Li Cheng Yin Discussion

@liteulkwin, beautifully written!!!!! I love it! The way you interpret his charter is exactly how I see it too, and I think maybe that is actually why I dont hate him. I actually was rooting for them not to remember, but like you mentioned, his greatest punishment is forgetting and remembering.  It is truly a very tragic love story. Iv'e watched many many c-dramsa in my life but this one hurt me real deep. I feel like XF at times, she hates him, but love him, she wants to kill him but she cant. She wants to forget him but can't. I feel like i can feel her pain. The only difference is we get to see all him as a whole but she only see part of him. For example, she didn't see the side of hime secretly protecting her, loving her and wanting her to be as free spirited as she wished. She only saw his evil said of killing, and hurting her friends and family and using her. It truly is a tragedy!!! I know the show ended a month ago but my heart still hurt for them and the ending that they cannot escape! Thank you for this post, you explain in such detail of exactly how i feel! 

 liteulkwin:

I wholly agree. I love that the drama isn't afraid to stay true to the story and doesn't stray from the tragedy! It also doesn't give us false hope that there could still be redemption. That's the beautiful complexity of it all; you can be so moved by a character who doesn't deserve a happy ending. And it's the double-edged sword of his actions that makes us both love and hate him! That sword has cut me so deep, I'm not sure when I'll move on, haha.

I agree, it cut me deep too. I cant stop thinking about it. I keep re-watching their happy times but I think it does more damage than good because I know how it's going to end. gosh, I almost wish I didn't watch this drama! 

 Linh:

she didn't see the side of hime secretly protecting her, loving her and wanting her to be as free spirited as she wished. She only saw his evil said of killing, and hurting her friends and family and using her.

You're absolutely right. Apart from the killings, this is to me one of the most painful parts. Until her death, Xiao Feng had thought it was only she who had loved him, and Li Chen Yin had only had SeSe in his heart. All the while they were together (before she regained her memory), she had never felt his love nor attention (because it's always unseen). Though there were times he was nice to her, but in a flick of the finger, he covered up his kindness and acted like a jerk again. Imagine if you have loved someone so deeply and have been doing everything for her, but she never knows and thinks you're a jerk. On the other side, imagine you love someone so deeply but think that he doesn't love you and has been sleeping around with other women. The pain from both sides is so hard to fathom.

 zxy:

After hundreds of plays, this was the first time I really couldn't forget it. lots of good dramas, but only "goodbye my princess" made me have such deep feelings. even just reading your comments, I shed tears.

there are so many meanings about life in this drama, opening various points of view. all characters are shown in gray, and that is the real human being.

After watching Goodbye My Princess, every drama that has a sad scene I always remember "Goodbye My Princess".
If in this world there is someone who is your first and last love, then this will be the drama that I love the first and the last time.

For me, there are no words to be bored talking about "goodbye my princess". This is also the first time to even read all the comments about this drama.

I want to give you a high five.

Recently, there's another newly aired drama with similar storyline - he is involved in the gruesome killings of her whole family and they love each other. If you haven't, go watch The Wolf. You may fall in love with the new drama too.

 Kim MC:

I was going to suggest "The Wolf" also.  There's something about such well written, grey characters that draws me in as a viewer and won't let go.  Li Chen Yin was loving, ruthless, cunning, protective and probably a dozen more descriptive words.  It's a story that resonates in my head over a year later as will "The Wolf". 

We think alike :D

Thank you for creating this topic! I agree with the people here about how interesting and refreshing is to see a more complicated character, as people too are complicated creatures! I will use some parts if my review for the series here because I too found him an exciting ML. I liked the drama and I especially liked it because of Li Chengyin, even though he would not be considered a good and upstanding individual in today's and many past societies but who knows, maybe it's a matter of perspective!

So, thank you screnwriters and book author for Li Chengyin! Unfortunately he existed in a story that was against him and that would in the end not give him the freedom to be everything such a character could be buuut he was so strong, he pushed through anyway! I wanted for so long to see such a ML - someone that actually does things considering the world he lives in. He wasn't even made to be so cruel as he could've been so the audience can "hate" him properly but I guess the writers didn't want that much of a "dark" storyline, too much for Chinese TV drama land? I don't know. In a Western historical or maybe even a Chinese movie he would shine though. Full on force, full wickedness making for an exciting ride because he still would be a grey character but that much more entertaining and compelling!

From the moment I knew the ML is using the girl and will betray her and kill people from her tribe for his own country's and personal reasons, I was very interested and hooked to the story. Gu Xiao Wu appeared and I always asked myself - when is the moment? I felt it coming and was impatiently waiting for that turn of events that is so different to other stories and other men in powerful positions' strangely morallistic desicions. I was at the same time scared of course because I knew it would be very emotional and dramatic. I also didn't know if he really loved the young princess so it was interesting to see how the events would go on. I couldn't reveal the motives of his character from the start but a little episodes in and I saw how he started falling in love wich made the future of their story even more compelling. I was even a little suprised. From what I knew of the drama beforehand, it sounded like he would just use her relation to the tribe and play a role but it turned more complicated and at the same time expected from two young people on a journey together through the vast landscapes of a beautiful region. So the story became romantic and so beautiful, yet it promised a melodramatic culmination, that is what excites me in a plot so I was hooked. When Gu Xiao Wu went to his legion, when his soldiers created a path for "the tea merchant" to pass through and he stood beside his general, took the red cloak, put on the battle helmet and from that moment prince Li Chengyin looked his enemies straight ahead like..THAT was probably one of my favourite scenes in the whole show! And the faces of Xiao Feng's relatives seeing that happening before their eyes...the complete shock ..I dreaded the moment yet it felt so epic! What made his character so twisted yet human was how he beheaded the FL's grandfather and when she screamed having seen that, he looked at her so shocked, teary, scared...in a single expression showing how complicated are human beings actually, how black and white don't exist , yet that sends shivers. Amazing plot here!
Him falling in love is a good misdirect but like, nah, not enough to fool the audience, we know what's coming, we know who he is. The type of the series had to put such a strong character that operates on many levels, against the naivety of a princess that lived in a glass world where she thought she wasn't actually a princess and there was no politics in it. On top of that it became clear it would be generally a romance story and we should sympathies with her because this is generally how it happens in simplistic romantic tales - no place for Game of Thrones type of characters when we should supposedly have only Romeo and Juliette world-building. Had the princess started to see the world from another perspective and change with time to play the game and become stronger, had she also learned the rules and how to break them also, had she turned "morally" grey too, we wouldn't see Li Chengyin as such a great contrast nor we would interprete his actions as bad. I would have loved it if that change happened! Not only it would be interesting to see, it would be a logical alternative to her life in the palace and a good character development. Unfortunately, I didn't see that much of a character development to her except in her last living moments, she suddenly was a different person right before she died. The character development of Li Chengyin himself is a little questionable after a while - he goes from one emotional state to another sometimes too fast woth no build-up to that. He is similar to me to Daenerys Targaryen, a favourite character of mine from another show, but at least he didn't quite snap like she did in the last season of her series. People liked her because we watched the show from her perspective and we wanted her revenge, it was rightful. But here the perspective is a little bit more on the FL side and the audience generally sympathies with her. I guess that was the the writers wanted? Not sure.
 I rooted for him after every political success in the court. I liked that he didn't go against his enemies head on but he hid his desire for power and revenge and I particularly liked the scene where his uncle was already imprisoned and Li Chengyin revealed he didn't like walnut cakes but pretended since childhood. That showed he had this perseptivness about the world he lived from such an early point in life. Such a simple reveal yet his uncle was even scared after hearing it and with right. Li Chengyin is scary ,I liked that about him - so intelligent and mercyless when need be but we didn't see enough of that.

 If the story was a little bit more from Li Chengyin's persepctive and the writers didn't shy away from a more "risky" plot, it could've been even better and set a precedent for character-building, the drama would be worrh it <3

EDIT: One of the saddest thing aboutbthe whole story and of the great things about Li Chengyin that made me like him - he did indeed love her so much, he actually was WILLING to give up on everything, although in the sscond part he did'n know why she wanted that. We know that from whwn she jumps in the river of Forgetfulness and when she jumps from the tower - both times he followed(the second, he wants to) even though that would mean his political power schemes are over.  As Mi Luo said - actions show better than words. When Xiao Feng asked him if he would die with here right here right now (their conversation when she was about to leave him) we as audience already should knoe the answer - he would. When she actually dies, he again was willing to follow her only that she stopped this by making the second wish. At the end of the series Li Chengyin indeed went to where they first met to be eith her and die there. So no, as he had previously said - power was not the thing he wanted the most or even truly wanted, he made many sacrificies and could in a heartbeat make the biggest one. Glad he didn't but unfortunately the FL did and I don't agree with her decision but...what to do :)
EDIT 2 : Also, now that I think about it...the betrayal in the beginning is really up to perspective because LinChengyin didn't want to kill her grandfather but her frandfather understood the situation and chose a hero's death with the ritual and everything - and he was granted just that from LinChengyin so he did respect his decision. He never got to explain that to Xiao Feng and she never asked. Her pain would be the same, of course, her understanding though was lacking. 

You summed up perfectly why I haven't been able to give this story and these characters up.  The writers succeeded in doing an impossible job of showing the different facets to being human and the true consequences to conflict.   Knowing the circumstances of all the main characters, seeing the love they had for one another in a very tangled web broke my heart.