In a time of injustice, what means are legitimate to right the wrongs? What happens when efficacy clashes with idealism, loyalty with morality, when the codes of the scholar, the warrior, the peasant and the noble founder on the shoals of ambition, love, envy, and self-preservation? Six Flying Dragons sets up six (well, actually, seven) protagonists, real and fictional, male and female, elite and ordinary, and sends them hurtling into the chaos of a collapsing nation as they struggle to conjure something better from its ashes. As a microcosm of the wider world, their intertwined stories allow the writers to explore how every choice, for good or ill, ripples through society, and to humanize both the triumphs and the costs of revolution. On a technical level, the screenwriters’ ability to juggle so many through lines is stunning. Set-ups in early episodes lead to powerful payoffs hours down the line, and little time is wasted, with each scene deepening characterizations, drawing parallels, establishing new conflicts and reinforcing themes. Fictional elements are well integrated with the actual history, and while liberties are certainly taken, this is a much less romanticized world than that of most fusion sageuks. Reality constantly intrudes in all its messy brutality, and show embraces this, refusing to whitewash the actions of its characters. For me, the only misstep was the writers’ attempt to create a grand, overarching mythology running from Queen Seondeok to King Sejong. It felt forced and unnecessary, an in-joke that distracted from the story at hand, and its corresponding secret society was the least convincing aspect of the show. The directing is initially a bit awkward, but as things progress, the editing calms down and the fabulous ensemble cast takes center stage, riveting in all their flawed, passionate, terrible humanity. Dark but never cynical, violent but never gratuitous, grim but never hopeless, the show cares for all its characters, and it makes you care deeply too. They often lose their battles, but they fight with everything they have, refusing to stop seeking, striving, dreaming. They can’t go on, and yet they do. And because of them, Six Flying Dragons soars.