14 Comments On “The Prisoner of Beauty: Open Thread”
ibisfeather
I wept like a baby in ep.5 when QM and her maids were left outside in the pouring rain for three days. That is when I first knew I would love the show.
When I realized I was sitting through the opening credits every episode again, I knew I was completely done for.
WS’ Mom still hasnt completely redeemed herself in my eyes.
(Not sure how to handle spoilers in an open thread..just in the first few eps?)
For now, just write the Episode number on top of your post before the spoiler. That way, readers can decide whether to continue reading your commentary or skip it till later.
I don’t know how many other posters will join you. If there’s a bunch of you, then I can start separating threads, i.e., Eps 1 to 6, Eps 7 to 12, and so on.
EPISODE 5
Yes, the rain scene gave us viewers just the right amount of heart twinges. I admired QM’s patience and rationality. She assumed that he was delayed in calling them inside the gates because he couldn’t settle the in-fighting among relatives about her joining the clan. If I were QM, I would have been reading the riot act if I were made to wait outside — without water or food! — for more than an hour.
His relatives be damned.
I admired her servants, especially the chubby one, because they got soaked when they went out to pull the tarps down and yet, by some miracle, they didn’t catch a cold. 😂
I was annoyed with his generals. They should have been horse-whipped for inaction. Couldn’t they have done something to make the ladies comfortable in that tiny wagon?
But the sadistic streak in me enjoyed very much the escalation of miseries for QM. First, it was the deluge of rain. Next came her fever. Then the eviction and the letter of divorce. And then, there’s the face of scheming cousin who had refused QM entrance to the city in the first place.
To top it all, the chubby maid begged the generals, on her hands and knees, to rescue her mistress QM and the generals didn’t budge. Her reasoning was on point, “Even if the Lord Wei intends to divorce her, he should not let her die because of it.”
We could sense that things were about to fall apart because there was just chaos everywhere.
Naturally, WS’ entrance — in a flowing black cape, with lights shining behind him, and on a galloping horse no less — made him look like the avenging hero of our dreams on his way to rescue the gravely ill heroine.
Oh, the drama! 👏👏👏👏
Fern
Episode 5.
I found it a stretch to believe that WS wouldn’t know that the women were out there, because there would have been a buzz around the palace and his advisor, who is kind hearted, would have said something. But we needed the drama at the end to drive home his rescue and the subsequent scolding of his mother (who can’t and won’t read the room because she is silly and selfish) and the foster-daughter. Strike one for those two!
@nrllee and I mentioned this in the other thread, “Heavenly Ever After” and I think it bears repeating here.
The way we see it, great kdramas and cdramas have persuasive elements in them. The Greek philosopher Aristotle listed ethos, logos, and pathos as three key elements of persuasion. That is, for us viewers to be persuaded — or convinced — to stick around for hours to watch a series, the story should have:
Ethos: the characters (the lead characters and/or the narrator) must be credible, authentic, and/or trustworthy. It’s easy to watch a heroine who starts off as naive but along the way becomes sophisticated, hardened, even cynical. But it’s difficult to watch a madwoman (say, Mr Rochester’s wife in the attic) portrayed as a heroine, trying to convince us that she’s right in her mind and actions, while the rest of the world is crazy.
In this particular Cdrama, it’s easy to like QM (or Man Man) because she’s sensible in her approach, convincingly so. She has every reason to fear and hate WS because of his vengeful, destructive bent. But she tries to find a chink in his armor so she can save her world. This is her bravery at work. That’s the reason I stuck around after Ep 1.
Logos: The story must have logic, or a modicum of it. I can suspend my disbelief for some time, but it’s taxing on my brain cells to set aside my critical thinking for hours on end just to view a show.
So, the 3 day, 2 night exposure to rain of our female lead was doable for me because the whole scene really took only about 20 minutes of playtime. Had it stretched to an hour, I would’ve skipped or fast-forwarded it.
I admit though that when we were told of the elapsed time, it quickly registered on me that no woman could pee outdoors in the pouring rain so how could QM and her maids survive 72 hours in their carriage with full bladders?
I’d like to think that WS was so caught up with work issues that he forgot about his new bride. After all, he’s been a bachelor all his life, fighting in the battlefields, so he wasn’t accustomed to checking in on the health and home life of a family member. And to his credit, he did assign the task of welcoming QM home to his cousin.
At any rate, this rain incident made a nice contrast to future episodes when he would leave work to come home and have meals with QM. He was being “domesticated.”
Ethos: The story must have emotional appeal to compel us to stick around. Unfortunately, for many cdrama and kdrama enthusiasts, they’re only focused on the ethos of the story. 😂
Kate
Great that this show is being discussed. Thank you @Packmule. I am enjoying your commentary.
Ever the impatient viewer, I have finished the show and this discussion will allow me to enjoy afresh and enjoy moments I missed too.
The chubby maid is well known in China for her regular role on the Hello Saturday variety show. She’s a name in her own right and her presence in the cast also signals the contemporary touches in the plot – some very knowing ‘meta humour’, for instance.
Episode 6 SPOILER meets Take Note
For fans of Moon Lovers Scarlet Heart (both the Chinese and Korean versions) there is a brief nod to a famous scene with a cape in the rain. In this show it involves chubby maid and chubby General. It’s in the first 4 minutes – watch from 3′ 19′. Blink and you miss it – but it is there! There are other modern day cultural references scattered throughout which create that wry/knowing distance from the historic context.
ibisfeather
@packmule3, What follows may sound didactic — my background is in classical studies (history and poetry rather than philosophy) but believe me, I have forgotten most detailed knowledge at this point. For me its just fun to dive into using big-concepts as a common language.
Yes, pathos is what hooks c/kdrama viewers — they often get it confused with ethos and make comments about the believability of characters which only demonstrate their limited experiential knowledge.
Just wanted to say about ethos — it is also connected to communal ethics/community beliefs, esp. in cdrama. I love that the question ‘what makes a great ruler’ is as powerful for judging cdrama as pathos is for kdrama. I call it my secret greedy pleasure because it takes a lot of reading of real Asian ‘advice to the ruler’ texts to automatically use confucian/or sometimes modern ethical questions as one of the keys to enjoyment.
Have been talking to monmor abt some of the delays in the romance storyline. I opined that we are constantly being diverted from the marriage’s consummation so as to admire the ability of our pair to fit in any kind of intimacy in between the pressing issues of rulership, and that that clear understanding of those responsibilities is part of the ‘virtue’ QM so clearly demonstrates.
I saw that scene when the chubby General covered the chubby maid with his cape in a sweet attempt to shield her from the rain and I knew instantly that it was an homage to Moon Lovers. 😂😂
But all I could envision was skinny IU and skinny Lee Joongi because I never saw the original cdrama.
Thanks for the tidbit in the chubby maid’s meta references. Will keep an eye out for them (not that I know much about Chinese humor 😂😂).
monmor
@Ibisfeather , pm3 I am enjoying your exchange about logos, pathos, and ethos.
I posted over on the first impressions thread but maybe it would have been better here?
🙂 Methinks that corollary to the question “what makes a great ruler” is “what makes a great commoner or citizen.”
I notice that in many of these pseudo-historical romances (what’s the equivalent of “sageuks” in cdramas?) the citizenry is often depicted as
a) simple folks have simple wants, i.e., give them food and shelter, and they’ll be obedient and passive masses,
b) simple folks don’t seek upward mobility in society or an upgrade in material possessions.
c) simple folks can’t come up with their own solutions to the problem and must rely in benevolent rulers to fix them.
Take for instance the drought and famine in the Rongjun (Episode 11 onwards). Although it’s admirable of QM to take the lead and look for an alternative grain that’s drought-resistant and has higher yield, I find it odd that the people themselves weren’t clamoring about their situation, demanding solutions, and/or coming up with their own ideas. There’s this passivity — or passive ACCEPTANCE of their conditions — and reliance on big government to fix problems and provide for their needs that I *personally* disagree with.
In this sense, I see propaganda in the cdramas and “culture molding” of the unwary viewers.
I am vey much enjoying this drama despite my initial hesitation about his seeming like a violent character.
@Fern I love her character- so thoughtful, considerate, strategic and able to take charge.(and sassy). It has been fun to see his befuddlement!
Episodes 29-31
It is an interesting question whether to burden/ Ask for Help from her cousin. I think I would have out of desperation for my husband. The female lead though Is measured and thoughtful. She deals with the situation by relying on herself. That took a lot of personal strength and intelligence. And the willingness to slog through the wilderness in a long dress!
It feels like Viki is purposely frustrating me😁. There are 2 episodes today for me to watch, though so that is good.
ibisfeather
@packmule3 totally agree on the history cdrama culture molding. Passive citizenry who need to be led. sageuk feels more nuanced in some dramas, altho in the weird way that fantasy reflects and objects to current realities. Will stop there with politics.
Kate
@Packmule,
Fab that they did that with the cape scene eh?!
I like the way the ‘meta humour’ is so lightly signalled (rather than with the heavy use of comedy incidental music). Other characters/scenes have these ‘throw away’ moments too which you will no doubt pick up on.
Thinking of IU there is a brief little dance in one scene that made me think of her birthday party dance for the youngest prince in Moon lovers! Similar humour – although I doubt the writer was thinking of that particular k-drama.
I wept like a baby in ep.5 when QM and her maids were left outside in the pouring rain for three days. That is when I first knew I would love the show.
When I realized I was sitting through the opening credits every episode again, I knew I was completely done for.
WS’ Mom still hasnt completely redeemed herself in my eyes.
(Not sure how to handle spoilers in an open thread..just in the first few eps?)
@ibisfeather,
For now, just write the Episode number on top of your post before the spoiler. That way, readers can decide whether to continue reading your commentary or skip it till later.
I don’t know how many other posters will join you. If there’s a bunch of you, then I can start separating threads, i.e., Eps 1 to 6, Eps 7 to 12, and so on.
EPISODE 5
Yes, the rain scene gave us viewers just the right amount of heart twinges. I admired QM’s patience and rationality. She assumed that he was delayed in calling them inside the gates because he couldn’t settle the in-fighting among relatives about her joining the clan. If I were QM, I would have been reading the riot act if I were made to wait outside — without water or food! — for more than an hour.
His relatives be damned.
I admired her servants, especially the chubby one, because they got soaked when they went out to pull the tarps down and yet, by some miracle, they didn’t catch a cold. 😂
I was annoyed with his generals. They should have been horse-whipped for inaction. Couldn’t they have done something to make the ladies comfortable in that tiny wagon?
But the sadistic streak in me enjoyed very much the escalation of miseries for QM. First, it was the deluge of rain. Next came her fever. Then the eviction and the letter of divorce. And then, there’s the face of scheming cousin who had refused QM entrance to the city in the first place.
To top it all, the chubby maid begged the generals, on her hands and knees, to rescue her mistress QM and the generals didn’t budge. Her reasoning was on point, “Even if the Lord Wei intends to divorce her, he should not let her die because of it.”
We could sense that things were about to fall apart because there was just chaos everywhere.
Naturally, WS’ entrance — in a flowing black cape, with lights shining behind him, and on a galloping horse no less — made him look like the avenging hero of our dreams on his way to rescue the gravely ill heroine.
Oh, the drama! 👏👏👏👏
Episode 5.
I found it a stretch to believe that WS wouldn’t know that the women were out there, because there would have been a buzz around the palace and his advisor, who is kind hearted, would have said something. But we needed the drama at the end to drive home his rescue and the subsequent scolding of his mother (who can’t and won’t read the room because she is silly and selfish) and the foster-daughter. Strike one for those two!
Episode 5, but can be general, too. 😂
@nrllee and I mentioned this in the other thread, “Heavenly Ever After” and I think it bears repeating here.
The way we see it, great kdramas and cdramas have persuasive elements in them. The Greek philosopher Aristotle listed ethos, logos, and pathos as three key elements of persuasion. That is, for us viewers to be persuaded — or convinced — to stick around for hours to watch a series, the story should have:
Ethos: the characters (the lead characters and/or the narrator) must be credible, authentic, and/or trustworthy. It’s easy to watch a heroine who starts off as naive but along the way becomes sophisticated, hardened, even cynical. But it’s difficult to watch a madwoman (say, Mr Rochester’s wife in the attic) portrayed as a heroine, trying to convince us that she’s right in her mind and actions, while the rest of the world is crazy.
In this particular Cdrama, it’s easy to like QM (or Man Man) because she’s sensible in her approach, convincingly so. She has every reason to fear and hate WS because of his vengeful, destructive bent. But she tries to find a chink in his armor so she can save her world. This is her bravery at work. That’s the reason I stuck around after Ep 1.
Logos: The story must have logic, or a modicum of it. I can suspend my disbelief for some time, but it’s taxing on my brain cells to set aside my critical thinking for hours on end just to view a show.
So, the 3 day, 2 night exposure to rain of our female lead was doable for me because the whole scene really took only about 20 minutes of playtime. Had it stretched to an hour, I would’ve skipped or fast-forwarded it.
I admit though that when we were told of the elapsed time, it quickly registered on me that no woman could pee outdoors in the pouring rain so how could QM and her maids survive 72 hours in their carriage with full bladders?
I’d like to think that WS was so caught up with work issues that he forgot about his new bride. After all, he’s been a bachelor all his life, fighting in the battlefields, so he wasn’t accustomed to checking in on the health and home life of a family member. And to his credit, he did assign the task of welcoming QM home to his cousin.
At any rate, this rain incident made a nice contrast to future episodes when he would leave work to come home and have meals with QM. He was being “domesticated.”
Ethos: The story must have emotional appeal to compel us to stick around. Unfortunately, for many cdrama and kdrama enthusiasts, they’re only focused on the ethos of the story. 😂
Great that this show is being discussed. Thank you @Packmule. I am enjoying your commentary.
Ever the impatient viewer, I have finished the show and this discussion will allow me to enjoy afresh and enjoy moments I missed too.
The chubby maid is well known in China for her regular role on the Hello Saturday variety show. She’s a name in her own right and her presence in the cast also signals the contemporary touches in the plot – some very knowing ‘meta humour’, for instance.
Episode 6 SPOILER meets Take Note
For fans of Moon Lovers Scarlet Heart (both the Chinese and Korean versions) there is a brief nod to a famous scene with a cape in the rain. In this show it involves chubby maid and chubby General. It’s in the first 4 minutes – watch from 3′ 19′. Blink and you miss it – but it is there! There are other modern day cultural references scattered throughout which create that wry/knowing distance from the historic context.
@packmule3, What follows may sound didactic — my background is in classical studies (history and poetry rather than philosophy) but believe me, I have forgotten most detailed knowledge at this point. For me its just fun to dive into using big-concepts as a common language.
Yes, pathos is what hooks c/kdrama viewers — they often get it confused with ethos and make comments about the believability of characters which only demonstrate their limited experiential knowledge.
Just wanted to say about ethos — it is also connected to communal ethics/community beliefs, esp. in cdrama. I love that the question ‘what makes a great ruler’ is as powerful for judging cdrama as pathos is for kdrama. I call it my secret greedy pleasure because it takes a lot of reading of real Asian ‘advice to the ruler’ texts to automatically use confucian/or sometimes modern ethical questions as one of the keys to enjoyment.
Have been talking to monmor abt some of the delays in the romance storyline. I opined that we are constantly being diverted from the marriage’s consummation so as to admire the ability of our pair to fit in any kind of intimacy in between the pressing issues of rulership, and that that clear understanding of those responsibilities is part of the ‘virtue’ QM so clearly demonstrates.
Love it.
Episode 5
@Kate,
I saw that scene when the chubby General covered the chubby maid with his cape in a sweet attempt to shield her from the rain and I knew instantly that it was an homage to Moon Lovers. 😂😂
But all I could envision was skinny IU and skinny Lee Joongi because I never saw the original cdrama.
Thanks for the tidbit in the chubby maid’s meta references. Will keep an eye out for them (not that I know much about Chinese humor 😂😂).
@Ibisfeather , pm3 I am enjoying your exchange about logos, pathos, and ethos.
I posted over on the first impressions thread but maybe it would have been better here?
🙂 Methinks that corollary to the question “what makes a great ruler” is “what makes a great commoner or citizen.”
I notice that in many of these pseudo-historical romances (what’s the equivalent of “sageuks” in cdramas?) the citizenry is often depicted as
a) simple folks have simple wants, i.e., give them food and shelter, and they’ll be obedient and passive masses,
b) simple folks don’t seek upward mobility in society or an upgrade in material possessions.
c) simple folks can’t come up with their own solutions to the problem and must rely in benevolent rulers to fix them.
Take for instance the drought and famine in the Rongjun (Episode 11 onwards). Although it’s admirable of QM to take the lead and look for an alternative grain that’s drought-resistant and has higher yield, I find it odd that the people themselves weren’t clamoring about their situation, demanding solutions, and/or coming up with their own ideas. There’s this passivity — or passive ACCEPTANCE of their conditions — and reliance on big government to fix problems and provide for their needs that I *personally* disagree with.
In this sense, I see propaganda in the cdramas and “culture molding” of the unwary viewers.
Okay, will transfer your post over here, @monmor.
TY
Moving @monmor’s post over here. –pm3
****
I am vey much enjoying this drama despite my initial hesitation about his seeming like a violent character.
@Fern I love her character- so thoughtful, considerate, strategic and able to take charge.(and sassy). It has been fun to see his befuddlement!
Episodes 29-31
It is an interesting question whether to burden/ Ask for Help from her cousin. I think I would have out of desperation for my husband. The female lead though Is measured and thoughtful. She deals with the situation by relying on herself. That took a lot of personal strength and intelligence. And the willingness to slog through the wilderness in a long dress!
It feels like Viki is purposely frustrating me😁. There are 2 episodes today for me to watch, though so that is good.
@packmule3 totally agree on the history cdrama culture molding. Passive citizenry who need to be led. sageuk feels more nuanced in some dramas, altho in the weird way that fantasy reflects and objects to current realities. Will stop there with politics.
@Packmule,
Fab that they did that with the cape scene eh?!
I like the way the ‘meta humour’ is so lightly signalled (rather than with the heavy use of comedy incidental music). Other characters/scenes have these ‘throw away’ moments too which you will no doubt pick up on.
Thinking of IU there is a brief little dance in one scene that made me think of her birthday party dance for the youngest prince in Moon lovers! Similar humour – although I doubt the writer was thinking of that particular k-drama.