Just as I was bugged by LeeYul’s willingness to close his eyes to visions of HongShim in Episode 12, I’m buggered that HongShim couldn’t see that WonDeuk was the child she met in the forest. LeeYul easily recognized her as that child YiSeo all grown-up after just spotting her once on the bridge, admiring a falling cherry blossom petal. But even after 100 days of being his wife, she did NOT recognize him as that young troublemaker she lovingly called as “fool.”

Or did she? 😂😂

Back in September 28, I had posted in another forum (which I won’t mention here) that there was a possibility that HongShim initially recognized who LeeYul was at the bridge in Episode 1. She could have rejected that notion as far-fetched when he actually appeared in front of her as WonDeuk for the first time.

It was her stumble. She stumbled when she heard the Crown Prince died.

Since I’m full of theories anyway and there’s only two more episodes left, I’ll re-post this one here.

I’ve become accustomed to this writer’s sketchy and undeveloped subplots but to me, the love story of LeeYul and YiSeo could have been better integrated if the recognition and awareness of their First Love from their childhood days had NOT been a one-way street.

We knew of LeeYul pining for the long-gone YiSeo and I would have liked it better if we knew of her missing him, too. As of now, the only time she displayed her fond memory of her First Love was when she urged WonDeuk to be a man of his word because he promised her when they were kids.

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Sept 28.

maddymappo, yes, when HongShim stumbled upon hearing of the CP’s death, the viewers were being led (or misled) to think that she knew who the CP was.

I don’t think she knew who Lee Yul was when they were kid but it is possible. This writer and this director have been trying to shroud everything “in a mystery, inside an enigma.” Lol. Unfortunately, instead of intriguing me, these ambiguities have annoyed me.

Based on the script, the child YiSeo knew Lee Chil as some rich kid trying to beat up the little poor kids in the neighborhood. The young Lee Yul had asked her, “Do you know who I am?” And she replied, “An idiot who uses his father’s position to bully other kids.”

Given her answer, she might or might not know who his father was.

However, we’re still left with a time period that’s unaccounted for. Ten years ago, she started going to the bridge to meet her big brother. (There are also six more years that I consider “lost years” because they are rarely mentioned in the plot.) If HongShim was 28 years old now, she would have been 18 ten years ago. It would have been the right time for her to begin searching for her childhood “fiancé” and to find out where he was. It’s easy to imagine her spotting him while she was on one of her trips to Hanyang and recognizing him.

Frankly though, I’ll be supremely annoyed with the writer if she/he gives us a flashback of HongShim discovering the young boy had grown up to be the Crown Prince midway through the show. 🤦‍♀️ However, with this writer, I’ve reaaaallllyyy lowered my standards for tolerable stupidity. 😜

But her discovery of his identity as the CP would perfectly explain why she startled when she saw him and began running away from him in Episode 1.

Didn’t you find her reaction back then strange?? I did. It didn’t make any logical sense.

It wasn’t normal behavior to a) freak out because a “stranger” was merely looking at her, b) start running as if the devil was chasing after her and c) hide under the bridge as if she had something to hide from him.

Why would she do that? Even if she was a shy maiden, she didn’t have to dash across the bridge to get away from him. 🤦‍♀️😂 She acted guilty…or scared. Her peculiar reaction then suggested that she knew she could NOT encounter “that man” on the street because he posed a DANGER to her. Hence she fled and escaped from him.

However, if she recognized Lee Yul as the CP walking with his childhood friend and bodyguard, back then at that bridge encounter in Episode 1 — mind you, at night, and from a distance — then how come she didn’t recognize WonDeuk as the CP up-close and in the middle of the day when he approached her when she was being publicly flogged in Episode 3?? Why did she accept her father’s tales that this fool of a man was WonDeuk when she recognized him as Lee Yul, the Crown Prince? Why was she making Lee Yul do all the menial jobs in the village? To teach him a lesson? To torture him? As payback?

See the incongruity? The script does NOT line up correctly but I’m keeping my patience for now….