I'm about to be absolutely unhinged but I would like for the internet to stop enjoying silly tv and getting me to watch with them and begin to enjoy myself only for said internet to then suddenly begin to Read Critically and Pile On in a Negative Manner when the show is the sameeeeeeeeeee and I just want to have funnnnnn in this tagggg
Y'all... As someone who watched 15+ episodes of a 95 lb woman who was able to knockout a full-grown hog with one slap, a princess who can just wander around outside the imperial palace, nonsensical legal drama, etc, all in an entirely unidentified "historical" "period" ....I simply cannot now be mad that the military logistics and political machinations aren't "realistic" or "reasonable"...
I mean... would Pig Butcher Squad get in trouble for desertion??? In a drama-world where Changyu is made to do forced labor for ???? reasons related to travel restrictions (that she can't circumvent using her identification as a merchant??), where she meets A GRAND TUTOR who is there for ???? reasons and also her squad, and then they all just go from forced labor to conscripting in the army and completely untraine are allowed to bring the provisions to the Marquis'?? This universe has never heard of indentifying documents or material or anything except SOMETIMES when it is a foreshadowed plot point (see: bao'er's jade necklace that idk if it ever comes up again, the split fish tally and yan zheng's nonexistent registration that actually doesn't matter because he's still allowed to marry???)
People always do this in the last 10 episodes of every show and I don't get itttttttttt... We're watching a silly idol period drama!!! All I care about is if the characters make sense emotionally and if the drama feels grounded emotionally... like, yes, a reasonable plot foundation is required, which is why the whole "Qian Qian is randomly found in the woods and then Qi Min just leaves" scene is bad, because the Qian Qian-Changyu relationship is important to the drama and there could have been some real emotional payoff there.
Honestly that scene could have (and should have) happened off screen (like I'm pretty sure it did in the book??) given how little it advanced the plot or the characters. On the surface it might read as a "plot convenience" because its stupid and unlikely, but really its a plot convenience because nothing the characters do in the scene is any fun so all it does as a scene is exist to show a plot point. Changyu doesn't get to fight??? Qi min doesn't do anything absolutely unhinged??? Qianqian is all weepy and not cool at all and saves Qi Min for some reason???? Lots of other scenes throughout the show were equally stupid and events equally arbitrary (ningning's initial capture, everything about the forced labor camp and dam flooding, bao'er's rescue, etc) but were more fun and interesting on a character level, so it was less bothersome.
The Qian Qian rescue scene and how poorly it was cut just made me assume that this period of the drama was fucked up in censorship in some way that they didn't really figure out a way to fix so they were just like... we'll cobble it together and just get through this nonsense to the last section. Besides, this section of the novel is very repetitive and arbitrary and not a great plot foundation to rely on anyway. I know I'm giving production too much credit and easily censorship may have nothing to do with it, and it's their job to make it work, but I'll believe what I want!!!
Also, all I would add to this is that my #1 pet peeve about period (idol) cdramas is that they always do this thing where they pretend they're about the female character but then once you're invested all of the drama is about the male character and the ML has all the narrative agency. It's dishonest storytelling and cowardly, and the fact that people are mad that's not happening* has revealed to me that people are actually out here demanding it??? Please let me live :( *not convinced this won't still happen in the last 10 eps