EARLY ACCESS Apothecary Diaries Season 2 Episode 12 Reaction
Added 2025-05-23 17:57:30 +0000 UTC
Comments
wow
KH JANG
2025-05-29 03:24:45 +0000 UTCSo many things to say. The delay in Maomao's reaction to the "frog" might be a form of cognitive dissonance: reality being wildly different from expected, or at least what she convinced herself of. Using the "frog" analogy afterwards is like maintaining plausible deniability. Maomao did once theorize about a baby swap, given Jinshi's resemblance to Ah-Duo, but does she realistically have any reason to suspect that Jinshi is actually the current Emperor's son? Good thought, that pawns in chess protect the higher-ranking pieces. The dog sniffs out the solution, but so does the human version, Lihaku. In this situation, Basen represents the Crown Prince, and Gaoshun is not known to officially have anything to do with him, so he cannot interfere or take charge. People look down on the Crown Prince for whatever reason (especially after he isn't seen often, and is rumored to be sickly or scarred). Who knows what people thought when he was 14? (Yeah, hard to believe he began his duty in the rear palace when he was 14.) But I think the real origin of the discontent is not the current Crown Prince or the current Emperor, but those who immediately preceded them, the former Emperor and the Empress Royal. Those two have caused the resentment, but it still continues to this day, despite the fact that the current Emperor, the Empress Dowager, Anshi, and the Crown Prince, haven't actually done anything wrong. The current Emperor seems to be a good one. Furthermore, the fact that the Emperor has as yet had no (known) heir, leads people to believe that the Emperor is not favored by the heavens, feeding into their preconceived notions about the current dynasty, because why all the bad luck? And I think it is also a good point that Gyokuyou and the other concubines would feel threatened by Jinshi's true status. But where are the envoys now? Jinshi doesn't want to push the revelations about his identity with Maomao, because this will by itself change the dynamics between them. It would make her withdraw even further. But you point out that he came dangerously close to that before, by almost forcing her into something she doesn't want. Some people seem to have noticed that Jinshi, as his lips approached hers, closed them, which to them seem to indicate that he wasn't going to carry this through. However, he did continue to move closer. We will never know what he was going to do there. It's true that Jinshi in particular is very attuned to power dynamics, but can we assume he thinks like we do, in our culture and time? And can we assume that Maomao also does? True, we must also take into account the author's beliefs. I think it is a good insight to say that giving the gift to Maomao freely, before any obligation was incurred, was a good move on his part and partly defuses the prior situation. Maomao says, " Jinshi will always be Jinshi." I think (others disagree) that means that she sees the essential Jinshi, devoid of social position. But we cannot escape from social position in this story. The door between them symbolizes the protection of social class, I think, which I think you were saying, and they want to maintain it, especially Maomao, because she really doesn't know how to handle this, or what to do. She thinks, what if I say the wrong thing? Something we need to point out here, once again, that despite their respective upbringings, which have exposed them to some things more than most people were, thus giving them a lot of maturity in those areas, they are still very young. By the way, the state of Jinshi's "frog" might not be very sturdy, since wasn't he taking that drug? Even if he's been slacking off lately, could it really be back to normal? Handing out those ox bezoar one by one would be quite manipulative of Jinshi. Gaoshun saying that he became a eunuch is him stating what others believe.
myst0dreamer
2025-05-24 01:21:16 +0000 UTCYes, like in the modern world, the boss would ideally not engage at all with a subordinate, but even if he weren't her direct boss, how does he abdicate from royalty?
myst0dreamer
2025-05-24 00:43:29 +0000 UTCOne of the problems between Jinshi's and Mao Mao's relationship is that Jinshi outranks her so much that she can't really say no to him; if she were to reject him outright or hurt him while resisting, that might be enough to have her and her family killed. We may look favourably their relationship because Jinshi is one of the main characters and they are probably end game, but Mao Mao hasn't shown any signs of liking Jinshi back. That makes the situation they are in quite toxic.
juan cao
2025-05-23 20:32:20 +0000 UTC
