Sibellin

Unique and beautiful drama with some plot holes

Overall Feeling: First of all, I loved this drama. It was more like an experience than a viewing. The acting was so convincing and the character development of the 2 main leads was so unique compared to most C-Dramas. After a while, typical character archetypes in C-Dramas can become a bit tiring but this was the first one for a while that gave me something a little deeper, and it felt so refreshing. A lot of people have called it slow but I really disagree. For me, a slow drama tends to be one that doesn't really have enough legitimate plot to fill all the episodes, so they pad everything out with side character filler, meaning the plot doesn't move forward. TFJ wasn't like that. I think what people consider to be slow is actually just the writers taking time to follow emotional development, not just plot. So if you prefer shows that are very event driven you might be put off by the deep, character focused scenes. But for me I love seeing characters have time to feel, so I was gripped pretty much every episode, which is rare for me because there is usually a point when I start to hit the skip button in your average 40 episode drama.

Romance: This is one of the most beautiful and tragic love stories I've seen for a while BUT if you like your typical steamy/touch her and you die/save the damsel in distress type romance dramas then this is not that. This is the relationship between 2 deeply broken people who are learning to find safety in one another. They don't go overboard with the passion but it felt much more realistic than many. Would I have enjoyed a bit more romance towards the end? Yes. Was I still satisfied with how realistically their love developed? Also yes.

Plot Holes: So I don't know exactly what was going on with some of the episodes. Around halfway through it felt like they shot too much footage and had to be very harsh with the cuts. Especially with the supporting story lines, they felt cut short or forgotten at times. This gave more focus to the leads' story development but lost some of the details from the overall story. Main example that everyone has mentioned is the disappearing princess. Knowing that there are often controversies during shoots in China (often leading to shows getting cut-short or actors being replaced or killed off) I wonder if something happened because the actress gets stabbed and is literally GONE for the rest of the show. Would love to know if there is a reason behind these holes beyond running out of time with the 40 episode max rule? This also meant that some of the side characters that I was generally interested in got sudden and unsatisfying endings. I don't say this often, because 40 episodes is usually too many for most writers, but I think this one could have added 2 more just to wrap everyone's stories up nicely.

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Everything Wrong With This Show

Here’s the issue: this story was written and directed in completely the wrong genre. What should’ve been shot as a thriller/tragedy was actually shot like a romantic comedy.

The “Romance”: It took me until about halfway through to realise that the very creepy and huge red flag of a male lead was not going to get better. He constantly stalks, harasses, and threatens the female lead. They shoot him like a romantic lead but his actions are so off-putting it kept me constantly questioning whether I should actually want the female lead to fall for him. As it turns out the story is actually supposed to be a tragedy and you’re not really supposed to route for the male lead. So then why is the first half written and directed like a typical romantic comedy?
Another main issue is that we never get to see the female lead express romantic feelings for the male lead. Whenever issues of relationships are discussed, it’s always under duress and she always answers pretty clearly that she is not interested. And we have to hear her say this probably at least 6 to 7 times across the series. Additionally, the male lead just won’t give up. No matter how clearly she rejects him he can’t seem to accept no for an answer and punishes her for this.

Plot Holes and Contradictions: Not only do we have to listen to these constant refusals from the female lead, but at the same time she cannot seem to leave his side and remains desperate to protect him at all costs. At the beginning, the motivation for this was clear; the survival of The Crown Prince was her survival as a palace maid. But once the male lead is crowned King this motivation is gone which means we are only left with having to assume she genuinely cares about the male lead, whilst at the same time questioning why she’s constantly refusing his advances. They could at least have used the fact that she’s technically the daughter of a traitor and in the palace under a full name to create some kind of obstacle for their love, but they never do this. It’s a massively wasted opportunity and feels like a big plot hole as it does get mentioned multiple times. The series honestly felt like a writer had a couple of ideas and asked ChatGPT to blend them together to make an entire show. (and yes, I know it’s based on a book.)

Character development: The other frustrating thing is the female lead started off as a fun, smart and interesting character. But after episode seven, she basically spends the rest of the series staring silently at the male lead as he harasses her. She loses all of her charm, all of her smarts and whilst I understand that this could help represent the journey of her oppression because we never clearly understand her motivations and whether she even likes the male lead it doesn’t work. Again, this is shot and directed like a romantic comedy. If they wanted to explore the themes of a woman losing her own identity because of the oppression from a powerful man, this was not the way to do it. The male lead stayed pretty much one note throughout. If nothing else we can describe him as persistent. Although I have been harsh in the way I’ve described him so far, he did have a lot of sympathetic parts. I’m not blind to his difficult situation and traumatic past. I really think it could’ve been the perfect character in a different genre and treated with a little bit more subtlety. However, as things stand his character ended up feeling very static as he begins the series basically in love with the maid and spends the rest of the series trying to convince her to be in love with him back. This gave him very little growth. although he does ask the female lead why she doesn’t love him back once, and to be honest a large part of the blame goes on the female lead for never giving him a decent answer, that also meant that he never had the opportunity to grow in his understanding of her needs, or ever really reach a point of empathy for why she might keep refusing him. His grumpy, frowny, aggressiveness towards her started to grow pretty tiring towards the end. And it’s a shame because I really think he could’ve been such an interesting character if given the opportunity to grow past the middle of the show.

The weird bits: I honestly spent most of the series confused. And I cannot fathom why the score is so high. Also the shoehorned plot line about some secret society of maids trying to kill off the prince for one of the weakest reasons I’ve ever seen was so jarring and felt like it was absolutely in the wrong series. They had such a sense of realism throughout the first few episodes, the dedication to detail in how maids would’ve lived their lives and gone through training, and the rules and etiquette of court life, only to throw in this weird fantastical trope in what I’m only assuming is an attempt to shove some action in. It felt very low threat and it became ridiculous watching a bunch of maids running around dressed as ninjas.

Positives: There are some positives. I did enjoy the acting and veteran’s performances, especially the old King. I also really liked the attention detail in court life.

Conclusion: I really felt like this series was at least two if not three stories from different genres Frankensteined together. If they had just separated these out, I think we could have ended up with either a really fun and entertaining romantic comedy or a beautiful and tragic thriller. Unfortunately, we got neither.

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