This is less a review and more of a memoir of how I feel right after I've finished watching.
The story definitely made me feel. I was angry and heartbroken at various stages, particularly the end, I started watching this because of IU but by the end, I was really tired of her character. I was surprised by myself because my I was not th The inking of her as IU any more but Hae Soo, and Hae Soo's misplaced compassion and lack of understanding of So bogged me. I really could not understand how she felt so strongly about the death of her 'sister' when it was a story of utter betrayal. are we to accept that the worst crimes are forgivable because someone was in love? The martial part of me really wanted more use of the sword instead of just accepting the usual needs of politics. In the end, it seemed that even So did not have fierce defiance and will to overcome everything that had been promised at the beginning.
I almost felt like skipping the last two episodes even as they were running because it was so predictably going wrong. The flashbacks did not help. They reinforced the fact that the leads got almost no happiness through it all. It was just fleeting. i don't think the 13th prince's love story's closure was handled properly.
I still give it a high rating because the pain moved me and I could see such a lot of IU. However, I won't be able to rewatch it. I had expected tragedy throughout the time but i felt a lot of it was preventable and the characters just wanted it to be tragic; they were just so stupid at times. That's not like how I like my characters.