I loved this show, okay? I waited eagerly for every episode, I laughed, I cried, I put it down into my "all time favorites." I was so ready to give it a 10 rating. And now I don't think I can ever re-watch it after how the ending completely ERASED and NEGATED the journey of the first 19 episodes. Much like how Game of Thrones Season 8 managed to destroy the previous masterpiece seasons, the ending of this show—literally the last thirty minutes—managed to completely unravel and make the previous 19 episodes utterly meaningless. Utterly pointless. Spoilers ahead:

This ending is garbage. Pure fucking garbage. I don't understand how ANYONE can like an ending like this without completely deluding themselves. I'm mindblown at the amount of ppl going "it was a great ending, it tied everything up!" HOW? The person who the king fell in love with and the person who ends up with the king are TWO COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PEOPLE. The king will live the rest of his life with a lie, with a person he never spared a second glance to before in his life. Bong Hwan will live the rest of his life knowing that history could be changed and yet someone ELSE got to live and love the man he fell in love with.

This whole drama, we followed BONG HWAN'S story, his growth, his fears, the way he progressed as a character, the way he fell in love with the king. Yet in the end, Bong Hwan was nothing but a stepping stone for So Yong to take his place. His journey and character growth became nothing but a means to someone else's happiness.

I don't think people understand. This isn't a happy ending. The one who the king fell in love with (bong hwan) is NO LONGER THERE. He's left with nothing. So yong, a complete stranger to us, is the one who gets the happy ending. Bong Hwan, who actually experienced everything with the king....becomes a side character to his own story.

This was one of my favorite dramas of all time, but this ending managed to erase every bit of rewatch quality for me. It erased every meaningful interaction between our leads bc at the end one of the leads is ERASED and replaced by someone who experienced NONE of what made those two people fall in love with each other. It feels like a slap on the face for everyone who rooted for the actual relationship between the Mr Queen who we came to love and know and the King.

If they wanted to have the ending be with the real So Yong and the King, then they should have had So Yong as the main character. Not Bong Hwan in her body. They could have played with the "they are each other's reincarnation" theory or the "the two people fused into one mind" theory. Anything would have been better than this farce. The king fell in love with the Mr Queen who was strange, wacky, a modern thinker, a feminist, liberal, a little bit crazy. The Mr Queen who walked like a man and who taught him strange words, the one who told him that he was a good man and a good king, the person who helped the king find faith and hope in the nightmare he was living. That was all Bong Hwan. Not So Yong.

And everyone seems to be ignoring that So Yong is now literally doing what Hwa Jin did to Choel Jong lying about who she really is and pretending to be someone else. We all hated Hwa Jin for lying and trying to replace the Queen, but now what? The same thing is happening, but because it's the original woman we're supposed to applaud for it? Think it makes everything fine? Insanity.

I can't help but think that the people celebrating this ending and saying that it's better that So-yong, the woman who the king did not fall in love with, got to be with the King over the man who he did fall in love with are closet homophobes who would rather have a completely different female character end up with the king rather than the man who was at the heart of this show. At the very least, the show producers probably thought that. This whole show feels like one massive queer bait and the ending hurts more than I can say.

"The thought of both Bong-hwan and Cheol-jong going through life with a gaping whole in their hearts longing for something they will never have again just kills me." A comment I read that I can't help but agree with.

The first 19 episodes would have been a clear 10/10. If only the last episode hadn't completely negated those 19 episodes. If only.

I haven't felt so devastated since Game of Thrones Season 8. It feels like a slap on the face after all the feelings I and other viewers invested in this story, in BONG HWAN's story, only to be paid dust.