sweet_potato

Yeah, it seems the plot points are just completely different...not only are they cousins but it seems like Wuxia here is the real Wuxia (I could be wrong) so that takes away a lot. Also Yang Wan Qing as the empress's lackey...atp I'm just watching this as a original drama haha

Hm, I don't neccessarily agree. I read and skimmed the novel in Chinese. Like I said in another comment, I went in knowing that the novel had poor ratings, but the most glaring issue to me was just that the writing is subpar. I'm talking about writing at the most basic level; the sentences and paragraphs was just not elegant. It kind of reads like a fifteen-year-old wrote it, and I would even hesitate to say that because I don't want to insult the fifteen-year-old. T-T

But the characterizations and the plot points (and twists!) were actually quite good and refreshing, compared to a lot of other novels and drama in the similar genre. The author just really should have hired/collobrated with someone who's a better writer and had more talent with words because reading the writing was lowkey painful at times. So the ratings dont surprise me😅

I think the drama's fine. It's just that it is basically a completely different story from the novel, and the storyline they went with in the drama is kind of typical of the genre. I like the FL and ML so I'll keep watching, but it's a bit of a shame to me since my expectations were rasied because I thought the novel actually was quite perfect (weak writing, but strong plots and characterizations) to be adapted into a refereshing drama.

I will explain, but keep in mind this has almost /nothing/ to do with the drama plot because the novel and the drama are almost completely different stories:

The countries have different names in the novel than the drama, so I'll call Taohua's home country A, and the current country they are in country B. And there's a third country C near both A and B.

Towards the middle/last half of the novel, it's revealed that both "Wuxia" and Zaiye were orginally from country C, and "Wuxia" isn't actually the real Wuxia. The real fourth prince Wuxia of country B was sent as to country C as a hostage at a young age. It turns out that the real Wuxia died there, and a unfavored prince from country C assumed his identity when it was time for "Wuxia" to return to country B. Shen Zaiye is from the noble Shen family in country C; his family served the royal family for decades, but Zaiye looked down on the country C royal family because they are corrupt and useless. However, Zaiye saw potential and, more importantly, good in "Wuxia" , despite "Wuxia" being unfavored, so he hatched this plan to have him pretend to be country B's prince while Zaiye also defects (secretly, of course) to country B and rise up as Chancellor.

In the novel, Wuxia becomes emperor of country B and a major plot point is that he has the material/ability to be a good emperor (as Zaiye saw in him when he was young) so he eventually unites all three countries.

Wuxia's background in the novel (and Zaiye's by association) was such a good twist! I was looking forward to that the most :( This cousin thing is fine, just not as special.

Ah, oh well. I guess I'll just keep watching and see. The writing of the novel was kind of subpar imo, but the story did have some pretty different/refreshing characterizations and plot points that aren't typically seen in c-ent, so I was interested in seeing how they would adapt it. I guess they did it by changing it LOL

I want to ask the people who've read or are reading the novel about something: I just skipped and skimmed the novel...so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think even if I'm being generous, the storyline of the drama seems to be only very, VERY loosely based on the novel? These are some very major changes? Like if they changed some more details about the early episodes they probably could've called this an original drama?? 😭

Yes! This is my feeling about the ending, too. It's not your typical HE, but I dare say it's more meaningful for it.

At the end of the battle, XJS gave a time artifact to HRY. The making of the artifact required the sacrifice of a life. So before the final battle the artifact wasn't complete and wouldn't work. But because HRY's words at the end of the battle moved XJS (and he was defeated anyway), he decided to use his life to complete the artifact and gave it to HRY because he believed she, more than anyone else, would be dedicated to using it to change things for the better for everyone (but probably he just cared about his family first and foremost).

Later, the time goddess told HRY that the artifact does in fact work, but changing the past doesn't necessarily change the future, and that the predetermined karma is set (ep 32, 9:15). HRY also didn't understand at first. After HRY's first travel back to change the outcome for XJS and his family, she asked ZS when she returned whether all the people who died were suddenly alive again bc of the change. ZS was super confused because nothing had changed here.

That's when HRY realized what the time goddess meant (ep 32, 12:00)—the artifact allows her to travel to different pasts to create changes there, but not to change HRY's actual past, because karma is already set. It was at this point she asked ZS if he wanted to be sect leader, because she realized what she had to do.

The main thing I think is confusing people here is understanding that HRY didn't travel back to the "past" as she and we know it. HRY jumped through other timelines/universes to give other versions of everyone a hopefully better ending. Personally, I think it's beautiful because she made possible for everyone to get their happy ending in the parallel universes, while it doesn't invalidate all the experiences we saw the characters go through. All the pain and love and suffering felt by everyone were still real.

And then after making all the changes, HRY's (and BJS's) actual karma is their reunion at the ending, having finally passed their love tribulation. The time goddess witnessed all of HRY's efforts and took compassion on HRY (as HRY had done for so many others) to speed things up for BJS's return.

I've replied to several comments, but I think some are still confused about the ending, so I decided to consolidate my replies and hopefully people would see this and would find it helpful. Here's my explanation of the ending, addressing most of the questions I've seen:

The making of the artifact required the sacrifice of a life. So before the final battle the artifact wasn't complete and wouldn't work. Because HRY's words at the end of the battle moved XJS (and he was defeated anyway), he decided to use his life to complete the artifact and gave it to HRY because he believed she, more than anyone else, would be dedicated to using it to change things for the better for everyone.

The goddess told her that changing the past doesn't necessarily change the future, and that the predetermined karma is set (9:15). HRY also didn't understand at first. After HRY's first travel back to change the outcome for XJS, she asked ZS when she returned whether all the people who died were suddenly alive again bc of the change. ZS was super confused.

That's when HRY realized what the time goddess meant (12:00)—the artifact allows her to travel to different pasts to create changes there, but not to change HRY's actual past, because karma is already set. It was at this point she asked ZS if he wanted to be sect leader, because she realized what she had to do. That's why after making all the changes, HRY's (and BJS's) actual karma is their reunion at the ending, having finally passed their love tribulation.

I included timestamps from the episode so you can go back if you want!

haha no worries

I'm going to copy one of my replies to another comment:

The main thing I think is confusing people is that HRY didn't travel back to her own past. The artifact doesn't work like that and the goddess of time explained it to HRY. Instead, HRY traveled to different timelines to give parellel versions of everyone (herself, BJS, XW, LM, HL, XJS) a better outcome. But that doesn't change what has already happened for our HRY in our timeline. In a way, it's beautiful because she made possible for everyone to get their happy ending in the other parallel universes, while it doesn't invalidate all the experiences we saw the characters go through. And then, at the end, after she made all the changes, HRY stayed back in her own time, left the sect to ZS and Ling'er, and went to search for BJS for her own ending in this timeline (which Xi E helped speed things up for BJS to come back).

So the child is implied to be saved in the parallel universe where our HRY told the other HRY about Shi'an and the characters there can make better choices. But ofc Shi'an is still gone in the actual timeline with our HRY.

Does this make more sense?

The main thing I think is confusing people is that HRY didn't travel back to her own past. The artifact doesn't work like that and the goddess of time explained it to HRY. Instead, HRY traveled to different timelines to give parellel versions of everyone (herself, BJS, XW, LM, HL, XJS) a better outcome. But that doesn't change what has already happened for our HRY in our timeline. In a way, it's beautiful because she made possible for everyone to get their happy ending in the other parallel universes, while it doesn't invalidate all the experiences we saw the characters go through. And then, at the end, after she made all the changes, HRY stayed back in her own time, left the sect to ZS and Ling'er, and went to search for BJS for her own ending in this timeline (which Xi E helped speed things up for BJS to come back).

Does this make more sense?

I actually liked the ending. It's my personal opinion, of course, but I think that going to the different timelines/universes to change the outcome for the characters there, while keeping the "present" and "past" as we know it the same, is a better ending because it respects the experience we saw the characters go through. All the pain and love and suffering (for everyone; HRY, XJS, XW, HL and LM) were real. It doesn't just go back to the past to rewrite everything; rather, HRY jumped through time and universes to give other versions of them a better ending.

In the end, after making all the changes for everyone else to hopefully have nudged things in a better direction, she returns to her own time, give the sect to ZS and Ling'er, and set off to search for her own ending in this time. I'd like to think that HRY has also learned there are things and fates she can't control, but there is hope and trust that she changed things for the better. Maybe with Shi'an , the other BJS and HRY will go through a different love tribulation. For our HRY, though, the goddess of time also witnessed all her efforts and ultimately took compassion on HRY (as HRY haf done for so many others) to speed things up for BJS to return. I think that's beautiful in its way.

This is just my view of the ending. I love discussing different takes and hearing different opinions ^^ I do agree a special episode with a cliche HE would've been nice, though!

Yes! I guess whether it's satisfying or not depends on people's tastes. For me, it's beautiful. HRY got the chance to make things better for other timelines and doing so didn't minimize the experiences she went through (which it would've imo if it had just been a go-back-to-the-past-to-change-it-all). I agree with you about the ending blurb about their love tribulation was masterful <3

To think their tribulation lasted so long and involved not only love between them but love for a child, for friends/comrades/disciples, for mortals, and for all living beings. That's very profound.

But a lot were saying that they couldn't understand the ending, like just at a basic level of what happened in the last episode, not even that they weren't satisfisfied. This drama had many twists and turns but the ending wasn't that hard to understand? lol Maybe some watched a little too fast after express package dropped haha

The Time Traveling Sundial (or whatever the artifact is called) can't actually change the past of the timeline they are in, as the goddess of time explained. It allowed HRY to go to different points in different timelines (!!) where the rest of the tragedies and misunderstandings haven't happened yet, so HRY can change the course of the story at each point, giving a better ending to each other those versions of LM, HL, XW, and even HRY and BSJ.

However, everything we watched—everything that happened to HRY and BSJ (and all the other characters) in /this/ timeline—still happened. When HRY was done travelling to all the other timelines/realities and helping everyone else, she came back to the time she belonged in, where she left ZS as the new sect leader and Ling'er to live her own life, so she could finally search for BSJ at the place where she first met him for her own happy ending.

At that point, Xi E, who had been watching HRY all this time, used her power to help HRY and speed up BSJ's comeback. At the end, their love tribulation is finally over.

Feud is a unqiue xianxia.

Most xianxia dramas nowadays follow a reliable formula: FL + ML fall in love > misunderstanding caused by SFL/SML who wants to get between them > FL + ML get back together to face a great evil threatening the realm > one of them sacrifice themselves. In most of these dramas, however, the romance and developing relationship is undeniably the main focus for the first half of the drama. When the character(s) sacrifices themselves at the end for greater good, the concept sometimes can feel like a plot device without a lot of emotional impact behind it (not the death itself, but the sacrificing to bring peace part, because it always feels more like that one lead is dying for the other lead and the good of the realm/all living beings is secondary).

For Feud, even from the beginning, the love between HRY and BJS never overshadowed the bigger themes of the drama about what's right/ wrong and what should be god's duties to mortals and the three realms. The personal love and hate between them were certainly central to the story, but their story had always intimately involved forces larger than just the two of them. The main conflict and misunderstsanding between HRY and BJS was never due to any love triangles but rather very different viewpoints and understanding about how they see the worth of a mortal.

In the end, BJS chose HRY over himself because he loved her AND because she was the one who could protect everyone, and HRY never disappointed in that regard. Even after the battle, she was sad but still cared about the sect, the realm, and she was ready to sacrifice herself to end the drought. The story between HRY and BJS was beautiful because they loved each other so deeply (it sometimes turned to hate), but also because of they were characters outside of each other, with duties and principles that mattered to them just as much as their feelings for one another.

I think Feud is the first xianxia to have this particular focus, and in my opinion, it just makes the romance better and more meaningful.

I also saw a lot of people were confused about the ending (?) and I'm not sure why. I'll put my understanding down below.

I still don't fully know what Li Mo's deal is, but he and Long Yuan give off such children-of-divorce energy. Long Yuan is obviously the maladaptive child, while Li Mo is the mediator who's still on good terms with everyone.

When the drama is over, I'm going to do a rewatch just for all of Li Mo's expressions bc he's just hilarious reacting to everything especially in the background xD