Food for thought !!

To my Shingus watching Six Flying Dragons and to those who have watched A Tree with Deep Roots and decided that King Taejong was the worst human being that ever walked this earth. Allow me to direct you to this nice comment/analysis that I found on the thread for Six Flying Dragon on Soompi. It's a bit long. But SukBin the author of that comment just reminded me that I was always defending King Taejong in the same manner when watching a Tree with deep Roots and that yes human being are multilayered so it's not possible to have politics that are strictly black and white.

"Posted 13 hours ago ·by SukBin In my opinion the thing that shocked Bang won most was the intention of Jeong Do Jeon to acquire all power to himself and his colleagues and friends that make up Sadeabu and discard the Yi family after using them to found Joseon. The King will be a puppet king with no real power just like the kings during Yi in Gyeom and Jo Min Su and so on......

I do not think he conciously had thought of becoming king at any point until now, he might have aspired and dreamed of serving Joseon and its people using his father's power when he becomes king but he has not till now thought about seizing the position of King to himself.

Bang Won is not our typical White Washed Prince Charming Hero of Korean Drama, he is a multi-layered , realistic , hardcore Leader of men who believes in the bitterness of Justice to safeguard a Society where common man can dream and aspire.

In his reign he had organized a system where common people can tell the king directly their woes and difficulties. He cutout the greedy Bureaucracy that Jung do Jeon had faith in and instead relied on Hands on relationship between people and King.

For him there were only two entities , the king and his people.The King had to be the most powerful man in the kingdom and the welfare of the common people was his greatest responsiblity.In order to achieve that and fulfill that the King should not let any third part mediate between himself and his people.This was Lee Bang Won's firm belief.

No country in the World until now has ascended to the top without people like Yi Bang Won taking upon themselves to lead the nation and cutting the crap coming in between.

If Yi Bang Won had submitted to Jeong do Jeon and let the Royal family and the king become a pushover like the child Goryeo king , we would have seen the repeat of Goryeo where another Yi in Gyeom or another military dictator would have become proxy kings and enriched themselves with corruption.

For all his great intellect Jeong Do Jeon was blind to the character of Sadaebu scholars, just because he had a selfless Sadeabu Scholar friend like Jung Mong Ju, he couldnt even imagine what would happen to his designed system had scholars of nature of Yi in Gyeom become Prime ministers.Was Hong in Bang not a established Sadeabu Confician Scholar, look how despotic tyrant he turned out.

Jung Do Jeon needed to realize that the powerful Bureaucracy can be kept in check only by two entities the King or the Common People.Since there was no concept of Democracy then the only valid candidate would be the King.The King needed to be powerful enough to keep the Bureaucracy in check and lead the nation.

Morever people blame Bang won for killing Jung Do Jeon and his half brothers, but it was a situation of Kill or be Killed, Bang Won had come to know that Jung Do Jeon and his great Sadeabu scholars cum ministers were readying to eliminate him , he striked first and eliminated them instead .Eliminating his half brothers was the only way because as long as they were alive , the Sadeabu will use their power as future kings and try to eliminate him.

Later on as King Taejong eliminated the relatives of his Queen and his Daughter in law because he saw how the second wife and her relatives of his family influenced his father into favoring them.

Without Yi Bang Won's drive to lead the nation, Sejong would never have inherited a stable and peaceful nation with a powerful king at the centre.

Sejong's policies of ruling by discussion and dialogue only work when there is absolute power with the King.No one would like to negotiate when they have the upper hand and power and the other party with no power.

Also people blame Bang won that he stole Jung Do Jeon's design while vilifying him, first of all the structure of Bureaucracy was totally redesigned by Bang Won to become king centrific and there were many things that were introduced in Joseon by Taejong for common people that were not any plans of Jung Do Jeon example the system where common people could interact with the King to tell him about their needs and difficulties, whereas as per Jung Do Jeon , his Sadeabu Ministers would decide what were needed for people and King will have to just put his seal on them. Taejong also encouraged and built up a strong military to safeguard Joseon. Not to mention , he encouraged Science and Technology to aid Joseon to a new future.

To all people who only see Yi Bang Won's ambitions and term him selfish, they need to be reminded that it was him who selflessly voluntarily went as hostage to Ming at the risk of his life.He was instrumental in rescuing his brothers, his father's second wife and her sons from last king of Goryeo custody risking his own life.

Of all the sons of Yi Song Gye he was the one who put himself at the forefront of revolution risking beheading by Treason by the Goryeo Government.

Not to forget when the revolution was all but over by the stalemate between Jung DO Jeon and his friend Jung Mong Ju, it was Bang Won who stepped up and eliminated the loyal but narrow sighted scholar Jung Mong Ju eventhough he knew that by doing that he would risk being shunned by his own father and the people of Goryeo, if all that he wanted was a good name and power, he would have asassinated him in secret without his direct involvment.Instead he stuck to his belief that revolution was needed by common people to protect them from corruption of nobles and it was their duty to protect them no matter who stands their way or no matter what damage it may inflict on him.

Last but not least I would like to say that Yi Bang Won became the leader the turbulent times needed. He focussed more on what was needed by people more than moral ambiguity.Yi Bang Won in retrospect is a mixture of ruthlessness of Winston Churchill who let London be bombed inspite of knowing the enemy plans beforehand in order to feign ignorance and win the war, Yi Bang won is also a mixture of idealism of Queen Elizabeth who believed that her duty for her nation was more important than her family and relations, who never married a person and instead married her duty to her nation.Yi Bang Won is also a mixture of the firm determination of scholar Chanakya of the great Maurya dynasty of India who himself brought a dynastic revolution like Jung Do Jeon and put a common man Chandragupta Maurya as King removing the powerful but corrupt Nanda Dynasty."

I agree. Just to add.  Sambong is clearly flawed in his reasoning of the new world. His ridiculous belief of having a puppet king who simply appoints ministers (Sadeabu) and governs through them is simply a farce. In the world of Sambong, how are things any different than having a powerful king? How did things change exactly in his 'dream'? The ultimate (or most of it) authority simple transferred from the king to ministers which is nothing but an added layer of PLAIN BUREAUCRACY.  Plus its not like people elected the Sadeabu or the ministers as to justify it.

In the end, Sambong simply used the Yi family for establishing a new dynasty and used them to make his dream world come true in which prime minister (in this case himself) had most amount of authority. Plus If he was such a brilliant scholar who came up with the idea of new josean, what the hell was the idea of conquering Liadong ... instead of worry about internal economy and increasing standard of life.

Yi Bang Won's idea of having sole paramount power as king hence is much more defendable. Even if stems out of his desire to rule or have ultimate authority, why should he have been cast out the Kind Saejon and others for having 'wrong' thoughts! Also in the drama, you can clearly see he made the most contribution and the hardest decisions (and what others perhaps could not do) when in the path of setting up the new dynasty, so why did his father shun him away for that! and not give appreciation and recognition when deserved. Humans always do something in order to get something in return including altruism.  I think King Saejong might have been a great warrior but a weak ruler who could not do anything without Sambong in the drama. What i like most (as mentioned in the first post) about Yi Bang Won's character is simple his will (determination) and  his idealism of the duty to the people until the end.