AleksandraSucur

I've just completed it. The virtual reality game is the weakest part of the entire plot. It isn't clear how the players and NPCs are able to project their moves and behaviour in it, all we've seen is they wear speacial headsets in order to immerse themselves in the reality of the game. The main goal isn't to "solve a murder mistery" (the death of the old mayor) but to make one of the NPCs win the new mayor election, accordingly to the tasks players recieve at the beginning. The scenario of the game gets occasionally upgraded and changed, but the NPCs are always the same. They are mostly ungraduated actors, only the ML, who is always playing that same character, isn't. He is a (co-)owner of the club and acts in the game just to use his real name (Qin Xiaoyi) as to appease his frustration of having been forced to change it after his father's death. Yeah, the author asked for a strong suspension of disbelief on his motivation and many other things connected with the game. Anyways, he doesn't play it every evening and gets regularly changed by a pro actor...

But for how badly this subplot has been developed and weakly connected to the reality of the leads, it doesn't have a significant negative impact on the main plot, the actions in the game feel more like FL's fantasizing on interactions with the cunning person named Qin Xiaoyi and on how to outwit him. The game subplot could have been completely dropped out, but when you see it, it isn't particularly disturbing either... that's probably the reason why people still highly rated (read: slightly overrated) this drama

Their interactions, the scenes in which the leads are together tend to repeat themselves. In communication, in frames, in tones. Not only, her interactions with the antagonist also tend to be always the same (a bit akward, a bit scary, a bit manipulative and so on).
It looked like the plot would move forward with Yan delegation, but after the mausoleum fight, everything returned exactly as it was before.
I have no complaints about the pace, but about the plot. At the moment, it seems stuck, moving around and not forward. It is true the plot deals with transmigration, but we've seen tons of transmigration dramas which are very different from each other. A drama with such a motif must have smth original. In this one, it seemed the plot will focus on "the novel within the novel which already have one transmigrator" and on the "free will" of "paper persons". It is tagged as a rom-com, but for several eps, I haven't seen any comedy while the romance is... hmm. As I can't find the fault with the actors (and neither with the direction), I blame the script for it

The scenes between the leads started to be repetitive and the secret Xiahou Dan hides from the FL now annoys me. It isn't such a big deal he transmigrated long ago: dragging the revelation through this sort of overdramatic "trauma manifestations" is irritating. If it wasn't Cheng Lei to play XHD, I'd probably dropped this story. Not to mention healthy exercises, hot pots, gimme five... and other things that make my eyes rolling and fail to offer any comic relief... with every ep, I like the story less. Hope the plot comes back on track, it isn't funny any more

Yes, I also hate when the arts are contaminated with some sort of political propaganda, feeling it's so unfair and unrespectful towards the arts, creativity & great craft to realise smth which can be understood, loved and respected by other humans. The effort put in this drama by so many people was so great that overcooking it with such messages (which I probably share btw but can't tollerate in the arts) spoilt the full enjoyment.

The voice was useful in early eps, but in the last it was counterproductive. In general, if you have to use the narrator, it means your script doesn't explain well what's going on. It can be tollerated at the beginning, bc. the era was objectively complex to understand for the broad audience, but if you have to use it in the last eps., you are overdoing. The audience is not that stupid, who watched till the end, definitely looked into the historical outlines already, as we all did.

I understand exactly what you mean. 👍

I'd also rate it 10/10 if it didn't contain certain historical distorsions in order to convey political messages, espc. through the voice of the Narrator. The Narrator is usually counterproductive in cinematic arts, and SiP is not the exception. Besides, this "explanation voice" made Hongchu's final "political speech" gloryfing unity and peace even more redundant and unnecessary. The audience is not stupid, we've got it from the first episode why the peace was utmostly necessary in all that distruction and chaos. As well as we've understood why it was so hard to achieve. The story itself also depicted very well the sharp contrast between the prosperous Wuyue and the war and poverty-devastated Central Plains, any rushed "unification" (by hard means of politics, ie. weapons) would mean a depradation of Wuyue, the new dynasty ought to prove to be capable of maintaining peace and bringing the prosperity on its own to obtain consensus for unity from Southeastern people. The script ought to stop there, leaving to the audience to reflect on these things and to compare the story with the history. Salwa is right that several (not all, ofc) historical distorsions were actually unnecessary. It would be better they've avoided them and left the audiences to reconstruct the story and connect the dots accordingly to their understanding and taste

Yes. I constantly google the names as the characters appear in the drama.
Fan Yong, who appears in ep 47 and 48 is the father of Fan Zhongyan, author of the Qingli reforms under Emperor Renzong of Song.
All these people appear for a good reason, as precursors of future events, ideas, policies etc.

I'm at the last ep. and already rewatched certain parts 4 times and will probably rewatch it again in the the future, bc of the superb dialogues and intricated meaning behind it.
Although this drama didn't keep me on the edge of my seat, by rating standards on MDL, imho, it is impossible to rate it below 9,5.
The direction was superb all the time and nothing was chopped during editing as it normally happens in other hystorical epics, during time skips. It is 10/10.
The stellar cast delivered credible characters. If we want to be brutal and blind to the number of people employed, we can downrate their performance to max 9/10, bc. we can be picky on this or that (some "adult" characters were introduced "too early" or things like that)... but realistically, we've never seen, I mean, none of us, so many characters in a drama performing at this level.... It is simply amazing what they've collectively delivered.
The music is 10/10, both intro and outro totally appealling and fit for the story, as well as the descrete bgm.
Rewatching is simply phisiological.
And now the story
No drama can follow the historical records at the letter. Actually, no historical record can follow the real history, what counts is if the Story makes sense or not. This one makes a lot of sense and explains a lot of things, and keeps to focus on one Leitmotive common to the four main leads: their yearning for peace and striving to achieve that peace. For how it may not blindly follow the historical records, it respected that era all the time, including the dialogues which really occurred, helped us, the audience, to understand this complicated time, conveying a powerful message the nude history cannot convey, but a creative art (and the imagination behind) can. It can't be rated below 9.
So, overall, this is 9,5 min, imo.

Wanyin developed a belief that 2D characters can change their characters and develop their own thoughts in changed circumstances.

he was a young teenager

Anyone with a brain in function would dismiss the very idea to force someone to rebel by killing his family and expecting the people would applaude and support you after you've done such an atrocity.

The worst thing about the family (biological or "sworn") is in having so much expectation from you. And nobody can manipulate us except people we love and trust ofc.

You're right, both of them made the same substantial error at the beginning of their reign. In the drama, 7th was represented as less clever, bc he didn't expect the formal investiture by the emperor to oppose Hu Jingsi in the drama (while in real history, he was invested but not in the same way as the 6th, so the script simplified that story for the sake of our patience).
And you're again right: the 7th was largely influenced by his 6th bro, both in the drama and in real history. In both real and dramatised stories, he acted as he could have deal with HJ better than his bro - the thing which didn't happen.
That's why I am very prone to believe the drama conveyed the basics of what really happened in history

It wasn't the 6th who gave him that advice on his deathbed, it was Hongchu, who is practical and reluctant to take the hot potato.

Thank you for remembering my name. ❤️This time I truly didn't contribute much as I am not much familiar with this era but eeextreeemely curious about it, I am browsing it like crazy myself, lol.
As PBG said above, "the ending is known", bc the story is framed within real historical events, but how the plot and characters are moving towards those "endings" is up to the author. And we all must acknowledge to him a rare audacity to even treat such a "chaotic time", as Megumi-H put it.
I personally don't care if the author takes great artistic freedoms in representing the real historical characters if the trip (=plot, story, credibility of the setting) he/she has chosen makes sense and gets the story towards that ending(s). Imo, the storyline makes sense as well as the four main leads (and many other side characters) and the whole drama represents the main point of conflicts in a convincing way for the audience. A drama cannot be a documentary of the time - we will all end sleeping if it was, it still must contain basic elements of "dramatic" to keep our attention up and mine hasn't dropped one bit, on the contrary. I'm still in awe with the scriptwriter and I doubt I'll rate it below 9,5/10, it doesn't keep us on the edge of our seats but in turn offers incredible dialogues and thoughts, depicting deep relations and understanding of the world, things we rarely see in dramas. I enjoy them, rewatch them, think about them later (while doing other things in my life) and feel very glad, satisfied and satiated with smth I really needed.

I also see him as a tragic person. He was consumed by stress, frustration and excess of responsibility. At such a young age, people affected by TBC would have last at least 10 years in ancient times. In drama, it was mentioned he reigned for 6 years (while in reality he reigned even less). The actor conveyed brilliantly his inner sufference

I was thinking exactly the same. If I were a Qian, I'd certainly coax the old man. 😁
But it's easy for us to say so, bc we see that what mostly made them antagonise the old man was basically the error of the sixth brother approving the Cheng Zhaoyue's tax system (thinking it will give him certain authority over the military to which most of the income was destined) and in which Hu Jinsi took part nolens-volens, more unwillingly than willingly, but they've missed that part, probably bc the shock Cheng Zhaoyue could plot such a scheme and treason was too much. Hu Jinsi saw through Cheng Zhaoyue and was indeed silent about the scheme, so he was conniving to a certain degree, but would the king believe him if he had told about Cheng Zhaoyue's intentions? No, bc the main reason why the king elevated Cheng Zhaoyue to Revenue/Treasury minister was to suppress Hu Jinsi. A sort of vicious circle in which both the 6th and the 7th fell in due to the lack of experience. For this reason, I see both of them as tragic persons.
Not to mention Shui Qiu, a true pillar to rely on.

I don't think he is inconsistent. He simply made the same error his older bro did at his time to deter the old Hu, the only difference his dead brother awaited for a formal confirmation of his status as a king. When one person is desperate, and the 7th is additionally less experienced (in particular he has 0 military experience), he/she can make wrong judgements and decisions.
What an outsider can see, like the fact he cannot buy the soldiers (who are used to obey the military authority first) with double reward asking their loyalty in return, and will even worsen his situation bc he is already poor due to the wrong taxation system, the directly involved person often can't.

It was definitely an unusual dowry. Which could be re-gifted by the bride (the dowry remains woman's personal property) only to a person who can move those warships, ie., a ruler.