vesca

When she is drinking after hearing that ML got married and reminiscing their "love" moments - there is really nothing romantic there... not to mention passionate
So screenwriters couldn't even bring a proper romance between Amai and Shang Yi Zhi
and why she should fall for a guy like him? you would expect to see his character growth during 30 episodes but that didn't happen... and he is no match for Prime Minister
so either he will listen to that old fox or Amai and Zhengbei army will sort the danger as otherwise he will loose a throne.

he has few minutes of screen time there

I was thinking to wait till end of airing and then write a comparison - but there is such a long list of differences between novel and this drama that I am not sure if there is any point to do so...
The first part of the drama despite not following up the novel was pretty good to watch as screenwriters took a lot of different ideas/scenes from the book, re-write them and implement into drama plots - and it make the show quite interesting
From my perspective the real fall of the show started after episode 22 when the plots has less and less common with the novel and all the court part is nothing else than screenwriters creation.
They deviated too much from the original story and just ruined it...
ML character, FL "blind" love towards him, death strike (as closure of some plots), lack of proper motivation behind characters actions, no balance in screen time of leads vs supporting roles, totally stupid plots and so on..
So even if I wouldn't read the novel - I would still be disappointed with the way how this show has been written.

Screenwriters made him to be like that! The real Shang Yi Zhi from the novel has nothing to do with the one in drama! He was posing to be a playboy but he had very sharp brain and strong character... it was simply his family who didn't want him to show up his talents as his father - Duke Wei was holding in his hands half of the army - so if the son would also lead the army a family would have been seen as the threat to Emperor...
When he took over the army just to save the day and stop Beimo army march - and then meet his mother - she literally gave him few good slaps and was asking what he did wrongly???
and he was saying: it wasn't mistake - as he had to do it to save lives of the people...
and Princess Shenghua was furious as he has shown that he is capable army leader and the same blown up his playboy image...

Ha! they have made me to really appreciate old adaptations of other novels and I was just laughing watching teasers and today's episodes
Who would not expect PM being behind her fathers death? Late emperor didn't even remember the reason why her family got slaughtered... and let's guess and say that Amai's father probably was a threat to PM's position in the court - I bet what he told Chen Qi wasn't even a truth - he just made a fictional story to eliminate Hans.

The screenwriters still didn't stop to surprise us and screw up things even more :D
I watched both episodes in 40 minutes or so... just skip, skip, skip...
Literally Amai has to confused love with gratitude - as ML was first person who cared about her in this drama... lets hope she will figure out everything and leave that selfish childish emperor - who was supposed to be a benevolent and smart ruler (HOW???)

As we thought that maybe screenwriters had some brain cells after all?

Well, that political plot now made a PM to be a most vicious person - as he said - he has last 3 emperors and not going to get suppressed by new one ;)

There are plenty of really good dramas, so I wouldn't give up just because of Fighting for love...

Oh well.... now we have harem drama - 4 more episodes and it will be over...
I really hope FL will find a truth behind her family death and use CYQ ring and go to him...
(Am I expecting too much???)

Well, I am also prepared for even bigger disappointment - I hope this video clip was made to confuse the viewers and its not going to turn out to be true

That's very interesting theory and good analysis - all your points sounds convincing to me and explained why drama is so different from the novel - but as you said - what works for one adaptation doesn't have to work for another one.
Still - you could make your original script INSPIRED by the novel, not BASED on the novel if you wanted to deviate so much from the novel and do not stick to its core events and personality of characters.

https://youtube.com/shorts/v0GHNjhee_8?si=KkeSUZfM7mZRosSx

Hmmm.... I hope it's not going to be true

for 2 minutes 🤣

there is no douban rating yet, but a lot of netizens is upset with drama as the novel was highly rated and very popular one

honestly, no idea, as the drama doesn't follow up the novel

yep! Princess Shenghua was so careless that didn't check the background of her son personal guard ;)
Lin Minsheng in the novel joined new appointed Zhenbei army general to gain some war experience
But he actually wanted to protect his beloved sister marriage (as Yi Zhi was her childhood sweetheart) and was investigating Amai.
He would assassinate her but after hearing from her that she is not interested at all in Shang Yi Zhi he became her trusted bodyguard and later took a name of Mu Bai
(as he have killed a leading army general who nearly lost whole Zhenbei army due to bad decisions what happened after peace treaty which was giving a lot of land to Beimo and Amai and her soldiers didn't agree with that, so she took over the Zhenbei army and kept fighting Beimo, and ofc being called rebel by old emperor)

There is no chemistry between FM and ML - but there is great one between FL and SML - however they are war enemies

Yeah, I had seen some comments on Weibo ;) hopefully in few years we may see a proper adaptation of the novel

https://www.hetushu.com/book/4535/3358364.html