beccatoria (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
beccatoria) wrote2012-08-22 10:45 pm
beccatoria) wrote2012-08-22 10:45 pm
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The Great Queen Seondeok: I BRING CLIPS.
SO. Remember that time I became completely obsessed with a kdrama about the first ruling queen of the kingdom of Silla in Korea?
Well, since I'm damn sure that upwards of two whole people might be interested in this, I MADE CLIPS. Fair warning, this spoils the shit out of the ten-ep stretch where the whole conflict between the hero and the villain explodes into open warfare. I figure that most of you who want to check this out either won't mind that, or will enjoy the idea of seeing the SUPER DRAMATIC EYEBROW SHOTS OF DOOM AND MILITARY COUPS without having to watch forty plus hours of telly first.
I mean, let's be serious, spoilerphobes, were you really going to watch it? Wait, you were? AWESOME, here's the link - http://www.hulu.com/the-great-queen-seondeok - the rest of you, TO THE CLIPS!
(There are like 15, so I put the 3 best ones outside the lj-cuts and bolded them. If in doubt, just watch those!)
Our Players:
Deokman: Our Hero. She will later be Queen Seondeok (her official royal name, but she's always Deokman in the series). Currently Princess of Silla. Due to superstition and politics she was actually raised ignorant of her parentage in a trading post in the Chinese desert. Later she returned to Silla and her entire reaction can basically be summarised as, "Dude, that's fucked up. I ought to fix that. No really."
Misil: Our Villain. She's a high-ranking noble, who has been consort to several kings, is currently married to the Prime Minister and counts the head of the army among her lovers. Everyone knows about this, and they have family meetings where her husband and their son sit on one side of the table, while her lover and their son sit on the other, and she insults them all and tells them they are useless. It's marvelous. Also she's basically been the defacto ruler of the country for decades, but a combination of resentment and ambition have left her constantly seeking to become the actual queen, by trying to set her husband/people she thinks she can marry and control, on the throne. So far it hasn't worked. This distresses her.
Bidam: Our Cheerful Psychopath. Bidam is actually the son of Misil and a disgraced former king. Almost no one knows this, however, since she abandoned him as an infant because he was no longer politically useful to her. He's also been abandoned by a father-figure horrified by his violent nature. He hides a lot of this behind a demeanour that suggests he finds everything funny. What's pertinent to these clips is that he's madly in love with Deokman, but also paralysingly afraid that she'll decide to abandon him too, and tends to have conversations with his mother where neither of them will openly acknowledge their relationship.
Chunchu: Our Hero's Nephew. Deokman's sister, Chunmyung, got the shit murdered out of her by Misil's camp, and Chunmyung's son, Chunchu, due to, well, superstition and politics, got raised in China, although this time, not in ignorance of his parentage, and in a royal court, not a scummy trading post. So anyway, he comes back as a young teenager and seems like a gullible fool, an uneducated, naive hedonist who lets Misil's camp manipulate him and play to his ego. He's actually whipsmart and a total jackass and has been playing everyone on all sides.
Clip #1
Chunchu has made his play for the throne. Using Deokman's shocking claim that she will be her father's heir and inherit the throne despite being a woman, Chunchu presents himself as an alternate candidate, despite not being part of the highest caste according to Silla's caste system. He also manages to split Misil's political supporters in two and cause general mayhem. It basically only works because instead of dealing with the situation, Misil decides to wander off and take a calming walk in the country with her estranged secret son to reassess her entire damn life. She's spent her whole life manipulating the system with extraordinary facility, and she just saw two people, raised outside that system, deny it, tear it down, think outside it, like it was nothing.
Anyway, here is a conversation she has about that, with Bidam.
Clip #2
Later part of the scene clipped above - Bidam attempts to convince his estranged, secret mother that since she's just realised she's spent a large part of her life chasing something smaller and more pointless than she could understand, she might as well have some sort of come-to-Jesus moment and be done with it. She doesn't really agree.
Clip #3
So anyways, Deokman comes looking for Misil, basically to say, dude, wtf is with you wandering off for a picnic in the middle of an epic political crisis. This is very unlike you. I find it disconcerting. Oh, that's what's up with you? Well, shit. o.O
Clip #4
So, Deokman and Misil both return to the capital to speak to their respective families. Deokman is left with the task of informing her ambitious, overconfident nephew that he drastically underestimated Misil's sheer guts and that yes, she WOULD try something that insane, and that he'd better step up and back her if he doesn't want to end up crying on the floor like a baby (except she's nicer about it). Misil, on the other hand, goes to meet up with her family, who were just about extricating themselves from open warfare with each other, in one of the most polite requests to assist with a treasonous coup against the throne I've ever seen. (The dudes on the left are her husband and son, the dudes on the right are her lover and son).
Clip #5
Chunchu doesn't really believe his aunt when she tells him that Misil will leave him curled in a fetal position on the floor so he unwisely goes to test the theory.
Clip #6
So Chunchu ends up going back to his aunt, but can't quite bring himself to sign up with her and to break from the snark a second, one thing I really love about this scene is that Chunchu, to the audience, has been really painful to watch as a character in a lot of ways. He tricks and snubs characters we love and empathise with. He distrusts and manipulates people we know love him. He threatens the success of a character we've spent forty episodes rooting for, seemingly out of personal egotism. But what Deokman here realises instantly, is that he's actually just like she was. He's angry. He trusts no one. We just...weren't on his side to see it.
Clip #8
So anyway, Misil launches her coup d'etat, and it goes pretty well, all things considered. She manages to frame Deokman as an enemy of the state AND ambiguously arrange for her estranged son to be kidnapped and taken away from the battle so he wouldn't maybe die opposing her or anything. It went slightly sour when (a) Deokman escaped the capital and (b) pesky minor nobles started ~asking questions~, so she thought it was best to make a statement...
Password: misil
Clip #9
So clearly the solution to being on the run outside the capital while someone has your father held hostage and is calling publicly for your arrest, but secretly insisting there's no way you can be allowed to be taken alive, is to sneak BACK into the capital and publicly turn yourself in. You may notice that Misil says not a thing this entire scene. That is because she is speaking the exquisite language of eyebrows.
Clip #10
So anyway, shenanigans go down, Deokman retakes the capital, and this time Misil flees, mustering her forces for open civil war. Bidam, on the other hand, is still confused about his feelings for (a) his mother and (b) the fact she went out of her way to save his life despite never openly acknowledging who he is to her. So he decides they should have a discussion at sword point. Misil seems fairly amenable to this, all told. It's probably a fair bit politer than a lot of her tea parties.
Clip #11
So ultimately, it all comes down to this - one last summit before total war. I'll let it speak for itself.
Clip #12
Bidam makes one final attempt to get Misil to go return to the summit; the red letter he's holding is her death warrant, signed decades ago by Deokman's great grandfather in his last moments before death, which, for some reason she refuses to explain, she never destroyed.
Clip #13
And then, Misil's final scene. I feel it's important to note here that she ultimately surrenders not because she's lost, militarily, but because a subordinate's decision has forced her into a position where success will irreparably weaken the nation's borders, and if that happens, at her hand, she has already lost in every way that matters.
Clip #14 [Bonus!]
Okay so this is from later in the series - it continues for about ten episodes after Misil's death, and explores the final part of Deokman's reign. I missed a LOT about her conflict with Misil, but the section of the series did allow for some really fascinating character development and commentary on the nature of loyalty, factions, trust, institutions and power.
Anyway, the cliff's notes context to this is that Yusin's father was a noble from the conquered nation of Gaya. Yusin believes the future of the Gaya people depends on their ability to become Silla people, to unite as a single nation. The Gaya resistance movement is a terrorist organisation dedicated to the restoration of Gaya (they are the Bokya referenced in the clip). Decades ago, Yusin and Deokman thought they managed to bring the resistance movement into the military legitimately. As Queen, Deokman upheld promises to return their land, appoint Gaya nobles to key positions in the court, give tax breaks in recognition of their suffering and legislate against oppression.
She's just found out they never gave up operations. She is kinda pissed. I like it when powerful ladies yell shit.
Clip #15 [Bonus!]
And here we have Bidam's last stand, from the final episode. It's super long mostly just because it's an awesome fight scene, and, trust me, when you have the entire series as context, utterly heartbreaking.
Brief context though, is that Bidam has, due to various character flaws, made an enormous, and treasonous mistake, (and amusingly demanded of several people to explain why they didn't warn him he was like this, to which they responded, "we tried, you jerk!") and has decided there's nothing left for him to do but go to see the Queen, because he has something to say for her, and he will say it before he dies.
What he wants to say, is her name. It's considered treasonous disrespect to address her as anything other than, "your majesty," and Deokman admits how isolating and lonely she finds this, at one point, but won't let Bidam break the rule. Now, he figures, he may as well go to her, and say it. If he can. There's an army in the way.
Password: bidam
Well, since I'm damn sure that upwards of two whole people might be interested in this, I MADE CLIPS. Fair warning, this spoils the shit out of the ten-ep stretch where the whole conflict between the hero and the villain explodes into open warfare. I figure that most of you who want to check this out either won't mind that, or will enjoy the idea of seeing the SUPER DRAMATIC EYEBROW SHOTS OF DOOM AND MILITARY COUPS without having to watch forty plus hours of telly first.
I mean, let's be serious, spoilerphobes, were you really going to watch it? Wait, you were? AWESOME, here's the link - http://www.hulu.com/the-great-queen-seondeok - the rest of you, TO THE CLIPS!
(There are like 15, so I put the 3 best ones outside the lj-cuts and bolded them. If in doubt, just watch those!)
Our Players:
Deokman: Our Hero. She will later be Queen Seondeok (her official royal name, but she's always Deokman in the series). Currently Princess of Silla. Due to superstition and politics she was actually raised ignorant of her parentage in a trading post in the Chinese desert. Later she returned to Silla and her entire reaction can basically be summarised as, "Dude, that's fucked up. I ought to fix that. No really."
Misil: Our Villain. She's a high-ranking noble, who has been consort to several kings, is currently married to the Prime Minister and counts the head of the army among her lovers. Everyone knows about this, and they have family meetings where her husband and their son sit on one side of the table, while her lover and their son sit on the other, and she insults them all and tells them they are useless. It's marvelous. Also she's basically been the defacto ruler of the country for decades, but a combination of resentment and ambition have left her constantly seeking to become the actual queen, by trying to set her husband/people she thinks she can marry and control, on the throne. So far it hasn't worked. This distresses her.
Bidam: Our Cheerful Psychopath. Bidam is actually the son of Misil and a disgraced former king. Almost no one knows this, however, since she abandoned him as an infant because he was no longer politically useful to her. He's also been abandoned by a father-figure horrified by his violent nature. He hides a lot of this behind a demeanour that suggests he finds everything funny. What's pertinent to these clips is that he's madly in love with Deokman, but also paralysingly afraid that she'll decide to abandon him too, and tends to have conversations with his mother where neither of them will openly acknowledge their relationship.
Chunchu: Our Hero's Nephew. Deokman's sister, Chunmyung, got the shit murdered out of her by Misil's camp, and Chunmyung's son, Chunchu, due to, well, superstition and politics, got raised in China, although this time, not in ignorance of his parentage, and in a royal court, not a scummy trading post. So anyway, he comes back as a young teenager and seems like a gullible fool, an uneducated, naive hedonist who lets Misil's camp manipulate him and play to his ego. He's actually whipsmart and a total jackass and has been playing everyone on all sides.
Clip #1
Chunchu has made his play for the throne. Using Deokman's shocking claim that she will be her father's heir and inherit the throne despite being a woman, Chunchu presents himself as an alternate candidate, despite not being part of the highest caste according to Silla's caste system. He also manages to split Misil's political supporters in two and cause general mayhem. It basically only works because instead of dealing with the situation, Misil decides to wander off and take a calming walk in the country with her estranged secret son to reassess her entire damn life. She's spent her whole life manipulating the system with extraordinary facility, and she just saw two people, raised outside that system, deny it, tear it down, think outside it, like it was nothing.
Anyway, here is a conversation she has about that, with Bidam.
Clip #2
Later part of the scene clipped above - Bidam attempts to convince his estranged, secret mother that since she's just realised she's spent a large part of her life chasing something smaller and more pointless than she could understand, she might as well have some sort of come-to-Jesus moment and be done with it. She doesn't really agree.
Clip #3
So anyways, Deokman comes looking for Misil, basically to say, dude, wtf is with you wandering off for a picnic in the middle of an epic political crisis. This is very unlike you. I find it disconcerting. Oh, that's what's up with you? Well, shit. o.O
Clip #4
So, Deokman and Misil both return to the capital to speak to their respective families. Deokman is left with the task of informing her ambitious, overconfident nephew that he drastically underestimated Misil's sheer guts and that yes, she WOULD try something that insane, and that he'd better step up and back her if he doesn't want to end up crying on the floor like a baby (except she's nicer about it). Misil, on the other hand, goes to meet up with her family, who were just about extricating themselves from open warfare with each other, in one of the most polite requests to assist with a treasonous coup against the throne I've ever seen. (The dudes on the left are her husband and son, the dudes on the right are her lover and son).
Clip #5
Chunchu doesn't really believe his aunt when she tells him that Misil will leave him curled in a fetal position on the floor so he unwisely goes to test the theory.
Clip #6
So Chunchu ends up going back to his aunt, but can't quite bring himself to sign up with her and to break from the snark a second, one thing I really love about this scene is that Chunchu, to the audience, has been really painful to watch as a character in a lot of ways. He tricks and snubs characters we love and empathise with. He distrusts and manipulates people we know love him. He threatens the success of a character we've spent forty episodes rooting for, seemingly out of personal egotism. But what Deokman here realises instantly, is that he's actually just like she was. He's angry. He trusts no one. We just...weren't on his side to see it.
Clip #8
So anyway, Misil launches her coup d'etat, and it goes pretty well, all things considered. She manages to frame Deokman as an enemy of the state AND ambiguously arrange for her estranged son to be kidnapped and taken away from the battle so he wouldn't maybe die opposing her or anything. It went slightly sour when (a) Deokman escaped the capital and (b) pesky minor nobles started ~asking questions~, so she thought it was best to make a statement...
Password: misil
Clip #9
So clearly the solution to being on the run outside the capital while someone has your father held hostage and is calling publicly for your arrest, but secretly insisting there's no way you can be allowed to be taken alive, is to sneak BACK into the capital and publicly turn yourself in. You may notice that Misil says not a thing this entire scene. That is because she is speaking the exquisite language of eyebrows.
Clip #10
So anyway, shenanigans go down, Deokman retakes the capital, and this time Misil flees, mustering her forces for open civil war. Bidam, on the other hand, is still confused about his feelings for (a) his mother and (b) the fact she went out of her way to save his life despite never openly acknowledging who he is to her. So he decides they should have a discussion at sword point. Misil seems fairly amenable to this, all told. It's probably a fair bit politer than a lot of her tea parties.
Clip #11
So ultimately, it all comes down to this - one last summit before total war. I'll let it speak for itself.
Clip #12
Bidam makes one final attempt to get Misil to go return to the summit; the red letter he's holding is her death warrant, signed decades ago by Deokman's great grandfather in his last moments before death, which, for some reason she refuses to explain, she never destroyed.
Clip #13
And then, Misil's final scene. I feel it's important to note here that she ultimately surrenders not because she's lost, militarily, but because a subordinate's decision has forced her into a position where success will irreparably weaken the nation's borders, and if that happens, at her hand, she has already lost in every way that matters.
Clip #14 [Bonus!]
Okay so this is from later in the series - it continues for about ten episodes after Misil's death, and explores the final part of Deokman's reign. I missed a LOT about her conflict with Misil, but the section of the series did allow for some really fascinating character development and commentary on the nature of loyalty, factions, trust, institutions and power.
Anyway, the cliff's notes context to this is that Yusin's father was a noble from the conquered nation of Gaya. Yusin believes the future of the Gaya people depends on their ability to become Silla people, to unite as a single nation. The Gaya resistance movement is a terrorist organisation dedicated to the restoration of Gaya (they are the Bokya referenced in the clip). Decades ago, Yusin and Deokman thought they managed to bring the resistance movement into the military legitimately. As Queen, Deokman upheld promises to return their land, appoint Gaya nobles to key positions in the court, give tax breaks in recognition of their suffering and legislate against oppression.
She's just found out they never gave up operations. She is kinda pissed. I like it when powerful ladies yell shit.
Clip #15 [Bonus!]
And here we have Bidam's last stand, from the final episode. It's super long mostly just because it's an awesome fight scene, and, trust me, when you have the entire series as context, utterly heartbreaking.
Brief context though, is that Bidam has, due to various character flaws, made an enormous, and treasonous mistake, (and amusingly demanded of several people to explain why they didn't warn him he was like this, to which they responded, "we tried, you jerk!") and has decided there's nothing left for him to do but go to see the Queen, because he has something to say for her, and he will say it before he dies.
What he wants to say, is her name. It's considered treasonous disrespect to address her as anything other than, "your majesty," and Deokman admits how isolating and lonely she finds this, at one point, but won't let Bidam break the rule. Now, he figures, he may as well go to her, and say it. If he can. There's an army in the way.
Password: bidam