Started up with the usual troupe of mistaken identity of the Crown Prince. I actually liked the former King and felt much tension dropped following his death - whereby the drama was warped mostly around the love story and less on politics, even more so following HDR's death/end of the Court Ladies Faction arc. The drop in dynamics actually made the later half much less enthralling to me (yes I was interested in them getting together but not dragged out over 5-6 eps). I think the writer tried to create this complex love between the main leads - whereby the female is not the typical "swoon for the king" which is interesting and all BUT that's where it ends for me. To me, there was never any character growth for SDI, in fact I felt that she regressed into more of a "damsel in distress" - while in the earlier episodes she was portrayed with more intelligence and poise. I also felt the main dilemma between losing her freedom vs her love(?) for the king wasn't adequately explained. I mean why did she become a court lady if freedom was so important to her in the first place? It would have worked better if she had a more believable backstory such as mother/family being abandoned by the King in the past etc. The ending was totally rushed. After creating love tension for 15 ep, they decided to put them together and kill them off within 1.5 ep?? And was it only me who saw some comparisons to Scarlet Heart (chinese ver.)? Especially the part after the female lead dies. Absolute tear jerker yes but just felt we could have done a bit more with the happy moments. I liked that in the end it was slightly dubious whether she regretted loving him anot...