mimi0108

I have questions regarding the childhood of the heroes and the timeline:

It seems she was involved in a scandal so the staff cut her out during editing. I didn't know that while watching so I suspected she was someone we know until reading people comments here.

1) First of all, the beginning makes us believe this is going to be the story of ML & FL. However, very quickly, it becomes the ML's story. The FL just follows him and helps him without having her own developed story & journey whereas we are told at the beginning she has a separate way of thinking and goal than ML. In some episodes, she's hardly even there (just waiting for the script and the ML story to call her back).

2) The writing is sometimes incoherent, simplistic or lazy.
Examples:
- ML's father asks WYW for advice when he knows the latter works for the prince of another state who has ambitions to become emperor. How can he trusts his advice? The same goes for the third prince.
- ML is far too easily fooled by the villain, by his younger brother and the queen when he has an intelligence network, is smart & cunning and could parry some attacks.
- Langhua's accusation makes no sense with what we've been shown for 31 episodes. We see she likes to blame/tease her "sister" but it's just a teenager attitude. Throughout the story, she is complicit in the romance between the leads and seems genuinely happy for them. How, even in mourning, can she believe that her sister, who never kills innocent people and has no ambition, can murder her master? She never showed ambition for the position of leader, the master was going to make her the leader anyway if she wanted to, she is in a relationship with a prince and would no longer have time for the sect, she also never uses poison as a weapon and, above all, would be smarter than that if she did it. It really is lazy writing to make Langhua believed that and try to kill her "sister".
- The reasoning and investigation skills of leads are sometimes incomprehensible. SFL is attacked and poisoned to push the leads to use the technique they learned at Mount Wu. But none of them watched SFL afterwards to surprise the villain while they realized he was trying to rob them their technique. In addition, ML knows that his brother and the villain are plotting together but at no time does he think that the latter is going to reveal his identity or that he should be wary of this guy.

3) Many storylines seem to have been cut or shortened.
Examples:
- When Prince HC and BFX reunite in Youzhou, they speak to each other familiarly (calling each other by their first names). He also declares his love for her and desire to make her his Empress. It's odd since they've only seen each other twice before this scene and the audience didn't see anything that would allow for such familiarity. Were scenes cut?
- The same goes for the story of the ML's older brother. It seems that the drama wants to establish a relationship with FL except that the storyline ends without explanation. He moves next to her house but apparently leaves as soon as he learns his brother lied to him.
- There is also the story about ML's mother. He seems to realize something during the ceremony honoring his mother. I personally believed he understood that the current queen was involved in his mother's death but in episode 32 it's only then that he realizes his mother could have been poisoned so... the whole long scene of the ceremony was useless (apart from confirming to the audience Queen Baili was guilty, but if it takes 20 episodes for the principal concerned to realize it, it's useless).

I was entertained by this drama (I'm on episode 32). The leads are great and I laugh or was invsted in the story many time but several points disturb me:
See below

First of all, she saved herself. The ML arrived just to humiliate and threaten his wife. The attacker had already fled after being hit by FL.
ML thought she was getting closer to this man because it reminded her of the SML. And, when he receives an anonymous letter, he believes in it and comes to surprise his wife with a gun. While she is drugged and traumatized, he loses his temper, accusing her of cheating on him. At no time did he believe that this man was dangerous for her and got angry to have been right. He was suspicious of the closeness between the two and believes she cheated on him with a man who was like her "ex".

You didn't see where he threatened her about it?
He tells her she doesn't respect herself. Then, as she explains to him she was drugged and set up, he yells at her that she chose this man because he looks like the SML. ML has a gun in his hand and bangs against the wall shaking her by the shoulders saying "how can I believe you" while she cries, is terrified and still shocked. Then he shoots with his gun at the ground several times, terrifying her even more. How is that not threatening?
It is only when the newspaper uncovers the story that ML understands she was telling the truth.

As for the SML, yes he has romantic feelings for the FL but she makes it clear to him she loves her husband. I haven't seen the following episodes yet so I don't know how this story will continue, but the FL hasn't given the SML false hope.

I'm the first to agree FL is very poorly written. She puts herself and her loved ones in danger without thinking. She trusts the wrong people, is unable to investigate while she is a journalist, doesn't know how to communicate with her husband or really defend herself against the abuse she is subjected to and that bothers me. However, I'm against minimizing the abusive and problematic behavior of ML and other characters. Her errors and blunders are antagonized and amplified while the much more problematic attitude of all the other characters (including ML) are minimized or even justified. Even if she had poor judgement about the man who set her up, the SML and the SFL, she didn't deserve to be treat like that.

Everything ML has done for FL and his love for her is what makes FL emotional and makes her fall in love with him. Yet, let's be honest, he has a very problematic, violent, possessive and abusive attitude.
The ML didn't trust his wife and even imagined the worst of her upon finding her in the hotel room drugged and traumatized. That's what I blame.

Exactly. We are introduced to her as an intelligent person (she even teaches lessons to ML). She is a recognized journalist in the field. However, she lacks the basic notion of a journalist: knowing how to carry out an investigation.
She is supposedly strong and independent but gets walked on by everyone without ever speaking out, fighting abuse and so on.
This contrast between what she is supposed to be and what she ultimately is in the story is illogical and unbearable.
Most of the other characters make huge mistakes, have big personality and behavioral problems, yet she's the one who's unbearable while she's the most innocent and the victim in the story. I don't understand screenwriters.
I'm at episode 23, btw.

First of all, let's be clear, the SML is not FL's ex, he's her best friend. She spent 4 years being friends with him, it is normal she doesn't ignore him when she sees him again.
Second, just because the FL makes a few blunders doesn't mean it's all her fault. The ML treats her awfully sometimes and it doesn't come close to what she does. Remember that he almost kills the SML before their marriage and violently pushes the FL several times. Then, when she's tricked, drugged and nearly raped in a hotel, he threatens her and doesn't believe her.
Since their meeting, he behaves badly with her. She has the right not to appreciate certain aspects of his personality and his anger.

The main problem is the script. The FL is supposed to be intelligent, independent and mature. Yet she never argues with the ML to solve problems, rarely fights back when tricked, lets others mistreat her, and gets herself into impossible situations that such a smart girl shouldn't.

FL is a journalist and a woman who is supposed to be smart and strong. Yet besides letting herself be abused by ML, his sister and friends, she doesn't realize anything is wrong when the SFL hugs ML?
FL is married to ML, the SFL pretends to be friends with both of them. Why does FL not wonder about the SFL after seeing this? Especially since she understood someone was targeting her and trying to destroy her marriage.
The writing is truly dire when it comes to FL and how she relates to others.

The SML is possessive, selfish and imposes his opinions. The ML is jealous, possessive, abusive and violent. ML's sister is mean and belittling. ML's friends pulled some horrible pranks (kidnap a girl and make her think they're going to sell her to a brothel is despicable).
However, they have a place in the story, they have a lot of importance, screen time and scene to make the audience feel for them. The story even try to minimize some of their actions. But the FL suffers all this verbal and physical abuse, constantly falls into traps and plots, but doesn't really have a voice and, on the contrary, is almost blamed and antagonized by the script and the characters.

The drama is entertaining but some things bother me (I'm at episode 15):

1) FL suffers from extremely serious and traumatic harassment at the start of the drama without it really being useful for the plot.
ML's sister is not even punished while she mistreats FL, makes life at school impossible for her, sells her to a brothel where she suffers an attempted rape and causes a teacher's dismissal. Also, the FL does nothing except suffer or slap & yell at the ML from time to time.
The ML, his friends and his sister go so far in their pranks, deception, abuse that I don't understand the point if there isn't really any morale or character development after that.

2) FL is not very well written. She is a journalist, a mature, independent and proud girl. However, the drama fails to give her a real voice and a place in the story outside of suffering the abuse of others and being the object of the ML's desire.
A lot of things about her are just anecdotal to say she's smart, she's gifted, she's independent. But without really letting her live adventures on her own, make decisions and so on.
She helps orphans but we only see that through the eyes of the ML. She work for a newspaper but it's anecdotal and she lacks real discernment on certain points. Like, for example, when she gives an opinion on the severe treatment towards some soldiers at the beginning of the drama without knowing why they were punished (harassment of a young woman, threat etc...).
She's also not as smart and thoughful as presume. Her father is in prison and could be sentenced to death yet she puts herself in danger by helping her friend in his assassination attempt and does not want help once on trial. Then, she decides to leave with the assassin to help her father.
Her friendships are also little shown (she meets a girl on the first day of school then nothing more when she is mistreated then we see her with the girl afterwards as if they had always been close), her life in the Xiao house isn't developed as well as her studies.
She is forced to marry to protect herself and her loved ones but, again, we don't have access to her thoughts and doubts following such a decision. We see her directly at the wedding without seeing the anguish or apprehension before. Similarly, once married she should stop working at the newspaper and instead write articles at home. But we don't have scenes showing us the importance of this "sacrifice", her real thoughts following this decision and so on. We are simply told that it is so and the story continues.

The FL is there but not there, in my opinion. The audience does not have access to her thoughts, does not see her having adventures, thinking and fending for herself. She often suffers events, must be constantly saved and is hard & cold with the ML (which is understandable considering how he's with her) without making her very sympathetic and that's a shame.
It is the ML's world & story, the FL only lives there while she is the narrator.

In episode 14, it is said FL is 16 when she arrives at the Xiao's. She stays there a little over 3 months before ML is sent to the academy (for 3 years, apparently). Except that instead of returning he spends 2 more years fighting so he comes back 5 years later. FL is therefore 21 years old. As for the ML, it says his mother died 10 years earlier and he was 7 at the time so I'm guessing he's 17 at the start of the story (maybe 1 or 2 years from more if they rounded off the death of the mother).

When the story begins, we are in 1917. A few months pass then the ML is sent to the army.
Later, the drama indicates we are now in 1919, then we see the ML graduating at the end of his 5th year at the military academy according to my subtitles (so it's 1922) and then it's 2 years later when he returns home (so 1924).
Except that his little twin brothers are still the same age as when he left 7 years earlier. Also, FL said, when ML's left, that she would not see him again for 3 years. Was it a guess on her part or the assertion of the future her?
In that case, he only spent one year in the academy and two years in combat? Or did he spend 3 years in the academy and 2 years fighting?
Is it me who misunderstood the timeline or is it them who made a mistake?

In addition, according to the synopsis, the drama will also take place during the Second World War, more than 13 years later. Are they really going to harness 2 decades in one drama?

I'm a bit confused by the timeline. I'm at episode 8.

I see, thanks for your answer.
For the Xabara, there is a way to fix that (new actress or make her character leave the story). But it may be more complicated for Tagon.

Do you know which cast members are affected by the scandals?

This drama is completely centered around the harem and tries to depend on the feeling of confinement that FL feels in the forbidden city. Therefore, unfortunately, there are very few "outside the palace" scenes.

He dies at the end of the drama, more than a decade after breaking up with FL. They are only together at the beginning, a first true love they are not allowed to live.

Did you remembered in which episode she had this monologue?

It was in 2007 or 2008 if I remember and we're in 2020 so 12/13 years ago.

51 episodes and I can't take it anymore.

The "mother" of FL is despicable and I blame the writers for imposing such a character on us.

Who can raise an adorable, kind, sweet girl from 3 months old to 27 years old and EVER love her? She dares to try to force the FL into an arranged marriage to get rid of her and imposes an ultimatum on her to marry or leave the house. Knowing that the girl always grew up thinking this woman was her mother. And, at the death of the husband, she reveals the truth and chases the girl away definitively, cutting all ties while there will always be the little brother (son of this woman) as a link between them. But when the loan sharks seize the house, it is up to the rejected girl to house her family in a hotel, to look for accommodation, to clean, arrange and pay for the accommodation. And after, the mother has the nerve to tell the daughter again to get out of her life BUT to give them money for 5 years for the brother's college, housing, food and so on.
But as soon as a problem arises, the mother calls the female lead to come quickly to help her. Make sense, make sense! She is no longer her daughter but has to lend them money for 5 years (selling her things and exhausting herself with a second job) and must be ready to come at any time to help the mother with her daily problems. And the mother has the nerve to try to break FL and ML up like she has a right after saying she's not her family.

I would have been the daughter, I would have yelled at the mother like a rotten fish and cut off all ties apart from my brother. I find it unbearable to have to put up with such a character and a FL who is too kind and loving to refuse anything to the woman who raised her without love. Even an animal is capable of loving the little one it adopts, but this woman cannot.

And let's not talk about the manipulative, self-centered, crazy half-sister who does everything to destroy FL's happiness. Why inflict so much pain on a single character, too good to fight back?

I don't know which was worse: the ML who was simultaneously stupid, arrogant, clumsy and uninteresting or the FL who is badass but does almost nothing in 20 episodes.
As the twin sister of the slain Crown Prince, she has done nothing in 10 years to avenge his death.
As the second prince's big sister, she attempted to take his rightful place and never protected him until it was too late.
As a girl whose existence was a threat to her grandfather, she never sought to weaken his power and get rid of him.
As a girl forced to live as crown prince, she never realistically planned her future and exit plan. She was planning to marry a woman and become king? Bullshit!
This drama had some ideas to be interesting about, but the boring romance, the slowness of the story, the unrealism of the situation and the lack of participation by the FL (who gets saved more often than I would have dared to imagine for a woman who grown up as a man and learned to fight) make the drama indigestible. I moved everything forward.