L13

Yeah, on the subject of overbearing and meddlesome friends, I'm glad Pan'er's friends are not constantly butting into her business for plot-related reasons. When Sanniang said "if you don't want to talk about you and GQF, I won't make you, but let's talk about our friendship," I really appreciated her maturity and respect for Pan'er's privacy.

Bizarre comment.

I agree superficial, backwards and offensive commentary abounds on MDL, but most of the people you're criticising are not American, so I don't know why you expect them to comment on TV shows like Americans. This is a very international platform.

But he’s really handsome? Why would anyone even pretend otherwise lmao

I agree with you that his concern for Qianfan is somewhat understandable, but I don’t think he has the right to meddle in his son’s affairs so ignorantly when he can’t even acknowledge they’re related in public. He has no right to act like a concerned patriarch after abandoning GQF and his mother.

Also he seems to be a corrupt and dangerous puppet master in the political arena, and GQF is on a secret mission to take him down.

I think they’ll be reconciled in the end, but there’s more that lies between them than just the issue of GQF’s marriage; it’s also Minister Xiao’s treatment of GQF’s mother, his refusal to acknowledge GQF, and his unprincipled political machinations. So I expect it will take a lot for GQF to forgive him and make peace with him. If I had to guess, I’d say Minister Xiao will see the error of his ways late in the game, die in a noble sacrifice for GQF, and leave GQF as his heir.

Officially, she was a courtesan even though she never had sex with clients. All women condemned to work in the government brothels have the same official designation. The fact that there are different duties one may perform in that profession and that Pan’er was still quite young when she was pardoned make it kind of obvious to anyone familiar with her history that she was not a sex worker, just like Yinzhang’s high level of musical proficiency marks her our as an artist rather than a sex worker, but again, it’s all the same profession in the eyes of the public. As you recall, Pan’er didn’t try to explain to GQF when they met that she never slept with a client; it was unnecessary because, while that was important to her pride, it was not something she could prove or get a certificate for. All that mattered was that she’d worked in the government brothels. That’s enough to taint a woman’s reputation for life because of the general presumption of sexual availability surrounding those institutions.

Now she’s a free woman because she received an official pardon, which is legally the same thing as her father’s name being cleared (although I’m sure it’s not going to be as simple as that once his identity comes to light). She can, in theory, marry anyone she likes. But her past is a mark against her if she wants to marry a member of the gentry/government official and her father’s status no longer has much bearing on that.

Of course, these are only obstacles if the man she likes is a coward like Ouyang Xu.

Because they're dancing around each other, but he's refusing to declare his interest in her. She's afraid the fact she's a former government courtesan and a woman in trade will mean a man like him (a promising young official from a good family--and she doesn't even know his real father is one of the most powerful men in the country yet) stands to lose his reputation by courting her properly, so their relationship will remain at the level of flirtatious friendship forever/she can never hope for a marriage.

This is a very reasonable fear on her part and I'm sure that GQF is thinking similar thoughts. Now that Ouyang Xu, who was originally his reason for not approaching Pan'er romantically, is out of the picture, GQF and ZP's relationship is suddenly ambiguous and full of potential that is both exciting and dangerous. Marrying ZP would be kind of a disaster for GQF career-wise, and now that we know he went into the Capital Security Office in order to take down Lei Jing and Minister Xiao, it's clear he is driven by a personal mission that I can't imagine him throwing away for love very easily. That said, I'm sure once GQF makes up his mind to pursue Pan'er, he won't waver like OYX did.

Yeah, we'll find out the full situation soon, I guess.

I get the sense this guy doesn't know Qianfan is Minister Xiao's son, which is a big gap in his knowledge given that they're scheming against Minister Xiao!

The preview for ep. 16 where Pan'er overhears GQF talking to his boss looks pretty worrisome.

Uh oh, I'm starting to suspect after the end of ep. 12 that Yinzhang will become a royal concubine. (There's a shot in the opening credits where she is wearing very elaborate clothes, possibly wedding robes, in something that looks like a palace.) If that happens, it will be a relief for me that her character is not being used as an obstacle to the main couple's relationship, but it probably bring her a lot of unhappiness. Especially if she develops feelings for the young scholar she saw at the music department.

Sadly, there’s a shot of her looking heartbroken while wearing wedding robes (I think) in the opening credits, so she’ll probably experience more setbacks. I just hope her crush on GQF doesn’t get the full-blown melodrama treatment where she becomes obsessed with him, gains fame as a musician, he is forced to take her in as a concubine because of the political machinations of others (the Empress?) and SYZ eventually accepts he’ll never love her and tragically sacrifices herself for him and Pan’er. That’s what would happen in a regular historical romance, but I’m hoping the more female-centric focus here gives her a storyline as something other than a plot device/vehicle for the main couple’s relationship angst. A lighthearted romance with the palace guard would be nice.

I hope she's planning to return to the small screen and has some good roles to choose from when she does. She's such a charming actor!

Kim Young-kwang has a lot of charm and I think he'll match up well with Lee Sung-kyung, whom I'm excited to see in a mature romantic melodrama. I like melos about lonely people finding each other and I like revenge dramas, but I tend to think of them as two very different romantic subgenres, so I'm curious to see how they combine here.

I'm looking forward to this!

OMG, please be true!

Judge Di is such a classic character in Chinese literature, and Zhou Yi Wei is a great actor with a distinctive presence. If they add some political intrigue to the mix, this will be irresistible.

Just because you choose to consume media from a country you know nothing about doesn’t mean other people aren’t allowed to form opinions on actors based on their political statements.

Don’t be so proud of your ignorance and don’t force it on others.

Even though the drama focused on characters on the Shu side of the Three Kingdoms conflict and we were supposed to view that state as the good guys, men like Feng Ying, Yang Yi, Li Yan, all the snakes in the intelligence office, etc. were totally contemptible. (Great characters, mind you; the way Li Yan was so manipulative but so easily let himself be flattered and deceived was very entertaining, and his and Feng Ying's willingness to believe that Liu Ying was actually attracted to them was painfully true to how powerful old men behave around beautiful women IRL.) Even Zhuge Liang was kind of annoying.

All these guys were willing to sacrifice, nay, kill: a subject as loyal and capable as Xun Xu, who did nothing wrong but whom their paranoia told them to silence; Chen Gong's father; various low-level intelligence officers; many soldiers; and ultimately Chen Gong himself, who had to die just so their petty power struggles would remain a secret. These guys claimed to do it all for the glory of the Han empire, but as even Zhuge Liang told Yang Yi, that was bullshit. In reality, all the deaths they engineered and all the self-sacrifices they demanded from people who were worthier and more capable than them were meaningless from a military/strategic standpoint. (Well, I take the point that Li Yan was undermining the Shu and had to be taken down, but it didn't have to happen that way.)

On the other hand, the two Wei officials we caught a glimpse of, Guo Huai and Guo Gang, were both upstanding and principled by comparison. Like, Guo Huai was ruthless, but he was honest with Chen Gong when he recruited him and gave a cool little speech about the power of the human heart, and Guo Gang was just a nice guy.

And Xun Xu was in love with Liu Ying, basically.

So, my point is, if I were him, after Chen Gong's farce of an execution I would have been so angry at all the awful people around me I would have decided they didn't deserve to win the war and I would have become a double agent for the Wei.

Now, I get he's supposed to be this totally incorruptible character, but honestly. HONESTLY. If in the final 5 minutes of the drama he had gone to a secret meeting with a Wei spy and declared his desire to become an informant, I would have lost my mind. That would have been such a great ending IMO, and it would have reinforced the drama's point that all this heroic death and intrigue amounted to nothing in the end because the leaders of the war weren't worthy of their followers.

OK, just finished and I have to say this is a great drama. Very well made, well shot, subtle and great characterization. BUT can I just say:

OK, I'm on ep. 10 now and the Tianshui governor, Guo Gang, has had such a great character arc--well, I'm not sure if 'character arc' is the right term here because I don't know if he undergoes some great character development as much as the viewer's perception of him shifts radically--from an airhead playboy who lucked into a position way above his level of ability to this guy who was a genuinely good and loyal friend to a traitor and is now suffering for it. The scene where he tells his subordinate that oh, funny thing, my sworn brother Chen Gong is dead... and also, by the way, Chen Gong was White Emperor... and also, by the way, I'm being dismissed from my position for trusting the wrong man, is SO well-acted. You can see how painful it is for him to voice each of these disclosures, how heartbroken and conflicted and humiliated he feels, and how hard he works to take the blows fate has dealt him with sardonic stoicism and leave his position without drama. There's a certain nobility to his character that was evident in his determination to stick by Chen Gong when everyone doubted CG and again in his ability to take the total personal defeat in ep. 10 with grace. And you could see before they parted ways that Chen Gong, too, felt bad for lying to GG in those moments when GG expressed his faith in CG or gave him opportunities to prove himself, even though CG is the consummate spy and never feels conflicted about doing his job.

Anyway, this was a long ramble, but basically, GG is such a great minor character. I hope we see him again before the end of the drama because he deserves to have a final confrontation with Chen Gong.