A rare drama with ambition, but ultimately bogged down by cliches

I give a lot of grace to dramas that dare to tackle complexity, but for this drama, that grace gets chipped away by repeats of the same character motivations and plot-lines.

On the positive end, the drama has interesting themes - the barriers faced by women at every strata of society, the hypocrisy inherent in the concept of filial piety, the difference between loving someone and actually building a life with that person. It showed how inherently broken the imperial system was, how many women in that era viewed gaining favour with the men in their lives as their only means of agency. . Female characters are allowed to flawed and want more from life. Male leads are (sometimes) called out for their lack of respect for their romantic interests.

A special shoutout to the soundtrack of this drama. Most dramas use music in such a heavy handed way, as if they don't trust audiences to get the hint with the action on screen. But the music in this drama was appropriately used, especially in tense scenes.

But the number of characters motivated by obsessive love is exasperating. Not one, but three characters never seemed to get the hint. Or try a different strategy when their last bare brained scheme failed to pan out. Worse, those schemes were aimed at bringing the same person down. Episode after episode consisted of one character framing the female lead only to be be outwitted. And that outwitting wasn't particularly clever.

Also, I kept wondering about the inner logic of the world this drama is set in. For a story set in the imperial palace, the female lead had a lot more agency than one would logically expect. She's allowed to openly contradict members of the royal family without an automatic death sentence. Said members of the royal family also don't seem to get anything done. They seem to mostly attend feasts, plan stupid revenge/wooing schemes, while their empire falls to pieces.

I liked the bleaker lens of this drama, but someone should have showed the screenwriter a few harem dramas to crib ideas from.

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