The setup: concubine's daughter marries a marquis bc her elder (legitimate) sister, his first wife, who knew she was dying, made him promise to marry her sister so that her son would continue to be looked after in the family. Cue Big Drama with his three other concubines.
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This is not a premise I thought I'd go for, bc as much as I love soft power narratives, a lot of the family dynamics hinge on women covertly (and not so covertly) battling each other for their husband and MIL's favor in the household. AND YET:
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What's become super compelling is how the show takes the supposedly insular, "domestic" politics of the household and consistently shows how much they matter to the "masculine," external politics of the marquis and the nobility - because the two are fundamentally the same thing.
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The bit I'm up to right now involves a plot around a charity kitchen feeding refugees. The most powerful concubine was in charge of it for the family, but bad rice was used thanks to schemes from the marquis's rival, and now they have to think their way out of it.
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The characterisation is awesome and I love how complicated the interpersonal dynamics are, but the political stuff is *so goddamn good,* bc unlike so much western historical (or fantasy for that matter) media, centering the wives *acknowledges that women are the supply chain*.
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It's a functional inversion of the kinds of western historicals where we see all the tough manly stuff in courts and on the battlefield and only remember the women when they're giving birth or being conveniently sexy: it shows the same trajectories from the inside out.
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All the big political events are still happening, but our primary lens for them is the women in the household and the women in their extended families. We see how sexism & custom constrain them, but also how goddamn *vital* their actions & responsibilities are regardless.
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Just. I am forever thumping the drum of The Personal Is Political And The Political Personal bc that's literally what it is, but so many stories fool us into thinking that actually, politics is Serious Man Stuff, or at least Very Removed From Domestic Stuff, and it's NOT.
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And like!! The two most antagonistic women, Lianfang & Erniang? Are actually getting a really shitty deal in a lot of ways, as we see on screen! And they're also awful, manipulative people! The tension is in the fact that none of the consequences they live with fit the offenses!
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Erniang is selfish and scheming, but she still doesn't deserve to be married to a domestically abusive asshat! Lianfang is manipulative, arrogant and callous, but she's stuck in what is often a genuinely pitiable situation! And it's just such good storytelling -
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- that we're allowed to dislike them, but also feel for them; to understand them, but not always condone them. Bc the real culprit here is a system that denies them diginity and autonomy outside of very strict parameters. The personal stakes are *so high* for the women.
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Anyway! I wrote this because the rice plot is making me Anxious and I needed a break but this show is really good, actually! Even though I lowkey resent it for making me find Wa-ge attractive in any way! (He's very sweet but foremost he's my dorky SDC3 uncle, NOT a hot guy.)
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