Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Re-watch value: 3 out of 5 stars
SYNOPSIS
*From MyDramaList*
Crown Prince Xiao Ding Quan lost his mother and sister at a young age and his father, the Emperor, is distant towards him because he is backed by his maternal uncle General Gu and the army the latter controls. He lives on tenterhooks, fearful of losing the handful of people who are close to him. His father is a formidable figure whom he both respects and fears. Even as he strives to receive his love and approval, he is also afraid of the inevitable crushing disappointment if he fails.
Firstborn Prince Qi has designs on the throne and conspires against Ding Quan with the help of his father-in-law, the powerful Chancellor Li Bai Zhou. They cause harm to befall the people he cherishes and widen the rift between the Emperor and Ding Quan.
Teacher Lu Shi Yu who is strongly influenced by Confucian values is a fatherly figure to Ding Quan. He summons his student Lu Ying back to the capital with the intention of recommending the latter’s daughter Wen Xi to be the Crown Princess so as to help Ding Quan gain an upright and trustworthy ally in court. Ding Quan and Wen Xi meet by chance when her brother gets into trouble and they develop mutual admiration although Ding Quan has never seen what she looks like.
When Wen Xi’s father and brother are thrown into jail, Wen Xi goes undercover as a maid in the Crown Prince’s residence to help them. In the process, she quietly supports Ding Quan to resolve two cases. Together, the couple manages to redress Wen Xi’s father and brother’s case and bring the villains to justice. They are each other’s pillar of support as they brave dangers and make sacrifices to bring peace to the country.
RAMBLING
*beware of spoilers*
Absolutely still not over this show. I full-on binged it, which I haven’t done with a show for a while. I can honestly tell you that I was 100% invested in the romance between Lu Wenxi and Crown Prince (CP) Xiao Ding Quan, played by Luo Jin and Li Yi Tong, respectively. I had seen Luo Jin before in (the ridiculously amazing) The Princess Wei Young. I loved him in that, and I knew from episode 1 of Royal Nirvana, that apparently, I really wanted to see him lead the charge on a show and was very interested in the story he had to tell here. (I did also see him in Diamond Lover, but damn, that show sucked so much, please don’t bother watching it.) In Royal Nirvana, he played a 20-year-old CP, which I thought was a stretch age-wise. In reality, he’s 38 years old.
Inventive camera work, truly beautiful cinematography in moments. A melodrama of epic proportions. I can’t remember the last time I witnessed this level of waterworks. I mean, these actors were tremendous and I don’t know how they managed to cry so much and so…beautifully?
Can I gush about episode 45 for a sec? The Caterpillar Kiss®… Much of the best romantic bits of the show happened after (spoiler alert) the Crown Princess Nian Zhi dies. CP playfully scares Wenxi with a fat caterpillar after seeing her exaggerated reaction to it earlier in the courtyard. They fly about the room like a brother teasing a sister, until the chemistry starts to bubble over. He invades her personal space, and CP asks her what she’s so afraid of while hovering so close to her. She insists it’s just the caterpillar, and he calls her bluff, getting handsy with her, still playfully serious. “I just want to know. Caterpillar or me. Which one is more scary for you?” The sexual tension in this scene was amazing. The moment he grabs and kisses her, her maid’s hat falls off and tumbling down comes her long hair blowing in a wind that comes from who knows where because they’re inside. I wish they didn’t cheapen the moment by making it so hokey with the hair reveal, although their chemistry was off the charts here.
As far as plot goes, it was very convoluted and overly mired in excessive detail, so to be honest, I was lost for large swathes of the show. It was so politically complex, and I felt constantly that I was watching greatness but couldn’t comprehend it. I sincerely tried my best to keep up, but so much of it was beyond my depth. I had a fair understanding of the etiquette and the allegiances or bad blood between characters, but even so, the machinations were quite ambitious and so much of it doubled back on itself. I lost track of how many people were scapegoated and by whom. Nothing was helped by the fact that a single character could have 2 separate names and a title that they were referred by.
I gravitated more toward the desperate relationship between CP and his father the emperor. Ever since he was a child, CP wanted nothing more than to please his father, gain his affection, he loved fully by him. But it was clear that the emperor was mostly always displeased with him, for one reason or another, and never considered him a son, but rather a “courtier” and therefore at his disposal. The emperor very obviously had a favorite child, and it was Prince Qi, the CP’s natural rival throughout the show. I did like how at one particular point toward the end, the CP gains just a little bit of the emperor’s trust and the emperor says, “As a father, I feel very sorry. But as the emperor, I am not sorry”—which basically sums up their relationship perfectly. The cruel duality of the emperor = if he pleases the emperor, then the father is upset; if he pleases the father, then the emperor is seething.
For a long time, I couldn’t understand why the emperor was constantly weary of the CP’s maternal uncle General Gu Silin. I settled on the fact that the uncle came from a military heritage, and so could make a legitimately armed stand against the capital and the emperor, if he wanted. The uncle was certainly fierce, but he treated the CP affectionately and like a son, which angered the paternal side to the emperor.
The final episodes contained a massive battle that tied closely with the political strife in the capital. I hated the battle scenes and these episodes purely because I couldn’t understand who was instigating who, and I had a strong feeling that the uncle was *letting* the enemy take ground, threatening the emperor with an enemy takeover of a key border city and fortress—unless he absolved the crown prince of any blame. You hurt him, I hurt you scenario. The uncle’s argument was that this intense game of musical thrones would only end if Prince Qi is killed, which should be his official punishment from a national law and family law perspective. Fair is fair; he did frame the crown prince, allowing the CP to get beaten half to death at the mercy of his father’s rage. The emperor, throughout the entire show, never laid a finger on Prince Qi; he was a beloved child. The CP always bloodied himself up just to take the fall for something he didn’t do and somewhat show his sincerity to the emperor.
To cap it all off, these final episodes had a bizarre retcon that I missed entirely. The stupid nursery rhyme that was banned by the emperor—it’s based on a true story of how the emperor gained his throne. And that’s as much as I’ve surmised. The emperor kept calling it “disloyal speech,” but he seemed truly shook by its resurgence in the capital. Well, the emperor told the CP he wasn’t supposed to be the crown prince. When the CP questions his uncle about what that meant, the uncle expanded the story, and we got a whole flashback scene. CP’s mother was pregnant before concubine Zhao, and….lost the baby on the fateful night related to the nursery rhyme. The Amazon Prime description for this episode reads: “Xiao Dingquan is supposed to have a brother, but their mom miscarries. This is the reason why the nursery rhyme starts spreading out.” I am still utterly lost, lost, lost. To compound the issue, everyone said the crown prince’s birth was a mistake, an error. What the hell does that mean? Why would another child after a miscarriage be a mistake? The emperor and the uncle had this secret and an old promise between them, that the crown prince would be such. So was it a kind of compensation? I believe the Duo man that died bringing the emperor his seat (and I’m still so fuzzy on this point) was blood related to the uncle. So maybe his sacrifice, and that of the miscarried child, was honored with bestowing the now second-born child the crown?
Speaking of the finale, I love CP and Wenxi’s final kiss behind the screen. It’s a beautiful silhouette and basically represents an amalgamation of their two lives together: the screen silhouette from when she was Lu Wenxi and the silhouettes from when she was a Maid Gu in the palace. I knew Wenxi would end up painting the second crane onto their painting by the end, and we do see that come to fruition in the closing scenes.
We also see that she’s very pregnant with no doubt the crown prince’s child. But she never marries him? The show makes us think they had a happy ending because they’re shown back up in the mountains taking in the scenery that she had painted up on the picturesque hilltop lookout. So… did he finally get to travel with country with her? Did he really end up giving up the throne? No details. The Amazon Prime description for the episode offers only this: “Xiao Dingquan eventually stays with Lu Wenxi.” No closure whatsoever.
After looking up the show in MyDramaList and seeing that there’s a Special—a further 12 episodes—that I may or may not be able to watch and reading some semi-spoilery reviews on the platform for that, here’s my interpretation of the ending presented. CP said earlier, with much emotion, “Your daughter is like the mountains and rivers. I didn’t see it, but I know it’s beautiful.” And considering he probably would never be able to see the beauty of his own country while still chained with the crown prince title, it stands to reason that maybe he dethroned himself or died, and the ending of the couple viewing the scenery is like an imagined ending they both yearned for but never got.
He did say, after she’s released from prison and they reunite off campus, “I can’t live without you.” The final voiceover is as follows:
Wenxi: I have no worries now. In the future, I can go see the natural landscape with you. This time you break your promise. You need to compensate me in the future.
Crown Prince: I am looking forward to it, A’bao. It should not be remembered. It should be, please wait for me.
I interpret that as the CP did indeed break his promise to see the natural splendor with Wenxi. Through his words and actions in the show, I believe he wouldn’t have gone back to the capital and lived his life without her, especially if she had his child. Why would he, when anything could go wrong for her and the child inside the vile palace? And if they’re not together at the end, with him still telling her to wait for him in the voiceover, then he must have died.
All in all, a heartbreaking tale of so much woe. I hope you see it.
Did you see Royal Nirvana? Tell me your thoughts in the comments below!
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