I dare not tell you how many times I have re-watched! 😝
It is about bullying and the first episode is quite horrifying in that respect. You can skip the first two episodes if that is your trigger. This drama is so worth it, @Frankly. It is my second favorite drama of this year, topping Lu Si’s The Last Immortal. However, it’s not a romance, although it has one. It’s a pure revenge drama. BUT. The chemistry between the FL and of the characters and the subtext of their conversations are amazing. If you do watch and enjoy it, let’s talk about it on that forum! I know you’ll be fascinated with Dong Eun and Do Young!
Notice Do-Yeung eating the revenge cake (haha, that's what I called it) to taste what it's like before deciding to off Jae-Jun. Notice also when he KNEW where Jae-Jun was meeting Dong-Eun. I bet DE told him and he planned the cement truck incident. DE's reply to her boyfriend about Jae-Jun's whereabouts was, as usual, pointedly ambiguous, but we know that she knew exactly what happened.
You can see multiple threads up in the Other Discussion Topics on this page. Just scroll up. There are spoiler threads, novel threads, posts about episodes, character analysis threads, etc.
i just finished the 40th ep. what the hell happened there? i think Heng was killed by Dai and the final minute…
Here is a copy of my reply to @frankly in our discussion:
I love your very insightful take on poetic justice. The fates of those you described were definitely filled with karma and poetic irony, which is what poetic justice is about.
And yes, we cannot explain the deaths of Tong Er and the Ji Brothers. Perhaps we shouldn't put them under the theme of justice because they were not the ones to whom justice was administered, but were just part of the "whims of fate."
I do know, though, that this director LOVES mirroring his scenes with different outcomes. Thus, we were shown Duke Su's father in battle gear with all his men dead, battling alone. He did NOT survive. In Episode 40, we see the same bloody scene with Duke Su and his faithful men. And thus, perhaps that's why the Jis had to die, because the mirroring the earlier scene, all the General's men died. The different outcome, of course, was that our Duke survived this battle.
We see this mirroring/different ending with XFF running in red in the beginning and we know she was going to be "killed" by a faithless husband. So, the mirroring ending with her running in red, we know it would be the opposite outcome.
If we believe in karma, which is part of many a revenge plot, then we know it was poetic irony for SYR that in the end, it was his wife who received everything he wanted: noble status, power (she was now the scholar/teacher), equality with a mate, a lover to play music/go with, a peaceful family life.
Here is the other irony, XFF was given the nickname Li for Civet, the "replacement." We've earlier already discussed the Ancient Story of the Civet and that XFF's civet replaced Jiang Li's Pear. But, could we further push this civet story that XFF also in some ways replaced her SYR in life? She was the one inside the gates now, the one being the scholar, the one entire groups of people/families looked up to, the one the Emperor could seek advice from (and you know he did!). I think that is a pretty cool "mirror" maneuver!
I didn’t really like that Moon Dong-eun didn’t get her hands dirty for revenge. I mean, she wanted revenge,…
I think it is quite enough that, not only did she lose everything, but she is now being eff’ed up in prison and being commanded to perform like she made Moon perform all those years ago. The main prison bitch called her a prison term meant for those being used sexually there.
🍁🍂 What was love, what was effort, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's a different way of saying feed on crumbs.…
You had me at “soul-crushed, annoying, loser, extreme Pollyanna.” I choked on my fish sandwich. You didn’t need to name that character. 😆 Pei fu, pei fu.
Without tushang he wouldn't be King... A first i was mad at her, found her selfish, always played the victim card,…
Speaking from the drama’s perspective, and not the novel’s, the “lost you forever” reference is about the main character, Xiao Yao, who lost Xiang Liu forever. She could have a lot of her past back whenever she felt like—living with her brother or being a princess or being a medical man or being a spoilt grand daughter or even Grand Guardian of that Jade Mountain. But she could never get back Xiang Liu and all that he did for her. Even the tragedy of it all is lost to her, as she obliviously carried that wooden doll with her.
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I love your very insightful take on poetic justice. The fates of those you described were definitely filled with karma and poetic irony, which is what poetic justice is about.
And yes, we cannot explain the deaths of Tong Er and the Ji Brothers. Perhaps we shouldn't put them under the theme of justice because they were not the ones to whom justice was administered, but were just part of the "whims of fate."
I do know, though, that this director LOVES mirroring his scenes with different outcomes. Thus, we were shown Duke Su's father in battle gear with all his men dead, battling alone. He did NOT survive. In Episode 40, we see the same bloody scene with Duke Su and his faithful men. And thus, perhaps that's why the Jis had to die, because the mirroring the earlier scene, all the General's men died. The different outcome, of course, was that our Duke survived this battle.
We see this mirroring/different ending with XFF running in red in the beginning and we know she was going to be "killed" by a faithless husband. So, the mirroring ending with her running in red, we know it would be the opposite outcome.
If we believe in karma, which is part of many a revenge plot, then we know it was poetic irony for SYR that in the end, it was his wife who received everything he wanted: noble status, power (she was now the scholar/teacher), equality with a mate, a lover to play music/go with, a peaceful family life.
Here is the other irony, XFF was given the nickname Li for Civet, the "replacement." We've earlier already discussed the Ancient Story of the Civet and that XFF's civet replaced Jiang Li's Pear. But, could we further push this civet story that XFF also in some ways replaced her SYR in life? She was the one inside the gates now, the one being the scholar, the one entire groups of people/families looked up to, the one the Emperor could seek advice from (and you know he did!). I think that is a pretty cool "mirror" maneuver!