PeachBlossomGoddess

I feel WS was very dumb to let her go bc he is the leader of Wei state and he endangered his citizens for the sake of a promise to a dead man. She was not only found guilty of harming Manman, she also destroyed the wheat meant for famine relief for his people. As Wei Liang point out, her punishment should have been execution. He should have judged her by the letter of the law rather than to bend it for her. If he didn't know about the 50k troops I wouldn't be so mad at him.

As for Daqiao she holds a grudge bc her family never accepted back into Yanzhou, where they'd be safe. They have no household registration anywhere and had to settle in a wild place like Boya where they had to defend themselves. I would have to think hard whether its worth risking so much to save this kind of family that cared so little for my survival, esp if I had a child coming along. Even Manman understands her POV even though it made her sad. Daqiao is realistically written and portrayed as a woman of her times. I don't judge her by modern standards. Whereas Manman's knowledge of war strategies etc is not that believable for an ancient Han woman.

Oh excellent - are you watching the Yang Yang version?

Well strictly speaking gege is an older male relative like a brother or a cousin, especially in ancient setting. But in modern times, its also been used a lot more casually as a respectful form of address to an older dude who may not be related - like I sometimes call male colleagues, contractors, taxi drivers or waiter "ge". One of my besties loves to address our waiters as "shaui ge" or hey handsome to get better service. And during my parents time women frequently addressed their husbands with a ge after their name.

Yes indeed - hence the huge controversy over the fact that the FL addressed the ML as gege in Hidden Love (which I didn't watch). But in Jin Yong's famous Condor Heroes series the FL calls the ML Jing gege. Now you rarely see that in c-dramas anymore. My mom used to attach the word ge to my dad's name when I was a kid (now she only calls him old rascal). And most of my aunts addressed their husbands that way too and we had no marrying cousins in our family. All of this went out of fashion along with marrying cousins.

I believe throughout Chinese history táng cousins are not allowed to marry. Maybe some ethnic minority tribes allowed it but not Han Chinese.
CP = character pairing.

Chinese have always differentiated between paternal cousins (堂/táng and maternal cousins (表/biǎo). Feudal Chinese were very patriarchal and women marry into their husbands family and the entire extended family lives together. All the paternal cousins share the same surname and the same generation name - they are considered almost siblings and much closer than maternal cousins. Maternal cousins are rarely raised together and they all have different surnames so they were allowed and in fact encouraged to marry each other to keep the assets in the family. The Chinese classic novel Hongluomeng or Dream of the Red Chambers is all about a guy who is in love with one cousin but had to marry another cousin - both maternal of course. It wasn't so bad in feudal times bc men often had many wives so often siblings are really half siblings/have different mothers. So when their their kids marry it didn't result in as many genetic issues.

Until the 1980s when it became established that maternal and paternal cousins should NOT marry, there were tons of biǎo ge and biǎo mei love stories. In fact the CP excessively addressed each other like to that to emphasize they can date and like each other. In fact during my parents time, Chin Han and Brigitte Lin were the hottest Taiwanese superstar couple that must have made a hundred biǎo ge and biǎo mei romance movies together. So much so they got married for awhile in real life but it didn't work out. Now no one watches those old movies anymore bc of the ewww factor. My folks know quite a few couples who were maternal cousins that married. It is fairly common in their time.

Its a lost cause dude. Both the novelist and the screenwriter are women.😂

Lol - my bro and I grew up in and out of each others homes with my 7th uncle's kids. So I refer to his daughter as my sister bc I don't have one but my bro calls her is cousin. And I call her two brothers my cousins bc my own bro doesn't like me to call them my brothers AND bc they were naughty boys at school so I just told our schoolmates they were my cousins. It confused the hell out of everyone bc we all have the same surname and went to the same school.

Oh yes video leaks should be spoiler tagged.

Tang cousins cannot marry. Biao cousins can and often did until the 1980s when it was established scientifically that cousins regardless of tang or biao shouldn’t marry. So during ancient extended family time when they all live together tang cousins always refer to each other as brothers or sisters they drop the tang. But biao cousins don’t and they are less close bc they rarely live together.

That may why Bi Zhi helps out in the end but he’d still be risking his life. There’s no certain outcome in war.

Even though I love his stories, I really don’t like most of Jin Yong’s heroes. Especially not the dumb dumb Guo Jing. They are by far the least interesting characters in his stories.

Yes but they never accepted him and she is quite clear she doesn’t want to save the world.

Ignore me - I am not a fan of heroes. 😂😂😂
But I'd be surprised if they all make it.

Only the good die young!

Hopefully they inherit her gene pool and not his mom's...😅😂

The thing is she is not a cockroach. He knew she had 50k troops. He underestimated her. The Weis are not as strategic as the Qiaos.

Lol - hopefully this is not one of those heroes die young things and WS does get his proper reward.

I think his braided hair and affinity for horses suggests he is an ethnic minority from the Mongolian steppes and not a Han Chinese.

Or making long, boring women can do this and can do without a man monologues...

Manman wants Daqiao to ask her husband to risk his life to save Manman's husband's life.
Are we sure Daqiao is the only selfish one here?
But in the end, to me it's all WS's fault. He let the fake peony go knowing she had 50k troops behind her. Risking the lives of many living people to honor a promise to one stone cold dead dude. Send my hubby to save him? If I were Daqiao, I would say NFW. Don't get me wrong - not saying I want WS to die. Just saying he hasn't covered himself in glory there and yet he (and everyone) is blaming Manman for the tunnel when he is the one who set a troll + 50k troops free to wreak havoc on their world...