noor1234

Hopefully.

What FL said to him was in relation to his obsession with her - & she was absolutely right in calling him out on his selfish entitled 'have cake & eat it' behavior, but plotting to get the throne is a different thing. I don't see how his maneuvers are any different from everyone (concubine empress, consort & Marquis) who brought the previous regime down. They killed & removed (& are continuing to remove) innocent people. Why can't Prince Li do the same - since that's how you get power. If there could be chaos then, why not now? A time bomb was detonated against him 8 years ago, it's pay back time (that's how he views it). Why is that wrong?

No, all I'm saying is that it would take a lot for 'distrust' to occur between 3 people who got & maintain power together....these 3 have killed a lot of people, so a Yuan Feng is not someone sooooooooo special that they'd start cracking their alliance. It's unrealistic & lazy, self-serving writing.

They kissed in Ep. 20? I forwarded a bit of section today & didn't watch Ep. 21. You don't think Cangbei event & some love rival is filler side track when there are so many relevant stories they can develop instead (till truth about past is revealed)?

No one asked for a spoiler tag when everyone in the comment section spoke about grandma & that WAS a real spoiler from an episode, not a preview! I didn't post about it - this is a comment on what trailer shows, maybe trailer is misleading.

It's in the trailer!

Yuan Feng was not important enough to make 'distrust' believable - they came into power together, they got a lot of people killed to get there, they will fall together if one of them goes against the other - they are not friends but they most certainly know they will lose if they fight amongst themselves. I don't like it when enemies are dumbed down.

The thing is these 3 people colluded with each other to get concubine empress & son into power - realistically, the killing of Yuan Feng wouldn't make any difference - because there are plenty of dead bodies that led to the success of these 3 people together. Realistically it would take a LOT more & a LOT of decades & changing circumstances for 'distrust' to seep in, a single act wouldn't cut it. Nothing has really changed in the powerhold of these 3 entities. I don't like it when dramas give simplistic easy tropes to make it seem like bad people are losing.

The edict being kept by consort for blackmail is dumb (because it implicates HER - since FL's dad & uncle gave it to HER, not Marquis or concubine). Unless she plants it in Marquis' household - WHY would she do that?!!!! These 3 people are in power because they supported each other.

Thanks.

I think the legitimate son has a fever of sibling rivalry with the illegitimate one & plays childish mental games with him just to rile him up. He's doted on, so is going to be spoilt and take everything for granted. Guard Qin cannot even think of being carefree, he knows his status & accepted without tantrum when Marquis said he didn't get the security office position (the one that requires a lot of fighting & killing) but also would've taken him away from Marquis' area of influence. Guard Qin is just a tool for this family, while the other son is supposed to be the future lord of the house & own all his father's wealth & property. All that Guard Qin wants is his father's affection but knows he won't get it openly.

And have the FL & ML felt more distant than in the current episodes (20, skipped 21) & upcoming episodes (23,24)? It's one thing to show him as mystified as to what she is hiding & finding those unsent envelopes & her 'loneliness', it's quite another for them to never have a conversation that doesn't revolve around his leg, Prince Li, her disappearing acts, without a genuine husband-wife convo. They have even stopped kissing / being 'handsy'.

I think drama writers don't know what to do with this couple before the big reveal of Gen. Mo & FL's involvement & Lishan stuff, hence the filler trope of scheming love rival & irritating 'Cangebi' male ruler asking for a fighting match! - and that too from a country Cangbei which killed 30K soldiers & overtook and pillaged 3 villages when Gen. Mo came back 8 years ago (with/without the edict) during a coup!!!!!! Seriously?!

Well.....Ep. 23 preview has Guard Qin getting stabbed through the heart......& the 'sibling rival' defending him in front of Marquis - what is going on?

I'm on Team Prince Li. Can anyone tell me what is so different about Prince Li's quest for power from concubine queen to install herself and her son as queen & king? They killed a LOT of people & removed a lot of people, who supported last emperor & legitimate crown prince. The new king - the kid who supports ML - has the benefit of not having ordered anyone's killing himself, because he's young & his mom did all the killing with consort & Marquis as her weapons. I think more people were killed because of Ye Family & FL's grandfather (Lishan Academy)'s foolish mistake to send FL's mom as an emissary to Gen. Mo for the edict. I think FL's grandfather & mom & consort & concubine empress & Marquis directly caused the deaths of Gen. Mo, soldiers, supporters of previous regime, even Lishan Academy's teachers & pupils. Marquis took it a step further by crucifying good officers in the name of 'purging' corruption - like he's doing now - but no one neither concubine queen nor consort stopped him, because it benefited them.

I don't think Prince Li is wrong. He is self-centered yes, & is irritatingly entitled, but I'm put off by FL's continued effort to bring Prince Li down (she told her martial arts bodyguard that 'such a man will create chaos'). How is his chaos any different from chaos that FL's mom created or concubine empress created?

I also think it is childish to show 'fissures' between the 3 people who did things to get power together - i.e. Marquis, concubine queen & consort. In real life, these 3 would've been tight, thick as thieves, but since this is a drama where FL has to be shown as the 'master manipulator / puppeteer' pulling strings for justice, ridiculous resentment is being shown between all 3. I hope Prince Li gets the throne (which he won't because this is a faux feminist drama).

Does it really matter who killed who? The end goal was to put concubine as empress & her son as king, while killing the crown prince & his supporters. Marquis was the sword used to kill all. I don't think any discord would occur between such women as the current queen & dowager because these women owe their positions to collaborating with each other & keeping key court officials happy. Just to show FL as 'winning' in the art of manipulation, drama is showing distrust between Marquis & these 2 women which is unrealistic & childish.

Yeah, but that kind of martial fighting skill & having specific knowledge of treating leg partial paralysis, you can't get that only through books - she was very young (14 or so) when her mom died & she got trapped on that mountain. These skills require practice, & for medicine, actual patients. There were many older generations who were Lishan disciples who were already working in different fields in the empire - she cannot possibly have more knowledge than senior trained physicians, but she does. Plus, she even knows the history & background of key people (like that astrologer she got killed early on), how can a 14 year old on a mountain know his background? Unless there's a supernatural element to all this, it is hard to brush it all off as book reading.

Okay, but it's not logical to show that she's s the only person in the empire to know about underground waterways, interconnected holes & possible secret passages - hell, Marquis, concubine empress, ML, etc. all must have secret passages, so I feel it's wrong to show FL as a leader (like an all-seeing omnipresent God) in all things that happen in the show. My guess is that she's supposed to be like that deity she was painting in the temple - the deity who is benevolent but gives justice when wrong is done, & it is an author-backed role so she's given preference over other characters.

Yup.

Thank you for saying this.

That's an interesting theory.

PTSD & something else, maybe even supernatural. I don't know, the drama hasn't disclosed why she thinks dead people are alive & can perform what dead people could do & has superhuman knowledge of every Lishan master's field & still function as a regular person & plot revenge.