Commoner main leads in sageuks

3 commoners and 3 yanbangs as the mains in this ensemble cast, two of which are amazing swordfighters, also a trope too often saved for nobles. I loved that sfd took that big historical event involving the royal family/families, and decided to look at the common people and what was at stake for them and how they'd played as much an important part but never went into history books.

So the main lead is indeed the crown prince and everything, but Seobi and Youngshin are commoners that are given just as much voice and importance in the story. It is very much a story about the common people, with constant hunger and struggling to meet basic human needs.

And I love how, even though the plot is hardly believable (aside from the zombies, the CP traveling with dirty little nobodies like them??), it remained "historically accurate" in their behaviors: Seobi and Youngshin having to eat and sleep 3 feet away around their own campfire because, even though Seobi is a woman and the rest are men, what matters first is their status

So. Here's an exception, because the main lead is indeed a noblewoman. And the man lead turns out to be the king's son. BUT. The important thing in this drama is the ensemble cast around them, and mainly around the female lead. The plot is a pretty common trope in sageuk territory: some rich but benevolent family gets accused of treason, the men get exterminated and the women turned to slaves. But instead of it being about the son tragically surviving and looking for revenge (the princess man, gunman in joseon, bossam again...), the story follows the daughter. And so the most interesting part of the story is about her and all the other maids in the household adapting to the new situation. It is an ensemble cast and we follow the story of our main lead as much as the ones of the other maids.

Though the love triangle and the guy-secretly-the-king's-son got too much screentime by the midpoint and I never managed to finish it, I think it deserves a place in this list if only because it is the only sageuk so far which tried to portray the life of women slaves as its main theme.

I don't remember much about this one to be honest, but aside from King Se Jong, the rest of the main cast are commoners, and So Yi, who is literally the safe of the new korean alphabet, is just a palace maid. Wasn't Jang Hyuk character's revenge also born from this rich-and-benevolent-family-gets-accused-of-treason trope, except he's a slave from said rich and benevolent family? Another trope turned on its head.

Ok, so I have a lot of beef with this drama, but I'll acknowledge that it put not only an ex slave as the main character, but also as the main conflict. Like the point of the show (at least to me) is for Eugene to comes to terms with his background and his resentment toward his birth country. I don't think it was particularly thoughtfully done tho, so I don't have much to say about it. I especially hated how it painted the americans in this, from their supposedly tolerance to their involvement in the japan-korean conflict.

Again an exception, because the two main leads are of noble birth, but they never go back to a noble life, and the story is very much about them being poor or enslaved. The drama is from 2010 so I'm cutting it some slack, plus Daegil is just one hell of a character.

I'm still in the process to watching this, because I have a hard time connecting to the characters (I KNOW!). But it's literally a drama about the Donghak Peasant Revolution, so it should be on this list. More later when I finish it.