One of the things I enjoy doing on this blog is drawing connections between unlikely things. This allows me to see things from a unique perspective and derive new insights from tired, old observations.

@Sorbetdreams wrote,

“These screenshots are beautiful! I didn’t remember Ophelia, but that comparison makes sense, and I did enjoy how everyone was enraptured/too horrified to react. I also applauded for the First Madame, and her ‘you just want to have without having to work’ (I mean, don’t we all? 😂). It was such a realistic and concise rebuttal to that long speech 🫡”

Ophelia was in my mind a lot when I began this show because LanXiang is nothing like Ophelia.

For those who know jack-squat about Ophelia, here’s her 424-year-old story.

Like JiaLan/LanXiang, Ophelia is born an aristocrat, a Danish aristocrat.
Like JiaLan, her father is a high-ranking official. He serves the current king as chief counselor.
Like JiaLan, she was raised to be a refined, educated gentlewoman.

But unlike JiaLan, there’s no arranged marriage between Ophelia and Hamlet, the titular character of Shakespeare’s drama.

Here’s where it becomes “makjang.” (Lol. Shakespeare was expert in “makjang” before the Korean kdrama writers started writing “makjang”. 🤪) Hamlet is a prince of Denmark, but his father isn’t the current king, but the previous one. In a power grab, the current king killed his brother, aka the former king. Then, to twist the knife on the dead man, the killer married his brother’s wife aka the Queen, and made her his Queen. Ugh! See how fun a family dinner can be in this household? What name should Hamlet call his uncle? “My King,” “murderer,” “uncle,” “stepdad,” or “incestuous fiend”? And how should he call his mother? “Mom,” “aunt,” or “betrayer”?

Before his father’s death, Hamlet is courting Ophelia and she naturally falls for him. Her father and brother warn her against him, though. Why? Because as Prince of Denmark, Hamlet can’t marry freely and the state will decide his bride. (See that? It goes both ways, Woke Folks! Men and women can’t marry who they want in those days. It’s just what it is, in those days.)

After his father’s death, Hamlet pushes Ophelia away, infamously telling her to go to a nunnery. He feigns insanity so he can investigate the regicide right under his uncle’s nose. But… he accidentally kills Ophelia’s beloved father. He mistakes him for his uncle hiding in his mother’s bedroom and stabs him. He kills the wrong man. 🤷‍♀️

Thus, just like JiaLan/LanXiang, Ophelia is hit by a double-whammy. She’s rejected by her love and she loses her beloved father.

Ophelia’s final moments on earth are recounted by the queen/Hamlet’s mother/Hamlet’s aunt (lol).

According to the queen, Ophelia climbed up a tree to collect flowers for her garland.

Note the importance of flowers as symbols of survival.

Like LanXiang, Ophelia is connected to flowers. Remember LanXiang’s sobbing scene with her foster mother? Her foster mother exhorted her to thrive like a weed and live bravely. It’s a universal truth that plants, flowers, and especially weeds demonstrate nature’s ability to grow in harsh conditions. They exist carefree, fearlessly.

I’m not a literature graduate, but this is how I interpreted Ophelia’s then state of mind: she was grieving, and flowers gave her comfort. That’s why she went out to gather flowers that fateful day.

However, unlike LanXiang who had JinQi to carry her safely back to her room when she was drunk, Ophelia had no one watching over her. When the branch she had climbed on broke, she fell into the brook. Nobody caught her.

To me, this was the proverbial last straw that broke the camel’s back. After all, she just fell into a brook. No doubt a brook is much shallower and calmer than a river. In my mind, she could have saved herself if she tried. But instead, she chose to float in the water, chanting songs, surrounded by her flowers.

I could give her the benefit of doubt, and surmise that she was probably unaware of the impending danger. But I think she was simply resigned to die; she welcomed death.

According to the queen, Ophelia’s heavy garment kept her afloat at first. “Her clothes spread wide, and mermaid-like awhile they bore her up” is how Shakespeare poetically described it. But then as her clothes soaked up water, the poor lady was dragged down to her “muddy death.”

And there we have the primary difference between Ophelia and LanXiang. 💐💐💐

It’s the crux of the matter, isn’t it? Ophelia lost her will to survive, while LanXiang is determined to live. And because of her immutable resolve, she finds a way to escape danger and death, again and again.

Like sticking a long needle in the crotch of her abductor or releasing the chickens so she can escape the brothel manager…..

I’m no Shakespeare so I can’t come up with flowery prose. The only metaphor I could think of for LanXiang is she’s mole in the whac-a-mole arcade game. Bop her and she still pops up elsewhere. 🙂

*****

This is a picture of the famous Ophelia painting in the Tate Museum, London.

https://smarthistory.org/millais-ophelia/ photo credit: Steven Zucker, CC BY-NC-SA 2.0; Tate Britain, London

And these are some of my favorite screenshots of LanXiang with the orchids.

From Episode 21, when she accepts JinQi’s potted plant.

From Episode 19.  Remember what I’ve been telling you all this time: the orchid may be invisible to the eye, but the fragrance tells you it’s there.