Aramintai

Yea, it's one of those dramas that get better with every new episode. The last few episodes were absolute goat, there are many cool characters, stories are gripping and quite relevant even irl today, music is catchy. I don't know what people aren't liking here.
Personally, I can't give it a 9 because of some abruptly cut scenes in the earlier episodes due to the drama being cut to 34 episodes from full 40. But it's a solid 8.5 because of everything else.

Grandpas are the goatest characters here. Also, grandpas! 😢

The world goes on, but nothing ever changes in human nature...

The most fked up thing is that they knowingly (at least some of them) did it for money to feed their families. It's like being a surrogate mother, but worse.

Kids don't become great at something, they're taught and show talent. FL's father clearly was groomed to be a general from childhood and the emperor was likely taught the art of ruling the state. So somebody assigned them roles since birth already.
Sometimes it caused lots of problems if the crown prince died and the next in line didn't know s*it about how to govern the country. That's why there were tons of replacement princes from many concubines.

Btw, it wasn't explicitly said, who's impregnating those women? Did they come to the cult already pregnant or were they impregnated by the customers or by that cult leader guy?
The customers were paying for babies, but the way they treated them didn't look like they cared one bit about their welfare, just those spiritual blessings.

Doubtful, he wouldn't have held such high status back then. Usually the eldest gets the throne, doesn't matter whether it's the main woman or not.

That's like every second Chinese emperor, lol. It's either the eunuchs or some military older dude who's really in charge.

Maybe they were cousins.

Btw, if FL's father was the elder brother, why wasn't he the emperor?

Exactly.

Grandpa is the GOAT.

The main big bad, likely. Prob some minister as usual.

Last case was the best so far, imho.

Fk me, the brothel story was "Epstein Files" case #1, now we have a cult and babies story case #2 . Maybe that's why we have 6 episodes less - they got censored for being too similar to what's going on irl 🤣. Did Winnie the Pooh visit the island too?

The bully was killed and Karen's face was disfigured, so she lost her favor with the emperor and had to leave to some country palace. Getting justice by the law here is tough though, as everyone's either is too influential or hurries to kill themselves.

So with all that, if he was threatened, he would have married her off and sent her to some far away province. But he's not doing any of that and is allowing her to roam free. Likely meaning he wasn't directly involved.

Not all women are good, there was a plot just recently about a nasty Karen who killed another woman because of perceived reputation danger to her son. And there was another one in the first plot who was a nasty bully.

But this drama's focus is on lack of rights and women's plight in that era.

Not according to the novel, afaik.

Yea, realistically an unmarried princess roaming around the palace playing detective is unheard of, even in the drama people are often icredulous of this. The emperor def is sus, and it likely is guilty conscience that he dotes on her so. However, it remains to be seen whether he's directly involved or covers up for somebody.