Latest / Daebak K-Rambles Podcast: K-drama Reviews / The Princess's Man | Full K-drama Review / Ep. 72

Transcript

The Princess's Man | Full K-drama Review / Ep. 72 · Daebak K-Rambles Podcast: K-drama Reviews

• 0:19
  I'm Jessica and this is the Teva K Rambles podcast where a couple
• 0:22
  of friends review Korean dramas. And for this episode, we are
• 0:26
  going to review The Princess's Man and I am joined by my good
• 0:31
  friend Grace from the Afternoon Asks podcast.
• 0:34
  Grace, how are you? What's up?
• 0:36
  Hi, how are you? I'm doing well, nothing much
• 0:41
  UPS. I was telling you earlier this
• 0:45
  week I got back down from a vacation early because it was so
• 0:49
  hot. I'm in California and it's a
• 0:52
  different kind of heat, but it's still was hard to sleep,
• 0:57
  etcetera. So I'm glad to be back in AC,
• 1:00
  that's all. Girl, you don't have to tell me
• 1:02
  anything about being in AC because I was just telling my
• 1:06
  sister today. I took out the trash.
• 1:09
  All I did was take out the trash.
• 1:10
  It's such a simple thing. And I was so mad that I started
• 1:14
  sweating. I was pissed because I had
• 1:16
  dressed like taking a shower and I was like, then I went outside
• 1:19
  to take out the trash and I was mad.
• 1:20
  And she goes, it's humid. It's so humid outside.
• 1:23
  And then we start talking about how it's just, you walk outside
• 1:26
  and you're just wet. It that that's Florida right
• 1:29
  now. It is disgusting.
• 1:32
  Thank you so much for coming on the show Grace and I appreciate
• 1:36
  you watching this show that we're going to review today.
• 1:40
  It was a quite a few episodes to get through, but I expect this
• 1:45
  conversation to be really fun and really robust.
• 1:48
  There's a lot of stuff to talk about and I think that you can
• 1:51
  bring a lot to the table and I'm just so excited to talk it over
• 1:55
  with you. I don't know if the people that
• 1:58
  are listening have listened to the other episodes with your Co
• 2:01
  host Sarah, who's been on the podcast a bunch of times, But if
• 2:05
  they haven't listened to afternoon to ask, why don't you
• 2:08
  give like a little intro about yourself?
• 2:10
  What are maybe your favorite genres of Asian drama and what
• 2:14
  are you currently watching? What are you?
• 2:16
  What are your favorite things in the past couple of weeks?
• 2:18
  So my favorite genres tend to be slice of life, ROM com, and time
• 2:28
  slip. Real what?
• 2:29
  So yes, yes, OK, but I also really like Haguks.
• 2:35
  So I'm I'm down for the epic historical perfect.
• 2:42
  Like my dearest was my pick for the best drama of last year,
• 2:47
  even though in my heart of hearts, like the the drama that
• 2:52
  made it to my like all time top 20.
• 2:56
  Was it twinkling? Was twinkling water.
• 3:00
  Yeah, yeah, cuz twinkle twinkling watermelon, like had,
• 3:03
  you know, some of the ROM com, the time slip, some of the slice
• 3:07
  of life. So it was like like exactly my
• 3:10
  jam. So I knew like this is this is
• 3:14
  the one I will revisit and this is the one that like has buried
• 3:17
  itself in my heart. However, I I need to give props
• 3:21
  to my dearest. It was like a masterpiece.
• 3:25
  So that's that's how I, you know, justified all of that.
• 3:29
  Gotcha. Gotcha.
• 3:30
  Yeah, I have to say I feel like My Dearest is a really good
• 3:33
  segue into the drama that we're going to talk about today.
• 3:36
  Because if we're talking about dramas that draw from history
• 3:40
  and are pretty historically accurate with, with some
• 3:44
  exceptions, like you're putting fictional characters into
• 3:47
  historically accurate situations, this is more of the
• 3:51
  same, right? That is what princesses mean is.
• 3:54
  So before we get into princesses, man, a little
• 3:57
  housekeeping. If this is your first time
• 3:59
  listening, go ahead and subscribe on your favorite
• 4:01
  podcast A we're on Ale podcast, Spotify and many more.
• 4:04
  And if you like us, please give us a 5 star review on Ale
• 4:07
  Podcast and Spotify. Come and check us out on social
• 4:10
  media to stay up to date on our latest episodes and reviews.
• 4:13
  You can find us on X formerly Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and
• 4:16
  TikTok at Timbuk Pod. And lastly, if you're a fan,
• 4:20
  please consider becoming a patron.
• 4:21
  It's a great way for you to get involved and true your support.
• 4:24
  You can check out the page on patreon.com/always Critic Pod
• 4:28
  and shout out to our patrons. Janet Curtis, Bale CD Alana,
• 4:33
  Grace, Lorna, Sammy, Caitlin, Julia, Michelle, Tanae, Erin,
• 4:37
  Martha, Delphia, Maria, and Kelly.
• 4:41
  Thank you so much for being patrons.
• 4:43
  OK, so we're going to get into this saga drama from yesteryear.
• 4:50
  And the reason why I chose this drama in the 1st place was
• 4:53
  because I fell madly in love with this drama when I first
• 4:57
  watched it in 2014, maybe early 2015.
• 5:04
  I was living in my first apt. I was by myself.
• 5:08
  And I remember watching it on my laptop and just, I think Vicki
• 5:13
  was free at the time. I mean, it was a time to be
• 5:15
  alive and wow. Yeah, Yeah.
• 5:19
  And I had nobody to talk about it with.
• 5:23
  Like, I just experienced this. I just thought, oh, I'll press
• 5:27
  play on this drama. And it blew me away.
• 5:31
  It blew me away completely. I remember rewatching it
• 5:35
  sometime like a few months later, and I was trying to get
• 5:38
  Miguel to watch it. Miguel, who's been on the show
• 5:41
  multiple times, he's been on for big shows like 2521, Squid
• 5:46
  Games, Snowdrop, like, he's crazy.
• 5:49
  And I remember vividly sending him a video of the intro of the
• 5:52
  show. And I was like, look how epic it
• 5:54
  is. And he was like, yeah, yeah, OK.
• 5:57
  I don't, he's never seen this show.
• 5:58
  OK. Like he never pressed play on
• 6:00
  it. I never convinced him to watch
• 6:02
  it. It stole my heart.
• 6:04
  And I I could never really figure out like what was so
• 6:09
  special about the show. And when it came time to create
• 6:13
  season 5, the set list, so to speak, for season five, I was
• 6:16
  like, man, I feel like freaking going back and re watching the
• 6:20
  show and seeing if I'm if I was like crazy 10 years ago or if,
• 6:26
  if I if the show really is great, right?
• 6:29
  Like maybe I was on something, maybe just hit me at the right
• 6:32
  time in my life or something. So I was like, maybe we should
• 6:37
  just re evaluate this. And I'm actually really excited
• 6:40
  to rewatch it. So I did and here we are.
• 6:44
  I am so happy that you agreed to do it because I did propose this
• 6:48
  show to multiple people. Like I gave people the option.
• 6:51
  I gave them like a list of shows and a lot of people were like, I
• 6:54
  don't know about that. It was it was a little sad.
• 6:58
  It was a little sad because it's not well known like this drama.
• 7:02
  Yeah, nobody knows it. It's it flies way under the
• 7:06
  radar. I never see anybody talking
• 7:08
  about this show online. And maybe maybe it's me, like I
• 7:13
  maybe the other fans of the show don't want it to get out.
• 7:17
  Maybe I, I don't know, like because, and maybe there's other
• 7:22
  factors at play, which we'll talk about as well in this non
• 7:25
  spoiler section first, but I'm here to just spread the good
• 7:28
  news. Like spread the good, the good
• 7:31
  word about the princesses, man. That's what this episode was
• 7:33
  intended to do. And I'm so happy that you have
• 7:37
  joined the journey. Yeah, yeah.
• 7:41
  And I'm happy to be here. And I really, I was very excited
• 7:46
  to choose this drama because you gave me a lot of like, really
• 7:50
  interesting options. And I was like, you know what?
• 7:52
  I don't think anyone else is going to choose princesses.
• 7:55
  It's so sad. But the reason I was excited was
• 7:59
  because when you came onto our show Sarah's and my show
• 8:03
  Afternoon asks, We asked you like, what are your, you know,
• 8:07
  top dramas, etcetera, and you included Princess's Man in your
• 8:12
  choices. And I was like, wow, that's so
• 8:14
  interesting. And like the plug you gave for
• 8:17
  it was like, you know, basically the romance, you know, you know
• 8:20
  how people get bored with, you know, the political machinations
• 8:26
  in Taghog's. Well, in this drama, the the
• 8:29
  machinations are all about this romance, the central romance.
• 8:33
  I was like that's so interesting I want to check it out.
• 8:36
  I can't wait to find out what your what your thoughts were,
• 8:38
  what your true thoughts were just because I know we're kind
• 8:40
  of like hyping it up right now. But like at the end of this
• 8:43
  process, well, I'm going to like set you loose.
• 8:45
  And I want to hear your true thoughts.
• 8:47
  Like, don't worry if I like it or if I don't like it even after
• 8:50
  the rewatch. So all right, we're going to
• 8:52
  start off with the Wikipedia synopsis.
• 8:54
  It's a historical drama depicting the forbidden romance
• 8:58
  between the daughter of Grand Prince Huyang and the son of Kim
• 9:02
  Jong Soo, Soo Young's political opponent.
• 9:05
  This show aired from July to October 2011, so it is older
• 9:10
  than when I watch it. I watched it like four or five
• 9:13
  years removed from when it first aired.
• 9:16
  And then it is 24 episodes long, which is longer than the
• 9:20
  standard 16 or 20 episodes. I do want to like pause right
• 9:25
  here and say like Sawgooks traditionally are longer than 24
• 9:31
  episodes. They might be 4050, sixty
• 9:35
  episodes long if the true Sawgooks are really really long.
• 9:40
  So this could be considered like a baby Sawgook.
• 9:43
  The 16/20/24 episode Sawgooks are like Sawgook lights, truly.
• 9:52
  So anytime you see a saga that's like really low episode count
• 9:56
  and isn't sort of extended, you can kind of guarantee that it's
• 10:01
  going to be a little quicker on the uptick and maybe the writing
• 10:05
  will be snappier, so on and so forth.
• 10:08
  That's what you can kind of expect.
• 10:09
  But around this time period is when this started happening,
• 10:14
  right? Was when the episode counts on
• 10:16
  some of these saga started dropping and you got these like
• 10:19
  saga light dramas. So the directors there are two
• 10:24
  directors Kim Jong Min and Pak Hyun Sook.
• 10:28
  Kim Jong Min directed things like Gunman and Chosen with E
• 10:32
  Jung Ki from Flowers, Flower of Evil, who obviously he starred
• 10:40
  in with the female lead from this show from Princess's Man.
• 10:44
  And this director also directed Sweet Stranger and me, Grand
• 10:48
  Prince, Queen Love and War from 20/19/2020 with Kim Minku.
• 10:53
  That one I do want to watch 'cause I saw like the synopsis
• 10:57
  and I saw like the cover, the poster of it, and I was like,
• 11:00
  yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my speed.
• 11:01
  That's my speed right there. So I do want to watch Queen Love
• 11:04
  and War, Royal Secret Agent and the Secret Romantic Guesthouse
• 11:08
  from last year. Pakyongsuk directed some of
• 11:13
  these. I don't know, they seem kind of
• 11:15
  small small fry shows uncontrollably fond.
• 11:18
  He directed that. He directed Stranger 2 from
• 11:22
  2020. I think his most recent work was
• 11:25
  Hometown from 2021. Some really interesting
• 11:30
  different shows, like one guy seems to do a little more
• 11:33
  Sawgook and then the other guy seems to do some really
• 11:37
  atmospheric crime dramas as well as tragic dramas.
• 11:42
  So I mean that it's interesting to see how they combine their
• 11:48
  powers into the Princesses Man. They won, both of them won the
• 11:53
  Best Director award at the Pixong Arts Awards in 2012 for
• 11:58
  the Princesses Man. So they are decorated for this
• 12:02
  particular drama. Princess's Man was written by to
• 12:07
  Jong Wu and Kim Wuk. They Kim Wuk only has like one
• 12:11
  TV movie and two movies to his resume.
• 12:15
  He or she's resume. Besides, The Princess's Man and
• 12:19
  then to Jong Wu has written the real has come from last year,
• 12:23
  2023 and Are You Human? When I saw that title, I started
• 12:28
  laughing. Have you seen Are You Human?
• 12:31
  No, I don't think so. I mean, and I'm not sure if I'm
• 12:36
  thinking of the right one because I feel like I've seen
• 12:38
  one that's like, are you human? That's it.
• 12:41
  That's the same show. Is that the 10?
• 12:43
  That's the same show. Yeah, yeah, I think, I think I
• 12:45
  kind of wanted to watch that based on the leading man.
• 12:49
  Right, right. It's the second male lead from
• 12:52
  Cheese in the trap. Yes, OK.
• 12:54
  So he's in, that's his show that are you human?
• 12:57
  Is that show where he plays a a robot like an Android?
• 13:01
  OK, OK, I won't spoil anything. Else I may have watched like one
• 13:05
  minute of that show and then been like, no, actually I'm not
• 13:09
  this. Anyway, well I it threw me, it
• 13:13
  threw me like back into 2018 when I saw that he wrote are you
• 13:17
  human? Are you human too?
• 13:19
  So anyway, Long story short though, that's it.
• 13:22
  Like 2 directors, 2 writers. And then we are going to talk
• 13:26
  about the cast. So we have Pak Shiu who plays
• 13:29
  Kim Song Yu. He is our male lead.
• 13:32
  He has been in a few dramas like Ultima, The Phantom Thief from O
• 13:37
  8, which also stars E Jung Ki. So they've like worked together,
• 13:42
  families, Honor Princess, Prosecutor, Queen of Reversals,
• 13:45
  Chung Dung Dong Chung Dung Dong Alice, which I remember watching
• 13:49
  and dropping in 2012. I don't know if you've seen any
• 13:53
  of his stuff before. Princesses.
• 13:57
  No, I haven't. That's fine.
• 13:59
  He looked. He was completely unfamiliar to
• 14:01
  me. OK.
• 14:02
  I think he's pretty unfamiliar to a lot of K drama watchers,
• 14:06
  and we'll get into why in a bit, but he's also been in My Golden
• 14:10
  Life, which was pretty well received.
• 14:12
  Lovely Horribly, which was not well received at all.
• 14:16
  And then the, I think his most recent thing was the kingmaker,
• 14:19
  the change of destiny from 2024 years ago.
• 14:23
  So yeah, he's not, he's not been steadily working since 2013, and
• 14:28
  there's a reason for that. But anyway, what did you think
• 14:32
  of Pakshyu? I thought he was.
• 14:35
  I thought he was pretty good. I'll get into this later.
• 14:39
  I actually enjoyed the side characters more than the lead
• 14:44
  character really, in this drama. OK, yeah, so.
• 14:49
  And I don't think that it is the fault of the actor and the
• 14:54
  actress, the male and female lead.
• 14:57
  I think the way that they were written was just not as
• 15:01
  interesting as they could have been.
• 15:05
  But that's just. Yeah, OK, OK.
• 15:10
  But you thought he was pretty good, all things considered.
• 15:12
  I thought he was. I thought he was decent all
• 15:15
  things considered. Yeah, I would say, I would say
• 15:18
  that he was pretty good. Like I think I've thought of him
• 15:22
  more. I thought he was better on 1st
• 15:26
  and like first rewatch, I guess like back in 2015 or whenever
• 15:31
  when I rewatched it as well, I was like, Oh my God, he's
• 15:34
  amazing. And then this time around when I
• 15:36
  watched him, I was like, he's good but not as good as like
• 15:39
  when I first watched. Like, I don't know, like there
• 15:41
  was like a disconnect for me that I was like, maybe he's
• 15:44
  doing too much like, I don't know.
• 15:46
  Yeah, I kind of felt that way about him, but I also wondered
• 15:51
  how much it was the style of the dramas back then.
• 15:54
  Yes. Because I feel like the style of
• 15:57
  this drama was more intense, kind of more dramatic than I'm
• 16:02
  used to nowadays. Yeah, even in this Hagguk.
• 16:06
  So I was like, maybe that was what they were asking from him.
• 16:12
  And, you know, some of the other actors and actresses that, you
• 16:16
  know, had some kind of like really intense face happening.
• 16:22
  So, yeah. So I thought he was, I thought
• 16:26
  he was good. Like there, there was nothing
• 16:28
  about his acting that I felt was, you know, lacking or
• 16:33
  anything like that. I thought he was super handsome.
• 16:39
  Bar none. I thought he was super handsome.
• 16:41
  And then if I recall correctly, there's like a transition that
• 16:46
  happens in the show, a style transition that happens in the
• 16:49
  show that had me like gnawing at the bars of my enclosure.
• 16:53
  And I don't know if that happened with you as well.
• 16:55
  Like he basically turns and looks like a ninja like for half
• 16:59
  the show. And I could not get enough of
• 17:04
  this styling with like the side swept bangs and like the wispies
• 17:09
  that were falling out of his half up, half down hair.
• 17:13
  That was I don't know. And like the head, the black
• 17:16
  headband, the black outfit, like I was Oh my God, like you could
• 17:23
  not rip that image away from me. Like it is still ingrained in me
• 17:30
  and on 2nd on this rewatch, I was still like, no, no, no, no,
• 17:33
  no, he's still like top tier. Like when they switch it and
• 17:36
  then he turns into this like ninja type.
• 17:40
  No, it was it was like hitting all the all the right buttons.
• 17:44
  Not to say he wasn't great as a like a nobleman either, but
• 17:50
  right No the transition. But it's a different flavor,
• 17:53
  yeah. Yeah, for sure, for sure.
• 17:55
  I also had a problem with his like veneers this time around
• 17:58
  where I was like, OK, that's not.
• 18:02
  There was something about this like this guy who clearly has
• 18:05
  veneers like in the year 1450, presumably in the year 1450 that
• 18:12
  I'm like, maybe not like maybe not.
• 18:15
  Maybe I was on something because it's not that the veneers look
• 18:19
  bad, but like it's not 1450. Yeah.
• 18:23
  I mean the yeah, it takes away from the authenticity, right.
• 18:27
  But also but also like really do we want authentic 1450?
• 18:34
  50. Teeth.
• 18:36
  I don't think so, right? Like we don't.
• 18:39
  Want that? We want to swoon a little I.
• 18:41
  Know, I know we. Don't want those authentic.
• 18:44
  I don't want the 1450 teeth, but I don't want the 2011 veneers
• 18:49
  either right right. I want a balance anyway, so his
• 18:54
  his Co star is Moon Chao Wan, who everyone I think is a little
• 18:58
  more familiar with. She plays Yi said young.
• 19:02
  She's been in a few movies like Mood of the War of the Arrows.
• 19:06
  War of the Arrows came out in the same year as The Princess's
• 19:09
  Man 2011. I highly recommend everyone to
• 19:12
  watch that, that movie. It's really good.
• 19:15
  And then she is in Gosh, Flower of Evil, which we have an
• 19:20
  episode on. Yeah.
• 19:23
  She's been in Mama Fairy in The Woodcutter, Criminal Minds,
• 19:27
  Goodbye Mr. Black, Good Doctor, The Innocent Man with Song Jung
• 19:33
  Ki. I really like that show.
• 19:36
  That's another one that's like real angsty and like kind of
• 19:40
  mock Jungy, but like, I don't know, there was something about
• 19:43
  it. I was like, that's good shit
• 19:44
  right there. Then My Fair Lady and Brilliant
• 19:47
  Legacy, she was the I think second female lead in Brilliant
• 19:51
  Legacy from O 9. That was when I first saw her in
• 19:54
  that show. So how do you feel about Muncha
• 19:57
  1 in Princess's Man and have you seen her in some other shows?
• 20:02
  So we've actually discussed her performance before on on the
• 20:07
  episode of afternoon asks that you that you came on on because
• 20:11
  you had mentioned that there was some controversy about like her
• 20:15
  like Nopin Meyer, which is her like very high honorific style
• 20:20
  that you're supposed to use in court and stuff like that.
• 20:23
  And I actually, because we had had that conversation, I was
• 20:27
  watching through that lens, yes, you know what I mean?
• 20:30
  Yes. And so I was like trying to
• 20:32
  evaluate. And I think the, the, the
• 20:36
  conclusion I came to was that she gave a really great
• 20:40
  performance because so at the beginning of this drama, she's
• 20:45
  supposed to be this kind of naive, a little bit like, like
• 20:50
  slightly rebellious, but like, not in a harmful way, just like,
• 20:55
  you know, she's an ingenue. She, she wants to do what she
• 20:59
  wants to do. So she like doesn't listen to
• 21:02
  her parents sometimes and things like that.
• 21:04
  And then so with the with the honorifics, the thing that I
• 21:08
  thought or I observed was that maybe for the people who don't
• 21:13
  live at court, they don't speak that way.
• 21:17
  The people who don't address the king, they don't necessarily
• 21:21
  speak that way. So like, I thought that her
• 21:24
  performance seemed really accurate to like the character
• 21:28
  that she was supposed to portray.
• 21:30
  Yeah. And so I, I enjoyed her
• 21:33
  performance. I thought she did a good job.
• 21:36
  It did 'cause like some problems with my believing certain parts
• 21:43
  of the relationship later, but I'll discuss that later in the
• 21:46
  spoiler section. But yeah, I thought she, she
• 21:49
  played the art as it was supposed to be played.
• 21:52
  And she was like, you know, she, she did a good job.
• 21:56
  Right, So what you're referring to is something that I brought
• 21:59
  up in in the episode that I did with Afternoon.
• 22:02
  I asked which is there was a controversy back when this first
• 22:06
  aired that her dialect for for lack of a better word.
• 22:11
  And you you had the proper term for it.
• 22:12
  But her her manner of speaking was not up to par with everybody
• 22:18
  else on the show. She sounded maybe kind of
• 22:19
  haltering in the way that she spoke in the Sakuk high
• 22:25
  language, high Korean. So you're saying that didn't
• 22:29
  necessarily bother you? And it may have may have even
• 22:32
  contributed to her character, like her character development.
• 22:36
  Right. OK, got you.
• 22:38
  Yeah, it didn't bother me. Like even on this rewatch, I was
• 22:42
  like, yeah, it's, it's not that bad.
• 22:45
  Like, you know, I'm not Korean, Like I don't speak Korean.
• 22:48
  So I again, I'm not picking up on the nuances of where she's
• 22:54
  faltering. But again, like I didn't find
• 22:58
  that it hindered her performance or the delivery of the emotions
• 23:04
  in a way that I was like, yeah, she sucks.
• 23:06
  So I I think I agree with you basically.
• 23:10
  Yeah, I thought she played the part like perfectly fine.
• 23:15
  She did a good job. Well, since then she played a
• 23:18
  couple of other characters that I enjoyed, like the good Doctor.
• 23:23
  I think she was the female lead there.
• 23:25
  Yeah, I thought she did a pretty good job there.
• 23:28
  And I loved her. I really loved her in Flower of
• 23:31
  Evil. So like, you know, she she had a
• 23:34
  good start and I think she's been, you know, improving her
• 23:37
  craft and stuff. So I really like moon chill on.
• 23:40
  Yeah, yeah. Let's get into some general
• 23:44
  thoughts about the show. Like what did you think over all
• 23:47
  about the princesses, man? How did you find?
• 23:51
  Was it easy to watch? Was it difficult to watch maybe
• 23:55
  some favorite favorite parts of the show?
• 23:57
  Without going into spoilers necessarily, but what can you
• 24:01
  tell me about, Yeah, about how you like the show?
• 24:04
  Okay, so I liked the show like okay, overall I really liked
• 24:11
  some parts and I wasn't fond of some other parts.
• 24:16
  So part of this might be because of the way that I watch Hagguks.
• 24:21
  So when I watch Hagguks, I actually read up on the history
• 24:25
  like I do the Wikipedia searches as I'm going.
• 24:28
  And I don't think of this as spoilers because I'm trying to
• 24:32
  read about the historical context.
• 24:34
  And like the domestic audience will just know the historical
• 24:38
  context. They will will have, you know,
• 24:40
  learned it in school as part of like Korean history or whatever,
• 24:43
  right. So I'm like, you know, like this
• 24:46
  shouldn't be a problem for me to like read up on the history,
• 24:49
  etcetera. But maybe in part because of
• 24:53
  that, like there were some frustrations with certain like
• 24:58
  repetitive kinds of scheming that was happening.
• 25:02
  So that part like, you know, I wasn't like the most excited
• 25:06
  about because I had I had read like this is how it turns out.
• 25:11
  So I'm like, we're so we're headed steaming on this side,
• 25:14
  scheming on that side. Yeah, but I know how it turns
• 25:19
  out. So can we not go through all the
• 25:22
  different instances of scheming? I got you.
• 25:26
  Okay, I see your yeah. So you're like, do we have to
• 25:29
  really go? Scheme.
• 25:36
  Yeah, that's an interesting way of looking at it.
• 25:37
  OK, OK, I'm following you. I'm following you.
• 25:40
  And you know, I did find like the the lead characters like
• 25:45
  falling in love part charming, but I actually enjoyed later on
• 25:51
  in the drama more. And so and we'll get to that
• 25:54
  later in the spoilers, like which part I which like kind of
• 25:59
  interactions I was really into. Yeah.
• 26:01
  But yeah, basically I found them like most interesting and
• 26:07
  exciting parts to be like when there was like relationship
• 26:12
  conflict and tension. Yeah, yeah.
• 26:14
  Yeah. So like those were those were
• 26:18
  the parts that I really enjoyed. What about you?
• 26:20
  So I have to agree with you that like, well on a baseline that
• 26:26
  like the scheming can get a little bit tedious if you know
• 26:30
  the story and you don't want to go through all the plot beats of
• 26:34
  history. But when I first watched it and
• 26:37
  rewatched it back in 2015, did not know the history.
• 26:41
  So it was surprising. It was novel for me to go
• 26:45
  through this story and experience it raw without
• 26:48
  knowing the history that corresponds with everything.
• 26:53
  And even now, like re watching it and knowing the history, like
• 26:56
  you said, like since then I have gone through and looked up the
• 26:59
  history, looked up every character, the the kings and the
• 27:03
  the princesses and everybody who are real historical figures in
• 27:08
  the show and figure find out what happens to them.
• 27:12
  I'm still like, yeah, I don't care.
• 27:13
  I love it. I think it's great.
• 27:15
  Like to go through all of the machinations and these, you
• 27:20
  know, big set pieces that happen in the show and round table
• 27:25
  discussions about what they're going to do, right?
• 27:27
  Like, I think that might be really annoying to hear when you
• 27:31
  know what they're going to do when, when you know what they're
• 27:33
  going to choose when you know, like how it turns out, you know
• 27:36
  what I'm saying? Like that might be a little
• 27:39
  frustrating to sit there for, you know, 5-10 minutes while
• 27:43
  they're like debating what to do.
• 27:44
  And you're like babes like get on with it.
• 27:47
  So, but I think that it's still really cool to sit there and and
• 27:55
  if you wipe your brain or you kind of like just read the
• 27:58
  Wikipedia once and then get going on the drama, I think you
• 28:01
  can still get through it. And you're like, this is really
• 28:04
  interesting and a thorough way to explore history in a manner
• 28:11
  that might go down easier than just like APDS documentary, you
• 28:15
  know what I'm saying? Or just reading it in a history
• 28:17
  book. It really makes history come to
• 28:20
  life. And I appreciated that about the
• 28:22
  show. And it made all of these
• 28:25
  characters human, right? I think that was what was so
• 28:30
  compelling is that you might read about these kings, about
• 28:33
  these figures in history. And they're not.
• 28:37
  They don't seem real because it happened in the 1400s.
• 28:42
  If you say like, oh, someone died, the coup was stopped, like
• 28:45
  it these don't really digest what happened like that.
• 28:51
  How did what does that look like?
• 28:53
  And I appreciated how it kind of slowed it down for you.
• 28:58
  And this is a microcosm of a really tumultuous time in in
• 29:02
  Korean history. And I loved it.
• 29:06
  I really loved how, and I, you said this at the top because I,
• 29:11
  I said it when I was on your podcast, but the fact that this
• 29:15
  is by and large a love story, by and large the Princess's man is
• 29:20
  a really big, sweeping, epic romance.
• 29:24
  And all of the political machinations and all the people
• 29:27
  that were talking about that really existed in history have
• 29:30
  intimately to do with the couple who are fictionalized.
• 29:36
  And I think that what's so cool is that they have written it in
• 29:40
  such a way that they could have existed, right, Like this couple
• 29:46
  and everything that happens to them very well could have
• 29:50
  existed in the manner that they've written the show, which
• 29:54
  I think is like, I'm clutching my chest.
• 29:57
  I'm like, that is so impactful and cool to think that, like,
• 30:01
  this story is somewhat plausible.
• 30:04
  Yeah. Yeah, I agree.
• 30:07
  It's not like a gender benders Haguk where like she pretends to
• 30:11
  be a eunuch and like he's the king that created the Korean
• 30:15
  alphabet and yada yada yada. Like OK, that king really
• 30:18
  existed and yes, he really did that.
• 30:20
  And maybe there could have been a eunuch that was disguised as a
• 30:24
  woman, like or vice versa. Like that's not really
• 30:28
  plausible. This story, the princesses man
• 30:32
  and the way that things play out and the way that this couple is
• 30:37
  so entrenched within history. I'm like, this could have
• 30:41
  happened. Like I don't know about you, but
• 30:44
  that's what's so that gets me so excited.
• 30:48
  Also about the show is that it's it's pretty cool in the same way
• 30:51
  that maybe my dearest from 2023, that's plausible, like that
• 30:57
  story is plausible. It could have totally happened,
• 31:01
  like not that there's evidence that the specific couple
• 31:03
  existed, but like it's plausible.
• 31:06
  Like this could have happened. And that's what's pretty unique
• 31:11
  and fun about this show as well. I loved their chemistry.
• 31:15
  I loved how they fell in love, but also that they're like frogs
• 31:20
  or animals in a boiling pot. Like they're just like the heat
• 31:24
  gets keeps getting turned up throughout the show.
• 31:28
  And I love rising stakes. I love angst.
• 31:32
  And this is a high angst show. They continually get thwarted
• 31:40
  and they get torn apart by really big circumstances and
• 31:47
  there's not much that they can do.
• 31:49
  Like there's hands are tied for for a lot of reasons, like moral
• 31:53
  reasons, Confucianism reasons as well, which I would love for you
• 31:57
  to talk about if you have notes on that.
• 31:59
  But it is kind of impossible for them to be together.
• 32:04
  But they still want to make it happen.
• 32:06
  Like at the end of the day, they're still like, well, I know
• 32:10
  that all these things are in flux around us and like, it
• 32:12
  sucks. The situation sucks, but we
• 32:15
  still love each other. Like at the end of the day, the
• 32:18
  love is still there. Like what?
• 32:19
  How are we going to resolve this?
• 32:21
  So I really appreciated that, that it wasn't just an automatic
• 32:27
  death sentence for them in the in the show, they were fighting
• 32:32
  against these principalities and it was an uphill battle.
• 32:37
  But, you know, they, they were dedicated to, to each other and
• 32:44
  that was addicting to watch. Yeah, I mean, sometimes that
• 32:50
  dedication was one sided, but that's what's the angst injected
• 32:55
  more of the, Yeah, I don't know, the excitement right right into
• 33:03
  the show. Like, how is this gonna be
• 33:05
  resolved? That kind of thing.
• 33:08
  The tension I love. That is tension and bad blood,
• 33:13
  so how are they going to work it out?
• 33:16
  Right. Totally.
• 33:18
  Yeah, it's very, I think of the comparison people like to make
• 33:21
  is Romeo and Juliet for them, Sure, sure, the ill-fated
• 33:26
  lovers, star crossed level, whatever you want to call it,
• 33:28
  right. But star crossed, you know, in
• 33:31
  Romeo and Juliet, you never find out why the Capulets and the
• 33:33
  Montagues hate each other. Yeah, in this Princess.
• 33:37
  And here it's really clear. No, like you, it's so clear why
• 33:42
  they hate each other and they cannot be together, right?
• 33:45
  It's not this amorphous like bad blood over all this time.
• 33:49
  You don't even know why they hate each other anymore.
• 33:51
  No, no, it is present. It is ongoing.
• 33:56
  It is, it's deep and it's real and you know, it's a revenge
• 34:02
  story. It's an action-packed story.
• 34:05
  There's a lot of sword fighting and swordplay, friends turning
• 34:10
  against each other, betrayal. It is like all these things
• 34:13
  packed into this romance story and I loved it.
• 34:18
  It was a lot of things. Awesome.
• 34:20
  So so even after all this time upon like rewatching recently,
• 34:27
  you're still like, this is an awesome show.
• 34:31
  Yes, I totally would recommend it to people.
• 34:35
  I think what people don't like about older dramas is maybe the
• 34:38
  way that they look as well. Like the production value of
• 34:44
  some of these or the cinematography of some of them.
• 34:48
  The OST of some of these might be cringy here to say in the
• 34:55
  year of our Lord 2024 this show amazing still.
• 34:59
  Like the cinematography looks really good.
• 35:01
  It doesn't look that bad at all. I thought that the colours were
• 35:04
  super vibrant, vibrant and this world.
• 35:07
  And it's not like the red sleeve level, I mean, you know, have
• 35:11
  some grace there, but like, it is really good for being 2011.
• 35:16
  Yeah, the OST is really good as well.
• 35:20
  As soon as I heard the first notes of the first song, I was
• 35:22
  like, oh, I'm taken right back ten years ago to the first time
• 35:27
  hearing this, this OST. I love it when that happened.
• 35:30
  Yeah. Yeah, it's very tied to the show
• 35:34
  to me, for me, and I wouldn't say it's iconic, but like, if
• 35:39
  you've seen the show, I don't think you can hear it and not
• 35:44
  think, Oh my God, the princess's man.
• 35:46
  Yeah, for sure. Oh my goodness.
• 35:48
  It's very it's. Very dramatic and like, I don't
• 35:52
  know how to describe it. Like if you listen.
• 35:54
  Very dramatic. Oh my goodness.
• 35:57
  Yeah, it's very over the top, yeah.
• 35:58
  But I think that's also of that era, the the music being more
• 36:03
  dramatic. I feel it's.
• 36:04
  Not so poppy at all, like it's not catering to an international
• 36:08
  audience in the slightest. Right.
• 36:11
  Yeah, for sure. It it actually reminded me of
• 36:14
  certain different like classical pieces or something like that.
• 36:18
  Like there was one that really reminded me of and then I had to
• 36:22
  like look it up. Schubert's Ave.
• 36:26
  Maria yes, it sounded kind of like kind of grand like that.
• 36:31
  And then, okay, but there was one that sort of reminded me at
• 36:35
  the beginning of the Carol of the Bells, which is like a.
• 36:38
  Christmas. Song, so that's a little bit
• 36:40
  pulled me out of the moment sometimes.
• 36:43
  That was like, yeah, yeah. But yeah, it's a very grand and
• 36:50
  like atmospheric music. It's like definitely would
• 36:54
  recognize it from this show anytime I hear it anywhere.
• 36:58
  Right. It's super recognizable, very
• 37:00
  memorable pieces. Again, like all of these sort of
• 37:04
  quibbles that people have with older dramas.
• 37:07
  I'm like, yeah, this one doesn't.
• 37:09
  I don't feel like this one has has that issue at all.
• 37:14
  The acting is pretty solid as well and the episode count.
• 37:19
  If you can watch a really long hour and a half episode for name
• 37:24
  your current drama, then I think you can watch 24 episodes of an
• 37:30
  hour. A piece of a really good saga
• 37:33
  that is going to really drag you in.
• 37:36
  Again, like I said at the top or like you reiterated at the top
• 37:40
  that I had said on your podcast, all the political machinations
• 37:44
  have everything to do with the couple.
• 37:46
  That is really special. I think a lot of people get
• 37:49
  turned off by the saw books because they get bored by all of
• 37:54
  the like, you know, courtroom backflipping that happens and
• 37:59
  the posturing that happens in the court here.
• 38:04
  Everything has to do with them and really after a certain
• 38:08
  pointed specifically has to do with them too.
• 38:12
  Not even just like their family and their friends, it's like
• 38:15
  them too. How are we going to deal with
• 38:18
  them too? Is the.
• 38:20
  They're driving the action, yeah.
• 38:23
  They're driving the conflict. So I really thought that was
• 38:27
  special. That kept me entertained and
• 38:31
  locked in. Did you like the characters like
• 38:34
  the male lead and the the female lead?
• 38:36
  Did you like their characters? So again I'm a little torn
• 38:41
  because like I did like them but I also would lose interest in
• 38:46
  them. Interesting at.
• 38:47
  Different points in the drama, and I'll explain why later, but
• 38:54
  because I think that involves some spoilers, But like, yeah.
• 38:59
  OK, we're going to have to talk about.
• 39:00
  That I did. I did like them.
• 39:02
  OK, Long story short, you did like them all right?
• 39:05
  Yes, I did mostly like that. OK.
• 39:07
  So there is a reason why our male lead pucks you.
• 39:14
  Nobody's heard of this guy after 2013.
• 39:18
  His career tanked. And the reason for that is
• 39:21
  because there was a giant scandal.
• 39:23
  He was accused of rape, sexual assault of a trainee actress
• 39:28
  named A. We.
• 39:30
  I don't think we even know who it is.
• 39:32
  To this day it's still a trainee A.
• 39:35
  It turned into this whole stink where he ended up suing the
• 39:40
  accused and his former agency as well for threat, libel and false
• 39:46
  accusations. Basically he was saying like
• 39:49
  they're trying to extort money out of me and defamation and all
• 39:52
  this stuff. It was really ugly.
• 39:55
  He left the country for like 3 months and lived in the states
• 39:59
  while it blowed over. I don't want to be here, sit
• 40:01
  here and say he didn't or didn't do it.
• 40:04
  We're never going to know whether he did or didn't do it.
• 40:06
  He never did any jail time. He was acquitted of all charges.
• 40:10
  Trainee A dropped her suit. His agency, like counter sued
• 40:13
  him. It was really ugly.
• 40:15
  This did irreparable damage to his career, his reputation.
• 40:20
  Obviously, it doesn't matter whether he did or not like it,
• 40:24
  sync everything. He lost contracts, lost jobs.
• 40:27
  He didn't do any dramas for like 3 years and then he did.
• 40:30
  He's done some dramas every few years.
• 40:33
  And so that is why this guy is not on your TV screen.
• 40:39
  So I've never heard of this guy. So not very good news, but this
• 40:45
  show, The Princesses Man, did very well.
• 40:49
  It had very good ratings. About 25% of everyone in Korea
• 40:53
  tuned in for the finale episodes.
• 40:55
  Average ratings for the whole show hovered around 20%.
• 40:58
  That is very, very good. And then it was nominated for a
• 41:04
  lot of awards, you know, those like KBS awards and like, you
• 41:07
  know all of those awards, it won a smattering of them.
• 41:10
  And then of course, it was nominated for a handful of Pick
• 41:13
  Song awards and won best director for those two
• 41:16
  directors. But Munshee one was nominated
• 41:19
  for best actress, Pakshiu was nominated for best actor, and
• 41:22
  the drama itself was nominated best drama that year as well.
• 41:26
  So this drama I want to say is worth your time.
• 41:31
  I'm not sure if the same can be said about like some of the
• 41:34
  other shows from Pakshu. I remember dropping Chung Dung
• 41:40
  Dong Alice, that was very successful for him.
• 41:43
  Queen of Reversals also was really successful for the time
• 41:47
  and the triple hit of Queen of Reversals, Chung Dung Dong Alice
• 41:51
  and the Princess's Man, that is what made him a star.
• 41:55
  Those three shows in a row, like put him on the map and then
• 42:00
  boom, scandal. So that is just context, added
• 42:03
  context for people. I don't want to leave it out
• 42:06
  because I feel like that's unfair, but yeah.
• 42:08
  Yeah. And I, I tend to, I mean, be on
• 42:12
  the side of the victim. And also I, I am aware that
• 42:16
  Korean rape laws are really not victim friendly.
• 42:20
  And so this kind of thing happens often.
• 42:24
  And you reviewed tomorrow. So there was that one vignette,
• 42:30
  that one story about the and I don't know if this is a spoiler,
• 42:34
  but I'll just I'll just give vague outlines about the the
• 42:37
  woman who was raped and like just how things went down
• 42:40
  legally. And so like whenever there's an
• 42:44
  accusation, I feel like a little bit torn, like because one of my
• 42:48
  favorite Taguks is Tongung gun scandal.
• 42:51
  And it's like the same thing happened with the male lead he
• 42:56
  had. He had both like a possible
• 42:59
  sexual assault accusation, not as not as big I think of an
• 43:05
  accusation as this Pakshu and also drug problems.
• 43:11
  So yeah, he was also one of those people that no one's ever
• 43:15
  heard of whenever I mentioned hunking gun scandal, which is
• 43:18
  2010. So like in this same era, nobody
• 43:22
  knows who he is. But like, yeah, I always feel
• 43:25
  like slightly like I'm not sure how I could should feel about
• 43:29
  this cuz maybe who who knows? It's really hard.
• 43:33
  It's really opaque based on how the Korean legal system works,
• 43:36
  like how like it actually went down and.
• 43:40
  You can. I will include a Sumpi article
• 43:44
  from 2013, I believe, that kind of outlines the broad strokes of
• 43:49
  what happened because the media was in a frenzy putting out
• 43:53
  articles at the time, whether it was true, whether it wasn't
• 43:55
  true, the content of the articles themselves, just to
• 43:58
  keep up with the cycle of of people wanting news about this
• 44:03
  scandal. And so he was like, dust is kind
• 44:07
  of settled. Yes, he was a huge star and now
• 44:11
  nobody knows of him. So Sumpi put out this article
• 44:15
  that was kind of like, okay, here's what we know and here's
• 44:19
  take this with a grain of salt. So and so said this and so so
• 44:22
  said this. And dispatch was all over his
• 44:25
  ass, right? Like all the way up his ass
• 44:27
  about this scandal. They released like a timeline of
• 44:31
  events of so and so said this happened at this time.
• 44:35
  So and so said this happened at this time.
• 44:37
  She didn't report the rape until four days later.
• 44:40
  But then there's text between her and so and so talking about
• 44:44
  like taking down Pakshi. It's like really, I don't want
• 44:48
  to say anything this. You can read about it and feel
• 44:53
  what you feel about it. But the fact of them, I kind of
• 44:58
  in this case, it is so old, right?
• 44:59
  Like this was 2011 and I obviously haven't seen him in
• 45:05
  any other shows since. I don't want to say I've
• 45:08
  cancelled him, but I really haven't taken any initiative in
• 45:12
  in. Right.
• 45:14
  You're you're not seeking out his dramas and plus he's
• 45:17
  probably not in the lead. Roles, no, he's probably he's
• 45:20
  not in good shows. I would say either like his the
• 45:27
  quality of the projects that he is being given or auditioning
• 45:32
  for it that I don't know if that's any good at this point
• 45:36
  because of the level that the scandal, the fever picture, the
• 45:41
  scandal hit and the way that his career took a hit.
• 45:44
  So again, take this with a grain of salt.
• 45:48
  Like if you if this is a make or break for you, then fine.
• 45:51
  Like don't watch the princesses man.
• 45:53
  But if you are one of those people that is like, OK, this
• 45:57
  scandal happened after the fact, maybe I can listen to Chris
• 46:02
  Brown's stuff before he beat up Rihanna, but not after he beat
• 46:05
  up Rihanna. Like, I don't know if you're
• 46:07
  that type of person, but, you know, if you can separate the
• 46:11
  art from the artist, great. If not, then that's your life.
• 46:15
  Also. Yeah, fine.
• 46:18
  So we're going to talk through spoilers, but before we do, what
• 46:23
  would you rate the show out of five soju bottles?
• 46:28
  So out of five soju bottles, I think I would rate it 3.5
• 46:35
  because there were really good parts, but there were parts that
• 46:41
  I'm like I wasn't that into. So on the whole 3.5.
• 46:45
  OK, I'm going to give it a 4.5 like a full soju bottle more
• 46:50
  than you, because I still really love it.
• 46:53
  Yeah, yeah, it was so watchful for me.
• 46:55
  It was. Really.
• 46:55
  That's great though. Really bendable for me and just
• 47:00
  solid. I thought it was really solid
• 47:02
  and felt like This is why saguks like don't do it for me
• 47:07
  nowadays. Like I have really high
• 47:10
  expectations for saguks because they're not angsty enough,
• 47:12
  they're not quick enough. Like they don't, they don't have
• 47:15
  all of these relationship politics that happen.
• 47:20
  And this show had a lot of that. So you know, it's it's.
• 47:24
  Tough and you know, that's probably part of my rating.
• 47:27
  Also, my preference for saguks are the ones that tend more
• 47:32
  toward the Romkami kind and not the angsty kind, which is why my
• 47:39
  dearest was kind of like an outlier for me.
• 47:43
  Like I usually am not going for the like really like angsty
• 47:48
  tragic things. So this is, this is probably
• 47:52
  like mostly a reflection of of like, you know, preferences
• 47:58
  like. True, true, true.
• 47:59
  You don't gravitate toward angsty stories.
• 48:03
  Yeah, right, right, right. Right.
• 48:06
  You said you're one of your favorites is sunken Kwan
• 48:09
  scandal. That is a very light it is.
• 48:12
  Very light. Yeah, Yeah.
• 48:13
  And I and I loved Mr. Queen. That also has a lot of funny
• 48:18
  moments, that kind of thing. So.
• 48:21
  Yeah, this had not. This does not I mean.
• 48:25
  There's no funny no. If you're looking for like, oh,
• 48:29
  comedic relief, sorry to say this doesn't have hardly any
• 48:34
  comedic relief in this show. Yeah, it is pretty, pretty doom
• 48:38
  and gloom for a lot of it. So if you if you want to be
• 48:44
  spoiled on the show, please keep listening.
• 48:47
  Or if you want to preserve your first watch, then stop right now
• 48:51
  and come back later. We'll see you on the other side.
• 48:54
  Excuse me, Bora, Go. I can't turn.
• 48:58
  I can't turn. You know I have no tingles.
• 49:01
  Oh, sorry. Swear.
• 49:03
  This crossing. What?
• 49:09
  All right, we're on the other side of spoilers.
• 49:11
  So we are going to spoil the princess's man and talk about
• 49:15
  exactly what happens and spoil a bit of history for you guys.
• 49:19
  So Grace, I asked you a question in the non spoilers section,
• 49:23
  which was did you like the male lead and female lead, their
• 49:27
  characters, their characterization?
• 49:29
  And you were like, yeah, like maybe and said that maybe your
• 49:35
  answer would be a spoiler. So here we are in the spoiler
• 49:38
  section. Why don't we illuminate?
• 49:41
  OK, yeah, yeah. So The thing is, like, you know,
• 49:45
  I, I did find their like, initial romance like cute and
• 49:51
  like a little charming, but I didn't find it like super
• 49:54
  compelling. It was like, OK, she's kind of,
• 49:58
  you know, this rebellious, a little bit brave and a little
• 50:02
  bit brash kind of girl, but she's like clearly very young
• 50:07
  and he's charmed by that. But like I, I didn't feel like
• 50:10
  they showed us enough at the beginning to, to lead to this
• 50:16
  like undying epic love that then like materialized through the
• 50:22
  course of of the drama. And then I felt like their
• 50:27
  characters were like too too consistent, like too like 1
• 50:34
  tone. Do you know what I'm saying?
• 50:36
  Like, so she was like, I will love you forever.
• 50:40
  I don't care if you mistreat me. I deserve the mistreatment
• 50:43
  because of my family. I I'm going to do everything for
• 50:48
  you. So it was very like one note,
• 50:50
  kind of sacrificial, undying love for him.
• 50:55
  And then his was like, so in the second part of the drama, I felt
• 51:01
  very much like he was so focused on revenge.
• 51:04
  Yeah. So that became a little too one
• 51:08
  note for me. He was just so focused on
• 51:11
  revenge. But the parts that I really did
• 51:14
  like were the that part that the second-half of the drama where
• 51:21
  where he was struggling with his feelings for her versus his
• 51:27
  insatiable need to avenge his, you know, great loss is, you
• 51:33
  know, his family's murder, etcetera.
• 51:37
  That part I felt was really, it was more complex and so it was
• 51:41
  more compelling to me. Does that make sense?
• 51:44
  Absolutely. So let's take it in order.
• 51:45
  So the way that they fall in love in the first few episodes
• 51:50
  is very innocent, right? It's very.
• 51:55
  Light. Light and airy, and that's the
• 51:57
  kind of stuff that I think people like to watch for in the
• 52:01
  ROM com saga. It's like this type of romance
• 52:06
  where you have this cool meet cute Parent trap style.
• 52:09
  She switches places with the Princess, her cousin, and he's
• 52:15
  her teacher. And nobody wants to teach the
• 52:17
  Princess because the Princess is this arrogant like bitch who is
• 52:22
  trying to seduce her teachers because she can.
• 52:26
  And she derives some some sense of pleasure and like superiority
• 52:31
  out of doing this to these Confucian scholars and.
• 52:35
  With them. Yeah, it's great.
• 52:37
  I mean, I love it. So that's the cousin, the cousin
• 52:41
  Princess. And she, you know, there's this
• 52:44
  whole thing where they could be betrothed.
• 52:47
  The female lead and the male lead might become betrothed
• 52:52
  because their fathers are talking about it.
• 52:55
  But it's this whole thing because the fathers hate each
• 52:57
  other. It's just in the ether.
• 53:01
  And so they switched places. The princesses.
• 53:04
  Well, she's not a Princess, but anyway, our female lead and the
• 53:08
  Princess swap places for her lesson.
• 53:11
  And he pulls up and he you think he's like this Playboy kind of
• 53:17
  dude because he wakes. They show him waking up in like
• 53:19
  a kissing house. They're like naughty, like doing
• 53:23
  all this like stuff to mess with.
• 53:25
  And they're like, give him all these kisses and leave lipstick
• 53:29
  marks, lipstick kisses all over him, which he doesn't see, He
• 53:34
  doesn't notice. He goes into work at the palace
• 53:37
  and he's covered in lipstick. And so they kind of make him
• 53:41
  look like a Playboy, but he's really not.
• 53:42
  He's really kind of upright and a good guy.
• 53:46
  He just likes to hang out with his guys and drink and like hang
• 53:50
  out with pretty ladies every once in a while.
• 53:51
  But he's not like sleeping around and like dishonorable or
• 53:55
  anything like that. So that's our guy.
• 53:59
  He pulls up and they have this really cool meet cute where he
• 54:05
  thinks he's dealing with this haughty Princess and it's not.
• 54:09
  She's just there to like get a get eyes on on this guy who
• 54:12
  could be her husband. And he playfully but arrogantly
• 54:18
  pulls up the the veil, the blind that separates them in the
• 54:23
  lesson. I mean, she calls him on his
• 54:26
  bullshit like immediately for not she was dealing with like
• 54:30
  some bruising on her leg because she's trying to ride a horse and
• 54:34
  keeps falling on her ass. And so her leg is covered in
• 54:36
  bruises. And it's an offence to Confucian
• 54:41
  ideals that the because the body comes from your parents and
• 54:44
  taking care of your body is the beginning of filial piety, which
• 54:46
  goes in hand with the lesson that he was just giving her on
• 54:49
  filial piety. So she's kind of throwing it in
• 54:52
  his face that she knows her shit.
• 54:54
  He doesn't need to be lecturing her on filial piety.
• 54:57
  And he's missing completely the fact that she's injured on the
• 55:01
  floor in front of him. And also she clocks the lipstick
• 55:04
  all over his neck and she throws it in his face again, like women
• 55:11
  are just shadows of men. How can women be submissive to
• 55:14
  such frivolous men? And she's like, why would I
• 55:18
  submit to you when look at you, you're you're a mess, you're
• 55:22
  embarrassing. So again, handing his ass to him
• 55:25
  in the very first encounter. And these ideals that she talks
• 55:30
  about come full circle in the drama, especially like the women
• 55:34
  being shadows of men because that's kind of part of their
• 55:38
  vows in the end. Like you be my shadow, I'll be
• 55:41
  your shadow, which is this concept of equality between them
• 55:45
  versus women just being subservient and shadows of men
• 55:49
  only one sided. So I like their relationship
• 55:53
  beginning on this. Like he thinks he's holier than
• 55:56
  thou and he's going to teach her a lesson on behalf of all the
• 55:58
  scholars who have been messed with by the Princess.
• 56:02
  And she's like, slow your rolls, sit down.
• 56:05
  So I thought it was great. I really like this meet cute and
• 56:10
  it goes from there, right? She wants to ride a horse.
• 56:14
  Like I said, she's so like, I want to get on this horse.
• 56:17
  And the cousin's like, why do you want to ride a horse?
• 56:22
  We're just so. And she's like, well, why do you
• 56:25
  want like all these clothes and shoes and things that you can't
• 56:28
  even wear? You'd never be ever wear them in
• 56:30
  your lifetime. And the cousins like because I
• 56:34
  can, because I can have all of this stuff.
• 56:38
  And she says she responds well, because I want to.
• 56:41
  I just because I can, I want to, because I want to ride a horse.
• 56:46
  And so he, I think in episode two or three, teaches her how to
• 56:50
  ride a horse. And it's, it's this like thing,
• 56:54
  this symbol of, of freedom and freedom that she will never
• 57:00
  have. And she says specifically that
• 57:02
  women get are basically imprisoned, they can't leave the
• 57:07
  house after they get married. So she wants this memory to.
• 57:11
  She wants to sew her wild oats, like by riding horse.
• 57:14
  By riding horse. Because she knows.
• 57:16
  Yeah, because she does. She knows she won't be able to
• 57:18
  do it later. She's like, I have some relative
• 57:21
  freedom now, and that's why I want to do it now.
• 57:23
  Because once you know I I'm married, I won't be allowed to.
• 57:27
  Right, right. So it's really romantic, that
• 57:33
  notion of like, she longs to experience this little pocket of
• 57:38
  freedom and the wind on her face.
• 57:40
  And it's like, I'll take this with me into this really
• 57:45
  confining life that I know is waiting for me.
• 57:48
  And he gives that to her. Like he gives that experience
• 57:51
  and also teaches her how to ride a horse by herself.
• 57:55
  Like not with anybody. So he's giving her a level of
• 57:59
  independence as well, right? Like you don't need a man to,
• 58:03
  you know, ride a horse. So I thought all of this was a
• 58:09
  really good foundation for her thinking maybe he's not so bad
• 58:15
  to get married to because the whole thing of she knows and he
• 58:18
  doesn't that they might get married.
• 58:21
  So that's why I loved their build up and I fully believed it
• 58:26
  when she, you know, steps in front to save him from the
• 58:31
  bandits who are actually assassins, like going to kill
• 58:33
  him in episode two or something like that.
• 58:36
  But she like would lay it all down because she like feels this
• 58:39
  closeness to him and he's her teacher.
• 58:42
  There's a sacred relationship as well between the teacher and the
• 58:46
  master in those times, so. Yeah, and she calls, she calls
• 58:52
  him that the whole time. She calls him master or teacher
• 58:56
  the whole time because that's how she first conceptualizes
• 59:00
  their relationship. Yeah.
• 59:01
  So I think it's. Yeah.
• 59:03
  I think it's good. I I don't know if it's
• 59:05
  necessarily. You know.
• 59:07
  OK, I see you nodding. I see.
• 59:09
  Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
• 59:10
  No, no, I, you know, you're, you're you're kind of convincing
• 59:13
  me actually, because. But it's better.
• 59:15
  Than what you know I. Think yes, exactly, cuz I think
• 59:20
  I sort of over the course of the 24 episodes had forgotten, you
• 59:25
  know, like the meaningfulness of those first few encounters that
• 59:30
  he like represented kind of a life outside of these strictures
• 59:36
  of her family. He represented it like this,
• 59:39
  this freedom and this dream basically like, because she had
• 59:44
  this this idea that she was going to try horse riding just
• 59:48
  when she's, you know, young and unmarried and and then she'd
• 59:52
  have to put away that adventurous spirit once she got
• 59:56
  married. But like what he represented, it
• 59:59
  was this dream of like, no, actually my whole life could be
• 1:00:03
  this adventure with him, you know?
• 1:00:06
  So it was more than just a few. Light frivolous encounters now
• 1:00:14
  that you now that you're mentioned that I mean, I don't
• 1:00:19
  mean to like. I don't mean to change your
• 1:00:22
  opinion, but this is how I saw it, right?
• 1:00:26
  Is that it's? You.
• 1:00:28
  Know she feels this closeness with him.
• 1:00:31
  He is enamored with her. He becomes enamored with her.
• 1:00:35
  He kind of finds her annoying at first, but then he's like
• 1:00:39
  curious about what is this Princess?
• 1:00:41
  Because he thinks she's the Princess, right?
• 1:00:42
  She's there's this lie in the happening.
• 1:00:46
  He's like wondering where she's going.
• 1:00:47
  Why is she out and about? How did she leave the palace and
• 1:00:50
  how did she get on this horse? And he saves her.
• 1:00:53
  And you know, it's like it's there's these experiences that
• 1:00:56
  he's chivalrous, right? Like you.
• 1:00:59
  And I think he he saves her life at some point because the the
• 1:01:03
  horse is running away and. He saves her life and again,
• 1:01:08
  very honorable. He's like, you know, scolding
• 1:01:11
  her like a teacher would where he's like, you know, why did you
• 1:01:14
  get on a horse and all this stuff.
• 1:01:16
  And that's when he when she says, like I long to experience
• 1:01:21
  this one thing before I am confined after marriage.
• 1:01:26
  And he, you know, he's listening and it's this.
• 1:01:29
  He takes that in and I think later, a few episodes later when
• 1:01:34
  he there's again, then he gets almost engaged to the Princess,
• 1:01:40
  like the cousin, but because of the misunderstanding and the
• 1:01:44
  identity thing, he thinks he's getting engaged to her.
• 1:01:47
  So I think he writes our letter and says we'll ride horses
• 1:01:50
  together when we are married. And it's again like this promise
• 1:01:54
  of like, I'm not going to confine you when we are married,
• 1:01:58
  when we're together, right, like you, we'll we'll do this
• 1:02:02
  together. You're not going to be his
• 1:02:04
  trophy wife. This little doll that I have at
• 1:02:07
  home. Yeah, I I just.
• 1:02:09
  I thought it was really nice and special and you can see how much
• 1:02:13
  he. That's true.
• 1:02:15
  Likes her grit and her spirit and when they their little teta
• 1:02:22
  tets and their witticisms and them going back and forth and
• 1:02:27
  confusion speak, it's really. It's nice.
• 1:02:32
  Yeah, it is nice. You're right.
• 1:02:35
  And you know, I think had it continued in that way for, for
• 1:02:43
  maybe a little longer, I may have it may have made more of an
• 1:02:47
  impression on me. Because it really is a special
• 1:02:50
  thing back then for a prospective husband to say those
• 1:02:55
  things. Like, I'm not going to confine
• 1:02:57
  you. I'm going to allow you to feel
• 1:02:59
  this kind of freedom and to to be who you are and not just the
• 1:03:05
  subservient person who's there to bear me children and
• 1:03:10
  whatever. Right?
• 1:03:11
  But I think the part of it that that detracted from the romance
• 1:03:17
  was for how long she kept him in the darkness of who she was.
• 1:03:21
  Yes, let's talk about this. So she lies to him for a long
• 1:03:25
  time. A long time.
• 1:03:27
  Time about her identity. Even when he finds out that
• 1:03:30
  she's not the Princess, she doesn't say who she really is.
• 1:03:37
  Who daughter? She's like, no, I'm a court lady
• 1:03:39
  actually. Well, that was the lie that the
• 1:03:43
  Princess, her cousin said. And then she just picked up and
• 1:03:48
  ran with it for multiple episodes, which is maybe weeks
• 1:03:52
  or months of. Time.
• 1:03:53
  In the story, right? And it is beyond me why she lets
• 1:04:00
  it go that far. And she's try, you know, she has
• 1:04:02
  this like I tried to tell you. I tried multiple times to tell
• 1:04:06
  him I'm really trying. No, she didn't.
• 1:04:09
  No, she didn't. No, she tried.
• 1:04:12
  To tell this man really didn't try not one but.
• 1:04:15
  She and I mean I also understand why she is terrified of telling
• 1:04:22
  him whose daughter she really is because that royal uncle is the
• 1:04:30
  cause of all of this drama and pain.
• 1:04:33
  Like he wants the throne and he will do everything it takes to
• 1:04:37
  get on the throne. So what is his name?
• 1:04:40
  Prince Suyoung is her father's name, so I thought that the
• 1:04:48
  Princess, her cousin, was super, super intriguing.
• 1:04:52
  Did you feel the same way or? Yes, OK, I did.
• 1:04:57
  I did. I actually thought she was one
• 1:05:01
  of the more interesting characters of the entire show.
• 1:05:05
  She and what's it called? Sunu's one of Sunu's best
• 1:05:13
  friends, Shin Myung. OK, I have him listed as third
• 1:05:17
  wheel in my notes because he's the 2nd.
• 1:05:20
  Oh, really? But I literally just consider
• 1:05:23
  him a third wheel because he nobody.
• 1:05:25
  Like, Oh my goodness. We'll get into it, but like, OK,
• 1:05:28
  talk to me about the 2nd Millie Chinmion.
• 1:05:30
  Yeah, yeah, OK. And the chin.
• 1:05:32
  Princess and Princess Konghen, yes, Princess Konghen and
• 1:05:37
  Chinmion I thought were actually the most relatable people in the
• 1:05:41
  whole show. They were the most relatable
• 1:05:44
  people in the whole show. Like Princess Kanghei.
• 1:05:48
  Like the reason why I really liked her was she like seemed to
• 1:05:53
  have like the of all the characters among the most like
• 1:05:57
  realistic grasp of like the situation.
• 1:06:01
  Oh yeah. Yeah, she she wasn't like, hey,
• 1:06:05
  let me be a martyr on the this, the altar of my younger
• 1:06:13
  brother's reign. She did her best to get to
• 1:06:18
  protect him, to keep him on the throne.
• 1:06:22
  And then when he was kicked out of there, when his uncle deposed
• 1:06:28
  his throne deposed. That's the thinking that so when
• 1:06:33
  when he was deposed, she tried her best to get him back on the
• 1:06:38
  throne, but he she wasn't like, let's all die because we can't
• 1:06:42
  have our way. And and I feel like most of the
• 1:06:46
  other characters on that deposed King's side were very much like
• 1:06:52
  that. You know her husband Chung Chung
• 1:06:56
  which who was the other best friend?
• 1:06:59
  Yeah, there's three besties. Male lead with from with the.
• 1:07:01
  Yeah, there's three besties, right?
• 1:07:04
  So the male lead, Sun Yu, and then Chung Chung, who becomes
• 1:07:09
  Princess Chung, his husband and the third wheel, Shin Meang,
• 1:07:15
  who? Yeah, who is on the other side.
• 1:07:19
  And he like betrays his. Friend, right?
• 1:07:21
  Yeah. So, but so Chung Chung and like
• 1:07:25
  the Confucian scholars and like almost everyone on that side,
• 1:07:30
  they're just like, you know, I'm going to die a symbolic death
• 1:07:34
  because I oppose this. And I'm like, no, I'm sorry, but
• 1:07:37
  this is. Why?
• 1:07:40
  I think it's not necessary. Yeah, right.
• 1:07:45
  OK, I understand. She's very pragmatic, The
• 1:07:49
  Princess. She's.
• 1:07:50
  Pragmatic. The Princess is very pragmatic,
• 1:07:53
  yeah. Yeah, from the start, she like,
• 1:07:56
  has an idea of what's happening. She knows.
• 1:07:59
  She knows who I am. You know the female.
• 1:08:01
  Yeah. The female leads father is, you
• 1:08:04
  know, scheming to steal her younger brother's throne.
• 1:08:09
  Like, she knows that from the start.
• 1:08:11
  She's like, very. She's serious and she has, like,
• 1:08:14
  gravitas. I don't know.
• 1:08:16
  She I, I really I enjoyed her. I liked her because.
• 1:08:22
  And I related. To her, yes, I love her
• 1:08:24
  especially, especially because she displays a different kind of
• 1:08:29
  strength than the female lead one that is maybe mature from
• 1:08:32
  the from jump, right like from jump, she understands she's not
• 1:08:36
  naive, she's not innocent. She fully understands the stakes
• 1:08:41
  that are at play. She understands that people,
• 1:08:45
  this is at any point high body count.
• 1:08:48
  You know, this is a remarkably high body count show people are
• 1:08:52
  dying, the stakes are high. And she gets that right, that if
• 1:08:57
  we don't do something, we're just going to die.
• 1:09:00
  Like they'll just kill us. So I appreciated that the
• 1:09:06
  conflict between her and the female lead you think would be
• 1:09:10
  she's the second female lead because they're they're confused
• 1:09:16
  like the identity between them is swapped.
• 1:09:19
  And so you think this Princess, the cousin Princess is going to
• 1:09:26
  vie for the affections of the same man of Sungyu, But that's
• 1:09:29
  not the case. She wants Sungyu to marry her so
• 1:09:34
  that they can gather strength and power from his family's
• 1:09:39
  influence at court. She's like, she says this in
• 1:09:42
  like episode 4. She's like, I need him.
• 1:09:44
  Like, I don't care about your fucking feelings.
• 1:09:48
  I don't care. I don't love him.
• 1:09:50
  I'm not marrying him because I love him.
• 1:09:52
  I need him so that we can fight your father, mother, who wants
• 1:09:57
  to kill us for the threat. Like, she's literally laying it
• 1:10:01
  all out there. And the female lead is like,
• 1:10:05
  what do you mean? What are you talking about?
• 1:10:08
  Like, has never heard this at all.
• 1:10:11
  This is news to her that her father refuses.
• 1:10:13
  So yeah. Yeah.
• 1:10:16
  Right. And he she refuses to to believe
• 1:10:19
  this for so long. Many episodes.
• 1:10:24
  So she's just like I I am going to remain naive no matter how
• 1:10:28
  much people tell me what the situation is.
• 1:10:32
  Yeah, yeah. So even though as an audience
• 1:10:35
  member in episode 4, you're kind of you're like upset at the
• 1:10:40
  Princess for telling the truth to the male lead, the Sungyu
• 1:10:46
  that yeah, I'm the real Princess.
• 1:10:50
  Like this other girl that you met was a court lady lies the
• 1:10:55
  way that this actress and I'll get her name in a minute.
• 1:10:58
  But like the way that this actress looks at the female lead
• 1:11:01
  was such disdain is my favorite thing.
• 1:11:06
  Hong SU Hyun is the name of this actress.
• 1:11:09
  So she looks at her with such disdain, saying, you know she
• 1:11:13
  must marry like your I had to marry your dude to protect
• 1:11:19
  myself and my brother from your father, the usurper and the
• 1:11:24
  female elite is like, were you always this cold of a person?
• 1:11:28
  And I'm like, wake up, wake up like.
• 1:11:34
  Yeah, it's very much like there's an adult in the room and
• 1:11:40
  there's a child in the rest. It really feels that way.
• 1:11:44
  It does, it does, and I think she finished the cousin.
• 1:11:48
  Princess finishes it off by saying it's better to be this
• 1:11:52
  way cold than to pretend to be warm and kind like your dad.
• 1:11:58
  Basically saying it's better to be upfront and cold and
• 1:12:03
  proactive about the situation than to be this two faced hoe
• 1:12:07
  who is Wheeling and dealing behind the scenes like your dad
• 1:12:11
  is doing. So it's tough to those early
• 1:12:17
  episodes with the female leader. Just tough because you like her,
• 1:12:22
  but you're like, why is she so behind and she's so in denial
• 1:12:29
  about the ambitions of her father.
• 1:12:33
  I think in episodes 5 through 6, he this is the first time the
• 1:12:37
  male lead gets imprisoned because they think that he took
• 1:12:41
  the Princess out to a brothel. And of course he didn't take the
• 1:12:45
  Princess out. He took home girl out.
• 1:12:47
  He took the female lead out to it, Right, right.
• 1:12:50
  This was that whole horse thing that they she got.
• 1:12:53
  He saved her from the horse and all this stuff.
• 1:12:55
  And then her, her dress got ripped, so she took her.
• 1:12:58
  Yeah, he's. Like you look at like.
• 1:13:00
  Change her clothes. Let me take you to this.
• 1:13:05
  You just think it though, basically so that you can dress
• 1:13:08
  up like he. Didn't think it through either,
• 1:13:10
  like he was stupid. Really.
• 1:13:12
  You did not think he was stupid? Like he didn't.
• 1:13:14
  Take it to a dress shop. He took her to like a a brothel
• 1:13:19
  and was like, hey ladies, basically why don't you bring me
• 1:13:22
  like some of your best clothing and like, put it on this poor
• 1:13:25
  girl cuz yeah. It's like, never mind that, it's
• 1:13:29
  like I'll see through and not really a pride.
• 1:13:32
  Like he's worth a principle. I mean, it's very entertaining
• 1:13:34
  to watch, but yeah, yeah, man. Even though he was a Confucian
• 1:13:39
  scholar, like he was not he, he was very young and naive as well
• 1:13:45
  in these early episodes. So you can tell he doesn't know
• 1:13:49
  the identity of of the real girl that he took to the Kisang house
• 1:13:54
  and is still protecting her because they've told him like,
• 1:13:58
  you know, if anyone finds out that they've switched places,
• 1:14:01
  the decoy will die. Like she's just marked for
• 1:14:05
  death. Right, right, right.
• 1:14:07
  So he's protecting her like he's like, I don't even know who she
• 1:14:11
  is, where she is, but I don't want her to die.
• 1:14:15
  So like he doesn't say shit? Right.
• 1:14:17
  And that's after all the scheming.
• 1:14:19
  Also because basically Grand Prince Young wants to prevent
• 1:14:25
  the Princess Kyong he from marrying Sungu, our male lead
• 1:14:30
  and so they like. They'd be a power couple,
• 1:14:33
  essentially. Right.
• 1:14:34
  They would be a power couple. So they're trying to prevent it.
• 1:14:37
  So they, like, threaten the person who's in charge of the
• 1:14:42
  office of, like, royal matchmaking, whatever, to say
• 1:14:46
  that they would be a disastrous match.
• 1:14:48
  Yeah, this is Yeah. So there's so much scheming.
• 1:14:52
  Right. So the male means like basically
• 1:14:55
  there's no way out for him other than to confess to this thing
• 1:14:59
  and basically receive punishment AKA death.
• 1:15:02
  And his father, Who's the official, the opponent?
• 1:15:07
  The political opponent? That is in the Wikipedia
• 1:15:10
  synopsis. Left state counselor.
• 1:15:12
  Left state counselor Papa left state counselor goes to Prince
• 1:15:16
  Sue Young and is like, hey, what can I do here?
• 1:15:20
  Let's make a deal because I don't want my son to die.
• 1:15:23
  And he's like, OK, great, leave politics.
• 1:15:25
  So he basically takes himself out of the the political
• 1:15:28
  equation and our male lead leaves with his believes prison
• 1:15:32
  with his life. And that's how he gets out of
• 1:15:36
  the bind. But in response to that, the
• 1:15:38
  Princess does still have to get married and gets married to the
• 1:15:40
  bestie, one of the besties, which they had a run in before.
• 1:15:46
  Like there was this thing where she the Princess actually did
• 1:15:48
  leave the palace at one point and she saw that friend getting
• 1:15:54
  beat up by some predators, some loan sharks and he like got in
• 1:15:59
  her pelanquin. It was it was really funny, cute
• 1:16:03
  me cute. But again, he's like stunned by
• 1:16:07
  her beauty. It's really cute.
• 1:16:09
  I love the wedding day, though, because it's so already this is
• 1:16:13
  what episode 5-6 already high energy, high intensity, like
• 1:16:19
  we're not going to leave this spot.
• 1:16:21
  It's only going to get worse from here.
• 1:16:23
  Like the Princess cousin is super upset that she's getting
• 1:16:26
  married to the to some dude who's not going to protect her.
• 1:16:29
  Like this guy has no political legs.
• 1:16:32
  They're just, it's a body basically and she sets.
• 1:16:36
  The body She's from a relatively prominent family, but that has
• 1:16:40
  no. Power.
• 1:16:42
  So she is, and she's marrying him out of duty.
• 1:16:46
  Home girl goes to see it like the female lead goes to see her
• 1:16:50
  on her wedding day and the Princess comes out and slaps her
• 1:16:55
  across the face. Do you remember this?
• 1:16:57
  Yeah. I was like, this is a
• 1:16:59
  rightfully, she rightfully slapped her because it was like
• 1:17:04
  you're. Bullshit like she screwed it all
• 1:17:06
  up. She.
• 1:17:08
  Screwed it up, but you know, Home Girl takes it pretty well
• 1:17:14
  all things considered. Graciously and kindly says you
• 1:17:18
  know she's there to support her and congratulate her sincerely.
• 1:17:21
  Because the Princess has no mom. Her mother died giving birth to
• 1:17:27
  the little, the little brother, the Crown Prince.
• 1:17:30
  Since her mom isn't there to see her get married, she knows it's
• 1:17:33
  a big deal. And she always thought that she
• 1:17:36
  would make a lovely bride. And looking at her now, she was
• 1:17:40
  right. She is the most beautiful bride
• 1:17:42
  in the world. And I was like, Oh my God, like
• 1:17:44
  the female lead knows how to turn a situation into like, now
• 1:17:49
  I feel bad for saying what I said or slapping you or
• 1:17:52
  something. You.
• 1:17:53
  Know what I'm saying? Yeah, yeah.
• 1:17:56
  And she and she brings a box of the like embroidered, like
• 1:17:59
  bridal. Yeah, like accessories and stuff
• 1:18:03
  like that, right. That was later when she goes to
• 1:18:05
  visit her in her. Oh, OK.
• 1:18:07
  New house or whatever like that was later but oh.
• 1:18:10
  Man, Yeah, OK, yeah, no, she really knows how to grovel well.
• 1:18:15
  Yeah, yeah, the king collapses on the wedding day.
• 1:18:19
  Yeah. That's right.
• 1:18:20
  The uncle Suyang pushes out the Princess like the the dad is on
• 1:18:26
  his deathbed, the king is on his deathbed, and Suyang is like,
• 1:18:32
  don't you get somewhere to be like you just got married?
• 1:18:35
  Like you got to go Because he's so evil that he's just isolating
• 1:18:41
  the young impressionable Crown Prince about to be king and
• 1:18:46
  doesn't want the Princess who has her wits about her like in
• 1:18:51
  the mix. Yeah, yeah.
• 1:18:53
  I mean she among the most wits about anyone in the show this
• 1:19:00
  Prince, right? So this is when she moves out of
• 1:19:03
  the palace and Home girl shows up on her move out day or move
• 1:19:08
  in day, however you want to say. And she brings her gifts that a
• 1:19:12
  mother would normally get for her daughter upon her marriage.
• 1:19:15
  And she has extreme empathy for her in this new marriage to a
• 1:19:21
  literal stranger and moving to an unfamiliar place.
• 1:19:25
  And she's like, I recognize, I know that you're scared.
• 1:19:28
  Yeah. And, and Prince too young is
• 1:19:31
  kind of like the the way that he he he pressures her to move out
• 1:19:35
  is like, well, you know, every wife has to leave their their
• 1:19:41
  maternal home and go to their husband's home and you're a
• 1:19:46
  Princess. You have to be an example to our
• 1:19:48
  nation. It's like so like it's so mean.
• 1:19:52
  Like it's so like manipulative. Yeah.
• 1:19:55
  Yeah, this episode as well. The king dies.
• 1:20:01
  The uncle was about to basically appoint himself as Regent.
• 1:20:04
  Right. That's right.
• 1:20:06
  But then that they come in with the real proclamation that the
• 1:20:10
  king had passed over before he died.
• 1:20:13
  The dad like the left state counselor comes back and is
• 1:20:18
  like, I swear that while I'm alive no royal will partake in
• 1:20:22
  politics and he is going to help the new young king rule.
• 1:20:28
  So he's back in politics. Do you remember like when like
• 1:20:32
  when the male leads dad comes back?
• 1:20:35
  Yeah, yeah, it's, it's very, he's, he's very, he seems very
• 1:20:40
  grand. And this is, you know, part,
• 1:20:42
  part of my like, like my iffy feelings about this whole drama
• 1:20:49
  is like, you know, like, if you just read it in Wikipedia, like
• 1:20:53
  you said, it's like, it's a little bit drier, right?
• 1:20:56
  And in the end, the usurper turned out to be a good king.
• 1:21:03
  This, like, way, way in the future or whatever.
• 1:21:06
  And this whole situation in Wikipedia is described as a
• 1:21:11
  struggle between various members of the royal family to usurp the
• 1:21:15
  throne and also the the nobles, the young man, and to keep
• 1:21:23
  control of the throne. So if you look at it that way,
• 1:21:26
  it's like he's not so heroic, you know, he's like he's like
• 1:21:30
  basically like I'm going to hold the power here because I will
• 1:21:34
  have I will have basically like a strong influence over this
• 1:21:41
  young king. So then the young buns will be
• 1:21:45
  the nobles will be advantage in like the whole, you know,
• 1:21:49
  political. Yeah, if you look at it like
• 1:21:52
  Caesar versus the Senate. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:21:56
  Obviously Caesar wants power, not he doesn't want to cede
• 1:22:00
  power to the Senate, but the senators would love to have more
• 1:22:05
  sway and power than Caesar. So in this case, yeah, we're
• 1:22:11
  talking about the royal family, the Caesar's versus the
• 1:22:15
  politicians, the nobleman, the senators.
• 1:22:20
  So, but like in the context of Korean history, like for me,
• 1:22:25
  it's like, well, you know, all of the kings are going to be
• 1:22:29
  like tyrants or whatever. What's the king So Uncle Suyang.
• 1:22:33
  Suyang. Yeah, Suyang His.
• 1:22:36
  Name is Kings. Hajel, right, King Sajel, Yeah.
• 1:22:40
  He One of the things that he's noted for doing is for taking
• 1:22:44
  away the control that some of these noblemen in the
• 1:22:51
  politicians had and giving it back to the royal family, which.
• 1:22:55
  Yeah, yeah. Great if you have a good king,
• 1:22:59
  but if you don't then you're shit out of luck.
• 1:23:02
  So it's like, I mean. This is true, but also like I
• 1:23:07
  and I don't. I don't have a great grasp on
• 1:23:09
  Korean history, but it really seems to me from the the little
• 1:23:13
  that I've read that like when the noblemen are strong, the
• 1:23:18
  commoners are the most disadvantaged.
• 1:23:22
  So it's like the commoners have like the commoners have like,
• 1:23:26
  like a sliver of a hope that they'll have a good king and
• 1:23:30
  then otherwise they're just, you know, shit out of lock.
• 1:23:33
  Well, in this in this show, the fight is between right?
• 1:23:38
  Like evil Royals Who? Are and you want people.
• 1:23:43
  Want absolute power? Exactly.
• 1:23:45
  And good young bun, Good noblemen and bad noblemen who
• 1:23:52
  are self-serving and disgusting right?
• 1:23:55
  Who just want more power, more money, whatever.
• 1:23:59
  But there are honorable and dishonorable people on both both
• 1:24:03
  sides. Both There's royalty and and non
• 1:24:07
  Royals on both good and bad sides if that makes any sense.
• 1:24:11
  So. Right.
• 1:24:13
  Yeah. And so that's what I'm saying
• 1:24:14
  about, like how the show paints it is there's clearly a villain
• 1:24:18
  side, you know? Yeah, No, yeah.
• 1:24:21
  Whereas I'm like, no, there are villains on both sides and
• 1:24:25
  nobody's like nobody's honorable.
• 1:24:26
  And I mean, like there are honorable people, like in terms
• 1:24:31
  of the Confucian morals, etcetera, but it's like no one's
• 1:24:35
  pure here. Like come on, this is all
• 1:24:38
  politics. And we don't have like all the,
• 1:24:40
  these aren't Boy Scouts here. Like, everybody's exactly
• 1:24:44
  pretty. You know they're doing what they
• 1:24:46
  got to do. Yeah.
• 1:24:48
  Yeah, exactly. Yeah, but this renews the beef,
• 1:24:52
  right? This when the Yeah, when the
• 1:24:54
  male leads Dad comes back to politics after the King's death,
• 1:24:58
  that renews, ignites the beef again.
• 1:25:02
  And at the same time the couple gets together, like our male
• 1:25:09
  lead goes to the temple where she lied and says she lives to
• 1:25:15
  meet her. And he's been like strung out
• 1:25:19
  over her. And he hugs her that night at
• 1:25:22
  the same night that all this shit is going down.
• 1:25:24
  So you get that when they are closer together, they their
• 1:25:31
  chances of being together could not be worse because of the
• 1:25:35
  climate that they're in. Their fathers totally are at
• 1:25:40
  each other's necks. Yeah, and it just so happens
• 1:25:45
  also that grandparents Sue Young and Xin Myung's dad have just
• 1:25:52
  decided that those two should marry.
• 1:25:55
  Is Hed Young, the female lead, and Xin Myung, who you call the
• 1:25:59
  third? 3rd wheel.
• 1:26:00
  That they have betrothed them. Yeah, they just betrothed them
• 1:26:04
  too. So it's like really it's, it's
• 1:26:06
  the worst time. That's the worst time.
• 1:26:10
  So we go. We go into episodes seven and
• 1:26:13
  eight, and again, he's just at the temple.
• 1:26:18
  Homeboy is saying he's decided to stop pushing her out of his
• 1:26:22
  heart, lying to himself and denying that he has feelings for
• 1:26:25
  her. And what what I thought was
• 1:26:28
  funny was I think he says something to the effect of if
• 1:26:30
  she doesn't like that, then that's too bad.
• 1:26:32
  And I was like, OK, like, I guess she has no say in this
• 1:26:37
  particular matter, but all right, I mean, that's what she
• 1:26:41
  wants. But yeah, All right.
• 1:26:43
  Right. Yeah, I mean, the wording could
• 1:26:45
  have been better. Right, right, right.
• 1:26:47
  The wording was a little like, but then he finally asks her
• 1:26:51
  name. It's episode seven.
• 1:26:55
  He finally asks what her name is.
• 1:26:57
  And I was like, oh Lord. And she, this is her shot like
• 1:27:01
  to tell another opportunity for her to tell him who she is.
• 1:27:05
  She lies and says, oh, my name is so whatever.
• 1:27:09
  She gives her maid's name. It's like, wrong.
• 1:27:13
  You're wrong, bitch. Like, stop.
• 1:27:15
  Anyway, they have like a really nice date in this episode.
• 1:27:21
  Do you remember this date where they're like holding hands in
• 1:27:23
  the woods and. Is this?
• 1:27:26
  They're sitting by the. Water like.
• 1:27:28
  This. Is the water one?
• 1:27:30
  It's not. Date by the river and he he
• 1:27:35
  takes out a brush that he just had on his person.
• 1:27:38
  He takes out a writing brush and writes maxims with the water
• 1:27:43
  just on the hot rocks that they're sitting on the hot
• 1:27:46
  boulder. And they like, translate them
• 1:27:50
  back to each other as if they're in a royal lesson, which is
• 1:27:53
  really cool. Called back to like their
• 1:27:55
  teacher student relationship as well.
• 1:28:00
  And in this case, he's talking about the definition of love.
• 1:28:04
  And their definition in this episode is giving life and death
• 1:28:08
  without hesitation. That is love.
• 1:28:11
  And I'm like. Oh, here's a fun fact, the word
• 1:28:16
  they use for love in taguks is is yon MO.
• 1:28:20
  Yes. And the word that is used for
• 1:28:24
  treason is yon MO. So like if you're listening to
• 1:28:29
  the Korean, it's like so. Confused like so close.
• 1:28:33
  They're saying Gummo and Yummo and, and they sound really
• 1:28:37
  similar because that, that, that pachim is kind of run through.
• 1:28:43
  So I'm like, OK, which one's love and which one's treason,
• 1:28:46
  But it's like, it's really interesting.
• 1:28:48
  Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I love this episode because we
• 1:28:51
  get our it's the first kiss with them.
• 1:28:54
  He is like leaving her and she has his fan, like the only males
• 1:29:01
  carry a fan and she he's she's got his fan and he starts
• 1:29:05
  teasing her. Do you remember this?
• 1:29:07
  I don't, no. I don't.
• 1:29:10
  Yeah. Just for the record, I watched.
• 1:29:12
  This a while ago. It's OK.
• 1:29:13
  In March. So I'll, I'll jog your memory.
• 1:29:16
  I'll jog your memory. So she holds up his her his fan
• 1:29:20
  to hide her face. She's like super bashful and she
• 1:29:24
  like lowers the fan and he's right here, like right in front
• 1:29:28
  of her face and he kisses her and it isn't her.
• 1:29:33
  Her eyes are open like that's annoying.
• 1:29:35
  But it's 2011. Let's you know, give give it a
• 1:29:39
  little grace. And I was like, Oh my God.
• 1:29:42
  This is so cute. It's it's 14. 15. 1450 so you
• 1:29:46
  know. Like let's settle down.
• 1:29:48
  So this isn't the year 2011. This is presumably we're back in
• 1:29:55
  the 1400s. So anyway, they have their first
• 1:29:59
  kiss and then he, like, skips off down the lane third wheel.
• 1:30:03
  Shinyon is. You mentioned that you liked him
• 1:30:07
  and you thought he was relatable.
• 1:30:08
  I hated him. Yeah, I hated him.
• 1:30:14
  I hated him and I hated him. Let's talk about it.
• 1:30:17
  Let's talk. Girl, so this is like the first
• 1:30:21
  episode where he or the first set of episodes where he is with
• 1:30:26
  her or he kind of happens upon her because she's out and about
• 1:30:30
  like she's always out of the house.
• 1:30:33
  He escorts her back to to her house and he's like, hey, I saw
• 1:30:39
  you. Or he like confronts her about
• 1:30:42
  her relationship with homeboy with male lead and she's like,
• 1:30:47
  look, it's none of your business.
• 1:30:49
  And he goes, but we're going to be married.
• 1:30:54
  And she's like, yeah. And she says, I mean, this is
• 1:31:01
  early. She says, I never saw you as a
• 1:31:04
  husband, only a friend. The Shinyon continues down this
• 1:31:10
  same path of like every single conversation that he has with
• 1:31:14
  the female lead is basically this same conversation, which is
• 1:31:19
  like, what are you doing? We're about to get married.
• 1:31:23
  We're going to get married. Prepare yourself.
• 1:31:25
  We're going to get married. You better stop.
• 1:31:28
  We're going to. And she's like, fuck off.
• 1:31:31
  Like she literally is. Like she gets more and more
• 1:31:36
  agitated with him, but still, under polite society, she's
• 1:31:42
  still polite with him. Yes, yes.
• 1:31:45
  She's so she's like fucking had it with Shameel.
• 1:31:48
  Like by the end of the show, yeah, she tells him, like, I
• 1:31:51
  don't want you to touch me. Like don't touch me.
• 1:31:54
  I will never marry you. Like, I'll fine marry me if you
• 1:31:57
  want to marry a corpse like any given Sunday.
• 1:32:00
  Like she is rejecting him by the end.
• 1:32:04
  It's real harsh, like. Super harsh.
• 1:32:06
  Yeah, and. I as like, watch me kill myself.
• 1:32:10
  Watch. Watch me so.
• 1:32:15
  I. Couldn't hate this guy enough
• 1:32:19
  because he was so delusional thinking that he could actually
• 1:32:23
  win her over. He was.
• 1:32:25
  So delusional and like he was cooperating with her father and
• 1:32:31
  he knows that she doesn't agree with her father.
• 1:32:34
  Why would you think that you could win her over after all
• 1:32:37
  that? Plus she's in love with your
• 1:32:38
  bestie. Like it you're you.
• 1:32:42
  Oh my God. Like he thought.
• 1:32:43
  He really thought that he could get with her.
• 1:32:46
  He really thought. He really thought, and I'm like,
• 1:32:48
  sit down. Like nobody wants you.
• 1:32:53
  Nobody wants you ugly. Like sit down.
• 1:32:55
  That was my feeling the whole show.
• 1:33:00
  Yeah, so here's the reason he won me a bit.
• 1:33:05
  He didn't win me over as the like, I didn't think that he
• 1:33:09
  would ever end up with her. He won me over as a character
• 1:33:14
  because he was one of the few people who was really struggling
• 1:33:19
  the whole time. He was like, so it wasn't like
• 1:33:24
  the one note, I am set on revenge or the one note, I will
• 1:33:28
  be your woman forever and ever and ever or I will die.
• 1:33:33
  It wasn't it wasn't that for it was it was more interesting to
• 1:33:37
  me. So like for him, he saw the
• 1:33:41
  moment that our male lead, Sungyu's dad came back and came
• 1:33:47
  back into power and was like I'm going to protect the young king,
• 1:33:50
  etcetera. He saw the interaction between
• 1:33:55
  the male lead's father and his own father who had sided with
• 1:34:00
  Suyang. His own father had sided with
• 1:34:03
  Suyang before this, and he was actually a respected, like,
• 1:34:06
  court official. So it was kind of surprising.
• 1:34:10
  And the way that he's portrayed in this drama is like as a
• 1:34:13
  respectable guy who has just made a decision based on his
• 1:34:18
  own, like his own logic and judgment, which is pretty sound.
• 1:34:23
  And he's decided like, you know what, this this guy is going to
• 1:34:26
  be the stronger one. So if I want to survive, I'm
• 1:34:29
  going to side with this guy. So he's made that decision,
• 1:34:34
  right? And then so Sun Yu's dad, Kim
• 1:34:39
  Jong's Ha, or I think is his name, he basically threatens Xin
• 1:34:44
  Myung, Xin Myung's dad, in front of Xin Myung.
• 1:34:49
  Like, they're not like they don't know that he sees, but he
• 1:34:53
  sees this interaction in passing between those two fathers and he
• 1:34:58
  realizes, Oh, my dad is on this side.
• 1:35:03
  And like, if I want to be loyal to my dad, if I want to preserve
• 1:35:07
  my family, I need to get with this program.
• 1:35:11
  But the entire time he's totally torn.
• 1:35:14
  He loves his friends and he wants to still remain loyal to
• 1:35:19
  them as much as he can like, despite having to do, you know,
• 1:35:28
  quote UN quote necessary things that are not good.
• 1:35:33
  He's a facilitator. I mean, like, he never.
• 1:35:36
  Yeah, he's never. Killed any of the big people.
• 1:35:40
  Yeah, yeah, doesn't kill them directly, no, but he is
• 1:35:46
  facilitating. He's talking shit about them,
• 1:35:49
  he's reporting on them. He's doing all of The Dirty
• 1:35:53
  deeds and bidding of his father, slash Prince, who young, so he
• 1:35:59
  is a major player. Which he thinks is, yeah, he
• 1:36:02
  thinks it's necessary. And I can see in that context
• 1:36:06
  why he thinks it's necessary. Here's my thing.
• 1:36:09
  But yeah, here's my thing. Yeah.
• 1:36:12
  What I feel like once you make a decision, which he did, he
• 1:36:16
  clearly made a decision, clearly picked his side, then he's upset
• 1:36:24
  when they retaliate, when his friends retaliate and start
• 1:36:29
  playing by his rule book, like their side's rule book, Then I'm
• 1:36:35
  like, what the fuck are you on about?
• 1:36:37
  Because when they start, when they start planning against
• 1:36:41
  them, when they start, you know, moving in the shadows and
• 1:36:45
  planting treason and all of this stuff and planning to kill his
• 1:36:50
  father and, and Prince Sue Young and all of these people, he's
• 1:36:53
  like surprised that they are defending themselves and trying
• 1:36:58
  to get back into power. He's shocked.
• 1:37:01
  He's like, why are you doing it? Like he's like.
• 1:37:03
  I don't remember that. It's so frustrating.
• 1:37:05
  I'm like what the fuck are you talking about bro you were doing
• 1:37:08
  this 2 seconds ago. Yeah, no, no, I don't remember
• 1:37:11
  that. What I do remember is him having
• 1:37:13
  a conversation with our male lead being like, look, you, you
• 1:37:19
  would do the same thing basically.
• 1:37:21
  And then you are do it like once the male lead crosses over into
• 1:37:25
  revenge and whatever he's like, basically you're doing the same
• 1:37:30
  thing. Like, so if we, if we consider
• 1:37:33
  that neither side is all good or all bad, like they've just
• 1:37:37
  picked sides based on their families.
• 1:37:40
  Like I, I just, I just, I could understand that.
• 1:37:44
  Right. I understand the revenge because
• 1:37:48
  they've slain your whole family. Oh yeah, no, but but his, I
• 1:37:52
  think his point of view is it could have gone both ways.
• 1:37:57
  Right, right, right. Shimyum.
• 1:37:58
  Says our male leads. You're.
• 1:37:59
  Totally right, this Shimyum says.
• 1:38:01
  Like it was either kill or be killed.
• 1:38:03
  Right. It's like your side could have
• 1:38:05
  struck first or our side could have struck first.
• 1:38:07
  It just happened. Our side struck first, right?
• 1:38:10
  Because he's. He's seeing an inevitability.
• 1:38:13
  Leads father threatened right, his own father.
• 1:38:16
  So he was like, oh, this shit is real.
• 1:38:18
  Right, he was seeing it was real.
• 1:38:20
  I have to get with the program. It was like gonna happen anyway.
• 1:38:23
  So he was saying I picked the side that my father chose and
• 1:38:31
  oh, well, like, he was kind of like, oh, well, like, sorry
• 1:38:34
  about it. Hope we can still be friends.
• 1:38:36
  Can you walk in my wedding? And I'm like, what the fuck?
• 1:38:38
  Like, what are you listening to yourself?
• 1:38:42
  Are you listening to yourself? Like he was again delusional.
• 1:38:46
  Delusional. No, he didn't ask Hunu to walk
• 1:38:50
  in his tongue. He asked Hong Man.
• 1:38:53
  Chong Chong, Yeah. Because in theory Chong Chong
• 1:38:57
  was like neither the here or there, but not actually no.
• 1:39:01
  Like he's not actually. As Chong Chong was married to
• 1:39:04
  the Princess. So yeah, that was totally.
• 1:39:06
  Like he's delusional. That's what I'm saying.
• 1:39:08
  He's delusional. He's dead.
• 1:39:10
  Rock, He's totally delusional. That's why I was like but.
• 1:39:13
  Even in his delusions. Yeah, No, even in his delusions.
• 1:39:18
  Like, I could understand like the way that he acted, you know,
• 1:39:23
  like, because of his delusions and because he still had this
• 1:39:28
  affection for all these people, Like I could see why he was
• 1:39:31
  acting this way. Whereas a lot of the ways that
• 1:39:35
  other people are acting, I was like.
• 1:39:36
  But why? OK, I do want to address, I'm
• 1:39:39
  going to jump on this other thing that you said that you, I
• 1:39:43
  guess, didn't quite like or maybe just liked it on a lesser
• 1:39:46
  level, the way that the male lead and the female lead are so
• 1:39:50
  one note and so many of the quote UN quote good characters
• 1:39:53
  are very righteous. And that's like they're defining
• 1:39:57
  characteristic. And I think that part of why she
• 1:40:01
  sticks by. The male lead is because they
• 1:40:05
  are not just falling in love like romantically, they have an
• 1:40:09
  alignment of values, they have an alignment of morals and they
• 1:40:13
  believe in the same thing. She believes what her father's
• 1:40:16
  doing is wrong. If at any point she thought her
• 1:40:18
  father was justified, they would not be together.
• 1:40:21
  Like they would have crashed and burned and it would have never
• 1:40:25
  worked. But because.
• 1:40:28
  She I actually think that because she was in love with her
• 1:40:34
  father's, you know, rival son, that was what dictated what she
• 1:40:40
  thought was right or wrong because her mom kept saying,
• 1:40:43
  look, this is a matter of them killing us or us killing them.
• 1:40:48
  Like her mom was also like very pragmatic character who I could
• 1:40:52
  like understand, you know, like she wasn't like painted as this
• 1:40:57
  evil person. She was just like very
• 1:40:59
  pragmatic, like I can see that it's either us or them.
• 1:41:04
  So you know, please be on our side.
• 1:41:06
  But she was like, no, I'm not going to be on your side.
• 1:41:09
  I'm going to be on the love of my life side.
• 1:41:12
  So like. Well, she didn't choose a side
• 1:41:14
  for the. Longest side.
• 1:41:15
  She didn't choose a side for the longest time.
• 1:41:17
  That's. True she was.
• 1:41:18
  Just like I just want him baseline to live like I just
• 1:41:22
  need him to stay alive. Please don't kill him, Please
• 1:41:26
  don't slaughter his whole family.
• 1:41:28
  And I think when the moment she started her descent right away
• 1:41:34
  from the family morals was or at least the family like they don't
• 1:41:39
  even know really what's going on.
• 1:41:40
  Like the family doesn't understand really what's going
• 1:41:44
  on. Maybe the mom does, but the kids
• 1:41:45
  don't is the moment she overheard her father talking
• 1:41:50
  about killing him. And this is after the dad knows
• 1:41:55
  that they are in some sort of religious, some sort of thing is
• 1:41:59
  happening romantically between Sungyu and his daughter.
• 1:42:05
  And he specifically said, like, don't tell him your identity.
• 1:42:08
  And she was like, OK, yeah, I'll do that.
• 1:42:10
  Thinking that it was going to help everybody, not just not
• 1:42:13
  just him, but like the whole family would stay alive if her
• 1:42:17
  identity was kept a secret. So that was an added bonus of
• 1:42:20
  like her lying to him about her identity.
• 1:42:23
  And it wasn't until it around these episodes, episodes 7
• 1:42:29
  through 8, she is come to understand that her dad is going
• 1:42:33
  to save him. That is what he said to her.
• 1:42:35
  He lied to his own daughter and said yes I'm going to save your
• 1:42:39
  guy after she begged him to. And she, I think, even says I'm
• 1:42:45
  so lucky to have you as a father, right?
• 1:42:47
  Like she is, I mean. I understand her too.
• 1:42:50
  I understand like very gullible, but so.
• 1:42:52
  Gullible, but she. Believes she's had a really good
• 1:42:56
  relationship with her father for her whole life so that's why she
• 1:43:00
  was like like totally in disbelief that you know, her
• 1:43:05
  father would like initiate these.
• 1:43:07
  Things So I think it was this event, right This point after,
• 1:43:12
  you know, she's so on a high that like, OK, my dad's going to
• 1:43:15
  like try and patch things up with his family.
• 1:43:17
  She goes over this is kind of funny.
• 1:43:19
  There's a bunch of bad omens, cliche, bad omens.
• 1:43:23
  After her father agrees to mend the relationship with Sung Yu
• 1:43:26
  and his dad, she pricks her finger while embroidering and
• 1:43:30
  gets blood all over like the white cloth that she was worth
• 1:43:33
  fabric that she was working on. And when she goes out to ask her
• 1:43:38
  mother for more fabric, the sky is like all cloudy and she, the
• 1:43:42
  crows are cawing. And it's like a bad, like
• 1:43:45
  situation, right? It's very cliche, bad omens of
• 1:43:48
  like, some shit's about to go down.
• 1:43:50
  And that moment is when she overhears her mom and her dad
• 1:43:55
  talking about murdering Sungyu and his whole family.
• 1:44:00
  And it's going to happen that night.
• 1:44:03
  Like, all this shit's going to go down that night.
• 1:44:06
  I think her dad says something to the effect of like, well, he,
• 1:44:08
  she can't love a dead man. He, he ha ha.
• 1:44:11
  And she's like, what the fuck? Like, she is shocked, shocked,
• 1:44:15
  shocked to her core. And that's the beginning of the
• 1:44:19
  end of her relationship with her dad and her separating from her
• 1:44:23
  dad because he lied to her face and was going to do this
• 1:44:28
  without. She would have never known that
• 1:44:30
  her dad lied to her and that he was at fault for whatever
• 1:44:34
  calamity was going to happen that night to the love of her
• 1:44:38
  life and his family. She was so agreeable before
• 1:44:43
  that, but it's that moment that she's like, she's has to get her
• 1:44:48
  ass in gear and I think they'd like put her under house arrest.
• 1:44:51
  She breaks out, but her silence is coerced because it's framed
• 1:44:58
  as, do you want to kill the whole family by telling the
• 1:45:01
  truth and exposing your father's dirty plan?
• 1:45:03
  And that's how they kind of get her to go along with some stuff
• 1:45:07
  in these middle episodes because she's like, well, I don't want
• 1:45:12
  my family to die. So I'll just do like these side
• 1:45:17
  quests and tangents and like things that will get him away
• 1:45:22
  from the action. Like she gets out, she writes a
• 1:45:25
  message in blood, she sends it with her servant and homeboy
• 1:45:29
  ends up leaving. She he takes the bait and leaves
• 1:45:31
  to go to the the temple just before the action happens.
• 1:45:36
  And that is when his life changes, like his brother dies
• 1:45:41
  and his father is. His father is gravely.
• 1:45:44
  Endured. Yeah.
• 1:45:45
  It's just like all hell breaks loose that night.
• 1:45:47
  I mean, she confronts her dad in episode 9.
• 1:45:51
  To me, this is when you start to see that separation of like the
• 1:45:55
  morals that I'm talking about that she like really does start
• 1:45:59
  to align with US. Hung you, even though they don't
• 1:46:02
  talk explicitly about like what is right and wrong in this
• 1:46:05
  situation. Why should you be advocating for
• 1:46:10
  the young 12 year old king to be on the throne versus this uncle
• 1:46:15
  or not her uncle, her dad, right?
• 1:46:16
  Like in this case, it's her dad, but her goal is always to just
• 1:46:20
  get him to stop. Just stop killing people.
• 1:46:22
  Just stop. Stop this plot.
• 1:46:25
  And she's really angry with him. And she said, I think she asked
• 1:46:29
  him, like, were you always this cruel?
• 1:46:32
  Like she's starting to come to grips with the fact that her dad
• 1:46:37
  is not who she thought she was. He was.
• 1:46:40
  Yeah, waking up to, yeah, some of the realities and, you know,
• 1:46:44
  and it makes sense. He he he directly betrays her
• 1:46:49
  trust. Yes, you know so.
• 1:46:51
  Yeah, and it is this slow burn watching her loss of innocence
• 1:46:56
  with her dad and realizing that he's this power hungry treats
• 1:47:02
  treasonous murderer who wants to kill her, her man at all costs.
• 1:47:08
  His face, like her dad's face is good too.
• 1:47:10
  Like that actor is really great. He.
• 1:47:14
  You can. Sense that he's losing his
• 1:47:17
  daughter's trust, and that is. And it hurts him.
• 1:47:21
  Yeah, it hurts him, Yeah. It really does hurt him.
• 1:47:24
  And and, you know, even though he's like mostly portrayed as
• 1:47:28
  pretty like cruel and evil person in this drama, like they
• 1:47:34
  give him the actor and like the writing, they also give him some
• 1:47:39
  of that complexity where he he really like his, his group of
• 1:47:44
  advisors are always like cackling about, oh, we're going
• 1:47:48
  to get them, etcetera. But he's the one who's like, oh,
• 1:47:50
  should we be doing this? Like, is this the right way?
• 1:47:53
  And like, and then he like regrets certain things later on
• 1:47:57
  because he's lost his, his daughter's affection and she
• 1:48:01
  used to be like the closest child to his.
• 1:48:04
  Favorite. His favorite child?
• 1:48:06
  Yeah, his favorite. Yep, finally at the end of this
• 1:48:11
  episode when Sungyu has lost everything.
• 1:48:15
  I mean his father's died by this point because they use him as
• 1:48:20
  bait to get to his dad. Shinyon is supposed to kill a
• 1:48:25
  Sungyu and he ends up not doing it.
• 1:48:28
  He chickens out good but he leaves him for dead in the
• 1:48:31
  woods. He's literally he's severely
• 1:48:33
  injured. It's at the end of this episode
• 1:48:36
  when Sungyu is walking around town.
• 1:48:38
  He looks terrible. Like, I don't know if shows
• 1:48:42
  nowadays make the male lead or the female lead like look this
• 1:48:46
  bad when the going gets tough, if you know what I mean.
• 1:48:50
  Like he looks really, really bad walking around at the end of
• 1:48:56
  episode 9. He's like limping and his hair
• 1:48:59
  is like a mess. He comes across his dad's body
• 1:49:03
  or the head of his dad because it's on a spike.
• 1:49:05
  Yeah, head on a spike, Yeah. He's just about to risk it off
• 1:49:09
  for one more assassination attempt on her dad, Prince
• 1:49:13
  Suyoung, but he sees her out front greeting him after this
• 1:49:18
  night of carnage. And then they start the OST, The
• 1:49:26
  that one, yeah. The one that sounds like Latin
• 1:49:31
  chanting. It's like but it's in Korean.
• 1:49:36
  Right. It's so crazy.
• 1:49:36
  That's the enemy of something. He realizes finally that she is
• 1:49:40
  Prince Sue Young's daughter, his enemy's daughter, but she goes
• 1:49:48
  to see him in jail. This, this whole thing like
• 1:49:50
  stuck with me, right? Like her going to see him in
• 1:49:52
  jail? They're memorable.
• 1:49:55
  Scenes. These are memorable scenes.
• 1:49:56
  Like, they just stick with you. Yeah.
• 1:49:58
  And him, like, limping up to her in the jail cell.
• 1:50:04
  And he's like, his eyes are bloodshot.
• 1:50:07
  Like, I don't know, like what they did to make him look like
• 1:50:10
  this. But my God, it definitely looks
• 1:50:14
  like he just had the worst night of his life.
• 1:50:16
  And he's been on death's door and was left for dead by his
• 1:50:20
  best friend. It looks like all that happened
• 1:50:23
  and he starts to choke her out. Yeah.
• 1:50:27
  Oh my God. Oh my God.
• 1:50:29
  It's so traumatic. And he's like, who are you?
• 1:50:33
  Like he's like, who are you? He doesn't even, like, know for
• 1:50:36
  sure because she's so he's she's been so deceptive about her
• 1:50:40
  identity. So he threatens to kill her.
• 1:50:44
  And her father ripped them all to pieces.
• 1:50:46
  And he he's like a rabid wild animal, a caged beast.
• 1:50:51
  There's rage. There's full crazy eyes, the
• 1:50:54
  whole bit. And it's that I remember this
• 1:50:57
  too vividly. When she says, please stay alive
• 1:50:59
  and come kill me. I will wait for the day I die by
• 1:51:02
  your hands. Yeah.
• 1:51:04
  Like, bro, Like, what did you think about, like, this set of
• 1:51:06
  episodes? This is like basically halfway
• 1:51:09
  through the show. So yeah, I OK, my favorite part
• 1:51:13
  of the show is coming up. But like, this part I just
• 1:51:16
  thought was like, wild because it's like, you know, it is, it
• 1:51:19
  is the whole idea of collective punishment.
• 1:51:22
  You know, it's like on the side of Grand Prince Suyang.
• 1:51:28
  It's like we're going to kill you and your whole family or
• 1:51:31
  we're going to enslave the rest of your family that is not dead.
• 1:51:35
  And then the same here where it's like, well, I'm going to
• 1:51:38
  get revenge on you and your father and stuff.
• 1:51:41
  It's like, why get revenge on her?
• 1:51:43
  Like what does she do exactly? She just loved you and then was
• 1:51:46
  like kind of stupid about like keeping some important
• 1:51:50
  information from you. It's like, does that merit desk
• 1:51:53
  come on now? It's like.
• 1:51:56
  So yeah, it's just like a reminder that this is brutal
• 1:51:59
  times and like the the lengths that people went to to like
• 1:52:05
  stamp out their rivals, their opposition, like pretty, pretty
• 1:52:10
  extreme. So again, like her, her dad
• 1:52:15
  still is lying to her, but she thinks he's not and it has to do
• 1:52:20
  with he's still alive. Like he gets exiled, but because
• 1:52:25
  she threatened to take her own life if he was killed, was
• 1:52:29
  executed, but he lived, she thinks that it worked.
• 1:52:34
  Like her dad did what she asked, her threats worked, and she
• 1:52:40
  promises basically to do whatever he wanted as long as he
• 1:52:43
  saved her life. And her dad actually comes to
• 1:52:45
  collect on that promise and he's lying to her, making her think
• 1:52:50
  that threatening her life, that ploy actually worked when really
• 1:52:54
  it was a political thing that caused her lover's stay of
• 1:52:58
  execution. I think he says to her that
• 1:53:01
  she's he's going to force the marriage with Shi Neon at this
• 1:53:04
  point. And I love the the fact that he
• 1:53:06
  adds in change your attitudes. So that day will be a happy day
• 1:53:12
  like the dad. I think it's really just a
• 1:53:15
  really just a reflection of like the expectations of the times.
• 1:53:19
  It's like women had no agency. They were just told, OK, now
• 1:53:25
  you're marrying so and so good luck with your son.
• 1:53:28
  You know, so this like the whole like love affair, etcetera.
• 1:53:32
  This was all really out of the ordinary.
• 1:53:35
  And, you know, the expectation is you listen to your father
• 1:53:40
  while you live in your father's house.
• 1:53:43
  And then you are basically sold off and you go to a husband's
• 1:53:48
  house and then you have to listen to your husband.
• 1:53:52
  And then, like, even when your husband dies, if you have a son,
• 1:53:55
  you have to listen to your son like that.
• 1:53:58
  Those are like the three Confucian obediences.
• 1:54:01
  You know, it's like, that's the life of a woman back then.
• 1:54:04
  So like he was saying stuff based on his own expectation of
• 1:54:09
  like how daughters behave in this.
• 1:54:13
  In in this. Society.
• 1:54:14
  And she was like, Nope, not going to be that one.
• 1:54:17
  Yeah. This episode, episode 11 has an
• 1:54:20
  incredible boat breakout scene, an escape, a nighttime fight in
• 1:54:27
  scene fight scene in the woods. I remember all this like it was
• 1:54:31
  yesterday, like seeing it 10 years ago.
• 1:54:34
  I remember like him being on the boat and like dazed and kind of
• 1:54:38
  like not wanting to live anymore, just sort of dejected
• 1:54:41
  and done with everything and being shackled to like this crew
• 1:54:45
  that ends up being his, you know, his friends for the rest
• 1:54:49
  of the show and trying to fight their way out cuz like they're
• 1:54:53
  being hunted. And I like all of this.
• 1:54:56
  I was like riveted. I thought this was a riveting.
• 1:54:59
  Did you like all of this stuff at the end of episode 11?
• 1:55:02
  Yeah, I thought, I thought that was, you know, it's a pretty
• 1:55:06
  exciting part. I was, I was mostly excited
• 1:55:09
  that, you know, one of the, one of the roughnecks who was like
• 1:55:12
  sent to like, like sink the ship and kill all the prisoners by
• 1:55:18
  Grand Prince Huyang's like allies and stuff like he's a
• 1:55:23
  young Che Moussong. Yes, you know our icon tech?
• 1:55:28
  Icon Tech's dad. And yeah.
• 1:55:32
  Yeah, yeah, in reply. This is the first K drama he was
• 1:55:36
  ever in. Yeah, I love it.
• 1:55:39
  And he has like crimped hair. It's amazing.
• 1:55:41
  No, no, it's terrible. It's bad.
• 1:55:44
  But yeah, he ends up killing that guy cuz Trey Musong killed
• 1:55:49
  his father. He's the goon that ends up.
• 1:55:52
  Yes, he was the one who struck that the killing blow.
• 1:55:55
  Yes, for his for his dad. So he recognized him in the
• 1:55:59
  woods and was like. He snaps out of it.
• 1:56:03
  He's like all dazed until yes, exactly.
• 1:56:06
  But you know, you get like this sort of manifesto in this
• 1:56:10
  episode as well from one of the crew, like one of his crew who
• 1:56:15
  shackled to him where he says you're not the only one with
• 1:56:19
  resentment. Don't die like a dog.
• 1:56:21
  If you want revenge, wait for the right time.
• 1:56:24
  And he's basically giving him this idea to like, why don't you
• 1:56:27
  live for revenge? Because I'm not going to die
• 1:56:30
  here on this middle of nowhere island shackled to you just
• 1:56:35
  because you're like, don't care about anything.
• 1:56:37
  You don't want to get away. You're just like, passive and
• 1:56:40
  like, you know, depressed about everything you've done.
• 1:56:45
  Yeah. Right.
• 1:56:46
  Because I want to live. That was basically what the guy
• 1:56:49
  was saying. Episode 12, we get introduced to
• 1:56:52
  a trans character at the Kisang house.
• 1:56:55
  And I was like, wow, I forgot about the trans character.
• 1:56:59
  How did you feel this this actor is actually a trans person.
• 1:57:05
  So I was really, really, really surprised.
• 1:57:07
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 1:57:08
  I did not realize that, yeah, at first I, I couldn't tell if they
• 1:57:14
  were just giving her a hard time because she was tall and like,
• 1:57:20
  not like dainty, not as dainty and small like the other.
• 1:57:24
  What's going on? Because she's, she's beautiful,
• 1:57:28
  you know? And so I didn't, I didn't even
• 1:57:30
  realize that because I didn't look it up.
• 1:57:31
  But that's really great that they, they hired a trans actress
• 1:57:36
  to play a trans character. And yeah, that's amazing.
• 1:57:39
  Yeah, 2011 for the win. Yeah, 20. 11 Who knew?
• 1:57:44
  I know. Yeah, so I didn't actually know
• 1:57:48
  how to feel about the whole like thing because I wasn't sure if
• 1:57:51
  they were like being weird and problematic or if this I never
• 1:57:57
  like, investigated it. So yeah, that's cool.
• 1:58:02
  I have in my notes more Shinyon shit that he does because he
• 1:58:08
  he's upset when she thinks that he the male leads family goes
• 1:58:15
  missing from where she rescued them and she suspects that
• 1:58:20
  Shinyon third wheel is behind it.
• 1:58:23
  Maybe he killed them or something.
• 1:58:25
  And he's incredulous. He's like, is that what you
• 1:58:27
  think of me? And I'm like yes you Moody fuck
• 1:58:32
  face like you brought this on yourself like you have been
• 1:58:35
  working against your best friends for multiple episodes
• 1:58:39
  now. Why would she have a good
• 1:58:41
  opinion of you right? Anyway, he aggressively Yanks
• 1:58:47
  her arm and hoists her up on the horse and he's ignoring all of
• 1:58:51
  her adamant protests, her non consent if you will.
• 1:58:55
  And he gets up on the horse behind her.
• 1:58:57
  And I feel like this is a type of sexual assault because being
• 1:59:01
  up on the horse and riding it together, I feel like that's
• 1:59:05
  super intimate and they're like colliding with each other.
• 1:59:08
  And it's this direct opposite vibe of when she rode the horse
• 1:59:12
  with the male lead, which was freeing and sensual and fun,
• 1:59:17
  right? So like when they get off the
• 1:59:19
  horse, she slaps she me on and that's when she says don't ever
• 1:59:24
  touch me again. I don't like she Neon like he's
• 1:59:27
  a problem to me. Yeah.
• 1:59:29
  I mean, certainly he is problematic.
• 1:59:32
  Don't fly, certainly problematic.
• 1:59:34
  I didn't think of it that way. Like now that you say that like
• 1:59:37
  that's like really not OK. I was just, I was just focused
• 1:59:43
  on where they were going. I mean, viewed that way is
• 1:59:45
  definitely certainly, certainly, certainly problematic.
• 1:59:50
  Yeah, that's not that's not cool.
• 1:59:52
  I mean, that's how. I view that, but I yeah, you
• 1:59:55
  know, it's open to interpretation obviously,
• 1:59:57
  because nothing right happened. But it's it's just so
• 2:00:01
  uncomfortable and you can see her like being manhandled and
• 2:00:06
  like it's not. Yeah, good.
• 2:00:09
  But also also let me just let's let's let me just point out
• 2:00:14
  women are just not treated well it, you know, and like, you
• 2:00:19
  know, they're basically property.
• 2:00:21
  And so like, like I think I in watching these kinds of scenes,
• 2:00:26
  I'm a little bit dead end to these kinds of like, you know,
• 2:00:30
  if it's not like something very overt, like just grabbing
• 2:00:37
  somebody by the arm or whatever, I don't stop to think like, oh,
• 2:00:40
  that's real problematic because you know, it was just very like
• 2:00:45
  everyone's doing that expected in this context.
• 2:00:49
  So I think that's why I didn't pick up on it.
• 2:00:54
  I have more stuff from episode 13 and 14 where she sits down.
• 2:00:58
  It's another face off with her dad and again, this is a another
• 2:01:03
  separation of morals between them because she finds it
• 2:01:06
  horrifying that the remaining family members of these quote UN
• 2:01:12
  quote traitors have been given to the ministers as slaves and
• 2:01:17
  are now serving the people that slaughtered their families.
• 2:01:22
  And she thinks it's disgusting. So she talks with her dad and he
• 2:01:27
  tells her, like, have you moved this family like the
• 2:01:30
  sister-in-law and the niece? And she's like, yeah, he goes,
• 2:01:34
  this is illegal, you can't do that.
• 2:01:38
  And she goes, well, such laws should not be followed because
• 2:01:43
  they're disgusting. And he scoffs that now she's
• 2:01:47
  talking politics with him because he thinks that her
• 2:01:51
  talking about this these laws is, is somehow talking politics
• 2:01:55
  with him. She counters and says it's not a
• 2:01:57
  matter of politics, it's a matter of morality.
• 2:02:01
  Basically calling him immoral. Like the next step is saying
• 2:02:05
  you're immoral because you've initiated this and are saying,
• 2:02:10
  oh, it's sanctioned because it's the law.
• 2:02:12
  The law is. I think the law is wrong.
• 2:02:14
  I think you are wrong. I mean, and she's right.
• 2:02:17
  Like whoever made the first move in this like, tense situation,
• 2:02:22
  tense political situation was in the wrong, was going to be in
• 2:02:26
  the wrong. But also it was that situation
• 2:02:30
  where everyone thought everyone was going to kill each other.
• 2:02:33
  You know, How do you make that decision, right?
• 2:02:36
  She's absolutely right though. She's right.
• 2:02:38
  Yeah, she's right. I mean, by 2024 standards, at
• 2:02:41
  the very least, she's right. And yeah, and not not by 1450
• 2:02:45
  standards. But anyway, she he says that
• 2:02:49
  she'll realize that everything that he did was the right thing
• 2:02:53
  for the family and for her in the future.
• 2:02:57
  And she says how can something that isn't right be right in the
• 2:03:00
  future? Damn.
• 2:03:01
  Like you can see that even though Sungyu is out of the
• 2:03:06
  equation, she thinks he's exiled.
• 2:03:09
  I think maybe at this point she knows that the ship sank and
• 2:03:11
  he's dead. She thinks he's dead.
• 2:03:15
  She is still at odds with her dad over the treatment of the
• 2:03:20
  the families over these so-called traitors and she
• 2:03:27
  thinks it's immoral. They are not on the same moral
• 2:03:31
  footing, but she does agree with her man's like they have the
• 2:03:36
  same morality. I'm not sure they have the same
• 2:03:40
  morality to be quite honest, because like I, I don't know if
• 2:03:48
  Sungyu would have been like no, I won't follow you father, if
• 2:03:51
  you decide to make the preemptive strike against Grand
• 2:03:54
  Prince Siyang's family. I don't know if the other side
• 2:03:57
  had initiated the hostilities, if he would have opted out.
• 2:04:04
  Do you know what I'm saying? Because once, once Grand Prince
• 2:04:08
  Suyang's side initiated the hostilities, the blowback from
• 2:04:12
  him is I'm going to kill everyone on your side, right?
• 2:04:16
  So it's not like I don't think he has the same like, let's not
• 2:04:20
  kill people. Let's try to live in peace that
• 2:04:23
  she does. I mean, no one's a pacifist.
• 2:04:27
  She's probably the one closest to a pacifist in the whole show.
• 2:04:30
  Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
• 2:04:33
  So she, she is the closest to a pacifist because she's like,
• 2:04:37
  she's very much like, you know, I don't care if our family was
• 2:04:43
  feeling a threat. We don't get to go and kill a
• 2:04:46
  bunch of people, right? And he's not like, I don't care
• 2:04:51
  that my family got killed. I don't get to go kill a bunch
• 2:04:55
  of people. That's not how he feels about
• 2:04:57
  it. He's like, I'm going to kill
• 2:04:58
  every like last M effort up in here because they killed my
• 2:05:03
  family. So I don't think they have the
• 2:05:05
  same moral standing. She totally understands why he
• 2:05:10
  would want to get. Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 2:05:14
  And Commons? Yeah, she does.
• 2:05:16
  Who killed his family? Absolutely.
• 2:05:19
  She understands, which is kind of inconsistent, like if she's
• 2:05:24
  going to be like the pacifist or whatever, but.
• 2:05:27
  Well, she's a pacifist in so much as she doesn't want her
• 2:05:30
  family to die and she doesn't want his family, like people
• 2:05:34
  that are close to him to also perish in this battle for the
• 2:05:38
  throne, this Game of Thrones, so to speak.
• 2:05:44
  Yeah, you know, she and she is a royal, right?
• 2:05:48
  Like she is also a royal. So she she knows she's part of
• 2:05:53
  the problem and the solution at the same time.
• 2:05:58
  So it's tough. It's tough.
• 2:06:00
  She is definitely on the moral high ground out of everyone.
• 2:06:05
  So she is about to get married to Shameon.
• 2:06:08
  This is when she says she's like all ready to go.
• 2:06:13
  And she says I wanted to be his shadow and him to be my shadow.
• 2:06:17
  Just lamenting the fact that the love of her life is dead and now
• 2:06:21
  she's marrying his best friend and she doesn't love this guy.
• 2:06:24
  He's the worst and he betrayed him and he's part of the
• 2:06:27
  problem. But it is what it is.
• 2:06:31
  He kidnaps her on her wedding day like the male lead kidnaps
• 2:06:36
  her on her wedding day. And this whole thing, and this
• 2:06:39
  is my favorite. Talk to me, Talk to me about it.
• 2:06:43
  This is my favorite part of the whole show and maybe that makes
• 2:06:48
  me a sicko but I seriously thought the whole like Punisher
• 2:06:57
  slash willing penitent bondage thing they had going there.
• 2:07:02
  Was. Fire.
• 2:07:05
  No ones fire. It was so good because like
• 2:07:09
  she's very much like, yes, punish me, please.
• 2:07:12
  Like I deserve my family is the worst.
• 2:07:16
  I deserve all of the pain. And he is very much like, yeah,
• 2:07:19
  I'm going to I'm going to get my revenge and you better feel pain
• 2:07:23
  and all of this stuff. But at the same time he's torn.
• 2:07:26
  So again, this is this is my thing with the complex
• 2:07:29
  characters. Like he's torn in this moment.
• 2:07:32
  He's very much like, I still have a lot of affection.
• 2:07:35
  I still love this person, but I him like I'm talking right now,
• 2:07:41
  like because she's part of the problem or I think she's part of
• 2:07:44
  the problem because he hasn't discovered that she's been loyal
• 2:07:48
  to him the whole time yet that she has helped his sister-in-law
• 2:07:54
  and niece escape their like enslavement.
• 2:07:58
  She had. He hasn't found out about all
• 2:08:00
  this. So he's like, you know, I have
• 2:08:01
  to punish her because she's part of the problem.
• 2:08:04
  So like this whole like love hate want revile tension is just
• 2:08:11
  amazing. Chefs kiss, chefs kiss I I love
• 2:08:16
  it too. 14 is my favorite. Yes, cuz he's real mean to her.
• 2:08:25
  He's real mean. And so this is part of the
• 2:08:28
  context of like when Shin Yun like grabs her or whatever, like
• 2:08:31
  then I see him being all mean, like, you know, sing you being
• 2:08:35
  all mean to her. I'm like, it's all potato,
• 2:08:37
  potato. It's all the same thing
• 2:08:39
  basically. I don't think it's of.
• 2:08:42
  Course it's not. Of course it's not because she
• 2:08:44
  is very consenting here. It's not the same thing.
• 2:08:48
  You're right. But you know this roughness and
• 2:08:51
  him like wanting to hurt her, but also like not wanting to
• 2:08:55
  hurt her. Right.
• 2:08:56
  It's just right. It's.
• 2:08:58
  It's really cool. And then oh, and then like, I
• 2:09:01
  don't think this is supposed to be a funny part, but like I was
• 2:09:04
  cackling when he like slings her like onto his horse in a sack
• 2:09:10
  and she's like, like face down on the horse and he's galloping
• 2:09:14
  off and the sack is flopping like, Oh my.
• 2:09:19
  God, I know, I know, it's pretty funny.
• 2:09:22
  I mean, not funny, but just like a little bit awkward looking.
• 2:09:26
  Yeah, she's very awkward. Looking Yeah, yeah.
• 2:09:30
  It's like, no, she would not come out of that, like unmarked.
• 2:09:34
  She would have all kinds of bruises.
• 2:09:37
  So he's just so freaking mad at her, and he says he's going to
• 2:09:43
  use her as bait to get to her dad, just like he was used as
• 2:09:45
  bait to get to his dad. And he thinks that she might be
• 2:09:49
  crying in that moment, crying for her horrible dad, but she
• 2:09:54
  ends up get like, at one point she gives him a hug.
• 2:09:58
  It's so anxious, good, a big embrace.
• 2:10:02
  And she says how much you must have suffered.
• 2:10:04
  So she's crying for him. Like she feels so badly for him
• 2:10:09
  in this moment because he's alive #1 but alive and has
• 2:10:14
  nothing, right? Like it's all been taken from
• 2:10:16
  him and all he has is anger and hatred and revenge and and she
• 2:10:22
  says, if killing me will help you forget all that pain, I will
• 2:10:25
  gladly die for you. And I'm like, Oh my God.
• 2:10:28
  Like it's so angsty. And he's like, again, battling
• 2:10:36
  with himself because he wants to be so mean to her.
• 2:10:39
  And he is. But he's also like, he could
• 2:10:43
  have just killed her. Like, I think that I truly feel
• 2:10:46
  like in the moment that he was hiding in her room on her
• 2:10:49
  wedding day and he had this rope with him that he was just going
• 2:10:54
  to kill her. Maybe subconsciously he was
• 2:10:57
  going to kidnap her, but in his mind he was going to kill her
• 2:11:02
  until she said that thing about I wanted to be his shadow and he
• 2:11:07
  would be my shadow out loud. And you can see his expression
• 2:11:12
  sort of change and he was like, she's definitely talking about
• 2:11:17
  like, there's no other person that that could be about.
• 2:11:20
  It is about him. I think at that point he was
• 2:11:23
  like, OK, I'll just kidnap her. It's wild.
• 2:11:27
  She takes an arrow for him at the end of the episode because
• 2:11:30
  of the whole hostage, the the arrow in the back.
• 2:11:36
  Oh my God. Episode 14 is another like big
• 2:11:39
  one. Episode 914.
• 2:11:40
  Those are big episodes. He gets like 15 through 17 kind
• 2:11:46
  of blur together for me. But.
• 2:11:47
  Yeah, I in my notes I have 15 through 18, just one.
• 2:11:51
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's, it's all like kind of
• 2:11:54
  like stuff happens, but it's not enough to kind of talk through
• 2:11:59
  each episode by itself. His friend, who was shackled to
• 2:12:03
  him before, asked him, did you abduct her for revenge or did
• 2:12:06
  you abduct her because you didn't want someone else to have
• 2:12:09
  her? And I was like, yeah, asking the
• 2:12:14
  hard question. That same guy consistently tells
• 2:12:19
  him, like, from here on out, drop the revenge.
• 2:12:23
  Just leave the revenge and run away with her and just live your
• 2:12:28
  life, have kids and be happy. Like just disappear with her
• 2:12:33
  because no good is going to come out of you sticking around and
• 2:12:37
  possibly killing her dad. Like that is never going to be
• 2:12:41
  OK. So that guy foretold the end of
• 2:12:44
  the show, basically. Yep, basically.
• 2:12:50
  Because we get we go through the abdication of the Kid King, she
• 2:12:55
  refuses to be installed as Princess.
• 2:12:58
  So she leaves and he becomes a vigilante at one point.
• 2:13:03
  But he gives up the vigilante justice of picking off Suyang's
• 2:13:08
  crew 1 by 1, eventually hoping to kill Suyang.
• 2:13:12
  But he redirects his efforts to destabilize Suyang from the
• 2:13:16
  throne and enthrone the Kid King once again, which is a goal his
• 2:13:21
  father would have strived for. There's a plan to kill Soo Young
• 2:13:25
  once. There's like 50 plans to kill so
• 2:13:27
  many plans. They all blur together.
• 2:13:32
  I know. So he gets increasingly agitated
• 2:13:36
  and worried about killing her dad.
• 2:13:38
  He's resolute, but at the same time faltering because of how it
• 2:13:42
  will so obviously hurt her. How can she love a man who
• 2:13:46
  murders her father and all of this?
• 2:13:49
  I love this angst part of him like that.
• 2:13:52
  He's finally decided, like, giving in.
• 2:13:54
  I love her, She loves me, but I'm still going to try and kill
• 2:13:58
  her dad like this part of the show.
• 2:14:01
  I'm still eating it up. Were you, like, good with this
• 2:14:04
  part of the show? Episodes like 17 and on?
• 2:14:07
  Yeah. I mean, I think, I think I I
• 2:14:11
  supported like morally the switch from like I'm going to
• 2:14:16
  just kill like kill all of these people in their sleep or at
• 2:14:20
  night like an assassin. The switch from that to like,
• 2:14:24
  OK, I'm going to align myself with the people who want to re
• 2:14:30
  enthrone the boy king and I like will be more honorable in terms
• 2:14:36
  of like how I go about my business.
• 2:14:38
  Like I I supported that, but like also, I think a lot of this
• 2:14:43
  part like blurs together for me because I'm not like a huge like
• 2:14:48
  I'm not hugely into angst. So gotcha.
• 2:14:51
  Like, I like, I like some amount of it, but then after a while
• 2:14:56
  I'm like, OK, can we stop being so sad all the time?
• 2:15:01
  Is there an expression except for frowning that we can do?
• 2:15:04
  Can we? Turn that frown upside down.
• 2:15:08
  Exactly, I'm like there's like some breaks in it would be
• 2:15:11
  appreciated so that I mean, that's how I am just but based
• 2:15:15
  on my my own, like drama preferences, not not because
• 2:15:19
  this is like problematic here he.
• 2:15:21
  Calls her out of the palace at night, using the Princess Konghe
• 2:15:25
  as a pretext. She says to him, I wished I
• 2:15:28
  didn't have a father who killed innocent people.
• 2:15:30
  But the thought of losing him, If I'm to save you, my father
• 2:15:34
  will die. If I'm to save my father, you
• 2:15:35
  will die. What am I supposed to do?
• 2:15:39
  And this is like a big back hug moment.
• 2:15:42
  And she says, just leave with me.
• 2:15:44
  Let's go somewhere where nobody knows this.
• 2:15:46
  And again, like he's given multiple chances just in the
• 2:15:50
  same way that she was given multiple chances to share who
• 2:15:53
  she is, her identity, he's given multiple chances to leave with
• 2:15:58
  her and just abscond and leave behind this whole struggle.
• 2:16:04
  I would say that the problem that happens in that last few
• 2:16:08
  episodes is that their rebellion keeps dwindling.
• 2:16:12
  Like they keep getting found out and then their rebellion party
• 2:16:16
  keeps dwindling to less and less people.
• 2:16:19
  And the people, as they die off, give him the responsibility of
• 2:16:24
  continuing the fight. And they're like, it's down to
• 2:16:27
  you, it's down to you, It's down to you now keep going for the
• 2:16:32
  rest of us and passing the baton to swing you.
• 2:16:36
  And so he feels this immense burden and responsibility to
• 2:16:40
  keep banging his head against the wall and trying to kill
• 2:16:44
  someone and and get the boy king back on the throne, which is
• 2:16:49
  futile like we know from history is futile like that never
• 2:16:53
  happens. So it's sad to see it backfire
• 2:16:59
  time and time again. But you can understand why he is
• 2:17:05
  so fraught every time he sees her and every time they get
• 2:17:09
  together, because he's he's like the last man standing.
• 2:17:13
  But I mean, this is also part of what like makes me sad for her
• 2:17:17
  is like he is her first priority.
• 2:17:21
  She is definitely not his first priority.
• 2:17:24
  So I'm like, you know, it's like, OK, well, I guess I
• 2:17:29
  understand he feels like it's his duty.
• 2:17:32
  But also it's like, you know, what is this all for?
• 2:17:36
  Like it's, it's frustrating. It is.
• 2:17:40
  How did you feel about the Princess cousin and her husband?
• 2:17:45
  And they take him away like an episode 18.
• 2:17:50
  But before they do, she says, I'm afraid of the purse.
• 2:17:52
  I'm afraid the person who is always by my side might not
• 2:17:55
  return, that I might not see the person again who knows me better
• 2:17:58
  than myself. I'm afraid I don't think I could
• 2:18:01
  live without the person. That person.
• 2:18:03
  Now you must come back. My husband and she calls him
• 2:18:08
  husband for the first time ever in the show and it's so good.
• 2:18:15
  It's so good. I actually really really loved
• 2:18:18
  this like side plot of Princess Kyong Hei.
• 2:18:21
  Like completely like having no feelings or and and actually
• 2:18:27
  disdaining her husband at first and then slowly, slowly with his
• 2:18:31
  loyalty and his warmth and his kindness toward her, like he
• 2:18:36
  works himself into her heart. I thought it was very lovely and
• 2:18:40
  sweet because at no point again does it seem like he's, he's
• 2:18:46
  like demanding his husband rights or anything like that.
• 2:18:49
  Because it seems very much like, and this is probably not
• 2:18:52
  historical, but in the drama it seems very much like he does not
• 2:18:58
  touch her until she wants him, you know?
• 2:19:02
  Yeah, this is part of the drama because they if I read
• 2:19:06
  correctly, they did have a child before the one that is in the
• 2:19:11
  show. It just died prematurely.
• 2:19:15
  So they did have sex before this time point that in in history,
• 2:19:22
  but it makes for a better romance.
• 2:19:25
  OK. Like for him to yes.
• 2:19:27
  Absolutely. Gift her like songbirds and be
• 2:19:32
  really endearing and give her the silver rings that his
• 2:19:36
  parents had as wedding rings and just wait on her.
• 2:19:42
  Yeah, he like, gives her space and like, slowly woos her and
• 2:19:46
  that's just, that's just so lovely.
• 2:19:48
  And I think this is the part that you are really upset about,
• 2:19:51
  that the Confucian scholars from the Hall of Worthies do not
• 2:19:58
  break out of prison in Episode 19.
• 2:20:00
  They refuse to get out while they can, and they.
• 2:20:05
  I mean. Die for their morals on
• 2:20:09
  principle. To be on the right side of
• 2:20:12
  history For Honor. And you're, yeah, you're very
• 2:20:16
  mad at that. No, I'm not so much mad at them.
• 2:20:20
  I'm mad at Princess Kong, his husband, for doing the same
• 2:20:25
  thing, Basically. Yeah, For basically being like,
• 2:20:28
  I'm going to die on principle, even though my wife and unborn
• 2:20:34
  child need me the the Confucian scholars, I'm like, OK,
• 2:20:38
  whatever, that's cool. You actually ended up being in
• 2:20:41
  history for this particular act. And so like, maybe it was
• 2:20:45
  worthwhile as a show and part of the, you know, story.
• 2:20:50
  Like I was just, I was just mad about like him doing that thing,
• 2:20:56
  you know, just feel like, because like I'm going to do the
• 2:21:00
  right thing, the honorable thing.
• 2:21:02
  That means abandoning my family, basically.
• 2:21:06
  Right. I, I, I understood it,
• 2:21:09
  especially in contrast to Shin Mian, because he shows up and
• 2:21:13
  gets angry at the scholars and his friend.
• 2:21:17
  He's like, why? Why are you doing this?
• 2:21:18
  I gave you the opportunity to leave, gave you guys the
• 2:21:21
  opportunity. There's no security here, so you
• 2:21:23
  guys could have escaped what belief could be more important
• 2:21:28
  than your life, He says. And they're just like, you
• 2:21:31
  wouldn't understand, just leave. You tried to kill a friend for
• 2:21:36
  the sake of your family. It would be no use trying to
• 2:21:39
  explain it to you. And I'm like, yeah, they're
• 2:21:42
  like, if we don't, we're not even bother trying to explain
• 2:21:45
  this act, this self, what they view as a selfless act to
• 2:21:49
  someone who they view is very selfish.
• 2:21:53
  I guess I don't buy it because the Confucianism that they held
• 2:21:58
  so dear, like I'm like, was really problematic, honestly.
• 2:22:02
  And like they talk about, I know, like really, were you
• 2:22:05
  dying for like a higher ideal? Really this this Confucianism
• 2:22:09
  that was so patriarchal and was like, you know, so classist and
• 2:22:15
  all these things. I mean, but it's, it's, it's the
• 2:22:18
  wrong lens really to to view it. It was noble because they were
• 2:22:23
  dying for beliefs sincerely held and that they believed were
• 2:22:28
  right. And, you know, so I can see the
• 2:22:32
  nobility and it, it's just, you know, when it comes to the
• 2:22:37
  princess's husband, I'm like, come on, man.
• 2:22:40
  Because he gets spared and then he dies later, because he
• 2:22:44
  continues, he does another. Plot.
• 2:22:46
  He's like bemoaning the fact that he gets spared here, and
• 2:22:50
  then later on he's like, I got to die.
• 2:22:52
  I'm going to lie to my wife about when my execution is so
• 2:22:55
  that I get to die honorfully. It's like OK.
• 2:22:59
  Yeah, but he names the baby and like, it's cute.
• 2:23:02
  Like, I mean, it's not cute. It's, it's sweet.
• 2:23:05
  I mean it, yeah, it is touching. And like you know, it is a
• 2:23:09
  moving plot, and it's supposed to be.
• 2:23:12
  Well, we get a bit of Confucianism here When she cuts
• 2:23:15
  off her hair, she cuts ties with her dad because she says the
• 2:23:21
  body is given by parents. Again, this is from episode one,
• 2:23:24
  right where she's talking about the sanctity of the body and she
• 2:23:28
  says the body is given by parents and needs to be
• 2:23:30
  considered precious. I cannot maintain a parent child
• 2:23:33
  relationship with you anymore. I will not cuts off her hair and
• 2:23:39
  says I'm cutting off my ties with you.
• 2:23:40
  Don't think of me as your daughter anymore.
• 2:23:43
  I'm going to leave the palace. And this comes right on the
• 2:23:46
  heels of her criticizing his deposing of his nephew because
• 2:23:51
  he had lately he was still in an honorary position apparently the
• 2:23:55
  the boy king. And now this official deposition
• 2:24:01
  is like the spells the end. Like she knows, she says you'll
• 2:24:04
  probably make him drink poison when he gets to his exile
• 2:24:08
  destination. She says, I thought you would
• 2:24:11
  concede to your child at least once before she even entered the
• 2:24:15
  palace. She said to her Princess cousin.
• 2:24:19
  Maybe she could keep her dad on the straight and narrow.
• 2:24:22
  And now sitting in front of him, she says that she knows he's
• 2:24:27
  basically beyond saving. Like you're about to kill your
• 2:24:31
  12 year old nephew over the throne and it's gone so far.
• 2:24:37
  It's gone way too far. So this is when she cuts off her
• 2:24:40
  hair. Did you like feel any type of
• 2:24:43
  way when she did this? Yeah, I mean, it's a big deal.
• 2:24:47
  It's a really big deal. I mean, like there isn't a
• 2:24:51
  similar belief now a days, but I remember reading about, OK, so
• 2:24:58
  when Japan occupied Korea, like it happened over the course of
• 2:25:03
  like a like a decade or so, where they like first they, they
• 2:25:08
  had like these unequal treaties that gave Japan all of these
• 2:25:12
  rights over Korea and trade and modernization.
• 2:25:18
  And then finally they like they took over fully and at some
• 2:25:22
  point in the name of modernization, they pressured
• 2:25:28
  the, the king, I think his name was Emperor Kojong.
• 2:25:33
  They pressured the king to pass a law or an edict or something
• 2:25:38
  like that issue an edict saying that all men needed to chop off
• 2:25:43
  their top knot. You know that all of the hair
• 2:25:47
  that's like wound up, their long, long hair that's wound up
• 2:25:50
  and then put in the knot on top of their heads, they had to cut
• 2:25:53
  their hair off. And the article that I read
• 2:25:57
  about this particular incident was like, so in order to be an
• 2:26:03
  example that the emperor had his own topknot hot off.
• 2:26:08
  So apparently some of the witnesses were actually
• 2:26:11
  Westerners, and they said that the mood, the tenor of that
• 2:26:16
  event was very much like a public castration of the king.
• 2:26:22
  It was like really that and like people.
• 2:26:25
  And it was mostly first enforced in Hanyang or Solu.
• 2:26:31
  Actually, they probably changed the name to a Japanese name, but
• 2:26:34
  it was first in in force there. So a lot of people actually left
• 2:26:38
  the city to, like, preserve their hair because it was such a
• 2:26:41
  devastating disconnection from their families.
• 2:26:45
  Yeah. I mean, it's that's how
• 2:26:47
  significant it was back in the day.
• 2:26:50
  So like, I can imagine this scene for father and daughter
• 2:26:55
  was like, incredibly momentous. And that's how I viewed it.
• 2:26:59
  Yeah, that's a great. Yeah.
• 2:27:01
  Thank you for providing that context.
• 2:27:02
  And we're just talking about that in the little more recent
• 2:27:05
  history, there are some swoony moments that happen in these
• 2:27:09
  later episodes. Do you have recollection of
• 2:27:12
  these from your from your watch? Because she she ends up like
• 2:27:18
  coming to live with him for like a hot minute.
• 2:27:20
  And he comes into her room and he sits down next to her.
• 2:27:24
  And because she'd been working all day, like laboring in the
• 2:27:27
  kissing house, he must starts massaging her arm, which again,
• 2:27:33
  like he hadn't been doing this type of thing before.
• 2:27:37
  So she's kind of taken aback when he starts like massaging
• 2:27:40
  her arm and that's spoon worthy right there.
• 2:27:43
  But then she asks him about sleeping sitting up while
• 2:27:47
  holding a sword. So he's telling her about the
• 2:27:50
  time when he this time when he couldn't trust anyone.
• 2:27:54
  And the direct quote is I thought I could sleep in comfort
• 2:27:56
  if I could lean on someone and they start like holding hands
• 2:28:02
  and then she puts his head on her shoulder and he falls asleep
• 2:28:06
  on her shoulder. And that like moment of intimacy
• 2:28:09
  and of him saying, I just want someone to lean on.
• 2:28:13
  I need someone to, you know, back me up.
• 2:28:17
  You know, I I'm looking for comfort and I couldn't trust
• 2:28:20
  anyone. And so this is a big moment,
• 2:28:23
  right for them that he trusts her enough to bring her back to
• 2:28:28
  the safe space that he has created for himself with this
• 2:28:31
  found family and. Yeah, and his real family also
• 2:28:36
  his right, right, sister-in-law and niece.
• 2:28:39
  And he falls this really sweet. Yeah.
• 2:28:42
  You know, you can kind of see, like, the glimmers of a future
• 2:28:46
  that they could have together because they're so well suited
• 2:28:49
  for each other and they kind of give each other what they need.
• 2:28:53
  But yeah, it's like, it's still more hell to come.
• 2:28:58
  So skipping ahead, she's declared a slave by her dad,
• 2:29:02
  who's really mad. I mean, you know, he would be
• 2:29:06
  and. A slave to Xin Myung.
• 2:29:09
  OK, this is this is another part that like I think is hilarious.
• 2:29:14
  Not hilarious, but like I thought was interesting.
• 2:29:18
  I think I have to walk back that like I like really like him.
• 2:29:22
  Like I don't like him. I just thought his character
• 2:29:25
  character was interesting. But part of it was this
• 2:29:29
  situation where he's he's her Master.
• 2:29:33
  At this point, she's been declared his slave and like he
• 2:29:37
  doesn't make her do anything but basically make his bed every
• 2:29:42
  night. And like, I was like, Oh no, Oh
• 2:29:44
  no, Oh no. Does this mean terrible things?
• 2:29:47
  But later on, she later on she clarifies that like, like he
• 2:29:52
  never touches her or anything like that during this period of
• 2:29:56
  time when, like the usurper king has declared that she is, you
• 2:30:00
  know, his property because he wants to like redeem her and
• 2:30:05
  like honorably marry her. So she he doesn't.
• 2:30:10
  But I just thought this part was like kind of funny, like how
• 2:30:14
  he's very horny for her. And so he's like, I would like
• 2:30:17
  you to touch my my bed things, but I won't touch you.
• 2:30:22
  It's honestly like he's such a creeper.
• 2:30:25
  He's such a creeper, I hate it. No.
• 2:30:30
  I know, and I don't know why I think this is like, I guess I
• 2:30:34
  was just really that it wasn't anything more than that.
• 2:30:38
  Honestly, it is really creepy. You're right.
• 2:30:42
  I'm like really rethinking myself as a person.
• 2:30:46
  But anyway. He did the bare minimum and like
• 2:30:49
  he didn't sexually assigned her when she was his slave and he
• 2:30:53
  didn't do anything he wanted with her but I think also she
• 2:30:56
  meal it's. Really.
• 2:30:57
  Terrible expected her to go back to her father and beg for
• 2:31:03
  forgiveness and somehow patch things up with the royal family.
• 2:31:06
  So he was like, I can't mistreat her while she's in my house,
• 2:31:11
  even though he kept saying like, oh, she's in my house, she's
• 2:31:14
  mine, she's my property. He just never, he never did
• 2:31:17
  anything untoward to her while she was under his roof.
• 2:31:22
  But yeah, making his bed is like the like that is really.
• 2:31:28
  It really is creeper stuff. It really is.
• 2:31:31
  It's not even like I want you to make me food like it's something
• 2:31:34
  domestic. It was like make my bed like
• 2:31:37
  that is very like creep. No, no.
• 2:31:41
  I know, I know, I know, I know. It's totally creepdastic.
• 2:31:45
  And I really do think that like the the writers of the show had
• 2:31:51
  a little bit of a bondage kink because of these little details
• 2:31:56
  here. Oh.
• 2:32:00
  My God. Yeah.
• 2:32:01
  So anyway, so Long story short, let's get to the ending of the
• 2:32:05
  show. So the ending he busts her out
• 2:32:09
  of the of Shimyun's house and there's more plotting.
• 2:32:13
  He turns into like this Robin Hood type who has set up camp in
• 2:32:18
  the woods and well, this is all after they get married.
• 2:32:23
  Like secretly this is episode 22.
• 2:32:26
  And honestly I remember this like it was yesterday.
• 2:32:29
  Like watching this like like it was yesterday, this scene was so
• 2:32:32
  steamy to me. Did you feel the same thing?
• 2:32:35
  Like even in a saga of from today?
• 2:32:38
  Like I felt like this was a very steamy scene of them together.
• 2:32:42
  Yeah, I mean, because like, it wasn't official.
• 2:32:44
  It was like, it was very much like you are my husband in my
• 2:32:48
  heart and you are my wife in my heart.
• 2:32:51
  It was very much like, So it was a little bit kind of for like
• 2:32:57
  almost forbidden. So yeah, it was.
• 2:32:59
  It definitely had that. Like it was steamy, yeah.
• 2:33:04
  They got caught in the rain. Like this is one of my favorite
• 2:33:06
  favorite microtropes is they get caught in the rain.
• 2:33:11
  And she had she was like drying off her clothes.
• 2:33:14
  So she was kind of like almost she took off her top and it was
• 2:33:20
  united. So he like, removes it, even
• 2:33:22
  though it was like hanging on her shoulders.
• 2:33:24
  And he kisses the scar where she took the arrow for him.
• 2:33:27
  And I had like in all caps. I'm just like, send me, send me
• 2:33:31
  home like I have a fever. Like I'm done.
• 2:33:34
  So yeah. Oh, my God.
• 2:33:38
  Like, it's so sexy. And he.
• 2:33:40
  But he pulls out the replacement rings that he got and he says,
• 2:33:44
  will you be my wife? Like before we go any further,
• 2:33:47
  he's like, why don't we make this official?
• 2:33:49
  Will you be my wife? And she takes the other ring,
• 2:33:52
  'cause there's two and says, will you be my husband?
• 2:33:56
  And I'm like, Oh my God, this is really like a marriage of equals
• 2:34:00
  to me where they, you know, they love each other and they've
• 2:34:04
  supported each other and they're ride or die for each other.
• 2:34:08
  And you know, instead of her wearing both rings, which it
• 2:34:12
  seems customary, and all the saw books that I've seen, he wears
• 2:34:15
  the other ring, which is very modern of them.
• 2:34:19
  Right, right, couple rings. And they, like, have sex that
• 2:34:25
  night, like they like, basically he's like, we're married.
• 2:34:27
  Yeah, they do. Yeah, which is why I'm like,
• 2:34:32
  that's the extra element of like steaminess, the actual, you
• 2:34:37
  know, the kissing and stuff is very sweet and see, me too.
• 2:34:41
  But that that kind of like, well, we've just decided there's
• 2:34:45
  nothing official like, Oh yeah, it's just like take initiative.
• 2:34:51
  I'm like blushing, OK? Forget about all these
• 2:34:53
  traditions. So moving forward in time, like
• 2:34:58
  he becomes this Robin Hood type and there's one last stand she
• 2:35:02
  and me undies because of friendly fire.
• 2:35:05
  And it's this whole thing to face off against her dad who was
• 2:35:11
  at the temple. And he basically gets his
• 2:35:14
  opportunities to kill her dad. And he doesn't take it because
• 2:35:18
  the dad surprises him with the news that his daughter's
• 2:35:22
  pregnant with his child and the pregnancy throws him enough
• 2:35:28
  where he gets taken down by security.
• 2:35:32
  But I think he was hesitating to start.
• 2:35:35
  He is. Hesitating in killing her dad?
• 2:35:37
  Absolutely. Yeah.
• 2:35:39
  He was never going to end up killing her dad and no matter
• 2:35:42
  how angry he was because it is her dad.
• 2:35:44
  Yeah, The Queen, her mother, fakes their deaths.
• 2:35:49
  And that's a surprise for the end.
• 2:35:51
  It's a yeah, yeah, it's a fake out because you think they died.
• 2:35:54
  But they also, they also preserve our male lead Singhu's
• 2:36:00
  honor because like they strike him with some like because he
• 2:36:05
  was beaten, he loses his eyesight and so he can't go
• 2:36:08
  fight anyways. Might as well go living.
• 2:36:10
  That's. The thing is that he, well, it
• 2:36:13
  kind of makes it seem like he was still could see her a little
• 2:36:16
  bit while she was in the jail cell with him.
• 2:36:20
  Yeah, like he could he. Was like, don't cry.
• 2:36:22
  Like he knew she was crying and so he could see her.
• 2:36:25
  I think it was maybe 10 years or something. 15 years.
• 2:36:28
  Or something between that moment.
• 2:36:31
  Yeah, the time. And the final?
• 2:36:33
  Scene yeah, the time lapse in this whole thing is all wonky
• 2:36:37
  because they like compress certain parts and extend certain
• 2:36:40
  parts but yeah yeah I. Think in that time, whatever
• 2:36:43
  injury he had to his optical nerve or whatever the hell got
• 2:36:49
  worse and he went blind. So the final scene is him, you
• 2:36:54
  know, happy with her, but he's lost his eyesight.
• 2:36:58
  And I think the quote is I lost my sight, but I regained my
• 2:37:01
  heart. I lost revenge, but I gained
• 2:37:03
  you. Yep.
• 2:37:04
  How did you like that ending? I liked it.
• 2:37:07
  I think that this show was initially gonna go for a more
• 2:37:11
  tragic ending, but because of the response from people, they
• 2:37:19
  went with a more positive ending.
• 2:37:21
  That makes sense. Yeah, that's.
• 2:37:24
  Good, but I do feel like the ending is fitting.
• 2:37:26
  Right. And it's it's like foreshadowed
• 2:37:29
  throughout. Yeah.
• 2:37:32
  So we've we talked about the whole thing.
• 2:37:34
  We basically just recap this whole.
• 2:37:36
  My gosh, yeah. We're gonna respond though, and
• 2:37:39
  I feel like yeah. Yeah.
• 2:37:42
  Do you have any last words that you'd like to say about the
• 2:37:45
  princesses man? In talking to you about it, I
• 2:37:48
  think I appreciate it more than when I first watched it.
• 2:37:54
  And I have come around a little to kind of the the greater
• 2:38:01
  complexity of the main characters.
• 2:38:04
  And I think that part of it was like in the moment, because it's
• 2:38:08
  longer, it's a longer drama that I'm used to watching.
• 2:38:12
  I felt the repetition more. And so I think that's what made
• 2:38:17
  me start to feel like, oh, it's, it's getting too samey.
• 2:38:21
  And that kind of colored my view of the whole thing at the end to
• 2:38:24
  make me think like, oh, it's too one note.
• 2:38:26
  But like, you're right, they do go on like a big character arc
• 2:38:31
  and journey and they have moments of like internal
• 2:38:34
  conflict and these things. So it's not just like the
• 2:38:37
  creeper who has like an intern. Interesting internal life.
• 2:38:44
  Oh man. So I apologize.
• 2:38:47
  I apologize for like not giving credit to the main main leads at
• 2:38:54
  the start. Good good, well great.
• 2:38:58
  Gosh I am so glad that you went on this journey with me.
• 2:39:01
  It was a re watch for me and the first time watch for you.
• 2:39:03
  But before we get out of here, where can we find you online?
• 2:39:09
  I do the podcast with Sarah from K Drama this so my handle on
• 2:39:15
  Instagram is Grace Axolotl questions Axolotl like the small
• 2:39:21
  amphibian and our handle together is afternoon.
• 2:39:28
  I ask on Instagram and yeah, we're on Spotify and Apple
• 2:39:34
  podcasts and probably other places too.
• 2:39:37
  I just haven't looked. So if you want to give our
• 2:39:40
  podcast a listen, we talk about the the context because Sarah
• 2:39:46
  and I are both diaspora Asians. So we talk about the context of
• 2:39:50
  like Korean dramas, sea dramas, and then sometimes we just do
• 2:39:53
  like fun episodes where we interview other creators like
• 2:39:58
  you, Jess. Yeah, that was really fun.
• 2:40:01
  Thank you for having me on that on that episode.
• 2:40:04
  And I really love listening to you guys talk about, you know,
• 2:40:08
  so many things, including Confucianism.
• 2:40:11
  I love that series that you guys have ongoing and the Burning Sun
• 2:40:15
  Scandal you had like the reporter come on your show.
• 2:40:18
  Like that was a really good episode as well.
• 2:40:20
  And there's so many more where that came from.
• 2:40:22
  So definitely check out Afternoon dot asks if you
• 2:40:24
  haven't already. And that's it.
• 2:40:26
  We're going to get out of here. We've been here a really long
• 2:40:28
  time. So that's been our show.
• 2:40:30
  I'm Jessica and this has been the Tabaki Rambles podcast.