Drama Analysis ***Spoilers***

 CKT_DramaFan:

My coping with it ending…Junho videos after then figuring out which Junjo song to add to my playlist ;p

I got 2 limited edition solo concerts on blu-ray for Xmas and I still don't have a player lmao. Today I really wish I did, but tbh, I'd still probably cry over them ha! 

So, I realized that I won't be able to actually move on from this drama until I process the last two episodes.
I had read the story a bit before watching the show but I didn't realize just how much Dok Im would cherish her freedom. She ultimately did end up choosing San over her freedom, but she knew that he wouldn't choose her over his duties as a king.
I was particularly heartbroken and frankly angry with Dok Im for telling San not to approach her in their next lives. But if I had to think about it, maybe I can still see her approaching San on her own, as her own choice and out of her own will. She wants to live the life the way she always imagined, and maybe this time, San will have to make the compromise of his own values for her. I didn't really understand that part, or even If I understood, maybe I didn't want to accept it as a die hard romantic.
I just really want to believe that they find each other in their next lives, out of the shackles of the palace and its duties and they can have all those moments that they missed. That would be my take.

Why would Dok Im not want to see San in her next life? Because then the afterlife scene just becomes San's dream, not something that Dok Im would want. That's the question that is keeping me up.

 pinksprings01:

I think Deok Im being in the afterlife with San makes sense. Remember in the episode earlier when she made the oath with her friends to meet in the afterlife and then she says what if someone breaks it. I thought she was referring to herself.

That's how I'm choosing to see it, too. I don't think that was San's dream, I think that was truly their afterlife. She chose to be there, she chose to receive him and hold his hand to go away together, fulfilling the oath in the poem they read together. 

Imo reading this scene as San's fever dream only is very unsatisfying for me, too. She loved him, and only in death was she able to stop deceiving herself. I like to think that this is also a fulfillment of Deok Ro's dying wish. San realized he did need her love, not just to possess her, and Deok Im found him again outside the shackles of the palace, which she also wanted.

 pinksprings01:

As soon as he closed his eyes in bed, he definitely died and entered the afterlife + reunited with Deok Im. Plus with her body language and her asking him to return three times, she knew he has entered the afterlife.

Agreed! 

 pinksprings01:

As soon as he closed his eyes in bed, he definitely died and entered the afterlife + reunited with Deok Im. Plus with her body language and her asking him to return three times, she knew he has entered the afterlife.

Agree with you and @LBPG.  That’s my take too. They’re free of being King and Court Lady and can just love each other in their afterlife.

 LBPG:

That's a good detail, I'd missed that, that she'd assumed he would be the same in the afterlife. 

Yeah, that’s also why she was repeating the conversion from the past. It’s like she was testing him.

 LBPG:

Which one? 

The lap scene from episode 16

 LBPG:

Ohhhhhh how he ended up choosing to not open the door. Got it. Phew, my goodness I really don't want to rewatch, my heart can't take it, but I would like to. 

Yeah, I think I’ll need anyear at least before I can do a full rewatch of the drama.