* WARNING: Spoilers below!! *
I liked The Tempest. I liked it a lot, even, but I didn’t give it the highest rating. That’s because sometimes, it was too melodramatic, and then it was the fantasy thing.
I don’t have any problem at all with fantasy in general, but here, it sometimes felt like it was added to this drama as an afterthought. There were dragons and prophecies, visions, ghosts, and a magic jewel, but all these things were spread out so unevenly through the story, that it surprised me whenever something “magical” happened because I had almost forgotten it was possible, and then it made me laugh because it seemed like almost unnecessary adornments. So, I would have liked these things better if there had been more or less of them. Perhaps if the whole country had been fictional, the fantasy elements would have been more believable?
And then there was the love story. It’s just… I don’t know how to put it exactly, but although there was a lot of potential – because they did interact quite a lot throughout the series, after all – more could have been done with the theme of forbidden passion and sexual tension. Or something. After a couple of episodes (I didn’t think about it a lot in the beginning), I realized that I liked Mazuru’s and Asakura’s relationship in theory (normally I would have shipped this kind of couple like burning, seriously!) but I didn’t feel much invested, emotionally.
The truth is that I liked the relationship with Choukun more! I even found myself wondering if they were going to end up together, or I was at least wishing for it, even when I realized it wasn’t going to happen. Actually, aside from the fact that Choukun didn’t know his friend was a woman, his relationship with her was deeper. Of course, a deep friendship doesn’t always have to turn into love, but that was how I felt about it in this case. I think I wasn’t “supposed” to feel that way, though. I realize that Mazuru and Asakura were obviously meant to be seen as the starcrossed lovers we root for until the end… and like I said; I could sympathize in theory but I didn’t really feel it.
Now I’ve written so much about it that I make it sound like a major complaint, but it isn’t! The romance wasn’t the main thing about this drama anyway, so I can live with the lack of chemistry. I found the whole story very captivating, I found myself wanting to talk about it with somebody more than once, and I liked and admired Mazuru as a character. :)
What I said about Asakura in my last comment, I take some of it back after what he said in episode 9 about wanting to create a world where women can study and do what they want… but some of it still stands, since living as a woman (for somebody who has a choice… that’s not for everyone!) at that time still meant giving something up. In the end of the story, she didn’t have that much to lose by being with him, but a lot to gain…
The king did realize that he had a lot to gain from allowing his concubine to have two identities, but the king, too, wants her as a woman more than as a minister. “Even when we are alone, you will not change to Mazuru for me?” *sighs* When I watched it, it was so frustrating that these men couldn’t understand that “being Mazuru” as they think of Mazuru means that she has to give up her identity as an intellectual; as a thinking and acting, free human being. (Later I realized that Asakura did understand it, at least to some extent.) A woman is not expected to think about such things as the country’s future, but that is what she has dedicated her life to do. When she sits in front of her king, having been in her arms, she has been acting like a “normal” woman, but when she looks at him and starts talking, she is still the same woman. She is Mazuru the whole time. It’s not like she has a split personality disorder, but the king is sort of asking her to act like it. And it’s not like she ever has a choice not to have sex with this man; she is not allowed to say no, or even to say a word or make a single sound, according to the rules (that the court ladies told her the first time the king asked for her at night), and she is not even allowed to look him in the eyes or touch him.
This is a historical drama, which means that the portrayal of society’s attitude towards women isn’t something shocking or unnatural. I just found it interesting to watch this in the light of other portrayals of women (and man/woman dynamics) in dramas set in modern times. Sometimes I think that some women might want to pose as a “Son Neion” even in this time and age, to gain some freedom and be seen as individuals before they are seen as women…
