reallyemy

yes, i totally agree. the ending just ruined an otherwise good drama for me.

if they were going to have SY being the "main" character instead of SB, they should've put her back in her body sooner, and actually showed her doing things that are distinctly SY and not BH doing it. as it is, she is as bad as Hwa Jin - getting a love she didn't earn.

you're not the only one! the ending absolutely ruined the drama for me as well. it doesn't make sense. some people think of it as "SY was there all along so the king also fell in love with SY" -- but like, that's totally not what i got from the drama. unfortunately, the writers aren't willing to go that far to let a man stay in the Queen's body and edge this close to BL. :/ if BH were a woman instead, it would've been a different story, i'm sure.

then what does he love about her? if he doesn't care about her soul and doesn't care about her beauty either, and apparently doesn't care if her personality changes completely...

i've already watched the spinoff and it actually made me dislike the drama's ending even more. he supposedly loved SY before the drama started, and yet spent 5+ episodes showing devoted love to HJ, and then jumped to SB... it seems like he moved on from his loves very quickly!

people can be grateful to Mr Queen team and still find faults with the ending and thus dislike the drama because of that. the ending is still part of the drama and if viewers are unsatisfied with it, they have the right to criticize it. for me, ending is the most important part about a drama. if it is an unsatisfying ending, it literally ruins the entire drama for me, and i would have rather not wasted my time watching.

"So Yong was every bit as present as Bong Hwan." -- No, not really? Unless you meant "present" to mean that she was in the body but did nothing, then perhaps. 90% (if not more) of the actions done by SB was all BH's personalities, except maybe all the "heart thumping" initially when SB started falling for CJ. yes, both SY and BH learned a lot from the experience, but SY wasn't really in control throughout the drama.

it doesn't have to be BL. if BH were a girl and this was the ending, i would have felt the exact same.

yes, exactly! if they're trying to go the route of CJ falling in love at first sight with SY, then why is he in love with HJ at the beginning of the series? at the end, the person he chose was SB, not HJ or SY.

the whole point of the spin-off was just trying to make viewers like SY, even though we literally know NOTHING about her except that she killed herself and came back at the end to reap all the benefits without doing any of the works.

that makes it soooo shallow, lol, and actually makes me dislike the drama even more now. i liked CJ so much as a character, but if he just likes "SY" purely because she's "SY" -- then what's the point about loving someone for their personality? it's basically "soul" versus "body." so if it doesn't matter whose soul is in SY, then he only cares about her for her body.

at least that's good to know. now i don't have to feel sorry for CJ anymore, since it seems like he's just a shallow man anyway.

if it does have lgbt theme, it's arguably handled very badly and any progress maded throughout the series is completely erased when it succumbed to heteronormativity at the end. so if you're watching this for lgbt theme, don't. you'll just be disappointed. but if you want to make sure it DOESN'T have lgbt theme before watching, then go ahead.

i completely agree with you, especially about #2. even if SB is a combination of BH and SY, the "personality" the king fell for was more BH than SY. and SY keeping this from him makes her no different than Hwa Jin.

at the end of the day, the person i feel for the most is CJ. he's getting duped by love from beginning to end of the drama. not sure what kind of "love story" the writers are trying to say here.

yes, i agree. the thing is, even though some ppl are denying it, if BH had been a girl, and in the end, "she" went back to present time and CJ spent his life unknowingly with a different girl, i'm sure the tone in the comments section would be vastly different.

even if SY was "there" the entire time, she was mostly a spectator. her personality barely showed through (except when BH felt attraction to CJ in the middle -- but even then, BH himself also fell for the king). the person CJ fell in love with is SB with 100% BH's personality. it's just so meh.

"Male or female he/she would go back anyway, that's not up for debate." -- Actually, in the novel this drama was based on, "BH" did NOT go back to modern time. Rather, he stayed in the past as SB and had his happily ever after with CJ. So it IS arguably up for debate. The Chinese version of this drama has a drastically different ending as well (though, admittedly, probably not the best ending either). So no, this ending wasn't a foregone conclusion and thus IS up to debate.

that said, i do agree that it's a sad ending because the king ultimately ended up with someone he didn't love.

i think we all interpret different things from the drama, but it's unfair to say that the things stated above never happened? those are some of our interpretation of the drama.

i really could say the exact same thing about all the "reasons" camp happy-with-the-ending give to justify why CJ was in love with SY and that the ending is perfect.

it really depends on how you feel regarding relationships -- when you love someone, are you loving the "body" or the "soul"? if it's the former (body), then it's a happy ending. if it's the latter (soul), then it's a meh ending.

i've watched Bamboo Forest, it doesn't really change my opinion. it kinda shows that CJ is a player, actually. he fell for SY, HJ, and SB -- all in pretty quick succession, lol. he might have liked SY at first, yes -- but he was also in love with HJ for the first quarter of the drama. the person he really fell for in the end was SB, not SY.

it was BH's wish to go back to modern day in the beginning. he hadn't tried for a loooong time. he was content to stay with CJ in the past by the end of the drama. please show me where he wished to go back to modern day towards the end of the drama? :)

i know, lol? i don't care whether BH is a male or female. if BH were a female, i would've hated the ending just the same.

however, SOME viewers would've disliked this ending if BH were a female instead. and that, to me, is hypocritical. if you're not one of those people, then kudos to you. :)

the novel this was based on ended differently, though? so yes, there is a different way to end it... by following the original novel. but the drama writers just weren't willing to go there. which is fine. but doesn't mean that this is the best possible way, imo.

i really wish i had never watched this drama. the ending really ruined it all for me, seriously. if this was the type of ending they were going with, then they should've shown CJ falling for SY throughout the drama: by having SY "coming back" to her body and taking control of it for some of the episodes (and not half BH, half SY either).

to everybody who says that this is the only reasonable ending: if BH had been a FEMALE who got stuck in SY's body, and in the end, "she" had to go back to her modern life after falling for CJ, only to have CJ not knowing and playing with a different girl having her face -- would THAT have okay for you?

yes, exactly! that's what i've been thinking. if BH were a girl, and at the end of the drama, BH went back to real life and a different girl stayed with CJ, i'm sure you would see soooo many uproars in the comments. but because BH is a guy, somehow it is more "okay" for many people.

yes, exactly! special episode was supposed to be a continuation. if it needed to be there to justify that CJ could fall for SY, then why did SY kill herself in the first place? CJ could've just fallen for the real SY to begin with, and BH wouldn't be needed at all.

(Example - that rain dance. The way king saw her badass dance as feminine.)

but this was 100% BH though... even if CJ saw this as feminine, it still wasn't SY? and CJ can never see something like this from "SY" again because that just isn't her?

exactly! so many people were trying to justify the ending. i mean, it's okay for them to like the ending. but the mental gymnastic people are doing to prove that SY is the same as SB is just so weird to me.

even at the end, you could see how she is very much different from BH. CJ's very last line in ep 20 was "By the way, why are you talking to me so formally these days?" if that isn't telling, what is?

SY was so different from BH from the very beginning (if she were like BH, the whole series would never have happened, because BH's personality wouldn't have allowed him to kill himself like SY did). if they need a spinoff to "show" that the King liked SY from the beginning, then it means they didn't manage to show this at all in the drama. it's a cop-out.