This drama has a fascination with various depictions of motherhood. We have Mommie Dearest Empress, who on the surface appears to do whatever will benefit her children, but really she’s only ever looking out for her own interests. She’s willing to throw away one son and to destroy the other one’s sanity in her quest for power. At this point, she’s irredeemable in my eyes, and I cannot wait to see her get hers.

Then there’s Min Yu-ra, who chose to have a child but not to be a mother (a valid choice). She’s not a mother despite having a child, yet there’s something to be said about her relationship with her son – it seems that even if she’s not maternal, she does have some affection for him, however misguided it may be.

Then there’s her inverse, Seo Kang-hee, who wants to be a mother but, like Mommie Dearest Empress, is also looking for power, though her intentions are better placed and she’s much less murder-y. I’m not totally sure what her game is yet, but I’m curious to see how she develops. It seems she really loved the late empress in her own way and she obviously loves her child and is deeply hurt by the way she is treated by the new princess.

The first two women here are clearly not meant to be mothers, and Min Yu-ra actively made that choice. But Seo Kang-hee chose the better life for her daughter at the sacrifice of her motherhood, but at some point, one has to ask whether the price was worth it.

Mommie Dearest Empress is just batshit crazy and someone needs to set her on fire.

I don’t really know where I’m going with this but I can’t stop thinking about the role motherhood plays in this story. Anyone else want to tune in?
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    Yu- Ra tried to murder her child. She saw him as a inconvenience to becoming Empress and paid someone to make that poor kid disappear.

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      Oh I know, I’m not saying she’s a good person by any means, or even a good mother figure. But she has this twisted sense of loyalty to the kid, despite everything. Her wanting him dead (as super f***ed up as that is) was borne out of her sense of self-preservation in that moment, which is the only thing she ever cares about. There’s no doubt she would shove him under a bus if it meant her own survival. But later she does try to keep him alive, and she does seem worried, even if it’s only for herself, when she sees he’s with the weird old cabin dude.

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        I think what larelle mentioned was even after she saw the kid with Dramabeans Ajusshi (what we’re calling “Weird old cabin dude” due to his tendency to explain and recap events for us) she paid someone to ship the kid somewhere far away. So not kill, but hide away like that mess of clothes you don’t wanna hang or fold.

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          That laundry analogy *chef’s kiss*

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          @dokutokunaneko “Dramabeans Ajusshi” ….. Heh!

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          But that’s exactly what I mean — she’s ok with treating the kid like shit, she’s even ok with having him murdered in the moment, but when she’s more clearheaded she treats him marginally (like, really really marginally) better than others. She’s all about having Wang-shik killed, right from the start; same with ajumma. But for her, choosing to let someone live is kind of a freaking miraculous good deed. Hence, twisted affection.

          Also, Dramabeans Ajusshi is a much better name. I was too tired to remember the word I needed for him, and then he went and got all cleaned up in the latest episodes and I got extra confused.

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            I wouldn’t call it twisted affection so much as, ‘damn they can really come for me if I murder a kid’.

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    Love your analysis! It is hilarious to me that the person who might be the best mother in this drama is Oh Sunny, the woman who does not have a biological child but who actually bothers to do some parenting for Ari who terribly needs it.

    A similar character who was formerly in a similar situation was Princess Sojin….a very different story there! 😆

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      I did have some thoughts on those two also, but anything about Oh Sunny is too obvious — no mother, still possesses the natural pathos of a mother etc.

      As for So-jin, well, she’s a child herself (though not through any fault of her own) and having her raise the princess as her own was hilarious since it was just two children bickering. But also, she seems genuinely lonely without the princess now, which I find kind of interesting. Unlike her brother’s loneliness, her’s stems from being used and thrown away her whole life, and for all she’s kind of a b****, I have genuine sympathy for her character.

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      Wow seems like I couldn’t resist the word “who” which is apparently on sale today…..

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    LOVE LOVE LOVE this analysis! While Hyuk definitely has a complex about his dad, and we still got the requisite “dad is a fucking idiot in debt” from Sunny’s dad, I appreciate the heavy shift towards “problems by women for women (and others)” in this drama, and of course that means messed up motherhood. I would disagree a bit on Seo Kang Hee: it looks to me that she made up the story about the late empress (telling Hyuk that the late empress was cheating on him, when we know she wasn’t because the late empress was so angry at his accusation <- even though that wasn't proof enough, we know only good people die in this drama so since she's dead, she was a good person and therefore didn't cheat <- flawless logic). Just because of this I think her intentions are only sliiiiiightly better placed (i.e. it's not all about making a future for Ari for her; she is in it for herself as well). And she's definitely not less murder-y as we saw in the last whodunnit scenes in the latest ep (SPOILER I SAW THAT YOU ARE ALL CAUGHT UP WITH THE EPS BUT JUST IN CASE!)

    she's Grandma murder suspect Number 1 at the moment).

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      I don’t think she told the emperor that the late empress cheated though? I think it’s more like it was already in his mind and she just didn’t disavow the notion, which is again part of her survival strategy.

      And I think that’s what all the females in this drama can be described as doing: surviving. All of them, the good, the bad, the neutral, are fighting for survival and their own well being, and I am here for it. It’s so rare to get so many differently complex female characters in one show. Yes, everything is heightened, but no two females are the same, there’s not always a sympathetic explanation for their behavior, but none of them are entirely passive or content with letting others run the show, not even So-jin who I’m pretty sure is gonna snap soon or else otherwise lose it in some way, poor thing.

      I don’t think Seo Kang-hee killed Granny Empress. I don’t think she’s murder-y so much as she would sit back and watch a murder that benefits her without any hesitation. She’s a master manipulator, working with whatever material she finds, but never actually getting her hands dirty. I don’t see her as instigating a murder. Also, she gains nothing from Granny’s death — she was literally getting everything because granny was in her (daughter’s) corner.

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        In a previous ep she did tell him that the late empress treated the bodyguard differently, among other stories, to fuel the fire. I agree with you on all points, just wanted to point out that shes being very active and not passive in her quest for power.

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        Also agree re her gaining more from Grandma being alive than dead, but I feel a twist (or many) coming to show us that the least expected culprit is the true one (maybe Ill eat my words and Sunny is the true killer, who knows, literally anything can happen in this drama!)

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        Found it! From dramamilk recap ep 23-24: meanwhile, Hyuk has that drink with the nanny in the nanny’s quarters. He tells her that she was the colsest to Sohyun, so she should know if the bodyguard and her had a special relationship. The nanny says that she does not know about them as a man and a woman, but he was definitely not just a bodyguard. Whenever you left the palace, she called the bodyguard and stayed with him until morning. I saw it many times.

        Hyuk – So everything was true? Why are you telling met his now?

        Nanny – She was my friend before she was an empress. And I should not talk bad about the dead.

        Hyuk – *laughs*

        nanny – *thinks*

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          Again, though, that’s passive to me in that she’s not the one planting the seed (it’s already there, thanks to mommie dearest) but rather she adds fuel to the fire. I think we just have different ideas of what passive is. To me active is straight up being manipulative and being the sower of bad seeds like the dowager, whereas passive is working off of the misdeeds of others like the nanny.

          Nanny’s not the one doing the planting, but she sure as hell is making sure that seed grows. Nothing can be traced back to her — if someone accuses her, she has a defense because she never outright said the late empress was having an affair. Implication of something only has to do with the other parties’ interpretation, and that’s not on her. (I mean, it totally is because that’s 100% what manipulation is. But I’m just saying if she were taken to trial she’d be found innocent. I may need to stop bringing the day job into my drama viewing though.)

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            Haha love this! And yes in that way she could be described as very cleverly moving in the shadows!

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            At the end of this mess, nanny may have a few drops of blood on the hem of her dress, but her hands are clean.

            Mommie Dearest, however, will probably look like she bathed in blood. Which she may actually do at some point considering she likes human breastmilk baths.

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    Also I don’t think you can actually call Mommie Empress a mother because there is no way in hell any mother would take bath in breast milk. My mind is still reeling from that. Especially since I come sine my part of the country has really high malnutrition rates

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