When I first saw the number of episodes, I thought to myself, am I ready for this. You know the sad empty feeling you get after watching a very good drama. Yea I wasn’t ready for that but then again JCW made me watch it. I’m going to talk about my favorite characters. Firstly tanashiri , she delivered. Like there was no way you wouldn’t hate her character ?. In some ways I could sympathize with her feelings but not her actions. She was purely evil and wanted power like the Queen dowager. In a way it’s actually understandable, because in the palace people did what they had to do just to regain their power and rights. Even though I pitied her, I loved her ending. Then my second favorite character is JCW, and yes I’m part of the fandom. His development arc was so wonderful. His acting skills was superb.The portrayal of emotions and feelings was just wonderful. The hatred he had for tanashiri was transferred to maha who didn’t deserve it. And he regretted his actions later on .He had no one he could really call family till he met sun nyang. This explains the abandonment issues, the tantrums and everything. General banyan was another person who believed in him but got greedy. Truth is the producers made him look like an obsessed lover for the most part of the series but after finding out what Kolta did to him, it’s understandable. For 5 years, he wrote fake love letters and poisoned his mind against the woman he loved. Fed him poison, made him loose his mind. Pushed him to the extreme that he raped her thinking she was cheating on him.( I don’t support the rape) though.He had to go through a lot, carried so much pain and burden for 5 years but still despite that he never gave her up but rather he made her what she was meant to be. I read someone review saying that they weren’t meant to be endgame but if you really watched the series from the beginning. You would remember the intense chemistry or when Wang yu asked if she would like to follow torghon back to yuan and she couldn’t say anything. If she didn’t have feelings, she would have refused besides wang yu was still her master. Even Wang yu noticed the growing chemistry and was jealous ( to think she was still dressed as a man then ) ? or the scene when wang yu proposed and after thinking of the emperor. She chose wang yu because of the betrayal.
Thirdly my next character is the empress , she fought so hard for what she believed in . Wang yu was her first love but when she met the emperor. She began to like him and that made wang yu jealous. His betrayal turned her love to hate and she swore vengeance on him. In the palace, she saw another side of him and understood why he couldn’t make decisions and began to fall for him again, but at first she chose wang yu because she hasn’t forgiven him .The scene where she lost her son by falling from a cliff really broke me. You could feel the pain and frustration, seeing all the koryo women die just for nothing changed her. This sparked a new fire in her.
She was ready to fight even if it meant bringing her close to the person she liked before.
Also, I liked Wang yu but he chose his throne over her, not that I fault him though. He was a honourable man , a man of strong beliefs and fought for what he believed in. I really wished he ended up with that other lady that liked him but she died early on. His love relationship with Sun nyang was more of duty. A master to his subject kind of love. He was her first love and yes she still had that soft spot for him and that explains the sadness whenever she saw him. The thought of what could have been if circumstances were different but the emperor was her epic love. She sacrificed a lot for him , saved his life a lot of times and even took poison for him. The love they had was unfathomable yet unconditional.
The Smartest character was tal tal and I see a lot of people shipping him with the female lead but if you observe closely. They had a brotherly kind of love. A familial love, he was her support and wedge. He helped her to make smart decisions I really wished he didn’t die. Watching him kill his uncle was really sad but just made me realize he was indeed a man of his words. He fulfilled the promise he made to his uncle to kill him whenever he became like el temur.
Generally it was a lovely series in all, I liked the political moves and everything. El temur was purely evil. His dying scene sparked a lot of controversy. You would really understand why people made certain decisions, the reason that drove queen dowager and general banyan . Although General banyan was bound to become like him. Right from the beginning he never cared about Justice but only cared about the winning side. That’s why he chose to spare the emperor early on. He chose to make a bet because he believed through him, he could get the power he wanted. To el temur he was just his dog that he used and nothing more . That’s why he decided to take el temur down but later on saw that sun nyang was gaining the Favour of the emperor and high court. That’s why him and the empress dowager didn’t want sun nyang to be empress. They knew how much he loved her and knew she couldn’t be controlled.
One thing I learnt from the series is that you could have so much time yet little time. The ending was just bittersweet. Sun nyang realizing how much she loved the emperor. And the emperor realizing all those 5 years, she truly loved him, and he only believed the lies kolta fed him . At the end Sun nyang fought the battle and she suceeded.