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superborbTL;DR 90% harem drama (not palace drama!) with a dash of political drama for flavor. Exactly what you'd expect from a harem drama in terms of plot twists and schemes, but I thought the pacing and some of the schemes were misses. I'd rec Minglan over this, but if you like the harem drama genre, it's an exemplar.
Premise: During the Ming dynasty, Luo Shiyi is a concubine's daughter in a respectable family. She is an expert embroiderer (and her shifu plays a major role!), but the harem politics force her into a marriage with the cold Xu Lingyi, the Marquis of Yongping. By her side are her loyal maids and eventually the love of her husband, but she faces the standard threat of the mother-in-law and concubines, in addition to the feud between the Xu and Ou families that spills over into the household.
CW for abuse of all the flavors you might expect from a harem drama. If you're genre-unfamiliar, this covers servants whose contracts can be sold, physical abuse (including that which is considered discipline and not denounced by the narrative), sexual abuse (off screen, but the results are clear, and it's more central than in some dramas), miscarriage, etc.
I started livetweeting under #superbrocade, but it quickly fell into the "incomprehensible without knowledge of the show" category, since it was all schemes haha. But I ended up watching most of the middle episodes in a frenzy once it got going, before stopping abruptly at episode 40 and having to force myself to finish. Why there? Because at a certain point the romance plotline is wrapped up, but the rest of the plot... is still going. Not quite zombie like, because several schemes are still being revealed, but the tension is missing. I think I just didn't feel any tension from the political plot, so the lack of the romantic tension that saved the early/middle schemes made me lose interest.
Honestly, if ever a drama would have benefitted from a 36 episode limit, this would be one. Tighter editing and cutting some of the weaker schemes would have been great, though who knows if that would have fixed the pacing issues. Although there was vague outline of a longer plot arc, most of the schemes felt like they'd be revealed and then solved within an episode or two -- and especially towards the end, resolved via THE POWER OF LOVE.
In the middle, there were many cute ML liking FL scenes, which were excellent, but sadly, they did not linger when it was the other way around. I suppose this fits in with the theme of how important the husband's interest is in the life of the wife/concubines. They do dwell on how hard the life of a concubine is, but often the show treads too far towards taking the justifiable anger of these women and denouncing it for my taste. Like, they show how terrible it is and give justification for why someone does some scheme and then... that's that! (I suppose this is an improvement over Minglan, where more of the women were purely good or bad,) this did mean that a lot of the women were morally gray as a result, which is nice. It really does annoy me that all potential sexual competitors with the wife must be dealt with one after the other. Though I do love the trope of the FL's petty sister as training wheels for the later drama of the concubines, [ROT13 spoiler] ohg riraghnyyl gung fbebeny ybir jvaf be fbzrguvat.
I /really/ enjoyed that they showed more of the inner life of the maids, that they got as much agency as any of the concubines did (so... not very much), and that they had their own motivations. In general, I liked that it wasn't just fluffy nonsense schemes, and there were gestures made at complex relationships. Whether it followed through completely on those gestures, less solid haha.
Also, I liked that most of the schemes are NOT based on misunderstandings in the sense that it could be resolved in a simple conversation. Some are, but I think the bulk of them are genuine motivation mismatches, where a misunderstanding has a rational basis and can't easily be fixed. Some of the schemes did make me roll my eyes from implausibility though. [ROT13 spoiler; CW rape] Jura SY jnf xvqanccrq naq gurl qvqa'g encr ure orpnhfr gurl jrer gbyq abg gb... ohg gur jubyr cbvag vf ehvavat ure erchgngvba naljnl! Kind of sanitizing for TV.
Misc thoughts:
1. The main pairing theme song that cdramas love is... really apparent here. I think four episodes in a row or something like that!
2. Really the life of a ML is to have to be able to carry the FL. Gotta have that scene or is it really a romance!
3. Interesting that only some families (like the Luos) call their daughters by their number ordering, I wonder what motivated the choice for that? It's true that this means fewer names to memorize, because from Shiyi niang's POV, she'd always call her sisters by their number, and this way it's easy to retain.
4. Shiyi niang is formally known to the outside world, after marriage, as 永平侯夫人徐罗氏 Yongping hou furen Xu-Luo shi, wife of the Marquis of Yongping, Xu-Luo clan.
Overall, this kind of harem drama I think is either your thing or... not your thing. And if it is, this is a decent watch. If you aren't sure if this is your thing, I'd watch Story of Minglan first.
Premise: During the Ming dynasty, Luo Shiyi is a concubine's daughter in a respectable family. She is an expert embroiderer (and her shifu plays a major role!), but the harem politics force her into a marriage with the cold Xu Lingyi, the Marquis of Yongping. By her side are her loyal maids and eventually the love of her husband, but she faces the standard threat of the mother-in-law and concubines, in addition to the feud between the Xu and Ou families that spills over into the household.
CW for abuse of all the flavors you might expect from a harem drama. If you're genre-unfamiliar, this covers servants whose contracts can be sold, physical abuse (including that which is considered discipline and not denounced by the narrative), sexual abuse (off screen, but the results are clear, and it's more central than in some dramas), miscarriage, etc.
I started livetweeting under #superbrocade, but it quickly fell into the "incomprehensible without knowledge of the show" category, since it was all schemes haha. But I ended up watching most of the middle episodes in a frenzy once it got going, before stopping abruptly at episode 40 and having to force myself to finish. Why there? Because at a certain point the romance plotline is wrapped up, but the rest of the plot... is still going. Not quite zombie like, because several schemes are still being revealed, but the tension is missing. I think I just didn't feel any tension from the political plot, so the lack of the romantic tension that saved the early/middle schemes made me lose interest.
Honestly, if ever a drama would have benefitted from a 36 episode limit, this would be one. Tighter editing and cutting some of the weaker schemes would have been great, though who knows if that would have fixed the pacing issues. Although there was vague outline of a longer plot arc, most of the schemes felt like they'd be revealed and then solved within an episode or two -- and especially towards the end, resolved via THE POWER OF LOVE.
In the middle, there were many cute ML liking FL scenes, which were excellent, but sadly, they did not linger when it was the other way around. I suppose this fits in with the theme of how important the husband's interest is in the life of the wife/concubines. They do dwell on how hard the life of a concubine is, but often the show treads too far towards taking the justifiable anger of these women and denouncing it for my taste. Like, they show how terrible it is and give justification for why someone does some scheme and then... that's that! (I suppose this is an improvement over Minglan, where more of the women were purely good or bad,) this did mean that a lot of the women were morally gray as a result, which is nice. It really does annoy me that all potential sexual competitors with the wife must be dealt with one after the other. Though I do love the trope of the FL's petty sister as training wheels for the later drama of the concubines, [ROT13 spoiler] ohg riraghnyyl gung fbebeny ybir jvaf be fbzrguvat.
I /really/ enjoyed that they showed more of the inner life of the maids, that they got as much agency as any of the concubines did (so... not very much), and that they had their own motivations. In general, I liked that it wasn't just fluffy nonsense schemes, and there were gestures made at complex relationships. Whether it followed through completely on those gestures, less solid haha.
Also, I liked that most of the schemes are NOT based on misunderstandings in the sense that it could be resolved in a simple conversation. Some are, but I think the bulk of them are genuine motivation mismatches, where a misunderstanding has a rational basis and can't easily be fixed. Some of the schemes did make me roll my eyes from implausibility though. [ROT13 spoiler; CW rape] Jura SY jnf xvqanccrq naq gurl qvqa'g encr ure orpnhfr gurl jrer gbyq abg gb... ohg gur jubyr cbvag vf ehvavat ure erchgngvba naljnl! Kind of sanitizing for TV.
Misc thoughts:
1. The main pairing theme song that cdramas love is... really apparent here. I think four episodes in a row or something like that!
2. Really the life of a ML is to have to be able to carry the FL. Gotta have that scene or is it really a romance!
3. Interesting that only some families (like the Luos) call their daughters by their number ordering, I wonder what motivated the choice for that? It's true that this means fewer names to memorize, because from Shiyi niang's POV, she'd always call her sisters by their number, and this way it's easy to retain.
4. Shiyi niang is formally known to the outside world, after marriage, as 永平侯夫人徐罗氏 Yongping hou furen Xu-Luo shi, wife of the Marquis of Yongping, Xu-Luo clan.
Overall, this kind of harem drama I think is either your thing or... not your thing. And if it is, this is a decent watch. If you aren't sure if this is your thing, I'd watch Story of Minglan first.
no subject
Date: 2021-05-28 13:23 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-05-28 14:07 (UTC)