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And I see some people saying the Lins are not at fault or involved in the Shen's massacre, but going off of Episode 1, they could have warned the Shens (the ML even suggested that they do so!) and Grandpa Lin chose not to. I think that's enough to give the Lins a healthy dose of guilt without thinking it'd be out of place. Don't know how Jin Qi turned out to be so level-headed and thoughtful when everyone in his family is so... not that way.
As for the second qualm you mention, how far have you gotten? Again, the reasoning doesn't make complete sense, but if you keep watching, you'll see the main reason why no one reported her missing.
And sadly, I think Lan Xiang is still too wrapped up in "survival mode" to register it.
There are tried and true Cdrama elements to this, for sure, but definitely some stuff I'm not used to seeing. It's refreshing.
I also love the slow pace that builds slowly. The story just takes its sweet time, and I kind of love it.
Where I still might push back is that sometimes it takes writers and storytellers time to write good characters from a different angle, and while I vastly prefer romance or female-centric stories with the men and women both being portrayed thoughtfully and as fully human, each in their own right, that kind of writing requires a lot of care and thought and insight on cultural norms and how to subvert them (or uphold them) in ways that preserve human dignity, and it's not easy to do. People have just started realizing that writing strong women does not just mean "writing them like men," and so it will take time to portray women well who are strong, but not just some female version of a man (and vice versa for a man; men see how demeaning it feels to be written as an accessory to another person's life, and it's really telling that that's often what happens when someone just flips the roles in a romance or story. Turns out no one likes feeling like that, and it becomes glaringly obvious to men in a way that it wasn't obvious to women for a long time because that portrayal of them was all they knew; very much like the portrayal of blacks in media for many decades in the U.S.).
And that said, thoughtful guys who are not super entitled and who want to grow and listen and consider another perspective despite being in a place of "privilege" of never having to think a certain way (or men who are in a minority position who can relate to women in this sense), and who engage real, flesh and blood people who are trying to thoughtfully wrestle with these issues are the guys who are noticing and embracing and adapting their views. It's easy to dismiss people's experiences in media or on the internet, but much harder to do when they're your friend or coworker or family member and you're facing them across a table or hearing where they're coming from while looking into their eyes as they share their deeply felt opinions.
I feel like (and I could be completely wrong on this) the men I meet who are often railing against this (admittedly somewhat unbalanced) trend in media at the moment on MDL are experiencing one of the following: 1) spending a great deal of their time engaging/building community on the internet, annd/or 2) in a bubble where very few people think differently from them who can challenge or pushback on their assumptions (whether on the internet or in person), and/or 3) men who think these "feminist ideas" are ruining the dating pool and making it harder to find girlfriends or wives who "think like them," so they are bitter and angry.
A good example of a Cdrama I really liked that made most of the men in the story "accessories" was New Life Begins. And the reason I was okay with it was because it was pretty satirical, and painfully caricatured on purpose (like the Barbie movie), to make a point (satire is TRYING to offend, and educate and awaken and reframe BY offending). But generally I get excited about the dramas that portray men and women thoughtfully and humanly. My favorite Cdrama like this was Flourished Peony and it's sequel, In The Name Of Blossom. I've never seen a romance like that one and it completely blew me away how they wrote the leads' interactions. Anyway, thanks for dialoguing! It's fun to wrestle through this stuff with others, even if we don't always see eye to eye. I always learn a lot when I do. :)
It's so interesting to think about how manipulation so easily becomes the playbook of people in relationships without freedom. I remember hearing so many stories from history about women "behind the man" manipulating things and pulling the strings from behind the scenes. And I think some people commenting for a long time would frame that as "the way women are," and I've come to realize it was actually more like "all they could manage without freedom." Pretty heartbreaking...
If so, I agree that balanced media/stories would show BOTH characters (ML and FL) growing. Many Kdramas these days do tend lean more into female centric stories (and I think you'd be right that guys usually aren't the target audience, or super into stories like that. I can almost always tell when a guy is in the comment section of a Kdrama romcom because I frequently see them calling the MLs in these Kdramas "simps"...).
But I will admit, I don't always mind stories like this, if done well. Stories in media for decades always had women as the man's accessory, always supporting, rarely leading... I imagine watching stories like this as a guy is probably how it felt for women to watch media for... a really long time. And I can see how that would be frustrating. In an ideal world, I would prefer a more balanced depiction, too.
The reason I don't mind this type of portrayal as much anymore is because I think it's harder for guys to feel manly in supporting roles (and easier to relegate women to those "accessory," "supportive" roles for a lot of reasons), and I think that's a cultural shift that needs to be done away with. And while showing a man as an accessory to a woman's growth is not ideal, it might give guys pause to think, "It doesn't feel nice to be portrayed this way. Maybe treating women like this in story (or life) is also not great." If media depictions do something as remotely productive as fostering this kind of thought, I can get behind it.