grapejuice

hmmm. you write fan fiction ??? :-)

spectacularly !!!

This is interesting. There's no doubt that the whole family depends on JQ (and the family money, prestige) that he's in charge of. She said as much when she went out to save him in the snow and he almost died on the back of the mule. And she has definitely deferred a number of times saying that the decision for family stuff is his to make.

Actually, I'm not sure about the Opera lady who had been sent to the ministry of music. Has she married? But Scholar Lu has obviously never married or gone out much into the world. He mainly drinks his days away and dabbles in the arts.

I guess we forget, this was, overall, a seriously traumatizing, inhumane, day and age where people were killed by a 1000 cuts, drawn and quartered or chose death over being forced to become a prostitute.

Actually, being forced into marriage with a huge class divide might not feel much different than being forced into prostitution.

None of us would know.

There are lots of people who don't 'need' love. They have some other calling whether they dare to admit it or not. Ordinary people may not scream it from the rooftop but ... Priests. Nuns. Monks. Some educators and healers. All the famous martyrs. Joan of Arc. Elizabeth 1. and more ... They all make a vow to pursue something else in their lives. Something they feel is bigger.

I see your points. Her objectives. She was timid and careful. But surviving was a huge goal ! lol ! and earning merits to buy her freedom was clearly making her more assertive. But she doesnt have either of those two things at the moment so there is no clear motivation for her to act on.

She might have been working to find her equilibrium and accept her situation as well as her husband but that is all very internal work that we wouldn't see. Her temperament has become quieter, more mature and maybe more internal overall. if you can't change your environment you change yourself and your thinking in order to cope. No actively fighting back in any way.

So maybe we just need for her to face a threat to her own existence again before we see her move out to become less passive. A crisis. A threat to herself, her parents, her child and maybe JQ if he needs an assist. The family as a whole is gradually starting to feel like hers, I think. She sheds real tears for them now so the role of Matriarch may, again, bring out the LX that we saw before. The one we saw struggling to solve problems because they werent so easy for her to solve.

She's not much challenged lately so I guess we wait and see what happens next. 😊

have I understood what you were saying?

kk ty 😊

Children do tend to take over the conversation about identity !!! lol

Have you ever felt like you're a side character in someone else's story? I mean we are a side character in many other people's stories but with the big relationships you can end up living your life for others. Their world is so much bigger and you begin operating as a cog in that wheel.

LX is only living now because her mother told her to. She is living on for her family of origin. She lived for a while in the Lin household drama, was briefly freed from it, and then she was returned to it. First she played the part of slave and now she's playing the part of wife/mother and madam.

The only time when she wasn't a side character in a bigger play was during the two years or so where she was a free commoner. At that time, she teamed up with her Xu parents to mount their own play. If anything, they were all living in the one that she was writing. She even trained to write her own fictional stories where she would create a whole world and show it to others. But then that was gone. So, I guess in a way she was lucky to have that much time ... when many women don't even get that.

But now that she's back in the Lin household story, she won't be the main character of her own drama ... or ours ... until she's the only one in charge, the Matriarch.

So, I think your observation is correct and her being sidelined is a function of this part of her life. The drama is reflecting for us that she's spending most of her life in a story that isn't her own with a few moments where she gets to write the script ... somewhat. Nobody can control the world around them or see the future but still ... we are more or less in charge of our own inner spaces.

Someone who can be a true partner ... ?

There's a deepness in the wisdom that the AtC characters show. They can do things that look like the cunning, calculating tricks you see elsewhere but they're more likely to be rooted in hard earned life experience and Taoist/Buddhist or well thought out personal philosophy. Both layers are difficult to pull off in writing but it's a real masterclass level when you find out that the cleverness is motivated by something more profound than just one-upping somebody else.

I'm actually really interested to hear how LX will explain her philosophy to the boy who wants to give madam a taste of her own medicine at the end of ep42. What is she going to teach him and what is she going to do? I feel like I could use the guidance too. :-)

Also, about the two writers ... I had to take a military history class a few years ago. We read Machiavelli and Sun Tzu the brilliant Italian and the Chinese generals who became famous for advising the kings in their own place and time. And the difference between them is much like what you describe with the authors. Sun Tsu is all about wisdom in strategy and tactics ... not just whatever will work. Both are genius generals but the one is talking about life and not just war.

TY. I thought he looked familiar in the preview but a lot of what we know about him is pieced together from little references in far flung conversations so I wasn't sure about the Zhang connection.

So, maybe they're a good match now since they've both been through a few things and aren't the vain or arrogant kids they were when they first crossed paths.

This will be interesting!

Isn't he the one she was almost betrothed to only she was duped into falling for Du and he ended up marrying ZXTs younger sister who then divorced him?

Great comment. There are people who depend on us for their lives. There are people who won't want to live without us because they live for us. Parents and children. "What do you live for?" is an entirely different question than "Who do you love?"

How do you deal with unkindness and resentment? The boy wants to give the madam a taste of her own medicine; repayment in kind. But LX says no so he asks: If you repay resentment with kindness, how do you repay kindness? Which is an awfully good question. Smart kid.

The Buddhist answer is usually found in the idea of loving kindness. Unless we need to shut down violence, we move through the world always acting out of kindness, letting karma take care of the rest. Which, sooner or later, it will.

So, the writer has spread LX's answer over two episodes in a mini-cliffhanger where we are probably expected to think of our own answer to a question that inevitably comes up in all of our lives.

Anyway, it's about kindness and unkindness. LX has started her answer by asking "what do you live for?". She's not asking or considering 'who and what do you love?' so we should probably let her finish before we use this to conclude that she doesn't love JinQi as we want her to.

Who do you love is a completely different question and there are many kinds of love ...

You're quite right! They like to cut scenes across episodes don't they. Sometimes its a mini-cliffhanger and sometimes the stakes seem higher. But we're always given some time to think about whatever is going on. I like that.

The production has done no wrong. The advertising might have. The promotion. For making people expect something that they weren't going to get.

But really it's the audience that's to blame. We control our own expectations to the greatest extent. And, even if they were set up wrongly by the promotions, we should be smart enough to let them go when they're proved wrong again and again.

At the very least, our common sense should kick in. LanXiang was forced into a marriage with her former Master; a marriage arranged by the King, so that she had no opportunity to ever escape, no matter the circumstances ... but we expected a romance like all the others we see in c-dramas? Was that even reasonable on our part? No. We're lucky to see them create something as lovely as what we 're seeing.

And expecting a big revenge or a big reveal? That's even more unreasonable and I don't know why people have clung to it so stubbornly. It could never happen!!! Not in this world where the Emperors are never wrong and people don't even dare to speak quiet words against them when talking in pairs ... lest the walls have ears and their entire clans will perish.

So, you know, we have to take the blame for fooling ourselves and for not managing and changing our expectations when they prove to be unlikely.

He picked it up when he went to save her from the brothel.

You only have it forever if you have a long line of male heirs and the ongoing support of the crown.

We don't know for sure yet. But I think she either had an untreated pelvic infection that is now, after many years, becoming septic ... or it's cancer.