Part 4, last installment (I’ll have to reserve the poison post for some other time.) By now, my faithful eight followers and readers must be exhausted by all my posts. Tough, girls!

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12. Lee Yul

Although this whole Episode 12 showed us Lee Yul’s adjustment to palace life, the few moments when he imagined HongShim in front of him were the few times I saw him struggling to settle in. For the most part, he seemed to have adapted to his “new normal” like a duck to water.

To be quite honest, I initially felt resentment. He looked FINE while my girl HongShim was going through the stages of grief.  I thought there was an inequitable distribution of tear-jerking moments and suffering, and HongShim bore the brunt of it.  The instant she woke up in the strange hut, she was running back to the village to fetch him and her father. When she discovered the truth about him, she looked like she’d lost her spirit to live. She didn’t want to eat and she didn’t want to revert to her “old” name either.

Note: I think she minded being called YiSeo by her brother because she no longer identified herself as YiSeo but as HongShim. YiSeo was a name from her childhood days, while HongShim was the name she connected with her married life with WonDeuk. She was clinging to this “new” name because she didn’t want to let go of her memories of him yet. She told Mooyoon as much. She said she still wished she and the Crown Prince were really HongShim and WonDeuk.

She was clearly in denial. However, when she saw her pretty shoes, her denial quickly twisted into anger. She was so angry that she hurled her shoes in the underbrush. But her anger was short-lived, too. She remembered the time he gave them to her and she regretted tossing the shoes away. She turned around to frantically search for them and broke down in tears upon finding them. This time, she was remembering Lee Yul’s promise to never to leave her. And this time, she was finally grieving for the end of her marriage and for the promise he had broken. She’s come to accept that her brother’s advice. Theirs was an ill-fated encounter.

That night in the forest was her turning point. After that, she only had to survive four more days in hiding before she and MooYoon could leave all their heartaches behind.

Meanwhile, amid the grandeur of his palace life, WonDeuk was coping stoically with his separation for HongShim. He shed no tears when she popped up in front of him at the breakfast table, and then again at the study hall. Both times, she teased him lovingly, light-heartedly.

She said she was envious of him eating his favorite meat pancake. He had to eat it (like a good child) so he’d grow big and strong. She said she was amused that she’d make him copy erotic books when his fine mind was used to scholarly books. (– lol. I commented on this in a previous review, how shocking it was to read soft-porn and Confucius.)

Those were the scenes that I resented.

It bugged me that he could close his eyes from the vision of her in front of him. We had HongShim bawling her eyes out because he disappeared. But HE simply shut his eyes and poof! she vanished.

It bugged me that he could cut her off that easily from his life. When the vision of HongShim at the breakfast table disturbed him, he ordered the food too be taken away. When the vision of HongShim at the lecture hall distracted him, he suspended all the classes.

See that? He was uncomfortable so he got rid of his source of discomfort without hesitation.

It bugged me that he had tremendous self-control, and that he was letting HongShim go. Of course, this was what I expected of him from the start. Despite my annoyance with his actions, I expected nothing less from a man of honor. Lee Yul would do his duty first. But still, I expected him to show … hmm… how do the Germans call that? sturm und drang to match HongShim’s turmoil.

And that’s what happened when he was alone that night in his room.

For the third and final time, he imagined HongShim beside him. He’d only been pretending to be busy with a book. He was suffocating in that cavernous room of his. He knew he had to move about and keep busy. He knew that was the only way he could keep her out of his mind, stop hearing her voice and ignore her vision.

This time, he imagined her admiring his grand clothes. She would have teased him, “You look amazing in that royal robes, WonDeuk.”

As soon as he imagined his name being called out like that, he began speaking. He reminded himself that he wasn’t WonDeuk. lol. Did you notice that? In the same way HongShim didn’t want her old name, he didn’t his old name either.

HongShim didn’t want to be called YiSeo because that name belonged to her past. In her new reality, she was HongShim the wife of WonDeuk. However, Lee Yul couldn’t be WonDeuk anymore because his world turned upside down. Although he too wished they could have remained HongShim and WonDeuk, he knew it was impossible.  Hence, his stern reminder to himself, “It doesn’t matter if you show up like this because I cannot go to you. I have a wife whom I married a long time ago, and a baby who is about to be born.”

His imaginary conversation with HongShin was his way of saying goodbye to his past. Unlike HongShim, he had no shoes to throw in the forest but he certainly had memories he could discard. That was what he’d been doing all day long. He closed his eyes to his visions of her. He ordered things that made him uncomfortable removed or ended. And now he was telling himself, like MooYoon told HongShim, that their relationship wasn’t meant to be. He must shut her out of his new reality. It was his final goodbye.

Lol. HongShim wasn’t saying goodbye to him. He was saying goodbye to her. And that’s why her vision faded away.

Then, just like HongShim who flung away her shoes only to regret it in the next second, he regretted his words as soon as he said it. 😂 This was his turning point, too. He galvanized into action because he realized he had unfinished task. Sure, he didn’t have a pair of shoes to weep over and clutch to his chest in a dramatic fashion like HongShim (lol. You’ve gotta love kdramas!), but he could return to their home to find her. He called for his horse and he called for his Eunuch Yang (the presumed dead) to bring his ordinary clothes.

Thus, to me, that final scene was cathartic. 👍

Unlike many viewers, I wasn’t heartbroken. When he rushed out frantically to return to their home, I wanted him to find their home woefully abandoned. I thought, “Bravo! Feel all that hurting inside, kid. Payback time for HongShim’s shoes scene.”

I wanted him to stand by the gates unaware that HongShim was just a few steps away. I wanted HongShim to hide behind that wall that he built. (hey, I did explain this wall already, right?) I wanted her to be quiet as a mouse and not move an inch. I wanted him to finally open his eyes and start looking for her.

As a matter of fact, if I were her, I would’ve wanted advance notice of his arrival so I could pile up HIS clothes, his shoes and his precious bedding, and make a bonfire for him to see.

But then again, I’m a bitch…lol.

Take that, boo. 

No more tears. No more sadness. It’ll really be interesting to see how Stella got her groove back HongShim gets her groove back in the upcoming episode. Fighting!!