LX was tutored, personally, by her grandfather who was an official and one of the great scholarly minds of his day; someone who could definitely take a smart kid and make a pretty great thinker out of her. Grandfather Lin tells us that his friend Shen treated his granddaughter's education with great care as if she were a young man. She was reading law books from her home library as a teenager, she did have access to brush and paper during the six years after the massacre (there's a scene devoted to that and her teaching her new dad how to read and write). She then had access to the Lin library even as a slave and would definitely have known how to do research for her plays etc. while working with Scholar Lu in his bookstore. Still doubtful?
Oh my. You're going to think that I'm picking on you.
I get your point about plot armor though. There's no doubt that she has a string of life saving luck as an adult what with so many dangerous schemes going on and a rebellion and a firearm that looked like it would sooner kill the person holding it rather than the person being aimed at.
For the Legend of Zang Hai, though. I wonder if they might have taken it to the opposite extreme at least at the beginning. He starts his ten years education from a fairly early age but that doesn't save him from looking so much like an idiot in the first episodes that I couldn't even get past them.
He's supposed to be a genius. His tutors are supposed to be geniuses but he seems more like an ivory tower book smart kind of guy when he could really have used some street smarts from the real world once he actually got to the capital.
Even the lessons from his one female tutor which were supposed to be practical don't help much. Only what was that embarrassing stuff? LOL.
And getting through that very first test which killed everyone else there? That was a huge stretch of the imagination as well as the use of two lifetimes of plot armor. But he's a guy so that's alright and perfectly understandable? haha ok.
Actually, if you can give me some tangible encouragement to finish the Legend of Zhang Hai, I would really appreciate it. Will he ever stop making so many mistakes because he's in such a rush for vengeance? It's so highly rated that I must be missing something.
XR brings vegetable soup to LX who has just lost her mother. She says she learned to cook it from the monks because…
I noticed it too. Like she was becoming more and more at peace with her life. She has been gradually accepting it all good and bad so that she could let go of whatever grudges she might still been feeling and just enjoy what was left even though her mother has died.
To be like LX all you have to do is try; try to learn, try to accept what you can't change and try to be a decent…
Ji'er was not able to deal with the fact that her parents and brother betrayed her the way that they did. And it's hard to know if they were just greedy or if they were motivated to steel from her because she had become a prostitute. Not that either reason is a good one since she is their daughter. If it's greed, particularly, that certainly does fit the mother and her mother's past advice. It was much easier for her to blame the ML, though, for not rescuing her. Although I do think she realized that she was too small a part of his life for him to remember her. That was, in fact, part of the irony of her situation. She was where she was because of two people; one who wouldn't remember her and one who didn't see her as a full human being. Very sad and very ironic.
About men being blamed for everything that's shown to be wrong in the drama. That's tricky. Because they wear the face of the ideas and the history that is persecuting women in the story. They are men and some of them are extremely wealthy, educated men who have different kinds of power over many people. In a world where the absolute power of Kings must necessarily fall to a man..
So, in a way it's like any group that is visibly associated with a past wrong-doing. White Europeans who destroyed indigenous populations. White people in general who inherit the mantle of racism. Germans and Japanese after WW2. There are lots of examples where the members of a wrong-doing group are left to wonder how responsible they are in the aftermath of something that they personally did not initiate. Blame. Responsibility. Continuing gains. It's all pretty complicated, isn't it?
So, it's easy to look at the drama and think that the men are always being blamed. But we can see it, more accurately, maybe as being the ideas, customs, laws that are at fault. The philosophies. The history. The wealth and privileged. It's clearly not just about gender.
But we do see two of the men in this drama paying and suffering for the ideas that they inherited and followed as a matter of course.
JQ learned that he can't force the woman he loves to love him in return. He can force her to marry him but he can't own her soul and expect her love. He needs some luck and to earn it. And he can't assume that she will be grateful because he thinks he is the best choice for her, or because he is, objectively, the best choice that she has ... if she valued and believed the same things that he does. He learns a lot after the wedding. And he pays for his mistakes. And he suffers. So, he too becomes a victim of the many ideas, rights and privilege that he's inherited. He didn't even know that he should pause and question what he was doing but he certainly learns, after the fact, that he was mistaken.
And the same could be said for the Marquis. His mother and he have inherited the idea that male inheritance and the need for a male heir are obvious and right. So he acts on that. And loses the love of someone that he had valued and loved. So he suffers too with the knowledge of his own guilt attached.
We also see the men suffering because they are expected to go out into the world in certain ways ... to become officials, to become soldiers and generals, to work for the Emperor at court. We see that they can win short term gains in terms of power, prestige and wealth but those advantages often come at the cost of their health, happiness and even the loss of their heads.
I don't think that women are blind to the fact that there are downsides to male privilege - downsides for men as well as women. Men have been sold a bill of goods in this life as well because of the ideas like might makes right, winner takes all, and zero sum game or the idea that superiority in one sense like physical strength makes one superior in all ways to the exclusion of everyone else. Everyone pays for these ideas.
As soon as people decide to see the drama as being a female empowerment story, they don't necessarily see that its a humanist story. It's tied to Buddhist beliefs that are about compassion for all beings. So you're right that men don't look good in the drama but they're also seen to suffer for wrong, counter productive ideas that they inherited.
I think in the end, it's a humanist message even if that's not as easy to see.
First of all, I apologize in advance if my perspective sounds a bit harsh or unpopular, as I know many people…
To be like LX all you have to do is try; try to learn, try to accept what you can't change and try to be a decent human being who treats everyone with respect, compassion and kindness; only stepping forward to help others when, and as much, as you can.
About turning a blind eye to your surroundings just to stay safe ... Grandpa Lin was right in that you have to stay alive in order to do anything after that and so staying alive has to be priority #1. But he didn't do much more that we know about, except to hold the fort and support his grandson.
LX though ... did she just turn a blind eye and stay safe? She might have done more maybe but she did help the people around her directly and who knows how many people she might have helped indirectly, by writing her operas. She put some pretty dangerous but productive thinking into her plays ... and that could affect a lot of minds and even reality over time.
Anyway, I respect what you say. Nobody else has pointed out that she could maybe have done more. They've only accused her of being too perfect.
The drama is interesting, but I just don't understand why the ML was just tolerating the terrible behaviour of…
ML decides to marry FL whether she wants to marry him or not. He assumes she will want to. ML decides to accelerate his marriage to FL because she is going to marry someone else. Thus ML asks the king to decree his marriage to the FL so she can't say no and can't ever divorce him.
FL slaps ML on their wedding day.
But ML shouldn't have to coax FL to sleep with him? And FL has shown terrible behavior?
FL is meant to be a serious/strong woman but a quietly determined one who carefully observes what goes on around her. She is patient and deliberate, intelligent and well educated, kind and caring. And brave.
So, what does this kind of actress looks like this kind of FL? What look does a woman need to have in order to be a serious and strong person? I'm curious.
Some of the comments are laughable! Enough with these female empowerment dramas already. I personally don't believe…
I'm about to block you ... but, before I do, I'll just say that you should go back and read your own comment again. To see what you said without maybe even knowing what you were thinking and saying. Or your writing wasn't clearly saying what you meant. Either way. I didn't stretch or misrepresent what you wrote. So don't think or claim that I did. The FL is not being excused or unduly glorified in this drama. If the ML is being diminished in some people's eyes then it's because there was some humor in the birthing scene and because he came home to a peaceful life instead of living a riskier one as an official or an outright aggressive and dangerous one as a soldier. Are men only real men when they are outside of the home or are they permitted some 'feminine' human characteristics as well?
We differ on your claim that LX has behaved in a cold or selfish or immature way that lacks empathy or accountability. You actually think that she's unforgivable. She finds a way to accept a life that she didn't choose. She finds a way to understand, forgive and even love someone who trapped her in a marriage that she didn't want. She's calm and quiet and creative. She has an internal life that is hers and hers alone. And you think that makes her cold and unloving and selfish? She goes out of her way to help anyone who asks. She's saved his life by risking her own and she actually forgave him. She had two children with him and a decade or two of peaceful, happy married life.
But you want him to have more than that? You want him to have every ounce of her and all her love in this life. And her next life too. If she has one.
He knows that he's dying in that last scene. He's already been to the temple to ask for the red thread with which to tie their fate. He hasn't told her that he thinks he's about to breathe his last breath. He doesn't give her a chance to say whatever she needs to say. He doesn't give her the chance to respond properly to any of his plans for their next life. She doesn't know that he's about to die. But you will hold her accountable for not saying the kinds of grand romantic things that come from his lips.
He always maintains control over their lives but people expect her to love him in a way that matches and equals his love when he never gives her the freedom to choose. But you insist that she has dismissed his feelings.
I think that the writer has been espousing humanist values rather than female empowerment. The women in her drama just want to be treated like human beings with some small measure of self determination ie the chance to avoid and escape marriages that hurt them.
Isn't that rather a low bar for a female empowerment story? The main character is married by decree with no chance of ever leaving. All she can do is choose how to interpret and respond to things that she didn't want for herself.
She constantly adapts to survive and live a good life while helping others and not ever hurting anyone ... but you want the writer to make her more warm and likeable and demonstrably loving towards the ML because that's your measure of emotional maturity, empathy and accountability.
oh 😥 just wanna to start watch it but now I changed my mind
LoL. Watch anyway. You've jumped into the very deepest end of the comment section where certain scenes are being discussed in heated tones ... forgetting that there is no one interpretation and subtitles don't convey half the deeper meaning that the author and writer intended.
Most of us here do not fully understand Chinese culture. Chinese history. Buddhism and so we won't understand a lot of what we see in this drama or many other c-dramas too. But we can still enjoy them. And we can still learn more through watching anything from any part of the world, if we want to go into a story on a deep level.
This drama isn't just surface entertainment. There is no revenge plot and if you're looking for a typical c-drama romance you won't find it.
It's still really entertaining though. Great characters, lots of interesting slices of life and some exciting dramatic moments too. And lots to learn and experience. So I think, a lot of people will enjoy it and you too. Don't be afraid. Especially if you are looking for something a little bit different.
Some of the comments are laughable! Enough with these female empowerment dramas already. I personally don't believe…
"MEN AND WOMEN BOTH HAVE THEIR PLACE IN LIFE."
'IT'S QUESTIONABLE OF A WOMAN NOT TO LOVE SOMEONE WHO LOVES HER. SHE SHOULD NOT BE EXCUSED OR CELEBRATED FOR NOT LOVING HIM,'
I see that you've decided that men and women have different places in life. And women trying to do male-like things is what? Wrong? Futile? Laughable? Weak?
And if a man loves a woman she must love him in return. Even if he has forced his love upon her without her knowledge or agreement.
WOW. So, what exactly do you mean when you say these two things?
First. How dare you decide what an entire gender should have or do in life? You want us to stay in our place. The place decided for us by men.
No wonder you are sick of female empowerment dramas. I guess most misogynists are pretty sick of them.
Second. I happen to think that LX does love JQ in her own way and he's pretty damn lucky that she does love him in ANY way. Because his loving her should NOT entitle him to be loved in return. Loving someone else does not mean that they will, or they should have to, love you in return.
So, really, why do you expect her to love him just because he loves her and tries to force her into it. Why must the slave love the master? Are you crazy? He was kind enough to set her free so that he could enslave her again because he loves her. And so she should love him? That's your logic?
She is a Buddhist. She practices compassion and loving kindness. She accepts that life is filled with suffering and she tries to accept whatever comes her way so that she and the people around her can still live a good life. In Buddhism the ultimate goal is to reach a state of enlightenment where you stop reincarnating and don't go on to have more lives of suffering after your next death. Has it occurred to you that she does not hope for or expect another life that she could just promise to share with him. Depending on how you have lived, (if you live your lives earning bad karma) you may never even be reincarnated as a human being again.
But you hate this questionable female character because she doesn't do a better job of forcing herself to love someone who forced her, by decree, to marry him.
He, at least, had the ability to learn that he is not entitled to her love. He, at least, felt guilty and sought to repay her (or did he just want to repeat the forcing again in a next life).
Go and read Victor Frankl. The one place where we can't be enslaved and dehumanized, by others, is deep within us - in our minds and our hearts. If we work hard to keep that little space for ourselves, and succeed despite brainwashing, we can still live our own life.
So, do you still have the capacity, despite brainwashing, to realize that we should not have our place in life decided for us and we should not be obliged to love someone just because they have decided we should?
I just finished the series, and I can say that, to me, the red thread scene was one of the most heartless and…
Good god. So many people need to listen better. The context was the fact that he felt guilty; guilty that he had done her wrong and so he needed a second life to make up for the mistakes he'd made. He wanted her to come and find him by following the thread. He knows that he's dying. She does not know that he's dying. And so she says there is no longer anything to forgive, he'd already made it up to her in this life. In this life, they had shared a good life together. So, he doesn't need to worry about the past anymore.
He's trying to set up their future because he knows he's dying and she (who doesn't know this) is assuring him that this life is good enough as it is. He doesn't need to do any more than he already has.
This is a good excuse to go and listen again, remembering the context in which they are speaking.
I love how the writer gets called lazy and blamed for not adding on extra episodes that cost butt loads of money.
I thought it was common sense to understand that it would take a while for him to leave his position at the palace. He doesn't get to leave until the Emperor is done with him and willingly lets him leave ... but not in a coffin. So it could have been just as much about the Emperor and the times and the overall political situation allowing him to leave as it was about him wanting to go and coming to grips with the decision. I though it was kind of a parallel situation to when LX figures out that she can't buy her and her parents freedom if the Lin power holders won't sell. But it gets painted as his taking a long time to act on FLs advice. He already knew that it was risky to be there. Grandfather had made it clear too. And the whole history of the Lin and Shen. But once you're in, it's not so easy to get out alive. .
romance.though this is not a romance story, most viewers want romance and feel it's missing.
because almost everyone is preoccupied with it ... LoL.
Now that I've finished and had a little time to think and feel ... I would just have liked a little bit more depth at the end. I didn't mind the time skips at all and the last episode was perfect for me but another episode or two to make the final political situation more understandable and to fill in what happened to Ji'er in that other place she went to. It sounded like it might be a better place for women so I was really curious about it and wanted the FL to visit or write an opera about it. Also ... I would like to have heard more about the plot of her last opera. I guess maybe we saw the plot ... but maybe I just wanted to see the eagle fly longer.
you would know better than anyone else what kind of tea you like
Did you watch it at all? If it doesn't vibe with you now, it might later. I wouldn't waste your time on something you won't like. And I wouldn't waste something that you might enjoy later just because you forced yourself to watch it now. For me, my mood and current interests dictate whether I'm going to like the tea ... or even widen my taste in tea.
Somewhere in the middle, like ep 30, the show felt so so pitiful and brought up themes that aligned with hatred…
It seems like you really hate this drama and haven't tried to understand the characters or the context. But if you hate something this much ... just quit watching and reviewing and go try something else. For your own sake.
Just started and can someone give me a spoiler please, did the foster parents die?
Absolutely everyone dies. It's a life story where the protagonist outlives everyone. Her parents live well and die of natural causes at an old age. Their story is a good one; which they totally deserve. Great characters.
Amazing review. This is what I look for in comments and reviews. Keen observation. Thought. Insight. Knowledge. And the ability to write it out so that it's easy and satisfying to read. Thanks for your comments and your review. Well done.
K-Drama 
Oh my. You're going to think that I'm picking on you.
I get your point about plot armor though. There's no doubt that she has a string of life saving luck as an adult what with so many dangerous schemes going on and a rebellion and a firearm that looked like it would sooner kill the person holding it rather than the person being aimed at.
For the Legend of Zang Hai, though. I wonder if they might have taken it to the opposite extreme at least at the beginning. He starts his ten years education from a fairly early age but that doesn't save him from looking so much like an idiot in the first episodes that I couldn't even get past them.
He's supposed to be a genius. His tutors are supposed to be geniuses but he seems more like an ivory tower book smart kind of guy when he could really have used some street smarts from the real world once he actually got to the capital.
Even the lessons from his one female tutor which were supposed to be practical don't help much. Only what was that embarrassing stuff? LOL.
And getting through that very first test which killed everyone else there? That was a huge stretch of the imagination as well as the use of two lifetimes of plot armor. But he's a guy so that's alright and perfectly understandable? haha ok.
Actually, if you can give me some tangible encouragement to finish the Legend of Zhang Hai, I would really appreciate it. Will he ever stop making so many mistakes because he's in such a rush for vengeance? It's so highly rated that I must be missing something.
About men being blamed for everything that's shown to be wrong in the drama. That's tricky. Because they wear the face of the ideas and the history that is persecuting women in the story. They are men and some of them are extremely wealthy, educated men who have different kinds of power over many people. In a world where the absolute power of Kings must necessarily fall to a man..
So, in a way it's like any group that is visibly associated with a past wrong-doing. White Europeans who destroyed indigenous populations. White people in general who inherit the mantle of racism. Germans and Japanese after WW2. There are lots of examples where the members of a wrong-doing group are left to wonder how responsible they are in the aftermath of something that they personally did not initiate. Blame. Responsibility. Continuing gains. It's all pretty complicated, isn't it?
So, it's easy to look at the drama and think that the men are always being blamed. But we can see it, more accurately, maybe as being the ideas, customs, laws that are at fault. The philosophies. The history. The wealth and privileged. It's clearly not just about gender.
But we do see two of the men in this drama paying and suffering for the ideas that they inherited and followed as a matter of course.
JQ learned that he can't force the woman he loves to love him in return. He can force her to marry him but he can't own her soul and expect her love. He needs some luck and to earn it. And he can't assume that she will be grateful because he thinks he is the best choice for her, or because he is, objectively, the best choice that she has ... if she valued and believed the same things that he does. He learns a lot after the wedding. And he pays for his mistakes. And he suffers. So, he too becomes a victim of the many ideas, rights and privilege that he's inherited. He didn't even know that he should pause and question what he was doing but he certainly learns, after the fact, that he was mistaken.
And the same could be said for the Marquis. His mother and he have inherited the idea that male inheritance and the need for a male heir are obvious and right. So he acts on that. And loses the love of someone that he had valued and loved. So he suffers too with the knowledge of his own guilt attached.
We also see the men suffering because they are expected to go out into the world in certain ways ... to become officials, to become soldiers and generals, to work for the Emperor at court. We see that they can win short term gains in terms of power, prestige and wealth but those advantages often come at the cost of their health, happiness and even the loss of their heads.
I don't think that women are blind to the fact that there are downsides to male privilege - downsides for men as well as women. Men have been sold a bill of goods in this life as well because of the ideas like might makes right, winner takes all, and zero sum game or the idea that superiority in one sense like physical strength makes one superior in all ways to the exclusion of everyone else. Everyone pays for these ideas.
As soon as people decide to see the drama as being a female empowerment story, they don't necessarily see that its a humanist story. It's tied to Buddhist beliefs that are about compassion for all beings. So you're right that men don't look good in the drama but they're also seen to suffer for wrong, counter productive ideas that they inherited.
I think in the end, it's a humanist message even if that's not as easy to see.
About turning a blind eye to your surroundings just to stay safe ... Grandpa Lin was right in that you have to stay alive in order to do anything after that and so staying alive has to be priority #1. But he didn't do much more that we know about, except to hold the fort and support his grandson.
LX though ... did she just turn a blind eye and stay safe? She might have done more maybe but she did help the people around her directly and who knows how many people she might have helped indirectly, by writing her operas. She put some pretty dangerous but productive thinking into her plays ... and that could affect a lot of minds and even reality over time.
Anyway, I respect what you say. Nobody else has pointed out that she could maybe have done more. They've only accused her of being too perfect.
FL slaps ML on their wedding day.
But ML shouldn't have to coax FL to sleep with him? And FL has shown terrible behavior?
FL is meant to be a serious/strong woman but a quietly determined one who carefully observes what goes on around her. She is patient and deliberate, intelligent and well educated, kind and caring. And brave.
So, what does this kind of actress looks like this kind of FL? What look does a woman need to have in order to be a serious and strong person? I'm curious.
We differ on your claim that LX has behaved in a cold or selfish or immature way that lacks empathy or accountability. You actually think that she's unforgivable. She finds a way to accept a life that she didn't choose. She finds a way to understand, forgive and even love someone who trapped her in a marriage that she didn't want. She's calm and quiet and creative. She has an internal life that is hers and hers alone. And you think that makes her cold and unloving and selfish? She goes out of her way to help anyone who asks. She's saved his life by risking her own and she actually forgave him. She had two children with him and a decade or two of peaceful, happy married life.
But you want him to have more than that? You want him to have every ounce of her and all her love in this life. And her next life too. If she has one.
He knows that he's dying in that last scene. He's already been to the temple to ask for the red thread with which to tie their fate. He hasn't told her that he thinks he's about to breathe his last breath. He doesn't give her a chance to say whatever she needs to say. He doesn't give her the chance to respond properly to any of his plans for their next life. She doesn't know that he's about to die. But you will hold her accountable for not saying the kinds of grand romantic things that come from his lips.
He always maintains control over their lives but people expect her to love him in a way that matches and equals his love when he never gives her the freedom to choose. But you insist that she has dismissed his feelings.
I think that the writer has been espousing humanist values rather than female empowerment. The women in her drama just want to be treated like human beings with some small measure of self determination ie the chance to avoid and escape marriages that hurt them.
Isn't that rather a low bar for a female empowerment story? The main character is married by decree with no chance of ever leaving. All she can do is choose how to interpret and respond to things that she didn't want for herself.
She constantly adapts to survive and live a good life while helping others and not ever hurting anyone ... but you want the writer to make her more warm and likeable and demonstrably loving towards the ML because that's your measure of emotional maturity, empathy and accountability.
You're quite right that we'll never agree.
Also, you really should use spoiler tags.
Most of us here do not fully understand Chinese culture. Chinese history. Buddhism and so we won't understand a lot of what we see in this drama or many other c-dramas too. But we can still enjoy them. And we can still learn more through watching anything from any part of the world, if we want to go into a story on a deep level.
This drama isn't just surface entertainment. There is no revenge plot and if you're looking for a typical c-drama romance you won't find it.
It's still really entertaining though. Great characters, lots of interesting slices of life and some exciting dramatic moments too. And lots to learn and experience. So I think, a lot of people will enjoy it and you too. Don't be afraid. Especially if you are looking for something a little bit different.
'IT'S QUESTIONABLE OF A WOMAN NOT TO LOVE SOMEONE WHO LOVES HER. SHE SHOULD NOT BE EXCUSED OR CELEBRATED FOR NOT LOVING HIM,'
I see that you've decided that men and women have different places in life. And women trying to do male-like things is what? Wrong? Futile? Laughable? Weak?
And if a man loves a woman she must love him in return. Even if he has forced his love upon her without her knowledge or agreement.
WOW. So, what exactly do you mean when you say these two things?
First. How dare you decide what an entire gender should have or do in life? You want us to stay in our place. The place decided for us by men.
No wonder you are sick of female empowerment dramas. I guess most misogynists are pretty sick of them.
Second. I happen to think that LX does love JQ in her own way and he's pretty damn lucky that she does love him in ANY way. Because his loving her should NOT entitle him to be loved in return. Loving someone else does not mean that they will, or they should have to, love you in return.
So, really, why do you expect her to love him just because he loves her and tries to force her into it. Why must the slave love the master? Are you crazy? He was kind enough to set her free so that he could enslave her again because he loves her. And so she should love him? That's your logic?
She is a Buddhist. She practices compassion and loving kindness. She accepts that life is filled with suffering and she tries to accept whatever comes her way so that she and the people around her can still live a good life. In Buddhism the ultimate goal is to reach a state of enlightenment where you stop reincarnating and don't go on to have more lives of suffering after your next death. Has it occurred to you that she does not hope for or expect another life that she could just promise to share with him. Depending on how you have lived, (if you live your lives earning bad karma) you may never even be reincarnated as a human being again.
But you hate this questionable female character because she doesn't do a better job of forcing herself to love someone who forced her, by decree, to marry him.
He, at least, had the ability to learn that he is not entitled to her love. He, at least, felt guilty and sought to repay her (or did he just want to repeat the forcing again in a next life).
Go and read Victor Frankl. The one place where we can't be enslaved and dehumanized, by others, is deep within us - in our minds and our hearts. If we work hard to keep that little space for ourselves, and succeed despite brainwashing, we can still live our own life.
So, do you still have the capacity, despite brainwashing, to realize that we should not have our place in life decided for us and we should not be obliged to love someone just because they have decided we should?
He's trying to set up their future because he knows he's dying and she (who doesn't know this) is assuring him that this life is good enough as it is. He doesn't need to do any more than he already has.
This is a good excuse to go and listen again, remembering the context in which they are speaking.
Now that I've finished and had a little time to think and feel ... I would just have liked a little bit more depth at the end. I didn't mind the time skips at all and the last episode was perfect for me but another episode or two to make the final political situation more understandable and to fill in what happened to Ji'er in that other place she went to. It sounded like it might be a better place for women so I was really curious about it and wanted the FL to visit or write an opera about it. Also ... I would like to have heard more about the plot of her last opera. I guess maybe we saw the plot ... but maybe I just wanted to see the eagle fly longer.