I wanted to like this show.

I really really did. And part of me does, the part that is trying to separate my own personal feelings from the objective opinion i hold towards this show.

I'm going to just dive right in here to my objective opinion regarding the show.

OBJECTIVE OPINION:
It's a good show, nay a GREAT show even. I love sageuks and it takes a lot for me to not like a sageuk. This show did have me under the impression that it would be a rom-com-dram, but the comedy was dropped pretty quickly after the first 2-3 episodes. Not a problem, just an observation. i would much rather they drop the comedy than to try and keep it up when the tone of the show has completely changed.

The show does not hold back on its characters and it really hammers in the idea: a good king does not make a good man. Yi San is proud, he is arrogant and he is stubborn. Born to privilege and with it coming certain obligations, Yi San is not under any impressions that he wouldn't make a good king. He has good intentions, and you know his actions stem from a good place within his heart, but time goes on and you think: how can a man be a good leader if he's not a good man? Perhaps the two are not so interconnected as one would think, but you see YS as a man who wants to help the people, but he is selfish, he is greedy and wanting and perhaps it is as a result of his upbringing - denied a father, abandoned by a grandmother, all but ignored by a mother and abused by a grandfather, there is little love in his life and he would be starved for it if he knew what it tasted like.

Enter stage left: Deok-im.

I loved the plotline of her not knowing he is actually the crown prince and was very disappointed when they abandoned that very early into the show because it would have been a way to establish a foundation for friendship the way Love in the Moonlight had. But she has this information pretty early so whatever was placed down as a foundation for friendship is too weak to withstand the weight of knowing so it cracks and crumbles to nothing. Where Deok-im used to call him out and stand up to Yi San, now she is meek and obedient like all other palace maids. She does not talk back, she does not stand up to him or call him out on his behaviour. She exists only to serve and she does so because there's nothing else in her life she can control.

And this is what drives Deok-im: she will control whatever she can, what no one else can, be it her heart or her thoughts or the way she reads and writes, they will not take these from her. She will obey in every other single aspect of her life, but she will control what little she can because if she can't, then she may as well not even be alive. But as time goes on, that list of what she can control grows smaller and smaller until there is nothing else left except her heart because YS wants every single part of her, parts of her Deok-im cannot bear to part with.

Deok-im is the mirror image of almost every young girl in the world at this time: she is subject to the control of others. She cannot marry because she serves the royal family, her body doesn't even belong to her as court ladies all belong to the king, she cannot leave the palace whenever she wants, and she cannot even speak her mind for fear of punishment or death. But the one thing Deok-im can control is her feelings and she will always control her heart even if it means hurting herself or others. She calls it a small act of rebellion, to never tell YS she loves him in return even knowing that it hurts him, even knowing that it hurts her. Because YS has effectively taken all other aspects of freedom from her - his love is suffocating and he doesn't see it. He is unable to understand DI and why she does not want to be with him, he believes that her choosing her freedom over him means she does not love him at all, not seeing it just means she cannot give up herself to give to him.

Despite this, YS still makes her give every part of herself to him and he selfishly holds onto her even after her death. His love is shown as possessive, as controlling and greedy and smothering - he wants DI all to himself, to deny her to even be free because to be free means to not be with him.

I put off watching the last episode for a long time and it was like a bitter pill watching it. I don't even think i can say it was bitter sweet, nor can I say that it made me feel that the emotional constipation was worth all these episodes.

Which leads us into:

PERSONAL OPINION:
I didn't like it. I really didn't like it. I normally don't care about shows being, how you say, emotionally nihilistic but this show really took the cake. As I said, the show completely abandoned the comedy in favour of the more serious tone which I commented on being a good choice, but now we're left with constant plotting and scheming and emotional conflicts left, right and centre. It's exhausting and frustrating, I don't even have the energy to explain it.

The romance I felt was poorly executed because they did not take advantage of the plotline of DI not knowing YS was the crown prince. They should have held onto it a bit longer to establish a realistic friendship because what we were left with was not a friendship - it was a servant obeying the whims of a master and that master desperately trying to chase after that earlier friendship they had but knowing it was gone. I could never fathom WHY DI fell in love with YS; he wasn't funny, he wasn't kind, he wasn't exactly oozing with charisma. He certainly wasn't boring, that's not what I'm saying at all, but how he acted towards her made him just... there wasn't nothing to like about him. It's even shown that she still sees him as the man he was before she found out he was the crown prince, and perhaps she continues to hold onto that because the real YS is unlikeable at best, and detestable at worst.

At least on YS's end it's evident why he loves DI so much, even if he portrays it poorly. Because YS is a great Crown Prince and becomes a greater King. He's just not a good man to DI. He's a selfish lover and he dismisses her own agency because he wants her all to himself, he is physically incapable of understanding why she cannot love or be with him and ultimately the only reason they do end up together is because he gives her a harsh ultimatum.

Deok-im just felt like a side character in her own story most of the time. Maybe it's to reflect the fact she isn't even the main character in her own life, let alone a side character in the lives of others. But it seems that even despite wanting to live as herself and have freedom, every single thing she does is for the Crown Prince. Every major action is done to aid the Crown Prince, the only thing she really does for herself is deny saying that she loves him.

God, and let's talk about that shall we? Because as I said, I really could not buy that DI loved YS, like at all. There were times i even doubted she did until another character was like "you love him, don't you?" and she would nod and say yes but I would be sitting there like "??? You do?? Since, uh, when?" The best I can describe DI is that she is passive, she doesn't go and kick ass or cross dress or get up to shenanigans. She just doesn't really do much besides help the Crown Prince and... well that's it. It feels as if she exists only for him and it feeds into YS's feeling that he deserves her, that he almost /owns/ her.

And by all intents and purposes, he did own DI. But he never could own her completely. And I can't help but think: would he have felt that he needed to resort to force if DI had simply tried to explain to him her feelings? Because there is NO communication between these two. Perhaps it's the show trying to say "ohhh look he loves her so much he's desperate to have her in any way he can" but it just doesn't work. DI can't even articulate her feelings to the man she loves apart from one instance that I'm trying hard to recall. I believe it was her saying that she did not love him and that her life as his concubine wouldn't be happy because she would deny him his """right""" as the king and she would be sent away to live the rest of her life alone and in humiliation. But the two can't even TALK to one another about this because DI never bothers to corrects YS's assumptions about her feelings, thus leaving YS to believe he's right and he just bulldozes over DI with his assumptions.

There's no common ground, there's no equality. YS can take whatever he wants from DI and she is helpless to stop it. DI's love for him feels shallow and at time non-existent and for half of the show, i genuinely thought she didn't have any feelings for him at all.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
I trudged through 17 episodes and I came out feeling absolutely nothing. I didn't cry at the ending because I knew the show has based on history. I didn't laugh or cry for like the last 10 episodes at all. The show was exhausting, that's the only way to put it - it would have been better if it abandoned the romance altogether because it was the source for all of my frustration. There are times the romance felt forced or out of place, and it's no fault on the actors, they did the best they could with what they had.

It really felt like the show almost forgot about the romance for the first half of the show and then realised they had another 5 episodes with no bad guys or plotting so they needed something to keep the show moving along, in that the romance in the beginning existed as plot for the second half of the show but because they were too focused on the first half of the show, they forgot about the romance until they needed it.

All I can think of to round this up is: Scarlet Heart did the tragic romance better and if that is what you're looking for, pick that show instead of this one instead.