rikki76

The inhuman 'noble' family is still there so not really. :) I haven't seen any of them stopping the torturing of a slave, almost killed in the snow just for a mistake.... Besides they got rid of the good people (the girl's mother) and condemned to live a miserable life for the second good (pair) the adoptive parents.

FL is similarly annoying, allegedly clever, so she decided to spent her life pretending to be dummy just like the rest for what end? That paid freedom looks rather day-dreaming than reality when you have to use half of the money to correct your 'mistake' and almost die due to the punishment which can happen every hour in that family. I don't know, if I would be on the noble-side with this level of cruelty, I would be really worried that what time a knife would hit my back coming from someone who has nothing to lose but only a miserable life, or a nice amount of rat-poison in my mug.

Unrealistic, sorry. Even a dog bites when it cornered, but none of those slaves did it? I think I give up on this series, I can't feel with any of them.

The other thing, why the girl doesn't tell to the head of the family, that who is she? Or rather who was she? Would they uncover her and get her killed? Or they would feel some shame so covering for her would be normal, like even let her live under another identity and then adopting her using a relative or so to give her a bit better life?

He is simply cruel, he also treats his slaves as livestock, there is no way he doesn't know that to use a slave as a spy is extremely dangerous - for the slave. He basically blackmailed her, the choice he offered was not a real choice. The other thing is that a slave is forced to stay hours on knees in snow and freezing cold and no one, absolutely no one in the household questioning this, wants to know the 'why' wants to know that the punishment is equal with the 'crime'. I can't feel sorry for any sides here, not even the slaves.
No one ever obeyed oneself out of tyranny, ever. Why they don't try to escape, change identity, start a new life somewhere far away? If this type of household was the normie, they could bet that they couldn't live long anyway, what's the point carrying like this, waiting for a bad moment, a mistake which case they would be finished?
Don't care about me, I am just bored. :)

Too slow, I mean 5-10 minutes from 40 for slaves' girlish love and friendship... I see the ratings follow this, under 8.

It makes sense, you don't want your enemy to be in power to kill you instead or start a revolution. What I don't understand in these chinese series that what was the point to kill the servants of the household, too.

Many of them out of age to be one... if you know you have to die anyway why don't take 1-2 villains with you to make the world to be a bit better? They cry they are treated as livestock, ants, but they do nothing to change this. People form the world around themselves. It is easy to kill a rabbit, but less easy to kill a tiger.

IMO independently that which historical age people lived or live humanity, a warm heart and kindness, emotional involvement would be necessary and should be the base to judge someone as a good or bad person. The dead young girl' parents lived at the same age, there were rules for them, too what was allowed or not, still they risked their lives and give away their future - as raising a child is costly - just to save the noble girl. Now compare this to the brainwashed nobility and noble' guy who - just because he lived in a certain age, lost his humanity on the left corner and treated slaves as ants or livestock or just let them to be treated like this in HIS household.
I don't fancy him either, not the actor, the person he plays, brainwashing is not an excuse, actions are not less cruel just based on 'following the rules /customs'.

It is called review, opinion and I can have mine I guess. I don't like being manipulated, interestingly I didn't see a series where there were 10 ppl waiting for execution (just an example to avoid spoiler) and it was extremely slowly demonstrated, dragged one-by-one, especially not with a child being the 'bravest' and first 'volunteer'. What is the point? It could have been presented many other ways where you can still feel the tragic but without overusing it for your cost.

The other thing, I am not young, I don't know about others, but life is hard enough for many, it doesn't mean that a sad, or emotionally strong drama is not suitable, it means that manipulative, overdo of certain tragic parts are unnecessarily stressful and heavy. In fact in my case it caused that I somehow lost interest, not sure I shall carry on watching despite that I liked the acting and even more the visual, artistic decoration.

I don't know about others but life is hard enough for many since the past couple of years. I felt that the drama is overuse the stress level - if you don't want spoiler, please stop here.
It basically shows all of the females (inc children) to commit suxide rather than being a slave, prost. in brothel. The first is a young girl, maybe 10, who 'bravely' want to be the first to die. You can watch for a very long time, how they kill themselves one by one. For what purpose? There are many point where it can be debated, partially I wrote these, but one more thing, how realistic is to be finish yourself earlier than knowing that what would be the job exactly? I mean, you can finish it anytime later, if it is too bad, didn't you? I guess 50 yrs old and 10yrs old would not serve as prosts anyway. All in one, I feel that the emotional part is overplayed for your cost. As I am rather sensitive to 'manipulation' for me it finished the 'tale', to live in, to really enjoy it'. But I would say, you still should give it a try, the visuals are absolutely beautiful on a tasty, classy way, you know, windows, with plants, flowers, etc. That sort of stuff, very artistic.

Indeed, it was common at the west, too. There was a cute, sarcastic and iconic series, You've Rang Mylord? using this element, too. A lot. :) The honourable Teddy chasing the soapy-smelling maids. Was one of the best series ever. Completely different style.

Rewatching something old? I do that, sometimes, after 6-10 years difference I find them even better than I used to.

I guess I should feel something but I can't. The visuals are gorgeous, acting is really good but still, to me it is a bit too slow and overdramatic till the point I am questioning its necessity. Because of several reasons, one of them that we know little to nothing about the real history, I would dare to say that we know for sure goes back just 150-200 years when a previous reset happened any on many point it was proven that history was falsified. As Napoleon said, history are lies agreed upon. My point is that we can't know for sure that that 'dark age' was really so dark or not so or maybe a better, 'golden-age', same for the rest of the world.
But if you live in a highly controlled society as a factory/office slave, your life is not so different. You have to endure everything just to keep your job/daily-robot, including forcing you to go to bed or if you refuse then live with the consequences day-by-day. If you can't afford the living costs, you have no choice but end up on the street or finish it. My problem is that I found the first episode manipulative, if they show you that people could be even a more pathetic situation than yours you feel that yours maybe not so pathetic after all.
Otherwise not a bad series compared to the mindless idol series we are bombarded nowadays.

'Xingtang systematically got rid of the Lin family maids and surrounded herself with her own Zhao family maids. Who presumably would not sleep with the ML' - That's not the real point IMO, she didn't want spies close to her. I think if the head of the house wishes with sleep with a maid, he can, without consent.