Eleison

Just goes to show how people can make anything seem true with editing. 😅

Maybe a tiny budding crush between two of the 2nd leads, but could also be special comradarie because they're the only ones from the study group who can't fight. 😅

Hmmm, weak in what sense? Physically, as in fighting, or in that he's the pawn of CPP and the Emperor? As far as fighting, I think he slowly gets stronger and stronger with his martial arts, but there is a spell in this when he gets badly wounded/sick and his meridians or whatever get damaged. It had less fighting than Season 1, though, so we see less of the progress he's made fighting-wise.

He is still used by the Emperor and CPP to further their own special plans. That part gets kind of hard to watch. He's still smart and clever but he always finds out his careful plans are inevitably built into some part of THEIR even more careful master plans. (He's still a plotter/schemer-in-training and needs more practice before he can take on the Big Guns! 😅).

That said, I never saw him as weak in Season 1, just finding his feet in the political world and getting the lay of the land. I was hoping he's break out of their authority a bit in Season 2, but in this season he's trying to gain followers and supporters so he has more power in Qing so his independence is not possible yet.

It does have a fabulous OST (and BGMs, too). One of the best as far as Kdramas go, for sure!

I wouldn't say it's happy (not as happy as it could have been), but it is beautiful and poignant.

I heard he got out in September? So, maybe a bit bit sooner than December?

This is the sort of person I've learned to ignore on MDL and not respond to... 😬 You know, this type: "You have to respect my opinion but I don't have to respect yours."

Sorry, I'm a bit confused by your question...

Yes! People have been comparing them and equating them but the mood and tone is completely different from this drama. Couldn't agree more!

I mean, even characters in the drama made fun of it multiple times (meaning that what you noticed was intentional). She IS unusual for a queen. But she's smart, compassionate and no one can beat her at the court politics game. 😏 So... she gets a pass.

Nah, this stands out among the sageuks. I hear Six Flying Dragons is amazing, but it's not available where I live so I have yet to see it. Scarlet Heart Ryeo everyone raves about, too, but I think it's a very different kind of sageuk. I won't watch it because I know the ending...

I'm just starting Cdramas, too. Nirvana In Fire and it's second season are light wuxia, but more costume/pseudo historical and I adored those. The first season takes time to get going, but the last half is SWEET and it's beautifully written. Guardians of Dafeng (also has Dylan Wang) I think is more wuxia than xianxia but it had xianxia elements (I think? I'm still new to all this, haha) and was lots of fun but ended on kind of a cliffhanger (purportedly a season 2 is almost certainly going to happen... 🤔), Joy of Life seasons 1 and 2 were great (though this also is supposed to have at least another season to wrap it up) and so was Love Like The Galaxy. All these are more costume/historical dramas that lean more into wuxia than xianxia (I think the main difference is xianxia is more fantastical with Chinese mythology elements and the supernatural throughout, while wuxia is more about cultivation and martial arts and the mortal rather than the immortal realm 😅 (and so, more down to earth)).

I stopped TTEOTM at the same spot! 😅 I also don't think toxic/dark = more mature. I found the ML a mixed bag. I kind of felt bad for him at times, but when he had chances to choose the good, and clearly weighed the pros and cons, he still chose to be selfish and do evil (as far as I had watched). Also, his life being that many bad things one after the next was insanely unrealistic. I couldn't sympathize with him because it didn't even seem possible for someone to experience. The suffering felt almost gross on the screenwriter's part. I don't know what the fixation is with xianxia and people suffering torment constantly, but it doesn't sit entirely right with me. It feels almost sadistic sometimes, even voyeuristic.

I'm finding wuxia is more my thing. 😅

I started TTEOTM and got to the dream sequence and bailed (for now). Xianxia is really an acquired taste (and I don't have a taste for it yet). I've seen some YouTube edits of LBFAD and I think I'll like it more (but I get so annoyed with those endings where they show up after being "dead" and then it just ends 😅).
But yeah, xianxia is like nothing I've ever seen before... it's highly stylized and A LOT to take in for someone wholly new to the genre.

I've been seeing mixed things in people's posts. Does it end well for the main couple? Or no?

I'm so confused by this back and forth--how is it not obvious how it ends? 😅 It sounds like an ambiguous ending since there's clearly debate which I feel is only possible if it's not clearly happy or sad.

And this is good to know since I tend to not like dramas that end with a 'happy ending' in the last 5 minutes of a 20 hr drama... it feels too tacked on.

A lot of people (like me) wait to rate it until it's over.

Very different shows, doing very different things... 🤔

I think it's mostly fictional and overly caricatured. At least for the school to be in the same area as that posh, preppy school (literally across the street!); that seems super unrealistic.

I find that high school is never portrayed accurately anywhere by anyone. 😅 TV/Films might have glimpses or fragments of realism but they never portray it as it really is.

The last 5 episodes get way darker and it's much less goofy and lighthearted at that point. I was taken aback by the shift in tone!