gilaswan

Jin Mu is an absolute cockroach. That’s what he is. A cockroach.

This is it! It’s the weekend! 

I wish this series wasn’t ending already. I feel like we’ve only just got started with Uk and Buyeon… Just wanted also to add - I think the costuming team did a great job reinventing the clothes of this fictional world. Period, yet not. Love it 

17 hours ago, mademoiselle said:

She can't expel Naksu out of the body. She isn't powerful enough. In the latest episode, Master Lee said only Jang Wook has the power to force a soul out of the body but it is taboo. Maybe Master Lee planned it this way so that later on he can strike a deal with Jang Wook not to hurt the Jin family or vice versa.

Yeah, so she can’t, but she is manipulative enough to make Jang Uk do that if she knew of the potential. I’m sure she’s scheming up something still for the sake of continued power held in the management of magical artefacts. 

Has anyone also come across this theory that Naksu might be the fire bird? Or perhaps more accurately, she will be the one to wield the power of the fire bird, given she is able to give Jang Uk the warmth to counter the cold that the ice stone brings him. Just that this ability, I wonder if, comes only because of Buyeon. I still don’t like the real Buyeon, i.e. her soul. But I wonder if there will come a realisation that the power they wield (Naksu and Buyeon) can only be of that level if it is held by both.

So this thing about JCY being asked to wait for her sister… while things were getting wild in Jeongjingak… and then she emerges with Jang Uk… nowhere near where her sister was waiting..? 😂😂😂

I loved this weekend's episodes, which makes me think that coming to the end next week is way too soon. Again, as everyone else has noted, Lee Jae Wook and Go Yoon Jung's chemistry is off the charts! I hope they will do another drama together. And yes, early on in LJW's career, I already noted - this boy can kiss... Hahahaha...

But more importantly, I have questions.

I've asked this before but it's still confusing to me. So, the 4 noble families are that of Seo, Jin, Jang and Park, yes?
- Songrim - that is the house of Park, like Montagut and Capulet?
- Sejukwon - that's like a hospital and the Heo family are the ones gifted in the art of healing?

- Cheonbukwon - is that the organisation of mages that come under the royal family's charge?

- Jinyowon - the house of mysterious magical artefacts that is under the care of the Jin family (for now)

- And then what's the name of the building that Jang Uk keeps returning to to stay in instead of home?
 

On 1/2/2023 at 3:36 PM, mademoiselle said:

Wonder why Master Lee lied to Bu Yeon's mother about Bu Yeon's soul still inside her own body. Good thing that the latest episode showed it was deliberately concealed and wasn't because the Hong sisters smoked crack and changed the script later.

 

Is it my own wishful thinking that the Crown Prince is just pretending to let Jin Mu have his way? I really want to believe the Prince is good and join hands with Jang Wook to take down Jin Mu.

So ya, my take on this is that Master Lee lied to Lady Jin cos if she knew she could somehow expel Naksu's soul she might just bring about more evil than good. That's what I'm thinking. But I'm not really sure what's going on with Buyeon either. I don't quite like her (her soul, more specifically) at the moment. I didn't like how she interacted with Naksu; she reeks of her mother's arrogance. Expel her instead, I say.

And for the Crown Prince, yes, I too want to believe he's stringing Jin Mu along for some other purpose. He's like the Royal family's only hope now. Not as cowardly as his father, not as vain as his mother. 

WHY DID THEY STOP? TURN THAT LIGHT OFF!

found it funny that as the elders were talking about how there was no physical intimacy between them, things were actually getting hot and heavy. Hahahaha..

Now I'm wondering what would happen once Buyeon regains all her powers. It must mean then she will be strong enough to reject Naksu's soul. But who then is interacting with everyone now? Buyeon, Naksu, or both? Who's actually in love with Jang Uk? Buyeon, Naksu, or both? Buyeon can't see without Naksu though. Naksu gave her sight. What if Buyeon chooses to amalgamate with Naksu? Goodness. What a mess.

I like how Jang Uk knew that he was kissing Buyeon and not Mudeok-Naksu. And I love how she is confusing him. He never thought his heart could waver, but it is, even as he is unsure of why or how. It just means he is finally healing. But oh, how cruel it will be when he finds out that she is Naksu afterall, and a second possibility of losing her again would be more than devastating because the love would not just be of a love one revived - it would be of a loved one twice over.

About her memories regained at the tower of stones - yes, she saw flashes of memory as she neared the space. It was when she approached that the stones fell (after she saw scenes of memories flash in her mind) that the blue stone was revealed and she picked it up. Right? At least that's how I remembered it. I haven't had the time to re-watch that bit. 

And gee... Mama Jin is quite the nasty mother, isn't she. She's power obsessed. She ought not to be custodian of all those magical artefacts - she abuses them!

@TofuAgree with you about the last 2 episodes not moving anything much forward except for the revelation from Master Lee that it's the recovery of Buyeon's powers that would bring the memories (and therefore a realisation of Naksu's soul wrongfully residing in her body). I do wonder why it is that Buyeon's powers will return over time - what's triggering that? And when Naksu's soul is expelled, does Buyeon die? Whose face is kept? 

I was hoping that by midpoint, Jang Uk would become clearer about his relationship with Buyeon, but yeah, nothing much happened there...

I’ve been meaning to post this since last weekend but somehow everything else got the better of me. As always, it was a good 2 episodes again, and that ending scene!  My only question to that would be - who did he actually see? Naksu or Buyeon? Am wondering if the start of episode 5 is going to jerk us backwards into Jang Uk’s sudden realisation that it was Buyeon he was interacting with. I’d like for him to actually soften towards Buyeon despite keeping the memory of Naksu though. 

Question - is it really so that no one knows what adult Naksu looks like? Surely Park Jin and the posse of mages who dealt her the final death blow would be able to recognise her when they see her, right? None of them were in the Unanimous Assembly? 

3 hours ago, Tofu said:

Why did the first Naksu stab Jang Uk? 

She was under Jin Mu’s control through a spell. I’m afraid once he realises that Buyeon is Naksu, he’s going to try to invoke that spell again. 

Loved last night's episode again! But I'm also realising maybe I should spend this afternoon rewatching some episodes of Part 1 too. 

I reckon I'm getting a better understanding of this issue with Naksu and Bu-yeon which is probably somewhat lost in Eng sub translation. The 2 souls are intertwined as @ktcjdramasuggested, though why it is that Naksu appears the stronger and more dominant is unclear. I hazard that it's because when you soul shift, you end up pushing out the "resident soul", except that in Bu-yeon's case, she being a powerful sorceress (I don't agree with the Netflix translation that refers to her as a priestess) in her own right made it impossible for her soul to be completely displaced. If you consider the saying that your "eyes are the windows to your soul", then that's why the blue mark of soul shifters can be seen in her eyes - she's still there. So Bu-yeon becomes potentially more powerful than her ancestor was because she is 2-in-1 - a powerful sorceress and mage. I think she's an embodiment of what noone imagined could happen with the alchemy of souls. The only question now is whether both souls continue to manifest as individual entities in the body through distinct memories, or whether they will eventually merge into a single being. 

@ktcjdramaHe broods well…

@ktcjdramaDon't get me wrong. I loved it too - I love fantasy and most Korean shows don't do it well, but I'm totally enjoying this. It has a nice Harry Potter "Asian" edition vibe to it. I just wish they had a more elegant explanation for why Naksu's soul was the one that survived the petrification in that sense and not Bu-yeon's. Considering how powerful as a sorceress Bu-yeon was supposed to be, I find it very unsatisfactory that suddenly her soul is just gone. Afterall, if the potential for the return of Bu-yeon's memory is there, then the soul certainly must still be alive. But if the soul is still alive, why is dormant and Naksu's is the active one? The explanation just isn't satisfactory. Not at this point anyway. I hope it will be addressed as the episodes run.

I have to say, while I found it regrettable that Jung So-min is no more, the chemistry between Lee Jae-wook and Go Youn-jung is so much stronger and more attractive. Anyone else agree with me?

How is everyone responding to the first 2 episodes of Part 2? I feel like I need to rewind and rewatch the last episode of Part 1 to remember again what happened.

So she now looks like Naksu because mum opted to keep the physical body which runs the Jin blood, but the soul is Naksu's? So does that mean the actual soul of Bu-yeon is dead? Why was it that Naksu's soul became intertwined with with Bu-yeon's to begin with, and Bu-yeon's soul is suddenly no more? Sounds like a conveninent deus ex machina to me just so we can bring in a bit more confusion to the larger community who must not know who she is. Nice that just about no one can recognise her...

I think what made this an interesting show was that it reimagined historical conditions with current thinking and attitudes, with a good degree of realism. The imagined wasn’t taken to levels of extreme possibilities where it would become unbelievable. It was progressiveness within fair reason, that if a queen of that time could do what Queen HR did, and could have the influence she had however limited it might have been, and if that influence did not come from the manipulative controls of people in the court, but from sincere and honest beliefs in the good of humanity, could Joseon have moved differently in a monarchy? I think that imagination was what made this show both intriguing and enjoyable. 

Yes, in reality, in those times, the King could not have done what he did in the end and got away with it. But it was the moral courage that kept him in his seat. He will be remembered as the “Sage King”. I did wonder if he would have self-abdicated in favour of Kang, but then they did show Kang as preferring to keep the seat warm for his nephew instead, which was also a fair direction to take. 

In those times, the Queen would not have been able to move around outside the palace as freely as she did, let alone set up a halfway house for abandoned women. In those times, cross dressing as a royal even as adulthood was attained would have been impossible, but her son managed to even send paintings back of himself living another life (which I highly doubt was possible to live in confucian Joseon). In those times, allowing a grand prince to break with tradition to marry a commoner?! Never! But all these imagined possibilities were heartwarming to watch. I do think that the central theme was probably “respect”. That was the difference in how Queen HR treated all her relationships, vs the dowager. If we all lived respectfully of others, the generations would have developed differently. Respect isn’t a new concept. It’s just one that’s not well practiced, even today. 

21 hours ago, Chocolate said:

 - The downfall of the empress dowager was an anti-climax. For all the “power” she had for 15 episodes, at the end, she really didn’t have any. How quickly she fell.

I actually thought her death was quite aptly portrayed. I had mentioned a few posts back that being who she was in the hierarchy, the only way this could truly end was to have her die by her own hands. I did wonder how it could happen though cos if this were a show that held true to the times they were in, it would indeed be true that the king would never have been able to bring his own mother down without inciting or legitimating the rebellion, especially with new knowledge that Ui Seong held actual lineage rights to the throne of the previous dynasty. 

I felt it wasn’t so much that the dowager had fallen so quickly, but she had actually hedged her bets on the wrong people. Sequentially, I think things went wrong when she thought she could control her son 100%. She underestimated the influence the Queen would have on her son and the other concubines. Once she lost that influence over the King, she lost control of the situation. I reckon she wasn’t counting on the State Councillor getting murdered by Kwon. Without him, she would lose control of the court. Then she lost control over the call to execute Hwang and Ui Seong. Had she been successful there, the rest of the court would believe she had control over the king and would still fear her.

If King had kept her in her place, she would still be able to meddle in court affairs, and would soon again amass new power and influence. But she didn’t count on her son essentially placing her in confinement. It was the humiliation she could not accept. She who was queen only for a day, had to crown herself queen in her death because she could not love being a powerless dowager in name against her daughter-in-law, queen in every way, poise and dignity. 

So I don’t reckon it was an anti-climatic end for the Dowager. It was very well thought through. And very poetic. 

Looks like it wrapped up as we expected/predicted. I feel sorriest for Hwang and son,,,

Who was the person the King reinstated into the court as official?

I started watching on Monday and am all caught up right in time for the finale. This show’s pacing and story development is quite quite good! 

The dowager is downright evil. Right to say she might just as well sacrifice her own son if it means she retains power. While King might have had the ambition to be king, I don’t think he would have wanted blood on his hand. He probably chanced upon seeing his mother being present when the previous CP was murdered and in his youth was probably too shocked to know how to respond. I’d like to believe he was still truly the best there was to be selected. 

In many ways, it did not surprise me that Il Hyeon was deliberate in his plans to seduce and impregnate Concubine Hwang. It seemed a brilliant plot twist that the one who desired to be CP really had a very legitimate claim to it. But how twisted it was that he would also be descended from the one who took away that legitimate claim to the throne by having committed treason against the previous dynasty. Was Ik Hyeon really thinking of Concubine Hwang and Ui Seong when he said he wanted to live with his mother, wife and son? Prolly. But with true fondness? I don’t know. Did he have any affection for Concubine Hwang at all? I didn’t detect it at the point of his death when he revealed who he was to her. 

I am too wondering what will happen to the Cprincess now. I hope they discover that Dowager was trying to pull a fast one on them. And how to bring the Grand Heir back to the palace? Or does royal protocol no longer allow it? I’m just waiting to see how things will end of the dowager. If she remains, the terror will never end. But the King cannot be unfilial towards his own mother unless she too is charged for treason. I feel she needs to die by her own hands for this to all settle. 

Everyone geared up for part 2?

@mademoiselle@ktcjdrama

I finally found the time to finish the drama. What a convoluted end. I think everything just got unnecessarily complicated. So Seungcheon sadly gets lost again in the unending swaps of golden spoons. There are just too many and gotten too easily too. And Juhee loses him for another 3 years - does it not get tiresome? And then Juntae is actually Hyeondo’s son? So very messy. 

@mademoiselleya rite? Much ado about nothing… that should have been the title of the show. 

Finally finished the series. The cute bits of the show was what really kept me watching. There’s really nothing intelligent about the plot. Quite the opposite. I didn’t see what was so horrendous about what Madam Yoo did that warranted such a research and intervention that could have gotten Jiho into trouble at work, or that he should have fabricated things for her. Also didn’t get why what Jamie did at the board meeting was such a huge reveal that would have taken the burden off Madam Yoo and Jiho. And then why did she leave him for that period? And when did the co-workers and boss realise she wasn’t really his wife but they were really dating? I mean yes, there was that public scandal with Haejin but didn’t it seem like the boss at least never knew? So how did they then know she had “left” him? And is she actually really the daughter of the Ina group after all? And the Ina group winds up in all of this? But why? Seemed like nothing of the backdrop really mattered in the end. There was some story in some setting with some characters. Hahaha… that was what this series felt like. 

I just find it odd, plot wise, that Jamie had not met her adoptive family once until the marriage meeting, such that she should so suddenly snap at that point. From the flashbacks it would appear she literally got off the plane and first appointment was the wedding meet. Seems sudden and extreme. She literally wouldn’t know who’s who nor would she have experienced any trauma prior for a trigger. Does anyone else feel that way about this?

Hmm… I’m still watching this show cos I want to know if Seungcheon returns to his original family. At this point, I feel Taeyong will in the long term be happier with his adopted family and Seungcheon will be more successful bring the heir of Dosin. Seungcheon needs to stay where he is too in order to protect everyone though - Taeyong was never able to get out of Juntae’s grip as the son of Hyeondo, so they seem best suited strategically where they are now. But Yeojin is really the nemesis of them all. She threatens an otherwise seemingly “perfect” equilibrium (sans the romance cos at this point, neither guy has managed to firmly establish a relationship with Juhee regardless of who they are) because of her personal greed and selfish intentions. What does it really benefit her for Taeyong to know Seungcheon’s memories anyway?
 

My guess is that Taeyong finds out who he is because of what Yeojin does, but instead of that ruining Seungcheon, both boys decide to stay where they are. Juhee realises after all that Seungcheon is the one who truly acts in her interests (than Taeyong who acts only out of an infatuation) and still chooses him in the end. The biggest loser will be Yeojin. Do you suppose her real memories will be accidentally discovered by her “father”? 

Who’s starting to find this show unnecessarily messy in plot?

@abs-oluteMyep. Just realised I clicked on the wrong forum thread link before I saw your message. Hahaha. Cut and pasted it in the write place now!