Didi

I would love it if they made a female lead who used her magic more selfishly but had a few shortcomings; like a read a novel once about this eccentric woman who could see the future and others knew so she would sort of play mind games with them and was a little crazy/odd but the short coming was she would experience agonizing pain because she was cursed to see the deaths of her loved ones. it was really interesting

I saw Doctors (which started out so go good!!! and then 2/3 of the way through it began to crash for me) and then I saw Pinnochio which had such a great start....and then once they began to fall in love it just crashed. W is on my watch list but in general most modern romcoms from Korea I think always start out wonderful and then crash and burn....not sure if it is the writing or him; I would love to see him be written as a more morally ambiguous male lead (in the subtle sense, not necessarily y in the bully sense) or I don't know someone who struggles to understand emotion or someone with a real disorder that makes it hard for him to form relationships....

I can't remember. While I rely on novel updates I encourage you to search around as some other translators may have picked it up, and I know at one point I was desperate enough for a novel that when I discovered the Chinese website it was hosted on I copied and pasted it into google translate....which I don't recommend but alas I am American and only speak English....but I thought it was finished....

is this good? every drama i have seen this guy in starts out good and then falls flat...

@Queen Cherry I don't think the viewers didn't acknowledge he was abusive I do however think that people shouldn't be shamed just for supporting/liking someone in a fictional story. It is incredibly empowering to a person to be able to have control over what you watch etc. if only because you, the viewer, can choose to end it at anytime unlike individuals who actually suffer from Stockholm syndrome. I don't think people are dumb for indulging in these dark stories it isn't the same as real life where that happens. I do think they should put trigger warnings on these kinds of stories in the event that a person who has experienced this has a warning.

@ QAS so right in terms of the inconsistency with the characters. Do you know who wrote the script?

@KMR I agree their romance was incredibly underplayed in the entire series--with a splash of some super overplayed instances (i.e. her arrival) Even when they finally consummated it was extraordinarily downplayed, even by China's censorship standards. Maybe they are doing this to be more faithful to the novel (?) since she did not fall in love with him or maybe they realized as they filmed that the show would be more about the emp. given the actor's great acting...who knows at this point. I am at a point where I know I will finish it but it no longer has that pull from the beginning---

I thought we were done with her doing stupid things. I guess not.

I think that she will try to hook up with Jing but stop Jing from killing the king because she sees his unity of nation's as the best answer and then she will die as a last word and the king will live in agony and regret for the rest of his life because they have written themselves into a corner. If she forgives him she is a weak victim if she abandons Jing again for him she is fickle I don't know what they will do to get out of this

so in the novel, at the end, he goes insane and she is brought back to life but is like a mentally handicapped person she can barely talk and the author decided to write three endings

Yea most likely tragedy Chinese historical dramas sort of differentiate from the Kdramas in that they are 95% tragedy and besides, where else do we get to see so much poison and blood (because they know their actors can die beautifully if they are just throwing up blood)

@Tierney I thought you'd like that

OMG I read the synopsis and thought 'welp this makes little sense it feels like a badly translated poem' but i saw the leads and decided that it is worth my time

@Laura_Roslin I loved, LOVED Zanilla in JOF and what drama does she become a chess genius LOLZ oh and I liked her in Palace I don't know why but I sometimes confuse her with Yin Ming Eternal Love even though they don't look anything alike

And I don't know why, but I can tolerate a dense female lead and sometimes even prefer it, I think because in America the direction of all the television shows is 'every female lead must be extraordinarily perfect to show that we are strong independent women in order to gain viewers' so it's weirdly refreshing to see the other kind portrayed

@KMR agreed; but I can't decide if Li's interference is her acting wisely i.e. using her role to do what the king cannot do, which is forgive, or if it is a plot device by the writer's to make the king seem bad but not utterly awful (like every character in Game of Thrones)

I JUST glanced at my 'in memoriams' and this is what it looked like for empress of china: at the episode 10 benchmark: 7 dead; at episode 20: 11 more dead (I counted an army as one); at episode 30: 6 more dead; and at episode 40: 11 more dead! So all total, because of these harem battles, we are looking at a death count of like 50 and I would say about 45 are important roles. Lady Chu has it super easy.

....I remain a devoted FJ fan so I while I like that she can hold her own in a different role I still prefer FJ....

i had no idea Zhang Vin had such a wide range of expression; I feel like the only other male lead with that much range was Wallace in JOF HOWEVER zhang vin can play a wider variety of characters while Wallace seems good at only 2 types

At episode 24: Lady Chu has received so many warnings--I mean in Empress of China, for context, you get no warnings. You just are suddenly dead. And other shows you might one or two warnings but she's received over a dozen, i kid you not. her days have to be numbered.

@KMR my friend Tierney said the same thing I have a STRONG feeling that is the episode where they get REALLY physical...if ya know what I mean XD