Character Analysis of Chu Youwen

yes a v complex character I am still at episode 15 so still have to understand him , havent read the book also , but that character is difficult to portray. he has to show love and compassion but at the same time keep his cruelty . This kind of charcter is difficult toplay and I believe  Wang Dalu did a great job 

I'm on episode 15 and the character is really annoying me. The writing isn't logical. If he loves Mai Xing then the best thing to do is cancel the engagement and send her away so the King can't hurt her. She still has an army to protect her. The most dangerous place for her is the kingdom. Keeping her close and being cruel does nothing to actually protect her. That's exactly what the king wants. 

When Mai Xing was being mean to him as Wolf Boy in the beginning, THAT made sense, because she was trying to get him to leave a dangerous situation. What Chu Youwen is doing doesn't make sense. 

Let me clarify. I understand why Chu Youwen is mean at first. It's because he thinks Ma Zhai Xing betrayed him. I'm talking about AFTER he realizes she didn't. I forgot the episode, but it's when Ma Zhai Xing has to kneel for a long time as punishment. Her chubby (and cute) companion ends up telling Chu Youwen the truth. He saves her and is nice for like one episode then becomes even MORE cruel because he realizes how hurt she's going to be once she finds out the King ordered the murder of her family. This is when the writing no longer makes sense. How is being cruel to her going to protect her? Her biggest threat is the King, so Chu Youwen isn't protecting Zhai Xing by keeping her by his side and essentially helping the King manipulate her just because he's scared of her army. Chu Youwen is only making her miserable WHILE still keeping her in a dangerous situation lol.

It would've made more sense for Chu Youwen to:

A. Send her away, so she can no longer be under the king's thumb.

or

B. Tell her the truth about the night her family was murdered, and tell her he didn't know.

Both scenarios would've been painful for the characters, but interesting for us as viewers to watch. It would've also been interesting to see them work through all that as Zhai Xing builds her trust in Chu Youwen again. That would've still been amazing character development, and it just makes more sense. Sure, the show might not have been 50 episodes, but we could've still gotten a good 30 or 40 episodes out of it. 

My view on drama plots is this: if the characters simply communicating ruins the plot of a drama, then it's not a good story to begin with.

 Kee:

@seOulmate Whatever you said ,everything happens in a few episodes.... you have to watch the drama to know and also he has his reasons for everything he does ,so dont misunderstand him very soon to later feel bad about it......and when you do understand him, u will be hurt for him and will love him......if u dont, then this isn't your cup of tea chill !!

Yes, I agree with you. I find many viewers who dislike the Bo Wang character may not have totally understood the character. They keep saying he shouldn't have hurt her like that, no matter for what reasons. And many of them want her to end up with Ji Chong. I suspect may be it's the subs that have not translated the true meaning properly.

@ ChineseDramaFan I think the main reason they dont understand his character is because they are not watching the series wholeheartedly, they are watching it either biased or under the influence of the reviews and comments they read before watching ..... which is totally unfair to such a great series as well as the characters. People should understand that loving a perfect character is nothing special but falling for a complex , imperfect one is something really rare and if that happens then that character must be really something worthy, people need to think about that....I also think that bo wang and the series is only hated to this extend here idk for wat reason....I hear entirely different reviews from other sources like Facebook group ,Twitter etc

 Kee:

@seOulmate sorry to say this but u didnt understand him even a bit , if u did the word toxic wouldn't have come ,have u ever tried to watch him closely ,tried to understand why he was rude to her ....I dont think so ..... anyways thank you .... u stick to ur own thoughts and we stick to ours....

Girl, show this drama to any psychologist or therapist or someone who’s gone to school for it. They will definitely tell you he’s a toxic man, and he has a toxic relationship with the female lead. Just because you don’t want to believe it, and you want to justify the mistreatment of the female lead, doesn’t mean it’s not true. 

If Chu Youwen had not been Bo Wang or under the control of the Emperor, he wouldn't have treated Mai Zhaixing the way he did - nasty. From time to time, he forgot about his status and had treated her truly from the bottom of his heart. So I don't feel the relationship was toxic to begin with. He purposely made it unpleasant to make her leave him because he couldn't think of a better way to protect her; only making her leaving him was the best way. I would never for once feel she would leave him had she known why he was doing it. Same thing she wouldn't have left him if she knew he was blind-sided by the Emperor in killing her family. That's the whole crux of things: he felt guilty himself because he was the leader of the Night Fury; he couldn't simply say, "It's none of my business, I didn't do it." But he had to bear the whole responsibility, whether he did it or not. For him, he felt he needed to redeem himself, and only letting her killing him for revenge could open the knots for both of them.