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Post by ajk on Feb 3, 2024 0:37:55 GMT -5
Gonna call an audible here and postpone this episode until next weekend. KKW won't be airing episodes next weekend because of special Lunar New Year programming on KBS. So I'll watch this one--it's the final episode--next weekend to fill the gap, and take the extra time to wrap things up.
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Post by ajk on Feb 9, 2024 10:17:08 GMT -5
This thread is just for Episode 34. I’ll do a separate final-thoughts thread for the entire series. Overall this one was excellent. I wish they all had been this good! Starting right from the beginning--finally in this episode, as we listened to Youngjo’s thoughts, we get some reference to Sado’s “acts of depravity” and his killing of numerous palace staffers and others. We saw very little of this in previous episodes--just the one sparring partner he killed by mistake. Frankly I was a little surprised that they even mentioned all of it at this late point, because if you don’t know the story already then you wonder why it was so avoided. But we’ll get into that in the other thread. Kim Han-koo: “In the past, Prince So-hyeon was deprived of his royal status and his children followed.” If anybody wants to know that story, it’s here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Prince_Sohyeon#:~:text=Crown%20Prince%20Sohyeon%20(소현세자,King%20Injo%20of%20Joseon%20Dynasty.&text=Sohyeon%20was%20a%20hostage%20in,concluded%20after%20War%20in%201636. LH’s scene with her father was a high point of the episode. It was well written and the actress has done a consistently good job throughout the series. One thing that surprised me, not so much in a good way, was Youngjo finally putting the pieces together in his head, too late. He correctly pointed the finger at Kim Sang-ro...but then you wonder if he’s going to do something about that? If he holds Kim even partly responsible then shouldn’t Kim be arrested and executed? Especially the way that the story was written in this version with politicians being so influential, you’d think that if Youngjo understood this then he’d take action. That was a strange thing to give us and then just leave us hanging with no resolution. (click for full size) Dude, your sister dealt with it just like they did. I think they made a wrong call on that, Mistress Moon smirking and laughing about Sado’s death just like she had played a trick on the palace women. She wasn’t part of this final section of the story so they should have just left her out of the episode entirely. (click for full size) On the other hand, give the producers and writers big-time credit for one good decision: we didn’t get any screaming, crying, traumatized kids. They easily could have played that card, but they didn’t. They brought Sado’s kids in at the right time and in the right way. This could have been in very bad taste, like we’ve seen in too many other series. Round of applause for this; I complain about it all the time so I sure appreciated the restraint they showed here. ■ Prince Sado. His penname was Sun. He was the second son of the 21st king of Joseon, King Youngjo. He was born in the 11th year rule of Youngjo and died in Youngjo’s 38th year rule at the age of 28. Lady Hye-kyung bore Prince San, to be King Jeong-jo, and Princess Chung-yeon and Chung-sun. Princes Eun-un and Eun-shin were born by Prince Sado’s mistress, Lady Im. Prince Eun-jun and Princess Chung-gun were born by Lady Park. He was the father of 4 boys and 3 girls. Prince Sado died on the 20th of May, but the day of his death was recorded the day after because it took so much time to confirm his death removing the nails and the rope and carrying his body to his shrine. Mourning was carried out on the morning of May 21st, known to be his official death day. People called him the Wooden Cage King. Why did they call him that? People regretted that his dreams were frustrated as a victim of party strife. That was why they called him that. All this happened about 240 years ago. Wasn’t sure how much of Sado in the box we’d get, and wasn’t sure that it would be handled in good taste. We got more than I expected and it was better than I expected. Maybe a little too much of it but you can argue either way. And his dying as he recalled the poem his wife had recited to him a while back, that was terrific, very touching. The whole thing was handled very appropriately, with just the right touch. Even Youngjo coming and seeing the box the one time, and then his hesitating for just a moment as he left. You can find plenty of faults in the series but not this episode. One of the best in the series, maybe the best.
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Post by 𝔰𝔢𝔞𝔫𝔪𝔞𝔠𝔩𝔞𝔦𝔯 on Feb 9, 2024 15:55:23 GMT -5
People called him the Wooden Cage King. Why did they call him that? People regretted that his dreams were frustrated as a victim of party strife. That was why they called him that. I find that extremely hard to believe. I thought it was pretty obvious to the writer why they would have called him that. That being said, while searching up about this I found out he's now a famous spirit in Shamanism, known as the Spirit of the Rice Box King (뒤주대왕신)
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Post by sageuk on Feb 9, 2024 16:24:21 GMT -5
This episode was my very first exposure to Crown Prince Sado being put in a rice chest when I came across this episode on 2010 on YouTube, though I didn’t see it in its entirety.
Sometime after that was Yi San and I realized it was covering the same event albeit from a different angle.
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Post by ajk on Feb 10, 2024 16:11:20 GMT -5
Yeah trying to spin that nickname away was kind of silly. There was a definite effort throughout the series to hold back on the uglier aspects of Sado's story and soft-pedal it.
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Post by sageuk on Feb 12, 2024 0:16:08 GMT -5
If it makes you feel any better, Jeongjo, Sado’s son, got to have revenge against the Moon family
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