grapejuice

BS ...

Apparently the episode was well received in China so maybe the cultural bit is important and it only looks like a weird ass thing to some of us who don't know the cultural bit.

Oh my you keep torturing yourself with this question but we won't know until the whole thing is over.

JinQi's father may have tried to convince him that serving the emperor was an honor. It may have been a standard wisdom of the day. But his grandfather knew better and tried to warn him away from the capital and working for the emperor.

It's just that things kinda snuck up on JQ. I don't think there was a moment when he decided to become the person he had become. There were small steps (including asking for the marriage decree) that just took him further and further in to the King's inner circle.

And then it wasn't so easy to get out again.

Some men will defend their territory no matter what. Appealing to them will never make them yield. No amount of brilliant argument and no proof of ability will get them to give someone a chance. You will never get them to change no matter what. In fact, trying could well make them double down and punish the one who dared.

But there are also the men who are confident and forward thinking enough to allow change. Their love and appreciation makes them more open to giving people, particularly, women a chance. Perhaps its their mother or their daughter or their wife who can move them into the position of ally. Or maybe it's a notable stranger who does something unexpectedly incredible.

Either way, this kind of man has been helpful to the cause of women. I don't like to give them too much credit but I rather doubt that we could ever have staged a big and bloody enough rebellion to get as far as we have ... on our own.

So, powerful allies are pivotal in any change movement.

And ...so it's important that JBQ is such a man. Grandfather Shen was such a man. And I think the Marquis is such a man as well. He loves his wife and values her. But he's also had LX wear off on him too. And he's open minded to start ... so I think we'll see him give up the family line or adopt a boy if needs be rather than obey his mother and lose his wife.

I might be wrong but from the teaser, it seems that LJQ is going to help him decide.

So far, in the second half, LX experiences far less friction than she did in the first half, because she's proven herself so the family (and the Marquis and even the Emperor) have formed a fan club around her. The family in the capital have seen what she can do and so they are now constantly turning to her for solutions.

But we haven't seen her challenge the outside world lately so who knows if her reputation would precede her out there. The resistance would probably still be pretty high friction. She's made herself knowledgeable about the law in particular but knowing it doesn't mean you can change it or get around it. So I expect that unmovable world could still wear her down or even turn on her.

I don't think that JQ valued LX administrative ability in the household, great performance under fire, or saw a use for her education in the management of the household or the raising of kids.

He saw cunning and calculation. He saw swift perception and great observational skills. She is literate and has great math skills but, beyond that, she has amazing critical thinking and analytic skills. She thinks like a sleuth, like a lawyer and like a political strategist. In other words, he saw his own intellectual skills in her.

LX's grandfather taught her things that he didn't even teach his top scholars. He saw her potential and allowed her to truly develop it. Men who are surprisingly sexist will make an exception of their beloved daughters sometimes, because, by virtue of being their own daughters, and much like them, they will obviously break the norm. Which is what i think happened with LX. Her brilliant grandpa thought that his little granddaughter could break the mold because she was his. So Shen grandpa coached her as a protege and let her read anything.

Which is what JQ did as well. He was pleased with himself that he spied a unique mind, so he let her read almost anything in his library, not as a reward for a girl who liked to read but because he wanted to see what she could do with what she found there.

Anyway, education isn't a panacea unless you truly aim for people to excel towards independence with it. You can ghettoize a woman or a working class kid by restricting their curriculum to only what you want them to learn so that they stay in their place and are controllable. Which is what has happened in many eras ... like the education you describe in your comment ... one that's suitable for women who will raise kids and manage a household ... only.

LX's education did the thing that makes people truly dangerous. It taught her to be able to teach herself ... teach herself anything.

I started rewatching from episode 1 and it's clear from there that LX was never a woman of her time. That's not what her grandpa wanted for her. she is reading legal and moral texts when we meet her. he is training her and she questions everything. even before she becomes one, she's asking her dad to explain what slavery is and her face gives away her misgivings when she gets such a short precise answer. then her world turns upside down and she receives an impossible real life experiential education that, given where she comes from and what she loses ... well that would make anybody into an activist. so she's a woman of her age but not and so it makes sense that she is the one dragging everyone else into her strange perspective. she alone can add to their experiences and put words to their perceptions.

I have a feeling that they've set up some questions to answer later when they come back into play. So there'll be a conversation about how she fell in love with him. There'll be flashbacks and explanations about how he left the capital and where that leaves the family going forward. And there was plenty of foreshadowing of trouble to come that might reach out to rope them back in again later ... so they'll want to give some context to that which will fill some of the holes for us. The episode felt empty to me but I've come to think that this was an intentional way to connect past and future more smoothly. Might be wishful thinking but ... great writers don't usually go bad instantaneously.

haha. You're right. I keep looking at that Emperor thinking he seems benevolent and is better than the last one ... but that doesn't count for much in the end does it? Everyone is, ultimately, expendable in his world and he alone has the right ...

I'm wondering what he might have said to the king though. Like what was the deal that got him out? Because I'm sure that the Emperor needs him and wouldn't want to let him go. Maybe JQ thinks he's out and has gone home but the Emperor has other ideas and will call him back or JQ will feel that he has to run in again to do the right thing because common people suffer when the mighty clash.

Anyway, I'm excited to find out and ... I guess we'll find out oh so slowly, one episode at a time ... tortures "-)

100 lashes. 3 years servitude in some godforsaken place. And a heap of shame on the family reputation as well as on the Marquis family reputation. He is after all a great friend of their family and JQ in particular. The whole thing is really unfortunate esp since there seemed to be real love and happiness between them.

It's not done yet. There's lots of time for more moments. Plus we had to resolve the brothers illness situation. He deserved a good send off. And grandma being gone ... well that's bound to set up some future events for LX so that was important too. And the siblings going to the capital ? Them being there was an emotional, fraught, way to show what happened to innocent people during the rebellion. Besides just having JQ there alone would have been kind of empty. No extended stakes.

Anyway, we won't know til it's done, if there were scenes that we could have done without. But I know you just want to be angry at the moment. Understandable. :-)

We've had from ep7 to now of their relationship development, rocky as it was. But then it was a done deal when she told him exactly how to remove the barrier and he managed to actually do it. Get out of court ... and we'll be on the same path ... read also ... we'll be in the same bed living the same married life together. It's not the romance you'd get in other dramas but, it's all there when you rewatch ... all kind of significant, if small, moments and I'm sure there will be more now that they're really married.

the Shen were responsible for giving advice to one emperor that the next emperor didn't appreciate. When the next emperor took power he cleared away anyone who had gone against him, who might do so again. It was just the way of the world at court ... and to be expected.

i'm blind and didn't see the name right in front of me. TY !!!

TY ... again !!!

I figured it would be almost impossible for JQ to get out of the Emperor's inner circle with his head still on his shoulders. And I hope they tell us more about how he did it. But then again maybe he's going to get drawn in again if there's more trouble in the capital. And of course there will be more trouble in the capital as well as home :-) at least 8 episodes worth :-) After all the third young master just went and brought a cricket home into the family gathering at Jingling.

Interesting huh? We've been thinking that she is the one who is fighting the current/way for women and the poor. But he's also been caught up in the stream and must get out by going against the current somehow.

I think the message is that the Dao/way, the way of nature and ordinary life ... has to lie well away from power politics ... but with those powerful people always imposing their will on the common people, the common people must find the means to go against that current and survive to live better lives when they can.

Two paths. Two currents.

The Buddist Twofold path is in this somehow but I can't remember it quite well enough at the moment and need to do some review. :-)

I think your timeline is basically right. She does go back to Jinling with the sisters and he is left alone in the Capital. Only she has now told him exactly what he must do and he understands it.

The thing I think you're missing is that it wouldn't be at all easy for JQ to just resign from his position at court. He agrees with LX. He sees the truth in what she and his grandfather have said. And he now sees that it's the only obstacle to their happiness.

But, he has become one of very few essential, most trusted, advisors to the king. He's made himself indispensable, a huge, heroic, much lauded, very important support to the crown. Not someone who can just go home because he wants to.

So, ooops. He doesn't get to leave unless it's the king's idea for him to go ... in one piece ... alive. It's kind of like LX getting her freedom from the Lin family. She might have enough to buy her indenture but that doesn't mean they will be willing to sell it to her. So, it has to be a reward ... but how to get rewarded if you've done things that were significant enough for a reward in the first place. Would you easily let go of someone who can do things that valuable? No. Not if you're smart. And he can't exactly share that his wife wants him out for practically treasonous reasons. Please sir, let me go or I'll never get laid?

Anyway, I figure he was lucky to get out with his head on his shoulders while it still had black hair on it. And I don't know how he did it. Which why it might have been glossed over in a montage. The eunuch's power grab, renewed fighting and other historical things happened that he was able to use somehow ... but ???

But no matter how he did it, he did it and ... having done it ... having gone home to Jinling ... they are now on the same path and can actually be married in more than name only.

People are confused and blaming the production for ep39 not feeling good to us ... but I think maybe we just lack a lot of cultural references that would help us to understand.

It's natural to throw blame outward but maybe we just need to sit and think and do some learning and then think some more ...because ... with many of us raised in western perspective we aren't getting things that would help us to understand and appreciate ep39.

Anyway, this is a good place to learn ... if we can weed through the anger to find the things that will help