gihwayujo
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Posts posted by gihwayujo
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Will probably make a longer post later, I don't have the time to do it right now...
But I have to say that it makes complete logical sense that Soo was in a hurry to get out of the palace (I just wish they gave us a little more hints about her sense of urgency.) She wasn't being selfish or mean. She was being a mother. She probably already knew she was pregnant (1-2 months or so?) and Yeon Hwa was a real threat. I think the series showed us that Yeon Hwa has basically turned into Queen Yoo, the very woman she despised, when she was in a bath with too many flowers and candles and trying to come up with new evil plans. You spend all your days plotting. Your children are just tools for you to gain more power. You are stuck in a loveless marriage. You trust and love no one.
Hae Soo was probably very very aware that Yeon Hwa would either try to poison her to kill her or make her miscarry out of jealousy. If that did not happen and she did end up having her child and passing away, Yeon Hwa would probably be the evil stepmother who tries to get the child adopted out of the palace like what Queen Yoo tried to do to So. She did not want her child, male or female, to be entwined in all the brutal palace politics. It makes total sense she took the first escape route she could get in order to protect her child even though it meant having the child in secret and not being able to spend her dying days with her true love. She started spurning and turning down the emperor to make it easier for her to leave, but it hurt them both even more, nevertheless. I think So suddenly realised all that and was probably aware that Yeon Hwa would stoop low enough to hurt his child in order to protect her own children. In the end it was better for the child's well being, which I'm sure he cares very much about given his own shitty childhood, and it was probably enough for him to watch the child grow up happily from a distance under Jung instead of suffering as he did.
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5 hours ago, kdramawriter said:
This is a very compelling socio-economic read of this restriction. I hadn’t thought about class at all during the show but you make a very good point. The class distinction between Wang So and Hae Su is also huge. Because even as he was discarded as a prince, he was still acknowledge as something better than the average person (to be feared, not loved but still respect). Where as HS comes from a world where everyone is equal (-ish, our world is still unfair). Wang So has the capacity to see slaves as not people, but expendable resources (he does free them later but it would not surprise me if he did not regard a slave as equal as himself) where as Hae Su always saw her slave, Chae Ryung as a person. These are wide chasms in understanding of humanity.
Thank you
it actually dawned on me because I came across the issue of Chinese foot binding today. It's about the same logic. Women with bound feet don't have to work in the fields. They are trophy wives for their husband to be proud of. And sadly that was more or less the role of women in the past. If you're lucky you come from a really good background and have something good to offer your husband. Your responsibility is to make heirs and bring them up to be good men. I enjoyed the characterisation of all the women in the series. I also find that Court Lady Oh was "the real queen" at the end of the series just like how So declared Soo his "only queen". Court Lady Oh carried herself with more dignity and respect than either of the queens every did despite being of lower birth and she was the only person the king could think about on his death bed. Despite everything, the winner was Oh and not Yoo.
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Oh, and I also realised that they passed the pregnancy and subsequent miscarriage story line from the Chinese version to Court Lady Oh instead. Was it for the sake of saving time?
It's actually not unheard of for a king to have a mistress and some illegitimate children despite having a queen. I think the same actually happened in European courts too but god forbid if a queen had a male lover. Look what happened to Marie Antoinette and the last queen of Russia, they were suspected to have lovers and were both killed (they were killed for other reasons but rumours about their supposed lovers certainly did not help their reputation and their downfall). Yeon Hwa would not be able to have a secret lover if her marriage was crap but its technically ok for So to keep Hae Soo around as a mistress and treat her like an open secret. If it was any other woman of the time she likely would have gladly accepted that position and sat in her tiny little petty room to wait for the king to come to her every night. But we're talking about Hae Soo who has very modern ideas and could not accept the idea of polygamy or being a mistress. Her policy of not making that compromise is also what's making the story extra tragic, haha. Perhaps the power struggle got to Hae Soo as well. She was starting to hope that maybe, perhaps, she could be Queen.
I also think it's quite realistic Soo is rejecting So. Perhaps she wants him to hate her so that he wouldn't be as upset if she died. (She knows she's dying soon.)-
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Some quick thoughts:
I think it's really interesting that they made the quest for the throne ultimately meaningless. Everyone wanted to get the throne because they thought they could make lives better for themselves and the people they cared for. But in the end everyone who became king will suffer. You will bear a ton of burden and you are not allowed to live a life and make personal choices. You are basically a human embodiment of the state's needs. People covet power but they forget that sitting on the throne is basically being in a gilded cage. We all grew up romanticising a prince falling in love with a girl and marrying her (Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty anyone?). But I think the demand for more "realistic" storytelling has been really trendy lately. I think Game of Thrones definitely set a huge precedent for that in the Western side of the world. The stories are usually gruesome and people end up making political marriages. In fact it was STILL happening in some form, just not too long ago. Look at Prince Charles and Camilla in the UK. They fell in love in the 70s but were not really allowed to marry each other. I could be wrong, I'm not an expert on English Royalty but I think the Queen Mother (basically, his grandmother) wanted him to marry a Spencer girl (ie: Diana's family, Charles was either going to marry her older sister or her). They get married. Have two kids. A messy divorce. Look at the King and Queen of Bhutan. Apparently the girl who was to marry the King already met him when she was a child. That's royalty and aristocracy for you.
Also I just realised today that "a woman who marries a king cannot have a scar on her body" sounds like a superficial statement todaybut it is wrapped in a lot of meaning as well. If a woman has no scar on her body it means that she had a very very comfortable life. A life with no hard labour or suffering. Because slaves like Chae Ryung would be beaten at the whim of their masters (lol Yeon Hwa). So that automatically means a king will have to marry a woman of noble birth. She probably wouldn't even fall off a horse because she'd be carried everywhere in a palanquin or walking slowly from building to building since she is in no hurry to get anywhere. There were many things that Hae Soo went through during the 18 episodes that sealed her fate of not being able to marry a king. When she stabbed herself, when she was tortured, when she became a laundry maid. That's a hard life. Yeon Hwa, despite all the hardships that she went through in her life, was still a princess who was never subject to any of that
I think So was trying very hard to fight against fate himself so he could be with Soo but ultimately lost the battle.
There has been a lot of talk about which Prince Team we are on. I find that at the end of it all. I'm actually on Team 13. I love LJG and 4 is obviously my favourite prince. But if I had to vote who had the "best princely behaviour", the one who managed to keep his head cool and make rational decisions despite everything, it was Baek Ah. He disliked Hae Soo because he had a crush on Lady Hae and thought Hae Soo was seducing Wook and would end up hurting a woman he loved. However he eventually learned that Hae Soo was not a bad person and welcomed her as a friend into his life. No one else in the series has done this okay, it's all about the grudges. He actually managed to let go of Lady Hae and managed to move on in life and found another woman to love. This guy got stabbed but no one even noticed or knew about it. They might have conveniently missed out a scene where So found out he was stabbed since Baek Ah isn't a major character but I'm going to go ahead and assume So doesn't even know about it. He just quietly kept it all to himself. Woo Hee easily could have been thrown into jail as well for stabbing a prince. Remember how everyone made such a big deal out of Hae Soo touching a prince's face? He also understood the irony that his father killed her family and her grandparents killed his grandmother's family but he waved it all off and said "anyway it all happened before we were born. who cares?" that's actually VERY progressive, modern thinking there. Someone like Queen Yoo would not be capable of that. In a way, Baek Ah also had a lot of freedom because his family lost all their power so he never really had any high aspirations to begin with. He was never expected to gain a lot of power. The older princes like Yo and Wook have powerful families and were probably expected to take up important jobs within the government. Wang Eun is actually from a powerful family (that's why they were massacred) but he kinda came across as a spoilt kid and maybe his family never really pressed him to get a "job" in the court. I suppose in the end the one who had most freedom to make life choices and romantic choices was Baek Ah. He was definitely less constrained than the rest. So yeah, much respect to Baek Ah for really being the gentleman of Songak.-
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Random thought.
But it just hit me that Soo will wake up as Ha Jin in the present day from her coma and will have amazing hanja knowledge, she will have at least university level knowledge of literature, impeccable calligraphy and exquisite tea brewing skills.
Is this how some people wake up from comas fluent in another language? They travelled to a different time/place/era
?
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17 minutes ago, may6 said:
yes they are definitely king and queen of goryeo...however YH is really a nameless person...history did not recorded the maiden name of queen daemok ,aside form the fact that she belong to the hawmbo clan ...my point is , that there are so many things that they can do with this information and twist this particular story ...have HS be adopted into the clan...or have YH died and HS assume her identity ...ect...the writer is already mixing facts here and there..they could do something with this ...but as we can now assume...that will not be the case and WS is already married to YH as queen daemok ,i will think... i guess what i'm trying to say, its not that they shouldn't present accurate historical facts...(GJ needs to be marry to daemok...) is just that they have many liberties in how it gets to be presented ....like thus far, we are made to sympathize with WS and his cause...because for the most part; it was shown in a way that we could associate with him and understand why he had to take the throne...why he had to rebel to consolidate his power....where as if they have chosen to represent him in a much darker tone we would not have been able to support him at all...who knows and maybe the real GJ was really a tyrant or a sweet guy...we'll never know...
My thoughts exactly. Earlier on (like 800 pages ago) someone had some theory that perhaps Wang Moo (who was very fond and protective of Hae Soo) or Queen Hwangbo would like Hae Soo enough to adopt her into their family (Queen Hwangbo was fond of Lady Hae, who she regarded as family and gave a promise but never kept. I was banking on the chance that Yeon Hwa might die because of some crazy botched plan and Lady Hwangbo would adopt Hae Soo to stop Wook from mindlessly going after her and committing treason hahaha). So therefore Hae Soo either becomes Wang So's second wife since she was the adoptive child of Wang Moo (therefore she becomes Wang So's legal niece) or Yeon Hwa dies and she gets adopted (therefore becoming his legal half sister) and she will marry Wang So and take the name Queen Daemok. It's extremely far fetched but it's not extremely implausible. After all, Baek Ah was going to try and get Woo Hee adopted by a good family so he didn't have to present her as an orphan girl of Hubaekje origin. Why couldn't So or anyone else around him attempt the same? But clearly the writers don't want to stretch things this far and give us the happy fairy tale ending we wanted. Haha
I'm still waiting for Yeon Hwa's karma to get majorly served to her btw. She's literally the only one who made it this far without any big sacrifice yet. She can't possibly be the only one who walks away from this as a winner. That's too much unfairness for my heart to handle.
Oh yes and Won. He's going to get served too.
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4 hours ago, glacial said:
i don't know if this has been answered, but the names like hyeonjong- wang mu - joonjong- wang yo and gwangjong , these are names only given after the death of the king, not while he's alive.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_monarchs_of_Korea#Goryeo_dynasty
Gwangjong is his king name / regnal name or "temple name" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_name). He was posthumously known as Daesung. The era name is Gwangdeok.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regnal_name. They choose it when they become king. So yes, it becomes their name while they are alive. For example, in history, Wook was posthumously given the name Daejong because his son eventually became a king (Seongjong) and I guess a king needs to come from a king. So wook became a king after his death, indirectly. haha.
In the series Baek Ah's real historical name is actually Wook too (if you look at the bath scene in episode 1). They probably just gave him the nickname or courtesy name Baek Ah to differentiate him from 8th prince Wook. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courtesy_name
You will see the same thing in European history as well (for example, Danish Princess Dagmar became Queen Maria when she married the russian crown prince and eventually became queen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maria_Feodorovna_(Dagmar_of_Denmark) ).
The same is still happening in real life. When Elizabeth of England was crowned queen, she had to choose her queen name. She decided to stick with her original name Elizabeth and became Elizabeth II. She actually did have the choice to choose something else. If her son Charles, were to become king he's not obliged to become King Charles, he actually does have the option of choosing another name if he wishes.-
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Did anyone here watch Shine or Go Crazy? (i didn't)
Just noticed that the stories have quite a bit of overlap. They both pitted 4 vs 8 (I'm not aware if there were any struggles between 4 and 8 in history). There was an advisor guy named Jimong. The female lead pops up somewhere and captures the prince's heart but dies early. Wang So ends up being stuck in a loveless arranged marriage with Queen Daemok who is known as Hwangbo Yeo Won (who are we to say the original historical GwangJong didn't actually love his half-sister? He might be facepalming hardcore in his grave right now
) . I'm aware that Shine or Go Crazy was based off a popular novel but I couldn't find any news that said MLSHR would be a adaptation of the Tong Hua novel (Bu Bu Jing Xin) / C-Drama along with some elements from Shine or Go Crazy. In hindsight it kinda does feel that the writers did take some things from that too which is slightly lame because i was just about to praise the story telling in MLSHR. I guess it wasn't so original after all ? Even though I do feel that the editing and time skips could have been handled a little better. Some parts were a little too confusing to follow.
It was heart breaking watching So marry Yeon Hwa too. I was actually hoping it'd happen after Soo dies (i already knew and accepted from the beginning that soo would die since we all know she wont appear in history) but I guess the writers didn't want to give us the easy way out of a heart breaking ending.
I'm anticipating the next episode and I hope to see what exactly Yeon Hwa would have to sacrifice herself to maintain her position. Everyone has already sacrificed something in some manner. It looks like she might be forced to fully turn her back on her brother. My mind is screaming "Yeon Hwa can't possibly be the only person walking away from this train wreck with exactly what she wanted (power) since love was never her end goal from the start."However, this is the original material from this series that I'd like to credit the writers for:
In the end Court Lady Oh was right. Men who sit on the throne end up not being able to keep any promises at all. 25 years later Gwangjong will probably die like Taejo, uttering Soo's name with his last dying breath as Yeon Hwa looks on. If anything, I did enjoy all the parallels they drew in the story. Taejo + Court Lady Oh vs. Taejo + Queen Yoo. Yeon Hwa dislikes Queen Yoo for what she did to her family but she is actually walking down the same path Queen Yoo took -- I want power. Make me Queen. Put my son on the throne. Also Won + Chae Ryung (the only hint was a glance he gave her very very early on at Wook's house.) Chae Ryung is just an uneducated and naive poor girl who managed to become a servant in a good household and who knows if Won actually liked her or just manipulated her affections and naivete paralleled with Wook and Hae Soo (after all Wook helped to teach Hae Soo how to write too). Unfortunately she was destined to just sustain a lot of beatings and be used and discarded because her only crime was to be of low birth. She had no choice but to comply with what Won wanted her to do because she was never allowed to refuse a prince. There is a lot of first love overlaps too, Lady Hae with Wook, Soon Deok with Eun, Chae Ryung with Won.
I disliked Wang Yo a lot in the beginning but he turned out to be a character I sympathised with. I like how he wasn't a two dimensionally evil villain guy in the end. Anyone brought up with a twisted mother would probably end up turning into an egoistical nightmare like Yo. In the end he just wanted her to love him too and when he realised she was just using him for power when she kept asking him to give the throne to Jung it really broke him. It was actually funny when he started to lose his mind and actually did call out his mother on how she just wants to use her kids for power.
I still have a feeling that Woo Hee isn't going to survive for long. I'm super pessimistic. She cannot keep hiding her identity as a Hubaekje Princess from Baek Ah. She's also too smart for her own good. There was one couple in the C-drama that managed to live happily ever after so I don't know if it's going to be Woo Hee and Baek Ah or not at this rate :/
Overall the whole series reminds us to just live in the present and be content People romanticise history a lot since so many pretty clothes, items and architecture come from it but people in the past were bound by so many ridiculous rules (a king cannot marry a woman with a scar! you need to marry a woman from a powerful family! women just keep getting pushed into marriages and are being expected to produce babies, ideally sons). History is bloody and it's hard work being king. I suspect Yo cracked from the stress of trying to live up to his mother's expectations of him and probably had schizophrenia as well (i'm not a doctor, but it generally tends to manifest in men in their 20s so Yo kinda does fit the profile). I think he actually did not have a grudge against Eun, his grudge was always with So. The guilt of setting Eun up and killing his entire family probably contributed to his break down more than he'd realise. In fact, we're already seeing Wang So starting to crack from the stress too but history tells us he held on for 25 years. I did some quick research and it looks like his oldest son became Gyeongjong and only lasted for 6 years. Seongjong, his cousin, takes over for 16 years afterwards. Also, Seongjong is actually Wook's son (LOL so the ultimate winner is still Wook's family???) Wook would already dead at that point by the way and he would be posthumously named Daejong.
So we should be happy we live in the modern era and have way more freedom to choose how we want to live our lives. I think the epilogue will end with that note. Everyone is reincarnated and every soul is given another chance to find each other again in another lifetime-
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not sure if anyone posted this yet, haven't had time to go through all the pages. found this while trawling through instagram today
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Not sure if anyone has posted the translated lyrics to this song yet but I nearly cried when one of the lines said "the wish that comes true when the first snow falls". Never noticed the line while watching the drama (I'm bad at listening to lyrics in any language)
And then it hit me that this song is sad but it might actually not be THAT sad in the context of the drama.
Just had a random idea that the last episode might be Hae Soo going out after she recovers from her coma and she'd walk by and notice a lot of reincarnated people, for example Taejo is a successful businessman but is rushing out to meet Court Lady Oh to have lunch with their 10 year old daughter on a Saturday. Eun and Soon Deok are university students who just started dating and they are play-fighting with each other in a cute cafe. Baek Ah with Woo Hee (chances of Baek Ah carrying a guitar and Woo Hee being a ballet dancer?). Wook with Lady Hae (and possibly, maybe a baby stroller?) Jung with a cute girlfriend. Finally she will bump into the reincarnation of So. She might fall down and yell at a guy who gets flustered and helps her up and she'll realise that it's him
and so the whole cycle of romance begins again!!! That's probably as happy of an ending we will get after everyone dies in Goryeo. I literally have zero expections of anyone living right now. Pretty sure everyone is going to die except for Gwangjong who gets a 25 year reign or something.
I have no idea whether any Yo-Yeon Hwa, Won-Chae Ryung pairing might show up in the future, it didn't seem like they had a strong enough "karmic connection" in the Goryeo era for there to be a modern day reincarnation and reunion.
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i noticed in the international version (on dramafever) towards the end of the episode when so and wook grab each other in a confrontation and the scene cuts to woo hee doing her sword dance for the king, a snippet of this song started playing (it's a really quick remixed version that uses the main riff of the classical piece haha that fades into something else) i hope it makes it's way to the official ost eventually
i really like the instrumental ost of the series.
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sorry guys, slightly out of topic here.
i decided to check out "time between wolf and dog" out of curiosity. i'm not a fan of thriller/spy flicks so i never watched it. but i thought i'd catch up on one of lee joon gi's earlier works while waiting for monday to arrive
guess who i found!
img host
it's empress hwangbo! (wook's mother) http://wiki.d-addicts.com/Jung_Kyung_Soon
this is also the series where lee joon gi acted opposite nam sang mi (female lead in joseon gunman).
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"the 4th prince has learnt much in shinju"
saw this being passed around on twitter / tumblr. thought i had to repost...
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4 hours ago, churasan said:
3. Or do you even think he will have a hand in arranging YH and So's marriage? - Maybe something like "If I can't have Soo, then no one can?" (This would ruin any chances of Soo becoming WS's first wife.)
Would he become that cruel to even forsake Soo's own happiness?
my current theory is that soo dies and wakes up from a coma in the present day. an epilogue will show so end up marrying yeon hwa much later as some kind of political truce/alliance, or maybe it won't even be shown at all. go ha jin will google it and read it off korean wiki (did not watch the c-drama but yes i went to watch the last episode of the c-drama). so therefore history did not change at all. go ha jin will either bump into the reincarnation of so outside of the theme park where the series was filmed (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baekje_Cultural_Land) or at a goryeo exhibit at a museum where they will strike up a conversation/start arguing and maybe start dating later.
i'm kinda crossing my fingers and hoping that the series will prove my theory wrong :x
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3 hours ago, frostfire said:
I never said that So had nothing to lose—your post is reason enough to show that he does in fact have a lot to lose as well.
However, the difference is that if So were ever ordered to return to Shinju, he could run away like he planned to with Hae-soo should she have wished it when they were at the beach. There is arguably some leeway there.
In the context I was speaking about, Wook didn't have a third option. If he chose Hae-soo he would be throwing his family to the wolves; if he chose his family, he'd have to give up the woman he loves.
In that same context, Wang So could draw his sword and cut down the guards that were taking Hae-soo to the noose because the only thing he cared about was her. Whatever the consequence of that action were Soo not have been spared wouldn't be at stake for him because like you said, he values her above his freedom, and by drawing the sword he had already made that choice.
If So rescues Hae-soo, and the consequence of that action been a loss of freedom or even his death, it would be worth it to him.
However for Wook, it's vastly different. Having made his choice to save his family at the expense of Hae-soo, would he be able to say it was worth it? If that were the case, he wouldn't be fighting as hard as he is going to for the throne.
i agree with @frostfire in terms of "who has slightly more to lose" here, i think wook still has a little more to lose than so. wook also does everything by the book because he's a good little mama's boy. but so is the wildcard who never had any solid parenting, he does not really adhere to the social norms and just charges in and does whatever he thinks is right.
i have no idea if it's even feasible for so to just marry hae soo and run away from shinju without being caught. he's still a prince who has been adopted out and the kangs are still pretty powerful. they have the means to hunt him down. so could probably just go somewhere rural to hide and lead a quiet life maybe, but its likely his new ambition probably wouldn't let him do that.
i really like the buildup so far. soo being extra nice and careful to so because she now knows he's going to be gwangjong and wants to try and change him or make things different (like maybe if she keeps telling him not to kill people, he might actually become a nice king who doesn't kill people or brothers!!!). now that she is really falling in love with him, she probably thinks she can keep making him a better person.
wook being forced to give up his own priorities and interests for the "greater good" of his family (remember that confucian values was a really big thing in this era: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_as_a_model_for_the_state#Confucian_thought) for someone as learned as wook, the changes he went through in this episode does fit his character even though it did feel slightly abrupt but it does not really come as a shock to me. meanwhile you have so who is not as concerned about families and power. in fact, i think wook just goes back to his "old self" from before he met soo. just stone-faced, super serious, business-as-usual, ok-what-problems-do-i-have-to-solve-for-other-people-today prince guy. it was soo who brought a ray of sunshine into his life and made him laugh, who actually did care about his well being. soo was different because she told him she wouldn't bother him too much and that she can do things for herself (compare that to yeon hwa who is also very pro-active but she tries to achieve her goals through her brother or expects him to help her with it). i think wook did truly mourn his wife's death in the end because she actually did show him a lot of love and kindness but he took it all for granted because it was her duty to do so anyway. he never really attached the word love to his wife's actions until he started seeing things from a different perspective thanks to soo, because he always felt that she did it out of duty.i also like that soo and so are both so beaten up at this point. they've gone through a lot of physical pain, one got poisoned and the other got tortured, they both bear significant scars. the events are starting to push them closer and closer together.
i'm kinda sad that there are only 20 episodes though. i wish we got 30 like the chinese version....i can handle longer story arcs ^^;!!!-
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2 minutes ago, smhelen said:
It makes a lot of sense in that version.
now i am depressed this did not happening and probably won't be happening.
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@briseis great observations! thanks for doing the research i was questioning the extent of so's fratricide myself. dude is definitely not goryeo hitler.
i'm going to be so upset if/when eun and soon deok die
they're so young and so cute. but if that's what happened in history... then there might be no escape for poor eun. if i'm not wrong eun's grandfather had a hand in helping taejo unify the nation of goryeo as well, and eun did mention consulting his grandfather when hae soo was about to be married to the king. so whether or not his grandfather shows up in the series, he is implied to be a pretty powerful man.
did anyone notice that won (9th) gave eun silver for his wedding that pun was cute...
i'm personally glad that jung has a strong enough sense of justice to realise his mother and eldest brother are power hungry and totally nutso. he's been portrayed as baek ah's antithesis in this series so far -- one prince is elegant, book smart, cultured and has good looks and the other is all brawn and not much brains, but they support each other and hang out a lot! good on you jung! i'm so proud of you.
the ending was kinda eh for me. i was hoping it didn't end in a slightly rapey kiss scene but oh well :/-
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thank you @LyraYoo and @kaiskloset for linking my posts on the front page
i just wanted to throw this in here before i forget!
haven't had a chance to go through the posts above yet so i apologise if this might be a repeat of what someone else has posted but here are my impressions of episode 8:
i thought it was interesting how the episode kinda compares jimong's attitude towards so (very encouraging) and hae soo's reaction to her realisation that he is gwangjong (shock and awe / abject horror). i think we can all agree at this point that jimong knows way more than he lets on. if jimong was originally from the future then he knows how the past plays out as well. he's been surprisingly very helpful and encouraging towards the 4th prince, trying to help him get the king's favour to stay in the palace and telling him he has to go on with the rain ritual.i also thought it was kinda hilarious that concealer and bb cream basically save so's ego and lets him carry on. it feels a little too contrived but it's honestly not too unheard of either, which is why i like it. plenty of people today go for plastic surgery to improve the quality of their lives too, we forget that plastic surgery isn't just limited to celebrity rhinoplasties, some children are born with cleft palates and need reconstructive cosmetic surgery too. and yes you do hear of a lot about stigmatised children with cleft palates whose families could not afford the surgery they need. we might think people in the show are being totally superficial about so's scar (it isn't THAT bad), yes it's a convenient plot device. but i kinda think people in history definitely would have reacted the same way to a prince who had a cleft palate for example, the show had to tone things down a little after all (notice how the scar conveniently stops at his eye? his mother could have easily stabbed him in the eye and blinded him too :/ but they decided not to go that far). and yes i do enjoy the plot device where soo and so both have significant scars on their bodies
here are some of my personal theories, feel free to debunk or refute them:
i'm going to blame everything on yo and queen yoo at this point. their attempt at trying to seize the throne will lead to a power struggle and the princes taking sides and fighting each other (this almost sounds like captain america: civil war). i think the series is pretty intent in casting 3 and the queen as the the villainous characters. not sure if there's going to be a scene where they get any sympathy or redemption of some sort (you never know!) it's interesting for them to shift what happened in history onto the shoulders of 3 just so they can make an antihero out of 4. but this is also why i enjoy watching sageuk, we need some fantasy in our lives
the preview for episode 8 makes me feel like soo gradually accepts so and eventually distances herself from wook because she thinks she can change him. she's fond of all the princes and doesn't want him to kill them (however, at this point she doesn't know exactly which princes he's going to kill). it's kind of a downer because it feels like she's going to try and do something noble for the 'greater good' and personally try to influence so to avoid a bunch of in-fighting. but maybe the preview just wants to give the audience that impression. back in the episode 2( or 3?) preview i was definitely fooled into thinking soo was riding away on a horse with wook to escape a marriage but it turns out she was with so in the actual episode
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16 minutes ago, qwenli said:
As gihwayujo mentioned, So's Chinese character also has the word sun in it. The meaning overall is one of calling. However I wouldn't put too much emphasis on their names because they were real names of the princes historically.
Haesoo Chinese name is 解树。That surname ha is highly uncommon and I wondered why they used it but now that I think about it,Hae in Korean has the meaning of Doing something.
Hence it seems to give HS an active personality of being a person who take action.
For the word Soo, they have chosen the Chinese word for tree. Again an unusual name to be used by a girl. It's interesting now that So talks about his relationship with trees. (Soo as a sound is a fav name in Korea, e.g soo hyun, soo min, soo jin)
When both hae n soo are combined, the meaning is profound, it becomes Understanding the Tree.
yeah those are real names of real people who existed but after looking at it very closely it looks like the writer of the tv series chose to characterise them based off their names a little bit. there's obviously some creative license here when they omit all the other princes (after all there're supposed to be 25 princes? pretty sure some are confirmed dead, 2 who is the first born son of queen yoo and therefore oldest brother of 3, 4, 14. the rest are probably stationed in military positions outside of the palace. and the youngest ones are likely still children so they hang out with their mothers/teachers. 10, 13, 14 and all in their 20s irl but i think they are meant to portray ages 15-19 in the series).
originally i could not understand how they managed to find enough parallels between korean and chinese history to properly adapt the story (they needed a time period where the 4th prince of a kingdom ascends the throne). although i'd dare to argue, historically, that gwangjong probably had a longer and more successful reign than yongzheng (who was sandwiched between kangxi and qianlong, two very very famous emperors). hae soo can't remember her history lessons perfectly and they usually just teach you about the famous kings in junior high so, to her knoweldge, gwangjong came after taejo even though there were two emperors in between.
also in regards to the female name name soo (tree), i'm not sure how commonly used that hanja is for girl names. but i do know someone named mi-su whose hanja is tree-
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1 minute ago, hiluna said:
I wonder if there is any significance when he told her about his tree "pat pat" which he burned for survival. A portent of what is to come?
that's plausible. he might do something that would hurt her (i can't remember the c-drama synopsis well but the 4th did deliver a punishment to ruoxi and she died not being able to see him because she thought he hated her). scarlet heart ryeo really is a lot fluffier compared to the original novel/c-drama so we really won't know if the ending will be as harsh. i think it's more than likely go ha jin has to make it back to the present day in the last episode and i have no idea how she's going to do that aside from getting herself into another life-death situation during an eclipse...
although, i kinda saw the scene as how he was just trying to tell her something lighthearted so he tried to crack a joke with tree names ("fartie" the mulberry tree...haha...). he then tried to give her some details about his life (which also means he's starting to trust her). but his lighthearted attempt did not end well since his story ended up with him burning a tree that he was kinda fond of for the sake of survival. it just shows you this guy doesn't have much fond memories in his lifetime and it's likely his interactions with soo might be the best he's ever gotten in his harsh life :/
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i'm actually poking around in the chinese wikipedia page for the drama: https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/月之戀人－步步驚心：麗
i don't know how legit the hanja provided is. i do know that kang ha neul's name does not have hanja since his name is native korean and does not use sino-korean words so he shows up with phonetic chinese chracters in chinese promos. the chinese translation could have just stuck any word to hae soo's name for the sake of creating a phonetic reading...
however...
hae soo's name...according to this wiki....
it means TREE.
解樹
*looks at @Joongier post *
if you even want to consider her family name hae...it means understanding....HAHAHA.
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i decided i'd translate the names of the other princes
i am by no means an expert but i'm trying my best here combining what i can from chinese and korean sources:
1st prince / crown prince wang mu -- 王武 -- 왕무 -- mu literally means military/war. as a name it probably means brave. interesting because taejo did mention that mu has fought alongside him for years. it's also a legit japanese name today (takeshi)
3rd prince wang yo -- 王堯 -- 왕요 -- this one is tough for me i don't know enough classical chinese to really give a good translation. i want to say it means sage / someone of high birth. which is interesting because he and his mother are all about their high birthright and are walking around thinking they're totally entitled to more power. 堯 is also the name of a very legendary emperor (this guys is from like 3000 bc...goryeo is set around 900 ad https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_Yao). so yeah it's nice to be named after some really legendary emperor guy right? maybe that's why yo has his eye on the throne
4th prince wang so -- 王昭 -- 왕소 -- his name means shining light / bright light. judging from how the word is used in chinese words, it does imply that it is sunlight...it is also used to describe the first light of the dawn, in fact
8th prince wang wook -- 王旭 -- 왕욱 -- he has explained his name for us. it means the rising sun / radiant / brilliant
9th prince wang won -- 王垣 -- 왕원 -- this one is a little odd. his name literally means wall. which has the connotation of defence (in a military way, you know, protecting the city's walls?) i had to re-watch the bathhouse scene a ton of times to catch their hanja names. this guy was working out and asking 3 to check out his muscles. so maybe he's got some military prowess??? 9 is so underdeveloped right now i'm not sure if that's going to change at all. he just seems to be the guy who's always saying slightly inappropriate things. he also seems to have a slightly better relationship with 3. which makes me wonder if that scene where the brothers were play-fighting if it foreshadows the sides that they will take in the later part of the series :/???
10th prince wang eun -- 王銀 -- 왕은 -- this one made me giggle. it means silver! he's always number 2 eh??? *raises index finger*
13th prince baek ah -- 王郁 -- 왕욱 -- 伯牙 -- 백아 -- this one made me giggle too. it means elegant, cultured. that's why he's so into poetry and art
it has a secondary meaning fragrant / perfumed. BUT PLOT TWIST the hanja is not "baek ah". the hanja reads as "wook" too. his real name is wang wook!!! i really don't know where baek ah comes from. on the korean wiki the hanja given was 伯牙 and all i could find was this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bo_Ya this guy was musician from china's warring states era (basically, somewhere in the vicinity of confucius' time period which is just over 1000 years before goryeo. just like how goryeo is about 1000 years before the present timeline if it helps gives you some perspective of time) i have no idea why they named him baek ah apart from the potential reference here. i'm not sure if this is a real historical name or if the writers chose to do so because they can't have two characters named wook (it's likely it was the writer's decision). it is likely they named him baek ah to be treated as a nickname or some other formal name (men back then had multiple names/titles. confucius had a name given to him as a child, and a formal courtesy name, and later on his teacher name etc. just like how the princes have names now but should they ascend the throne they take an imperial name. spoiler: according to history: 1 becomes hyejong, 3 becomes jeongjong and 4 becomes gwangjong.) it also gives you the idea that he is the most distant from the throne as no one really uses his real, formal prince name.
14th prince wang jung -- 王貞-- 왕정 -- it means loyal / upright / virtuous / pure / righteous. and yeah when soo saves his life he pledges allegiance to her and is loyal to a fault
hope you guys enjoyed this!
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@aine7 i agree it's a very very minor theme, it's likely we might not see any closure for go ha jin's previous relationship.
it could also be a "be careful for what you wish for" kind of thing. poor sad jilted girl gets thrown into a reverse harem where everyone wants a piece of her. now she has to fight her way out!
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@aine7 i agree. i did notice that hae soo was caught in a love triangle in her original life where her ex was in the center of it all and now she's caught in another love triangle where she is in the center. perhaps it might make her less resentful towards her ex now that she might be able to see things from his perspective maybe? forgiveness is another buddhist/karmic/east asian trope in dramas. this comes from my own personal experiences but i've been in bad relationships too (i've been cheated on twice lol) and i emotionally cheated on an ex when a relationship was falling apart, it was only then when i actually found myself in the same position when i saw that things really aren't so simple and i found it in me to forgive. maybe i'm projecting myself in here a little too much
the other trope i noticed is how she originally made an impact on people -- wook saw her as a cute little sister and her presence made him smile and laugh like never before. however towards so she originally made an impact on him because she had a nurturing maternal presence that he never received ("i hope you live well in the palace. eat well. sleep well" she said something like that in episode... 3? i can't remember it's the scene when the snow started falling) and really she was just being a normal human being ("oh you're going on a holiday? enjoy! take care!" we all say that kind of stuff) but so probably did not experience much human decency in his lifetime. i enjoy that the series plays on different perspectives and aspects of a person's character. we do exhibit different parts of ourselves to different people at different times, and i enjoy that exploration. eventually you see the reverse happening when soo comforts wook after his wife dies and how so kinda gave her the big brother speech in episode 7 in the garden including the flick on the forehead.-
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1 minute ago, KdramaSwimmer said:
@gihwayujo glad you brought up the literal meaning of hanja characters. So not sure if you can help but still puting the question-
As we saw hanja chacracter of Wook means Morning Sun . What do hanja character So and Soo means ?
oh i forgot to add the meanings! i will go edit my post now hahaha
i haven't seen soo's hanja yet so i can't tell. but so's hanja means shining light. wook literally means rising/morning sun, yes.
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it actually dawned on me because I came across the issue of Chinese foot binding today. It's about the same logic. Women with bound feet don't have to work in the fields. They are trophy wives for their husband to be proud of. And sadly that was more or less the role of women in the past. If you're lucky you come from a really good background and have something good to offer your husband. Your responsibility is to make heirs and bring them up to be good men. I enjoyed the characterisation of all the women in the series. I also find that Court Lady Oh was "the real queen" at the end of the series just like how So declared Soo his "only queen". Court Lady Oh carried herself with more dignity and respect than either of the queens every did despite being of lower birth and she was the only person the king could think about on his death bed. Despite everything, the winner was Oh and not Yoo.
I think So was trying very hard to fight against fate himself so he could be with Soo but ultimately lost the battle.
?
) . I'm aware that Shine or Go Crazy was based off a popular novel but I couldn't find any news that said MLSHR would be a adaptation of the Tong Hua novel (Bu Bu Jing Xin) / C-Drama along with some elements from Shine or Go Crazy. In hindsight it kinda does feel that the writers did take some things from that too which is slightly lame because i was just about to praise the story telling in MLSHR. I guess it wasn't so original after all 
and so the whole cycle of romance begins again!!! That's probably as happy of an ending we will get after everyone dies in Goryeo. I literally have zero expections of anyone living right now. Pretty sure everyone is going to die except for Gwangjong who gets a 25 year reign or something.
Would he become that cruel to even forsake Soo's own happiness?
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It's weird but Gwangjong will eventually have to marry his niece (Moo's daughter) who becomes the second queen. I'm sure the marriage would eventually be arranged/matchmade for BA somehow. No one has any choice in who they love in Goryeo, it's all business.