"Human Hunt"?? (#74)

[Nalbal]

Okay---is it just me, or is this whole "human hunt" thing rather hard to believe? I doubt that this really happened to DJY, according to history. Now, I'm not saying the acting in this section wasn't done well---it was kinda neat to see DJY and the camp's prisoners working together and such, but the actual incident all seems too fanastic. Did any of this really happen?? (if I even need to ask...)

[truth]

belive me, DJY has never even been in China in ther first place.

[ajk]

Yeah, and the idea that they would have brought him to China and then played these games with him rather than just torturing him and killing him...no way.

By the way, truth have they announced how many episodes the series is going to end with? It sure doesn't look like this is going to end by 100 after all.

[pip]

I doubted the authenticity of this story line. It plays like a dramatic rendition of a legend or a myth. It's heavy on entertainment and light on historical fact.
Having said that, I must add that the battle scene was well done. The dramatic tension held, too. Li Wen rendered his line about being hunted by his prey well.
The choice of two cups of wine is a classic device. We knew DJY would choose well; it is almost Solomonic in its resolution. The drama was heightened when it was revealed that there was poison in both cups. But we can see that it is only an illustration of DJY's loyalty to his king, and also a method of adding interest and intrigue.

[truth]

ajk said:

Yeah, and the idea that they would have brought him to China and then played these games with him rather than just torturing him and killing him...no way.

By the way, truth have they announced how many episodes the series is going to end with? It sure doesn't look like this is going to end by 100 after all.

no, they haven't announced how many episodes the series is going to end with but they did announce that it will be at least over 125 episodes.

[Alexa]

even though we know that this probably never happened, I still loved this episode. my favorite part was when DJY came out with his guys, waiting for the tang army to get closer, and then, BAM, here come the bamboo sticks!!!! it was awesome! his practically building his own army out there in Mt. Guifi. Now we just have to wait and see how he's actually going to escape.

[dramawatcher]

Who is to say which version of history is accurate?

Janpanese annals are notoriously inaccurate when compared against the celestial events (i.e. solar eclipses, lunar occultations, and meteors) and so are Chinese annals. So, how accurate are Korean annals created from the records of Chinese (and Japanese <= mainly modern history)? Koreans and ancestors of Machu used
alphabet-like language (similar to today's Hangul and you find a lot of Hangul-like alphabets at the old Japanese temples because peoples from Korea, Shilla, and Baejae settled there) whereas Chinese used characters. "Chinese" characters were as much as the language of communication amongst various East Asians as their own at least for last 1000 years. It not a sole domain of Chinese, as technology is not a sole domain of one people. A lot of old Korean words in Korean annals were transliterated into Chinese characters. In that process, a lot of confusion arose especially in terms of relative size and extent of Old Chosen, Kokuryu, Korea, Balhae, Shilla, Baejae, and three Hans.

Some of the posters speak of "accuracy," but little records and historical artifacts remain from Bal-hae (Dae-jin). I think arguing over the historical accuracy of the drama (see it's drama not documentary) is a moot point.

Even some of the celestial events described in Han-dan-go-gi (the most controversial old Korean history book) were identified to be accurate by today's astronomers.

Consider the case that the only remaining records of Korea, Sam-gook-sa-gi, was written by a traitor (Kim Boo-sik, he worshipped Chinese culture) and why did Japanese take literally all ancient Korean annals other than Sam-gook-sa-gi when they colonized Korea? I think the writer of this drama is using a lot of imagination to recreate the history that has been largely forgotten and neglected by Koreans. During Chosen dynasty, Pen was mightier than sword whereas in 20th century and beyond it is money mightier than pen and sword combined whereas in ancient times sword was respected as much as pen.

Everything should be understood in terms of context and circumstantial evidence (isn't that why we archaeology is so important in recreating old history?). Although the story told of Balhae in this drama is largely "fictional," I don't think that is historically inaccurate when you consider the history that learned from school might be as "fictional" as the story told in this drama.