@Lilsweetie @lezah Thank you for your write-ups!!
I can't believe it-- but at the same time, I sort of can, considering the hate that this Show had here on Dramabeans-- that there would actually be submissions for this months "Theme Of the Month" for this drama XD LOL I could live with any of these 2 endings, with a few tweaks of my own, just because I watched and liked (but got real tired, real fast) of the original Chinese version, and loved the Korean version (despite the ending being underwhelming) and I know how the story goes, I know what it was like historically (more so the Chinese history than the Korean history, because I'm Chinese), but it is also because I went into both dramas--- that flat-out pegged themselves as having time travel as plot device and was taking creative liscence-- knowing and expecting changes to happen here and there in history XD If only I could have flip-flopped the endings of the 2 versions-- since I was more emotionally invested in the Korean version than I was in the Chinese version-- then I think, for myself at least, everything would be made perfect =)

Personaly, I just loved Wang Wook and Hae Soo as couple. After I couldn't invest myself in the second love story.

"I would have changed Su from the beginning to be more scheming, loyal to the man she loved, and less easily influenced by her visions of the future"

...Basically more like Ruoxi from the original cdrama then? (Why no, I'm not still bitter they messed up the k-adaptation to one of my favorite cdramas...)

Brava, Lilsweetie! I love your ending. It gives me the future resolution I felt so cheated of. It is elegant. And I like how you worked in Choi Ji-mong's time traveling, too. The karmic relationship across lifetimes works just fine. Thank you for including their daughter, too. (Shades of GO BACK COUPLE.)

Brava, @lezah, for prescribing Su the personality transplant she so badly needed. She needs a brain transplant, too. At times I thought she was simply too stupid to live.

And thank you for sparing Jung the ultimate heartbreak of marrying Su, who is so blind to his love -- and then having to raise her and his brother's daughter alone. Jung really deserves better than that.

It suddenly hit me that the whole mistaken handwriting thing may even have been a tip of the hat to Lee Joon-gi's role as Gong-gil in THE KING AND THE CLOWN. His partner, Jang-sang, learned to write by copying his characters. Enemies at court forged Gong-gil's handwriting to frame him, and Jang-sang took the fall for him. I'll admit that MOON LOVERS put a nice, if frustrating, twist on that.

Back to MOON LOVERS. I found Su's attitudes and behavior as the show progressed to be frustrating as hell myself. Her blindness to Chae-ryung's duplicity was indeed infuriating. Frankly, she was too much of a wuss to live in Goryeo, although she managed to survive -- but caused a huge amount of collateral damage in the process. The dignified and noble Court Lady Oh took the fall for her, dammit.

Watching So jump through hoops to protect Su made me nuts. Too bad he had to fall for a pretty but empty-headed time traveler who abandoned him. Grrr. Yeah, I'm still pissed off about that.

A final thought about the Taejo Method of Cultivating Successors. Jang Hyuk, who played Wang So in SHINE OR GO CRAZY, is re-encountering the same deal in MONEY FLOWER. And so it continues in Kdramaland.

No one was allowed to have handwriting the same as the king.

Beautiful! You two collectively have amazingly written down what I too had in my mind, which I won't be able to do as I'm anything-but-laconic. It'd be a novella if it was me,haha.
Yes, I too loved not the actual drama,but it's buried,unseen potential. It had moments of brilliance,but scattered in such a crazy way that the viewer had to jump into the hodgepodge and search for all the clues. And not all the viewers had time,as many watch dramas to have some mental peace at the end of a tiresome day. So of course we became frustrated when they were all "you do your own research" as if it wasn't THEIR job to begin with.
This is why I was forever grateful to all the intellectual beanies of MLSHR threads, who helped us to enjoy the drama waaaay more than it deserved.
Sigh,if not for the collective mess left by almost all the departments (clothing,music,directing,casting,editing...), how epic it could've been.

I love that you both didn't bombarded Su (whose character totally deserved it), accepted the otp as it was,and tried to just repair the rough edges.
Yes,Su HAD to leave,given the circumstances. Her reasons're totally excusable. It's only she should've explain things to poor So and leave with his acceptance. The main problem with these two was utter lack of communication.
And unlike some others, I was greatly relieved that there was no miscarriage in the k-version. No matter how great the c-drama overall was, I generally hate miscarriage as a device to move the plot. @Lilsweetie, thanks.
Su HAD to die too, given her long-time health issues. I was ok with that too, but I needed it to be a happy send over with So at her side. Thanks,@ lezah.
Then IF there had to be a rebirth,I too needed both of them to have the world that they could "love each other fully without any restrictions" and of course reunite again with the adorable baby Seol-ie. Thanks so much once again,you too. Now on, I'm gonna pretend that this is the actual ending.

P.S.- Among the very few of the ost gems this drama had, there is Davichi's Forgetting You, and if you have time and haven't heard/read the lyrics before, try it now. It's a pleasant ballad to listen, and the lyrics perfectly describe the dilemma they had. It has the words they said in the final before-piggyback-conversation and was also played in that background.

Sorry for the long post. With love, here's best wishes for successful writing in the many years to come.
Fighting,you two!💐

Love both of these alternate endings. For me it all started to go sour when Su didn't tell So she was hiding Eun and his wife in the Damiwon, even after So said he planned to help Eun escape. It undermined her love for him, for her to be so fearful even after so many years, and from that point on my trust in the drama's storytelling began to erode. Even a tragic ending would have been okay if it wasn't the result of some questionable choices.

Hi Lilsweetie, someone else who loved Scarlet Heart for what it was. I always thought the reason why Soo's character never becomes what most audience members wanted was because her changing would not be true to her character. I loved her from start to finish and her character growth was as heartbreaking as it was riveting. It both hurt and pleased me to watch her go from carefree young girl to world-weary woman. I thought there was a lot of parallel between her character and the other female characters in the show who also fatally loved princes. I also thought her character was a nice contrast to Kang Hana's character. In fact, I think save Wang So, I watched Scarlet Heart mostly for the women.

https://ktoonsbyfox.wordpress.com/2016/11/03/how-scarlet-heart-ryeo-should-have-ended/ is a link to my blog and my Scarlet Heart Ryeo ending. I submitted my alternate endings to Drama Beans but they are cartoons and I don't know if I submitted them correctly or if they'd work on this site.

I rarely watch the drama, so I wouldn't know much about it. But I did watch the Chinese drama and loved the sad ending.

The difference that I'm feeling here is that in this version, the viewers sympathize with the male lead while the viewers of the other one sympathize with the heroine.

I did not necessarily mind a unhappy ending, but my problem was that it didn't feel, I don't know, deserved/emotional? What makes tragedy is that it could have been avoided but it also makes sense that it wasn't, and that the characters try so hard to avoid tragedy but fails. The problem is that I felt Su, like so many female leads in Kdramas, are introduced as main characters, then the male lead comes and the show becomes all about them even if the female lead still have something important about them that is suddenly forgotten (See: "While You Were Sleeping", where the female lead being the Patient Zero of premonition is forgotten and the last episodes are about the male lead saving her and his feelings of the past while she cries in her sleep).

Where Ruoxi, the heroine of the Chinese version, was a walking history book and thus was so afraid changing history she hid in the background, Hae-soo knew only basic outlines of Goryeo history (which I like because that is more relatable to me personally), and though she knew the names of the coming kings, she did not remember which brother is which king. And I wish that was a bigger point that wasn't simply resolved through a vision.

Make her think Wook will be king so she gives him hints and such that makes him think she too is pressuring him into contenting for the throne. She still has a comraderie and friendship with So, which is unlike her childish infatuation with Wook. Then she realizes that Soo is Gwangjong through her own memories, and she realizes that Wook's scheming will get him a punishment worse than death. So she tries to stop Wook's growing ambition for the throne while trying to soften So to that he will have mercy on Wook. This, in turn, makes Wook misunderstand everything, and Hae-su realizes that the friendship she has had with So all this time turned into love so naturally she didn't realize. Realizing how her childishness messed up the brotherhood, she breaks up with Wook but warns him to not get in So's way, and thus over time accepts So's courting.

I also just wish more was EXPLAINED in the drama. Tell us why the only way for Hae-su to leave was to hurt So. Make their time together be years, not mere weeks. That was why Ruoxi's falling out with the Emperor was so crushing; they had waited years to be together, and then tried years to stay together; Su barely tried. Show us how Su loves Wang So, but is scared of Gwangjeon, and how much they try to protect each other and stay together, but ultimately the throne, which they thought would help them get together, split them apart emotionally.

Honestly, I think that is what would save Su a lot, besides remembering her importance: Have her TRY, SHOW us how hard she tries to help, how she grows jaded and cautious, show us how she actually stays in the palace with So at least a year or two, but she cannot find the man she loves in Gwangjeon anymore. Show us why she feels she needs to leave the palace to protect...

Sigh. I am too devoted to the Chinese drama, where the ending was bitterly perfect. The thing that made me sit up in the Kversion was the little daughter, but then she was simply dropped from the plot. Didn't Hae Soo even recall that she had a kid and left her in the past?

By the end Scarlet Heart had frustrated me so much that I almost felt it deserved that ending. I was 'ok' with Wang So living alone in exchange for the throne, because it made sense with his character. But Hae Soo becoming a make-up guru had me ARRRRGHHH. So thanks for the alternative endings beanies!

it was my most loved and most hated drama at the time... I loved So so much it actually hurt to see him alone in that drawing. I definitely felt cheated when he didn't appear in the modern day ending. I was ready to throw my computer out the window...

One of the commenters to the recaps had the best rewrite idea ever for this drama. The Su character should have been a scheming chaebol daughter appearing in the body of the princess.... I think THAT story could have been a worthy adaptation.

Oh i remember the madness that this show inspired... Loved it or hated it, but everybody had an opinion about it... Strong strong opinion

I think even with all the production flaws, the first 11 episodes hooked me completely... Till the iconic rain scene...
..

But after that, when she still continued to pine after wook, the story lost its grip... We basically spent so much time on a non romance that we didn't get time to flesh out the main romance (from her side) and the political stuff got shafted...

We would have a time jump after every 2 episodes with all the character development happening off screen

If i could i would scrub out the stuff after episode 11 and make the rise of the cruel king more impactful and the romance more epic than the tepid stuff we got

If I can, I would have put a like on this post.

For this drama, I would have been happy even if it ends at the boat scene like in Lilsweetie's ending. Future So does not need to say anything, just the idea that they meet again in the future is enough. This much is enough to make me happy, unlike the darned original ending that made me pause for 3 seconds before yelling, "What?! What?! That's it? Just that?!"

This drama drove me nuts. This was one of two dramas (other being reply 1988) that I watched live. It got me so emotionally invested in the story. I wanted a happy ending for our So-Soo lovers and watching it live somehow added to that urgency of knowing what happens next. Combine in the fact that this was also the only drama that had multiple versions floating around, and my anxiety levels were officially sky high. All in all it was a very emotional affair.

But I held on hoping for emotional payoff when we get our HEA. I remember anxiously watching the timer when the finale episode was airing, freaking out more and more when only a few minutes of drama time was left and we had still not gotten anywhere with our couple. And then to have it end just like that. On that bleak and utterly desolate state? It broke my heart and put me off dramas for a while.

I watch sad dramas as catharsis to let off some pent up emotions inside. Instead, all I was left chocking on my feelings at the end of Scarlet Heart.

I can't believe I actually finished this series, I guess being a fan of the original series helped.

I kinda wish IU wasn't the female lead, her acting wasn't that great. Lee Joon Ki was surrounded with mostly inexperienced actors and he kind of had to be the leader. Not to mention the messy ending... Soo should've just died in the past, or she meets So in the modern time period.

imma take either of these but with preference to the second because I agree with everything su wrong with Su.

Goodness, some how I know that this month theme would make tons of beanie submit their own version of Moon Lovers alternate ending.
After going through lots of chatting in our own hangout group, I have learned to love the flaws of Moon Lovers.
Yes, I still want that 5 minutes reunion between Ha Jin and Future So.
Just a few comments :
"Let’s rewind back to the moment Su made the decision to leave So, after Chae-ryung was killed. She wrote off Chae-ryung’s betrayal because she was a “girl in love” but turned against So even though he was, well, just a “man in love.” Erm, double standards, Su?" >> well, I don't see this as a double standart Su. Su need a reason to leave the palace and it seem this is the only reason she can find to leave So, I bet she knew (or suspect) that she is pregnant at that very moment. Look how bad is palace household in raising prince and princess, who wouldn't want to leave the palace in order to stay pregnant and keep the baby alive?

"I’ve never understood why Jung used his own handwriting to write on the envelopes of Su’s letters, despite knowing how much his brother hated him." >> me too, they never actually told us what happen if your hand writing is similar to the king. Just like the C-version, I still can't understand this part, although some believe that copying the King handwriting could be counted as treason or forgery and it can cause you a death sentence :p

Although the original ending was bad but it was better than these alternate endings.

the ending is fine but a part 2 is most definitely needed. it could begin with some much needed loose ends from part 1. it could have had a few more episodes but maybe they can be put in part 2. i will have to watch it again to make sensible suggestions.

This drama and my almost crazy obsession for the otp drove me to tears with the ending urghh. Tried filling the gap with many well written fan fics, but I hold my stance. I need a sequel to this drama where it takes place in the future, with the exact same cast, and hopefully no chabeol war storylines.

The terrible ending wont change the fact that this drama is the best of the best for me( thanx to LJG, excuse my love of the first sight) but if only Soo died in So's arms instead of Jung, then it will be very much ok for me.
And I'm not interested in second season, not interested to see IU again.

The first re-write sounds perfect too. I am going to remember this drama ending that way.

The perspective of both of the beanies are unique yet satisfying :-)
Probably everyone has So & Su reunited in 2016 in their heads, but I did think of an ending similar to @lezah 's version, I too imagined Su to run into the art gallery owner who would be So, a second gen chaebol (obviously :-P ).

I would have appreciated any ending that would have helped me understand what the point of this whole thing was. This really was 20 hours of sound and fury signifying nothing.

I binge watched this so a lot of the issues of patchy story telling and confusing time jumps weren’t as bad. I also found Soo’s decisions in the back half more coherent than a lot of people did because I’d only just seen the earlier episodes. She made it clear she hated the Throne, the brutality of the palace and men who had multiple wives. She decided to make the best of So’s decision because she loved him and because she could see no other better contender for the throne. But he took the throne and moved her into the palace and married other women even knowing they were all things she specifically loathed. By the time he was sleeping with his sister and murdering servants, I can understand perfectly why she decided she needed to get out as fast as possible. Especially when she was stuck in the palace with literally nothing to do but wait for him to visit her. Chae Ryung’s death was just the last straw.

My main problem with the series is that there was very little point to it overall. I couldn’t work out what the show had to say. The homeless man’s statement at the beginning made it seem like the moral of the story was “life sucks wherever you are so you may as well try to find happiness where you can”. Which would be fine if she found happiness in the midst of all the brutality. But she kind of didn’t. She had a short, brutal life in both timelines and, well, at least in our timeline she had a washing machine.
Since the show returned her to the modern world after her “death”, I thought there had to be some change in her that would provide a reason for her travels through time. But as far as I can see, it was completely random and almost pointless. She returned to the present the same person she was before.

The drama implied (but for some bizarre reason did not show) them reuniting in the future. If there was a scene of them happily living together in a future free of the brutality and politics of the Goryeo era then I could say the point was that she was rewarded ultimately for her steadfastness and endurance. As she repeatedly said, she was determined not to change even if everybody changed around her.
But since they didn’t do that then I’ll stay confused.

I hope Moon Lovers:Scarlet Heart Ryeo season 2 will coming soon...I still keep questioning until now,what happened this ever after?Is it a last ending forever?As we know and no doubt anymore,this drama is a real history,its facts...I hope to avoid a tragic last ending...But I can't avoided until now,I will waiting although take a long time...I have looking a trailer of this drama for season 2 and it make me excited...Anyway,hwaiting!Aja-aja!!Fighting!!!So-Soo couples...May be why many people didn't watch this drama because its aired in a channel that anyone not watched in this channel because its so hard to get this channel...As like me,I only can watch this in online,in this year although this drama aired in year 2016,now 2018,so sad...I think,Moon Lovers:Scarlet Heart Ryeo must aired again,may be more people can watch this drama rating getting up,I wish...I hope don't angry and banned me because my opinion...I am sincere...

Yes, it's 2019 and - as so many others - I'm still not over MLSHR. Don't think I'll ever get over it until they give a 2nd season with a REAL happy ending. Either of the above versions would have been better than what we were left with, and I actually spent 3 days "patching" my own DVD collection of the series to where the final episode now has a much happier ending (thanks to a beautiful YouTube video created by Daria Zyuzina) where Wang So finds Hae Soo in the future. I guess that will have to do until we maybe get a second season someday.

I also have to agree with the evaluation of Hae Soo's character, and as much as I wanted the happy ending for Wang So since he truly and completely loved her, I still felt like Soo didn't even deserve him. She continued to doubt him, and despite all the promises she made (turned out to be empty ones), she still left him when he needed her the most. Okay, so MAYBE it can be justified that she wanted 'the best for her child', but she definitely went about it the wrong way (imho).

4 years have gone by but why is it that I still wish to see a happy ending for So and Soo ? The drama did have a few down but I still wish they did get a chance to meet, it may given the drama a feeling like "ok ! They met again !! Happy dance and all, same happy ending common in dramas" but I wished it was true in this case. Scarlet heart did make me cry mainly for three reasons after finding out about the original Chinese version.
1 - the 10th prince gets a happy ending
2 - So and Soo meets again
3 - THERE'S A SEASON 2 !!!!
But then again I can't help but think since the way drama ended this may be the reason that even to this day I still wish for a different ending....

May 2023 Just finished and was happy to find this article and a few fan films of an alternate ending on You Tube. Thank you!

Frankly, I was satisfied with the ending. Hae Soo's "before" story was never really explored in her flashbacks; suddenly she's in the lake during the eclipse and we're in Goryeo. Since we didn't really know her "before" story, the details of her "after" story weren't really necessary for the ending.

I think this drama could have been just as good without the time-traveling bookends and the silly references to modern day life (the birthday party, the beauty spa, etc.).

Spending more time developing her relationship with Jung (and less time on Eun's story) would have made for a better ending.