Isabitcliche

A well written and even nicely executed drama.

If I had to give you one word to describe the goodness of this drama, it would be storytelling. The use of music to describe feelings, the use of seasons, and the use of the surroundings as well as the NPCs to dictate motivation and intent is beyond telling of great storytelling.

Some dramas, though very well made, still piss you off. This drama passed that test with flying colours.
I won’t get too much into the details, but i do want to mark off everything that pissed me off and everything that didn’t.

I had already read the spoilers for the story, so i definitely wasn’t going to act like every other offended viewer. Because yes, it’s annoying. It’s deeply offensive and unlikable. But at the same time, there are only so many dramas where the leads are genuinely evil people.

The main leads are not morally grey. They are horrible people. But don’t take the historical timeline as a means to justify their actions, because if anything, what they did would have been even more “scandalous” and problematic at the time.
Thank goodness I read the spoilers and knew the female lead was a wicked witch. So i wasn’t emotionally attached to any character development on that front. Same with the male lead and his unseemly virtues.

I would never like nudity in media, so without question, some of the scenes were skipped.
Pardon me, did i say some?

MANY scenes.

But it’s still not beating GOT in that department.

This drama has been an ambiguous watch throughout. i genuinely can’t figure out whether i like it or hate it. The techniques and cinematography were immaculate, and I doubt filmmaking is going to be one of the major points of criticism.
But there is another thing that is just as ambiguous, if not more: the dialogues.
There can be two reasons why dialogues can be a big issue in a drama.

One, you are simply too dumb to understand them.
Or two, you’re dumb and so is the screenwriter.

I’ll take the latter.

There were moments where I could appreciate the “show, don’t tell” strategy. If it wasn’t the entire show filled with it.
If you’re going to serve me a dish on a platter, at least explain the ingredients first. i might be allergic to peanuts.
But no. You expect me to understand everything they are saying with their eyes.
Eyes don’t lie, chico.
But here they did.

How am I supposed to sleep peacefully without knowing what he meant in the last episode?
Ambiguity to a certain extent is cinema.
But to this extent, it is blasphemy.

There were just too many indirect conversations. And i get it, you guys are literature majors, and on top of that, this is a historical drama. But for once, tell me what you mean in one fucking sentence.
This drama, though great in execution, fails to achieve the one thing i expected it to have: clarity.

So i lie somewhere in the middle.
I like it for its cinematography, its storytelling, and the acting.
I hate it more for the plot and the ambiguity of the whole thing.

I appreciate a complex plot with uncertain directions and events, and i can absolutely appreciate unlikable leads.
But never did I say I’d like them regardless. I didn’t like the leads. And that’s my problem.

If I can’t root for a character, i can’t possibly be happy seeing them happy. But the ending, ironically, wasn’t satisfying at all.
How dare the fl still survive and go completely unscathed?
I don’t care if you yearn for him for the rest of your life. If you can’t face some tangible consequences, I’m not satisfied.

Though the biggest question for me was: Did the ml like the widow at all?
I think he did. I also think the director deliberately made sure not to make it too obvious the change in his expressions whenever she wasn’t there said a lot more than his actual dialogue ever did. But honestly, i’d blame that on their lack of guts. I presume the source material had instances where it was much more obvious he liked the widow.
But i digress.

He definitely ended up liking her in the end. But he was just too entangled with the fl that he couldn’t possibly imagine his life without her.

And somewhere in the back of my mind, i was still shipping the two leads together. i knew it was probably better that they didn’t end up together, but there was still a part of me that wanted them to. We had two antagonists, after all, and I loved seeing a female character doing all the manipulation for once.
To my surprise, though, I couldn’t feel nearly as much chemistry between the widow and the ml as I did with the leads. Only in the last episode did I see some of that supposed chemistry.
It’s a shame, really.

The ml and fl’s relationship was nothing but toxic, and they proved me time and time again with the games they were playing. What started with love turned into obsession and desire for something unreachable.

and things that are forbidden are hard to let go of.
And ironically, he let himself get trapped in the same forbidden love with the widow.
It’s a shame because the widow got caught in the fire.

It’s quite obvious this isn’t for the masses but definitely a refreshing drama from all the supposed fluff going these days. i should feel conflicted about whether i like something or not and here i did.