mukkanna

Yes, novel-reading is definitely a gamble! For LOA I feel like the novel was better, but I also see why they had to change things up since one of the goals was to promote these new actors and actresses. Had the screenwriters been better they could have made the characters more emotionally impactful instead of just getting way more screentime...

I don't think we know for sure yet. But given the spoilers we see floating around and Gong Jun and Reba's interview where they were asked what the last name of their child would be, I suspect happy ending.

He fell backwards onto the ground after getting hit. Later Jinyan helped him up, and he ran to the cliff and jumped facing forward. :)

I've been on douban's forum for this drama enough to know that in China, there are hand-fans who are dedicated to photos of his hands. I suspect this is why Tiffany has him as a brand ambassador. Seriously, people will crop out his whole face to post a picture of his hand...

For once, I'm happy drama LMX has a sadistic side :D

She does love LMX deeply...like a brother. And she also loves HY deeply...but decidedly not as a brother, unless you like to spend a lot of time admiring your brother and touching him indiscriminately!

Novel Di Ziyuan is the same way, actually. When LMX became ill, she even postponed her wedding with HY to travel around the world looking for a cure. "The one she loved most in her life was Han Ye, but the one she owed the most was Luo Mingxi."

I'm afraid I still don't get what you're saying.

1. HY loved DZY since childhood. He would have married her even if he didn't like her, but he did like her. This is true in both the novel and the drama.
2. HY could fulfill any promises to Di Shentian (DZY's grand-aunt, actually) without marrying her. But she's only his master in the novel, not the drama. Also irrelevant since he would have protected her either way.
3. No child of Di Ziyuan would ever be a Di. Because she's a woman. The bloodline doesn't end, but the Di name would have. This is true in both the novel and the drama.

Han Ye in the novel had already made preparations for the East Palace's supporters to follow Wen Shuo, restoring simultaneously to him the identity of Di Jinyan. They're described in the novel as half the court's power. See chapter 47, book 2. At that point everyone still thinks Han Ye is dead. The state wedding happens 3 years later in the novel. In the drama, Di Jinyan's identity is already restored by the emperor as well before the wedding is planned.

Han Ye's jump off the cliff woke up both novel and drama Di Ziyuan to his importance to her. It's just that novel Di Ziyuan had already decided to give up revenge and be with him before she knew he was planning to die, while drama Di Ziyuan never heard his confession and so didn't know his heart until Wen Shuo showed her the things in his house later on. The reason for this difference is that her hair goes white after (1) Han Ye is lost and (2) she finds out what Han Ye was truly thinking. Novel Di Ziyuan found out Han Ye's true heart from Han Ye's confession, drama Di Ziyuan found out from Wen Shuo. Novel Di Ziyuan wanted to jump off the mountain after him and her hair went white; drama Di Ziyuan fainted and her hair went white after she looked at the paintings. The order of events is different but the cause and effect are similar.

And I'm not sure if this is what you're saying but Novel Di Ziyuan didn't bring Han Ye back for politics. After Han Zhongyuan's death she went into a coma because she felt like she'd accomplished all her goals and had no reason to continue living. She only woke up after Han Ye visited her and she realized he was still alive.

When they played chess, Han Ye told her that it was for the greater good if he left. And she said, "If not for the greater good, but only for an old friend, would you--" He cut her off, but the novel says she would have finished, "be willing to stay?"

It also says, "Di Ziyuan had been unruly and untamed all her life, and even when she entered the capital alone with a blood feud on her shoulders, she never bowed her head. Regardless of Han Ye's rejection yesterday, she re-entered the marshal's residence today, willingly bowing her head to ask this question again, simply to have him stay. Unexpectedly, Han Ye nowadays would not even give her a chance to plead."

These aren't the actions of someone who's asking him to stay for political reasons. In fact, when he comes back there's actually potential for political upheaval: as soon as he reappears, all the officials and princes start bowing and greeting "His Highness the Crown Prince" even though Han Yun, the actual Crown Prince, is sitting right there, and the novel also points out that the officials at the wedding are shaken, not knowing how his reappearance will shake up the power balance in the court.

From a purely political standpoint, Di Ziyuan could have remained regent or taken the throne herself at any point; same with Di Jinyan, who had the support of Han Ye's East Palace faction.

Also, not sure why you think Han Ye is in a victim role? In the end, if he wanted to take back the court and become emperor (either in the novel or the drama) he has the support to do that. It's because he can choose to stay or go that Di Ziyuan has to resort to trying to trick him to come back of his own accord.

Because Han Ye is also extremely stubborn in the novel and refused to come back to the court because:
1. He saw that the court was stable and the country was recovering from the war under Di Ziyuan's regency (in the novel he was missing for 3 years)
2. He didn't want to cause turbulence (as the extremely popular and rightful crown prince who had sacrificed for the country, he still has the support of much of the court and the populace; even if he still couldn't see, there were still people in the court--including the marshal in charge of the 3 armies in the Northwest--who were willing to rebel against Han Zhongyuan/Di Ziyuan with just one word from him; the Han family's vassals also still had a lot of power)
3. He felt that Di Ziyuan was happy with Luo Mingxi and that Luo Mingxi would be a better match for her because they didn't have the bitter history of the Di family between them.
4. He thought the most important thing to Di Ziyuan was her political power, which she had because the Han family had no adult male heirs, and if he returned that would be at stake (he still didn't realize that he'd basically made her live in soul-crushing regret for 3 years and that the reason she fell into a coma earlier was because she felt like she'd accomplished her revenge and redeemed her family's name at the cost of Anning and Han Ye's lives, and had no reason to go on anymore).

(These are all still true in the drama.)

Han Ye is a great judge of everything in the novel, but he never had any inkling that she'd already decided to give up her revenge and take him up on his offer to stay by his side before he jumped off Yunjing Mountain. So the decision he made to stay out of her life and not cause trouble was based on the assumption that she still partially blamed him for the Di family's massacre. Even after his eyes had been healed he still refused to return to the court. Because he was rejecting her so thoroughly and she was afraid she'd never be able to find him again after he left the capitol, she decided to pull out all the stops and do everything she could to convince him to stay...

Which in this case was telling the court that she was going to have a state wedding. She was purposefully vague about who was getting married, but the officials assumed that if she was getting married, then of course it had to be Luo Mingxi? The state wedding she was planning was actually for Di Jinyan and Yuan Qin, but she wanted Han Ye to think she was marrying Luo Mingxi; at the same time, she arranged to have Di Shengtian find a way to have him stay at Fuling Mountain and make sure Han Ye was aware of her feelings for him. I assume she did things that way so if he still didn't want to be with her, he wouldn't be pressured to stay by her presence.

The wedding was never meant to have any substitution of the groom; it was always for Jinyan and Yuan Qin, and Di Ziyuan wanted Han Ye there as the officiant (she's standing in for Yuan Qin's family, while he's standing in for Jinyan's family).

I really doubt it. She keeps telling him she loves Han Ye, and she cares about Luo Mingxi too much to keep stabbing him with that on purpose.

The "fake wedding" is from the source novel...but the execution, I dunno yet :D

Maybe you missed this--the increase of the military and political influence of the Di family was mentioned several times in the drama and was the reason Han Ye initially told Mo Shuang not to tell anyone he was alive.

Yes, the loss of her political power was something Han Ye didn't want from the very beginning. That's still the same in the drama.

I don't understand what you're saying about Han Yun though.

I both agree and disagree. The character of Han Ye is very similar to in the book. However, the character of Di Ziyuan isn't allowed to showcase her love for Han Ye because a lot of those scenes were not filmed, altered, or maybe cut. At the same time, though, she also doesn't keep reminding him that she's out for his family's demise.

In the novel, when he does what he does at Yunjing, it's a bit irritating. Han Ye is so, so smart. Why can't he tell that a woman who does the things the Di Ziyuan is doing is going to be completely devastated by his actions? Does he think she's that frivolous, stupid, etc? No, he knows she's smart...so why can't he figure out why she only becomes a foolhardy idiot with no plan when it comes to him? Novel Han Ye really was a calamity in Di Ziyuan's life!

Drama Han Ye actually makes more sense: he searched for signs of affection, asked questions to probe her feelings, and finally came to the conclusion that she'd be fine if he died, so he went ahead with his plan without hesitation once he made all the arrangements. Drama Di Ziyuan did a better job of burying her feelings, which had a chilling effect on their love story but also enabled a character with high IQ and EQ like Han Ye to commit to a plan that I think he would have hesitated about if he knew he would be causing her a lifetime of pain and regret.

FL has more screentime than ML, and most of the "audience" view of things is from her standpoint...that's why ML still had so many secrets up till the last part of the drama :) She also pretty much is depicted as single-handedly leading the recapture of the lost cities in the drama instead of sharing that accomplishment with others in the novel. So I think this drama is appropriately named!

It's a trap!

In my opinion, it's always better to see for yourself. Different people have different tastes, so unless there's someone that you know has similar tastes to your own, it's hard to tell.

I disagree with some of the negative comments, and agree with others. It's very subjective.

Maybe you could watch some of the trailers randomly and see if what you're seeing is something you want more of, or if those are a hard stop for you.

It's average to above average? I think above 8.5 is an extremely popular C-drama. K-dramas tend to be rated higher.

But frankly, ratings are so subjective because everyone likes and dislikes different things in of dramas. There are some dramas I like a lot with a rating below 8, and others with a rating above 8.5 that I couldn't get through at all (and I'm a completionist if there's even a single thing or person that I find likeable).

There's also a lot of haters that even rate episodes that haven't aired yet, just to make it obvious that they're haters. This drama has some of that going on.

That's probably because the only genuine moments of real affection start from Huayuan and cumulatively are only like, 15 minutes of the drama. They didn't include a lot of the plotlines from the novel that show how much Di Ziyuan loves Han Ye more than her life or her revenge, no matter what her mouth or her attitude says. Sort of sad that DCE's bath scenes made it, but Di Ziyuan's feats such as abandoning her entire army to ride into what she knew to be a trap to try to "rescue" Han Ye didn't. Everyone in that entire arc of the story got cut.

But from novel Han Ye's standpoint she probably looked a bit bipolar.
Novel Di Ziyuan: "The Han family will have to pay, I won't let a single one go! You better seriously try to kill me! We can never be together!"
Also novel Di Ziyuan: jumps off cliffs after him, follows him into traps, follows him into fires, refuses to leave him behind in danger to escape herself even when he tells her to leave, rushes to check on him only partially dressed when she's worried about him, compromises 10 years of meticulous planning to keep him from marrying DCE, terrorizes people who cause him to be injured or who fail to take care of him to her specifications when he's injured...including him, actually. She legit thinks that he's hers to protect, and anyone who wants to hurt him needs to ask her permission first.

So many lost opportunities, just to make these side characters get some screentime...sigh. We're mostly left with sad glances and lingering looks instead of some real action.

I think the reason for what you're observing is that she's "allowed" to have affection for 2ML, however ML is an enemy of her family and she's been (rather unsuccessfully) telling herself she can love anyone but the ML. Furthermore, ML generally never needs protection and she can depend on him to take care of himself (until he doesn't) whereas 2ML has poor health and no martial arts. So, FL only pursues him near the end.

She has a strong emotional bond with 2ML, but it's never romantic (for example, she never just stands around admiring 2ML or looking dazed while gazing at him, whereas she even stared at ML for 5 seconds while actively in a battle...). When she thought 2ML was dead, she even said it herself: he's a comrade and brother figure to her.

Finally got caught up through ep 35. I just want to say that Gong Jun does some very convincing hemoptysis. Kudos for the most realistic lung injury I've ever seen in decades of watching C-dramas!

Bravo, bravo! Some luck and good wound care and these could all be plausibly survivable. I wonder if they actually got some medically sound advice?

For once, I don't have to be like, "...well. I bet this person has dextrocardia and so the heart is totally on the other side and that's why they're fine after being stabbed where normal people have their hearts" or "well, there goes their spine! They should be paralyzed. But...they're obviously not...so...I guess their spine is made of...special martial arts bones?"

Sadly, Mo Bei the strategic fool apparently mobilized the entire North Qin army and then squished 1/3 of them trying to climb a mountain during a manmade landslide (I can only assume his father thought he was such an idiot that he never bothered with tutors to teach him something about strategy. Or common sense). And then I assume DZY employed zero mercy on the remnants because she was really really mad and really really sad, and her usual response to that is to plot some ruthless revenge or to kill lots of enemies. So...I suspect North Qin army is mostly dead by the time he does this.

The only other country around is Dongqian, whose main strength is navy, not army. It's not involved in the war in the drama, but in the novel they also got crushed pretty hard.