrity (clever and resourceful female lead - so we are told in the first 10 minutes of the show - turning into docile idiot the moment male lead enters the scene), holey plot, melodrama and ridiculously farfetched high stakes for the FL resolved in a ridiculous fashion by the ML. Conflict created by moronic and improbablemisunderstandings.
Forceful ML who doesnt take no for an answer. Yay. The attempt at detective case laughable. The idiotic fight at the end of episode one done for no other purpose just to let the ML wave his sword around. His cutting part of the support beam/rafter (what do you call it)... what? why? how? have you all gone mad?! The obssessed sister? really, in this day and age??? Thewholecrap with plastic surgery??? REally? Even attacking the mayor with hummus seems more plausible than this crap.

Fine... now for something more coherent.
As with many other dramas - it seems as if the creators just picked desirable/popular tropes and mashed them together in hope of commercial success without bothering to consider how they would fit together character of plotwise. Because the plot-said-so the end all be all reasoning for anything happening on the screen. Additional reasonings include: up the melodrama and make the ML look cool. The initial push-and-pull between the main couple was cut short, forced and so ooc it was in another village, thus turning ML into a very probelmatic stalker with no respect for the lady and her into a very stupid creature not worth anybody´s attention. Maybe it was just bad execution, maybe they didnt want to spend too much time on the push-and-pull bc it was just exposition.

Positives - visually nice. That´s it. That´s the only positive thing I can think of...
The FL scarring is done properly, not just a tiny nick in an nonvisible area... and then she dies and gets a new dainty body.... as i didnt know anything about the novel, it made me angry - i would enjoy the scarred FL very much. Alas, naive of me to think such a thing would be possible... Aaah. Now, I want to watch a story with with first FL. SHe would pack the moment the idiotic ML arrives and leave and starts a happy life somewhere else. She gets a career and uncovers some conspiracies and actually uses her brain and finds somebody who will respect and cherrish her even with the scarring and body mass of adult woman instead of 5yo. The original ML reduced to occasional pathetic villain. In later half he can get a redemption arc where he learns very painfully that his opinion doesnt matter and other human beings have agency. Aaa, such a nice show! :)

I know this is chinese drama, so it´s understandable, but in ep17 I really expected them to start singing the Internationale...

waiting for Godot II

I did not read the book, so I wonder ow similar/different it is – in story, ambience, etc- More of "inspired by", "based on" or - how novel! - faithful adaptation?

Apart from the quality (as was already said, the young school-boy-looking-actors are usually not even actors), is it not similar to actresses - i.e. simple stereotypes about what is inn an alluring? If you are famous (which can - but does not always has to - mean good), you can/want only play the main lead. If you are main lead, you cannot be old (which in dramaland often means above 25 maybe a bit more for men), because being "old" is the ultimate failure and not attractive enough in this industry. It is more drastic with female actors - avenueX has a nice video about this - but even male ones are not completely free from this juvenile trend.
Personally, I think it is a shame. The range of characters and consequently storylines is greatly reduced if your hero can only be a young vigorous youth trying to accomplish his dreams. It gets quite repetitive for the audience and I bet it has to be quite boring for the actors too.

She is an actress - it is not about having such and such face but being able to portrait a given role (normally appearance and personality can differ quite a lot). I would recommend watching story of minglan, you can see that she uses this discrepancy between looking young and naive and being opposite to create very interesting, and complex (in some scenes not far from scary) experience for the viewer.