Once again these mdl cmnts make me lose brain cells. I can't with misogynists hating fl for no reason. God forbid…
One can admire her audacity and ability to protect and sustain her family. One can admire her commitment and sense of responsibility with her choice to stay.
One can also find her cruelty to him toxic. One can find her persistent trait of assuming the worst about him to be toxic. One can critique her unwillingness to hear his story. He was gone for 2 years. There were rumors of his death. He was in a hostile land and she knows well the brutality of their overlords. Still, she doesn’t think, “what has he been through?”, she just accuses him of nit caring about her. She’s very narcissistic.
They are both too prideful. His pride gets in the way because he doesn’t disabuse her of misunderstandings. Hers makes her quite mean. She could have made that choice without being mean. She did a lot of growing up due to the war, but she’s still behaving like a childish jerk with him.
What utter nonsense! So, he was supposed to let the country fall apart and be with her all the time? What on earth?…
I’m with you. It’s the persistent worst assumptions that leave me cold to any romance. Her unwillingness to ever find out the whole story. We see why he makes his choices and they are usually valiant. Her choice to take care of her family is also valiant. But her cruelty to him is not. And she always chooses to be cruel. I don’t wish her hurtful toxicity on anyone. I will have less respect fir him if he goes back to her.
And the award for the piece of s**t of the year goes to none other than your truly, Ryang Eum. He deserves all…
He seems to harbor romantic feelings, but knows they won’t be returned, so he doesn’t express them out loud.
On age: isn’t he older than the FL?
The ML told him to call him “hyung’, so he sees him as a younger brother. The age isn’t the problem here, it’s the toxicity of his “caring” and how he really doesn’t want the ML to have anyone else,
She doesn’t deserve him. Not because she opted out, but because she perpetually holds the worst possible interpretation of him. I loathe “romances” where this the foundation. It was ok for a bit, as she was immature and nit worldly. But, after a certain amount of real world experience, it doesn’t make sense and she just comes off as a jerk.
She’s knows what rumors are like and how people twist reality and spread it as truth. She knows that he didn’t go with them to refuge, because he was planning a way to protect them from the invaders.
She saw him on the island.
She believed a stranger over her own eyes, in that moment. She didn’t even spend 30 seconds looking for him. Just let a stranger override her lived experience. Stranger dude f’ing gaslighted her. He’s sleazy and she has no judgment.
She knows that Nam sees him as his savior.
She is young and immature. Ok, she can be that and be bratty and too proud to acknowledge her feelings for him. But, she, and those around her, have enough experience of him in the village and after to know that she should question those rumors and take them with a grain of salt. Yet, she repeatedly demeans him and accuses him of things he didn’t do. He tells her what he has done and how he feels and she refutes it. She’s so utterly disrespectful.
She could have just said, “I thought you were dead. It took me this long to sort of move on. I had to become the head of the family and so many people are relying upon me. I won’t feel good about abandoning them.”
I’m not a fan of story narratives where a character is mean and cruel “for the sake of helping the other person let go.” It’s bogus. It’s disrespectful. Leave them their dignity by speaking truth and standing firm in your decision. Also, I really have never known of anyone to do this in my 60 years on this planet. So, it feels very contrived and unnatural. It pulls me right out of empathizing with the character. I’m just done with them. I end up not wanting them to have a romantic partner because I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone. I don’t understand why this is such an overused storytelling trope.
But, ok, we’ll go with this bs. Only, I no longer want them to be together. Ever. If she had been honest, then I could see them finding their way back. But, she always hurts him to the core and never takes responsibility for that. He deserves better. And no pair should be a couple when there is that much willingness to be hurtful. It’s not love. It’s toxic. Move on and find partners where your time together is founded on mutual respect and admiration and trust.
As much as I hate what Ryang did and I hope he suffers for it, I agree with him that she will just hurt him. She always has, so why would anything be different? Run away. Run very far.
I’m only on ep 3. Will someone please tell me if Gil Chae becomes likable? So far, she’s narcissistic and mean-spirited and sacrifices other people for what she covets. I can’t see why anyone would fall for her. I don’t even want to watch her awful antics from a distance, any longer. Does it get better? How soon?
Agreed. 17 was a green flag but Jing definitely not. He become a weak chicken when it comes to his grandma and…
It’s the never seeing what’s coming and never investigating that gets me. Best chess player in the world? He’s the dullest tool in the box. (Not to mention that he’s kind of boring. They’ve got a thousand years to hang out. What do they talk about? What do they do to pass the time? What do they laugh about? In the main, life is mundane. Fawning is interesting for about 5 minutes. You have to have things which keep you life dynamic.)
No one, not one single person is saying he is not worth her love. Show me where anyone in this thread has said that. Noting deficiencies isn’t erasing worth. It’s impossible to have an interesting dialogue when people can’t discern this and are arguing about things no one said. What purpose does this serve?
Also, people can have opinions/analyses based on the point in the story to which they’ve gotten. Obviously, as characters develop and story unfolds, those may change. Being upset that someone has a view based on Season 1 drama and insisting on using future points in the story to defend your different view is unreasonable and spoilerish.
It’s very clear why XY would prefer the nature of Jing. It also seems clear that this is who she ends up with, if anyone.
I was simply pointing out that, at this point in the drama, all 3 men display solid reasons to avoid romantic partnerships with. They sort of serve as a team, but, individually, each is dangerous on their own. Just in different ways. That Jing is no exception. His just looks softer on the outside.
He’s got a psychopathic brother and a murderous fiancée/wife. He’s supposedly the best chess player but he loses at their game every time. He’s passive and he’s not even wary/smart enough to see what’s coming at him. I’d never risk being with him, if I’m someone reliability.
XL is literally toxic. The beauty of him is that he knows it and doesn’t want to poison her life with his problems. He hurts her when he is triggered or wants to stop himself from expressing his feelings. However, he is reliably there for her. Of the three, his love is the most selfless. Even using her for the medicine isn’t for him, it’s for “rebels”. He serves them even though they despise him. All out of gratitude to the general who saved him. In a way, he’s the most dignified of the three. Still, I’d never wish for her to become his romantic partner, unless he went through some dramatic changes down the road. I find him the most exquisite but the least possible.
Her cousin is a whole ‘nother mess. He harbors romantic desires but hides them. In a different way than XL; a way I find creepy. He’s so obsessive about power that he has neutralized all emotions and passions. He sort of dead inside. And I’d never trust that I wouldn’t be used as a pawn, even though he claims such a strong bond is there. He doesn’t know how to emotionally bond. Too much loss and family hostility as a young child. He can bond over goals, but the goal will always mean more than the bond, in the end. Her instinct that he’s not reliable seems spot on.
So, for me, I prefer her as an independent person. The intertwining relationships gives her a mix of what she needs along with some checks and balances. I’m not sure why she has to have a monogamous marriage. It’s sad that there is such an assumption of that outcome that we are deprived of more interesting storytelling. And that people are actually going to get themselves all worked up and hostile over some fictional romance competition.
No one has to be perfect to be worthy. Different people will prefer different imperfect personalities. Romance isn’t a life requirement. Romance could be asexual. Romance doesn’t have to be monogamous.
These are all social constructs devised mostly by men. They are not natural laws. Fictional stories can be a great opportunity to challenge our acculturated “norms”. Why box ourselves in and alienate one another by holding onto these competitive notions?
Will someone clear my confusion? I though I saw comments about XL stealing XY from her wedding and getting killed. I was so tense waiting for it, but it never came. Was I hallucinating about those comments?
I think I need to get this off my chest.It is quite clear from the narrative that all three potential suitors…
Agreed. And I think that because Jing is so passive about dealing with his family - who just goes and quietly lives with a person who tortured you for years, while everybody around you knows it? - he’s not a suitable partner for her. While he’s willing to show up once she’s in danger, he does nothing to prevent her getting there. He’s actually invite her into the hornet’s nest of his family?
Jing is not the only one of them with a (literally) tortured past. He’s the only one who would drag her into it, though. Also, he makes promises he can’t keep. He’s my last favorite potential of the three. While XL may look like the “bad boy” of the three, Jing is actually the most dangerous.
The actor playing Sima Lang and that character's story are the best part of this drama. The character is the most consistent and has the most grounded presence.
I don't even understand the trajectory of the ML. Why would he, after being abandoned and left to die by his 'patriotic' father, for the sake of an overthrown child emperor, become suddenly patriotic? I'm simply ignoring this unbelievable development and skipping lot just to see how the truth of the past unfolds, what happens for Sima Lang and Zhu Yan. (Kinda shipping Zhu Yan and Changge more than anyone else, as they have a healthier relationship development than the others (so far. I haven't finished yet.))
Another one where I don't want the leads to end up as a couple. Its toxic from the get-go and doesn't get better.
It is NOT romantic to fall in love with someone who kidnapped you; even if her reasons were to save someone. He's just so desperate for someone that won't use and abandon him, like his father did. Only, she just keeps using him. The only one she cares about it her master. A guy who's been on his deathbed for 10 years. She doesn't give a shit about having a relationship with the ML. And he seems to have no purpose in life except to get her to marry him, which he's willing to do via coercion. Even as he knows that she only agreed to marry him because that's the only way he would treat her master's illness, he's still going to go ahead with it. I can't be upset with the other guy who blew the whistle on him. (I'm upset for him, as he's been through a lot of trauma, but I'm not upset at him for doing that.)
Also, its another story where no one ever explains themselves. Its not as though they don't have time to offer up the one or two sentences that would make things clear to the other person. They're all just overly reticent. This is such a boring writing device. Along with the "don't tell the person I'm in love with that I'm dying." Or whatever other version of withholding information from a person you supposedly care about gets used. Could we please have some conversations about what it means to actually care about another person? As in, respect them and their agency and their right to their own emotions about reality....
Anyway.... somewhat well drawn out story about uncovering past injustice and the coming to terms of the younger generation. I just wish people in the drama production world would learn how to write decent relationship story lines. Not just romantic ones.
Episode 6 and all the characters are irritating me. Is that on purpose? The premise here is intriguing. Time travel can be fun and the daughter-in-law confessing to the mother-in-law was a refreshing new angle. But, then, I don’t really like anyone. The modern family is so superficial. The historical women are so exaggerated. Those breathy voices and the slow pace compared to contemporary speech and movement is throwing me. I want to speed up their scenes, lol.
Anyway, I’m guessing there are some explosive tension bombs coming. It’s definitely keeping me intrigued.
I know this is fluff, but can it least not be stupid?
So, the heavenly emperor sends down one person to protect/destroy the Phoenix, knowing he’ll have to face off with super-powerful Demon Lord. But, he decides that’s a good time to punish him for a transgression and remove 1/2 of his power. I know deities and the heavenly realm often are flawed and not very, well, heavenly, but this makes absolutely no sense.
Then, the Phoenix and the deity dude are on the run from the demon lord, heavily injured, and hiding in a third realm of “devils” - pretty sure that’s a bad translation, since they’re just animal-like beings. A realm neither of them are familiar with and neither of them fit in, but she just goes for a leisurely walk in town and blows their stealthiness.
There aren’t enough hecklers in my city to call out all bad writing in this thing.
Not to mention that I feel like I’ve seen this lead actress play this same role a number of times. Doesn’t she get bored, as an actress? Is she not capable of anything else?
Even with a lot of worn out tropes, it could have been fun, with good execution. You need either a fresh story or an excellent execution to make an old story feel fresh agin. This has neither. I feel badly for the actors. They weren’t given much to work with.
I’m at episode 6. Does she ever grow a brain cell, read a room, or listen to anybody?
Synopsis says “her plot.” She’s not plotting anything. She just sits around whining all the time. I was telling myself that she’s just a teen, but then Chu Quian says, “you’re not a teen any more.” So, I guess it been a few years and she still as daft as ever. It’s hard to see what he would fall in love with. The only correct insight she’s had is that there is something weird about both Chu brothers, lol.
Just watched ep36. Gotta say, I'm not all that sad that things didn't work out with Jing. I get why she would have wanted that relationship, but he's way too passive. Who just sits by after their brother does such a unimaginably horrifying thing? He can't even protect himself and he remains totally naive. How could he not have known and prepared for the fiance's manipulations? He doesn't deserve her.
Maybe he improves at some point. But, right now, it would be a disaster for her to be with him.
I'm rather enjoying a story where none of the potential romantic partners really seem a good enough fit. They're all admirable in their own ways. They all support and protect her best they can. But, I don't find myself actually wanting her to pick one of them. I want her to be able to have the best relationships she can with each of them.
One can also find her cruelty to him toxic. One can find her persistent trait of assuming the worst about him to be toxic. One can critique her unwillingness to hear his story. He was gone for 2 years. There were rumors of his death. He was in a hostile land and she knows well the brutality of their overlords. Still, she doesn’t think, “what has he been through?”, she just accuses him of nit caring about her. She’s very narcissistic.
They are both too prideful. His pride gets in the way because he doesn’t disabuse her of misunderstandings. Hers makes her quite mean. She could have made that choice without being mean. She did a lot of growing up due to the war, but she’s still behaving like a childish jerk with him.
On age: isn’t he older than the FL?
The ML told him to call him “hyung’, so he sees him as a younger brother. The age isn’t the problem here, it’s the toxicity of his “caring” and how he really doesn’t want the ML to have anyone else,
She’s knows what rumors are like and how people twist reality and spread it as truth. She knows that he didn’t go with them to refuge, because he was planning a way to protect them from the invaders.
She saw him on the island.
She believed a stranger over her own eyes, in that moment. She didn’t even spend 30 seconds looking for him. Just let a stranger override her lived experience. Stranger dude f’ing gaslighted her. He’s sleazy and she has no judgment.
She knows that Nam sees him as his savior.
She is young and immature. Ok, she can be that and be bratty and too proud to acknowledge her feelings for him. But, she, and those around her, have enough experience of him in the village and after to know that she should question those rumors and take them with a grain of salt. Yet, she repeatedly demeans him and accuses him of things he didn’t do. He tells her what he has done and how he feels and she refutes it. She’s so utterly disrespectful.
She could have just said, “I thought you were dead. It took me this long to sort of move on. I had to become the head of the family and so many people are relying upon me. I won’t feel good about abandoning them.”
I’m not a fan of story narratives where a character is mean and cruel “for the sake of helping the other person let go.” It’s bogus. It’s disrespectful. Leave them their dignity by speaking truth and standing firm in your decision. Also, I really have never known of anyone to do this in my 60 years on this planet. So, it feels very contrived and unnatural. It pulls me right out of empathizing with the character. I’m just done with them. I end up not wanting them to have a romantic partner because I wouldn’t wish that fate on anyone. I don’t understand why this is such an overused storytelling trope.
But, ok, we’ll go with this bs. Only, I no longer want them to be together. Ever. If she had been honest, then I could see them finding their way back. But, she always hurts him to the core and never takes responsibility for that. He deserves better. And no pair should be a couple when there is that much willingness to be hurtful. It’s not love. It’s toxic. Move on and find partners where your time together is founded on mutual respect and admiration and trust.
As much as I hate what Ryang did and I hope he suffers for it, I agree with him that she will just hurt him. She always has, so why would anything be different? Run away. Run very far.
Also, people can have opinions/analyses based on the point in the story to which they’ve gotten. Obviously, as characters develop and story unfolds, those may change. Being upset that someone has a view based on Season 1 drama and insisting on using future points in the story to defend your different view is unreasonable and spoilerish.
It’s very clear why XY would prefer the nature of Jing. It also seems clear that this is who she ends up with, if anyone.
I was simply pointing out that, at this point in the drama, all 3 men display solid reasons to avoid romantic partnerships with. They sort of serve as a team, but, individually, each is dangerous on their own. Just in different ways. That Jing is no exception. His just looks softer on the outside.
He’s got a psychopathic brother and a murderous fiancée/wife. He’s supposedly the best chess player but he loses at their game every time. He’s passive and he’s not even wary/smart enough to see what’s coming at him. I’d never risk being with him, if I’m someone reliability.
XL is literally toxic. The beauty of him is that he knows it and doesn’t want to poison her life with his problems. He hurts her when he is triggered or wants to stop himself from expressing his feelings. However, he is reliably there for her. Of the three, his love is the most selfless. Even using her for the medicine isn’t for him, it’s for “rebels”. He serves them even though they despise him. All out of gratitude to the general who saved him. In a way, he’s the most dignified of the three. Still, I’d never wish for her to become his romantic partner, unless he went through some dramatic changes down the road. I find him the most exquisite but the least possible.
Her cousin is a whole ‘nother mess. He harbors romantic desires but hides them. In a different way than XL; a way I find creepy. He’s so obsessive about power that he has neutralized all emotions and passions. He sort of dead inside. And I’d never trust that I wouldn’t be used as a pawn, even though he claims such a strong bond is there. He doesn’t know how to emotionally bond. Too much loss and family hostility as a young child. He can bond over goals, but the goal will always mean more than the bond, in the end. Her instinct that he’s not reliable seems spot on.
So, for me, I prefer her as an independent person. The intertwining relationships gives her a mix of what she needs along with some checks and balances. I’m not sure why she has to have a monogamous marriage. It’s sad that there is such an assumption of that outcome that we are deprived of more interesting storytelling. And that people are actually going to get themselves all worked up and hostile over some fictional romance competition.
No one has to be perfect to be worthy.
Different people will prefer different imperfect personalities.
Romance isn’t a life requirement.
Romance could be asexual.
Romance doesn’t have to be monogamous.
These are all social constructs devised mostly by men. They are not natural laws. Fictional stories can be a great opportunity to challenge our acculturated “norms”. Why box ourselves in and alienate one another by holding onto these competitive notions?
Jing is not the only one of them with a (literally) tortured past. He’s the only one who would drag her into it, though. Also, he makes promises he can’t keep. He’s my last favorite potential of the three. While XL may look like the “bad boy” of the three, Jing is actually the most dangerous.
I don't even understand the trajectory of the ML. Why would he, after being abandoned and left to die by his 'patriotic' father, for the sake of an overthrown child emperor, become suddenly patriotic? I'm simply ignoring this unbelievable development and skipping lot just to see how the truth of the past unfolds, what happens for Sima Lang and Zhu Yan. (Kinda shipping Zhu Yan and Changge more than anyone else, as they have a healthier relationship development than the others (so far. I haven't finished yet.))
It is NOT romantic to fall in love with someone who kidnapped you; even if her reasons were to save someone. He's just so desperate for someone that won't use and abandon him, like his father did. Only, she just keeps using him. The only one she cares about it her master. A guy who's been on his deathbed for 10 years. She doesn't give a shit about having a relationship with the ML. And he seems to have no purpose in life except to get her to marry him, which he's willing to do via coercion. Even as he knows that she only agreed to marry him because that's the only way he would treat her master's illness, he's still going to go ahead with it. I can't be upset with the other guy who blew the whistle on him. (I'm upset for him, as he's been through a lot of trauma, but I'm not upset at him for doing that.)
Also, its another story where no one ever explains themselves. Its not as though they don't have time to offer up the one or two sentences that would make things clear to the other person. They're all just overly reticent. This is such a boring writing device. Along with the "don't tell the person I'm in love with that I'm dying." Or whatever other version of withholding information from a person you supposedly care about gets used. Could we please have some conversations about what it means to actually care about another person? As in, respect them and their agency and their right to their own emotions about reality....
Anyway.... somewhat well drawn out story about uncovering past injustice and the coming to terms of the younger generation. I just wish people in the drama production world would learn how to write decent relationship story lines. Not just romantic ones.
Anyway, I’m guessing there are some explosive tension bombs coming. It’s definitely keeping me intrigued.
So, the heavenly emperor sends down one person to protect/destroy the Phoenix, knowing he’ll have to face off with super-powerful Demon Lord. But, he decides that’s a good time to punish him for a transgression and remove 1/2 of his power. I know deities and the heavenly realm often are flawed and not very, well, heavenly, but this makes absolutely no sense.
Then, the Phoenix and the deity dude are on the run from the demon lord, heavily injured, and hiding in a third realm of “devils” - pretty sure that’s a bad translation, since they’re just animal-like beings. A realm neither of them are familiar with and neither of them fit in, but she just goes for a leisurely walk in town and blows their stealthiness.
There aren’t enough hecklers in my city to call out all bad writing in this thing.
Not to mention that I feel like I’ve seen this lead actress play this same role a number of times. Doesn’t she get bored, as an actress? Is she not capable of anything else?
Even with a lot of worn out tropes, it could have been fun, with good execution. You need either a fresh story or an excellent execution to make an old story feel fresh agin. This has neither. I feel badly for the actors. They weren’t given much to work with.
Synopsis says “her plot.” She’s not plotting anything. She just sits around whining all the time. I was telling myself that she’s just a teen, but then Chu Quian says, “you’re not a teen any more.” So, I guess it been a few years and she still as daft as ever. It’s hard to see what he would fall in love with. The only correct insight she’s had is that there is something weird about both Chu brothers, lol.
Maybe he improves at some point. But, right now, it would be a disaster for her to be with him.
I'm rather enjoying a story where none of the potential romantic partners really seem a good enough fit. They're all admirable in their own ways. They all support and protect her best they can. But, I don't find myself actually wanting her to pick one of them. I want her to be able to have the best relationships she can with each of them.