You have waited for the right time to achieve something great. If you would allow it, I would like to join you. […] I am ready to bear the consequences of my feelings.
Park Eun Bin as King Lee Hwi/Dami and Rowoon as Jiwoon in The King’s Affection - Episode 15
I’m honestly shocked by how into this show I am. After the first week, I was sincerely unsure if I would continue it: I hated the romcom vibe of Ji Woon’s scenes, and I super-super hated that he had seen Hwi as a girl so early in the show. I thought it would upend the balance of power, when so much of what attracted me to the premise is that the male lead is subordinate to the female lead (and I do think a lot of the attraction of historical cross-dressing narratives is allowing the leads to become close in a different social context, when their similar perceived gender allows them to engage with each other as equals; the premise of Yeonmo pushes that promise even further).
But then this show has been great about building their relationship, with Ji Woon convinced Hwi is a man even to the point that seeing her dressed as a woman doesn’t clue him in. He loves her as a man, as the Crown Prince, and as he loves her he serves her. It’s gorgeous, and so gratifying to see this girl who has been so lonely and isolated and frankly emotionally abandoned by her dad (more on him in a bit!) be treated with such generous loving care (of course Ji Woon is not the only character to display his love for Hwi; Court Lady Kim in particularly has had some lovely moments of affection and support). The purity of Ji Woon’s adoration is so satisfying to watch as a viewer, as is his emotional transparency. I think my favorite scene of the two of them so far is when he hugs her after she’s been told off by her father and is kneeling in the hall. She desperately needs affection and support, and he gives it to her freely, beautifully.
The revelation this week that Dad has known the whole time and wrestling with how to take care of his Crown Prince daughter leaves me kind of ambivalent, though. From a Joseon-era point of view, I guess I should look on the fact that he didn’t expose her and kick her out or do away with her somehow, given the massive threat she posed to his own stability, as a basically good thing–and then his behind-the-scenes efforts to support her, his worry about her, becomes almost admirable. But this is a youth sageuk with, let’s face it, a fairly contemporary outlook, and all I can think is that, from the point of view of the child that she was when she became Hwi, secret concern and love is just like no concern and love at all. She was a desperate, scared child, and what she experienced was her father’s coldness, even as he showered affection on her younger brother. I don’t know if I can fault the dad as a king, but as a father I really think he was terrible, and left intense emotional scars in his daughter who he supposedly loved.
There was one line in his letter that stuck with me though: Yi Hwi was his son’s name, but in his eyes, it’s now his daughter’s name, too. After all, she’s been Hwi for as long as she was Dam Yi (and she never was given the chance to be Yeon Seon). This liminality of her identity is borne out through the “chase” scene once she’s in women’s clothes: not only is she still wearing men’s boots under her skirt, but ultimately her clothing can’t do anything to change the fact that she is the (deposed) Crown Prince that these soldiers seek. All they have to do is see her face. Which is to say, presenting as a woman doesn’t erase her identity as Hwi, or the position that she held as Hwi. She admits as much to her father: his entreaty that she go and live her life freely totally ignores the fact that she has never had that freedom, and she’s spent much of her childhood and her entire adult life living a role that she never asked for and that she risks her life every day to perform. The preview for next week indicates that she will not be able to leave behind her life as Hwi, due to various machinations. I really hope that the show will continue to explore the ways that Hwi/Dam Yi has grown into an adult who isn’t quite one or the other, to whom her experiences as servant girl and Crown Prince are equally important and impactful.
You know I think I realized why I keep seeing the King’s Affection as a BL even though I KNOW it’s not. Because this show is giving me a proper DRAMA with story, angst and tropes unlike actual BLs.
Not saying the BLs that are good (with plot and drama) are bad but let’s be honest and say most BLs are just fanservice and too short. Especially Korean ones. (But they’re still getting started so I’m hoping they’ll kick it up a notch soon.)
This drama is giving me what I’ve always wanted from a BL and that is DEPTH. Depth between two characters. Have me fall in love with the characters, understand their struggles, empathize with them, root for them, cry for them. Give me all the same feelings like any normal drama with a het couple. And maybe I specifically love historical royal romances but the whole premise of the Crown Prince and his tutor?! Amazing. King and his bodyguard secret romance?? Could happen in future drama. (Honestly I have been rooting for this type of plot for years lol) Basically, the fact that it’s a faux BL and not an actual one isn’t the issue–(because I love Dami and her character and are rooting for her happiness no matter what)–it’s the fact that THIS type of plot could work for a potential gay drama and all we need is someone with the cajones to do it!!
thinking about how the king’s affection managed to make a gender bending drama where the gender of the female lead isn’t the only focus of tension between her and her love interest because they’ve made it a hidden identity story and a power story, it’s about a) the fact that she’s the crown prince and b) the fact that she’s had a previous life as an orphan and maid
a) we’ve seen that jiwoon’s struggles with coming to terms with his own feelings for the prince wasn’t so much because he was falling for a man but because he was falling for a man who is the crown prince (aka someone with more power than almost everyone in the country, someone he has to be loyal and deferant to, someone who lives in a different world than him, someone with whom behaviour should be formal and dictated by class rules… ) and who is about to get married (so someone with whom truly nothing can happen - even if now he knows his feelings were returned if only for a second )
b) jiwoon is one of the only people in the palace who knows who dami was, who and she was his first love like he was hers and the prince passing as a man means that she’s had to lie about being dead to her first love and that now her “gender reveal” isn’t just about being a woman and not a man it’s about revealing her actual identity as dami, explaining that she isn’t dead and she lied to him about who she was in several ways and whenever they interact and you see her longing for him or holding herself back my heart hurts for her because she is right in front of him and he has no idea
but at the same time it’s beautiful because that means jiwoon has fallen in love with the same person twice without knowing it was the same person, without even knowing he was falling for a woman twice and I think it’s beautiful that they’ve let him confess before he learns that she’s not just a woman but also dami because his present feelings feel all the more sincere that they don’t rely on past one’s for a girl he hasn’t seen in years and it means that no matter what he loves all sides of her and you can see it as their destiny too, that no matter what they’ll find each other and love each other, it’s a classic romantic line to say to your lover that you’d love them even if they were reborn as other people and jiwoon just did that in one lifetime (it also means it’ll probably hurt him a lot to know that although she recognised him she kept him in the dark all this time even after they got closer)
I will believe you if you say the feelings were momentary. But it wasn’t for me. It wasn’t admiration from a subject. I thought it was my loyalty to you. But it was affection.
the prince coming out to hang out with jiwoon was like her allowing herself to hug him and to kiss him, just a last favour to herself before sending him away and fulfilling her duty (and it’s a duty that was never meant to be hers, a duty she was almost killed for as a baby), like a last breath before going back underwater
jiwoon keeps saying all these romantic things and confessing his feelings again and again to the prince and it’s both heartbreaking because they can’t be together but also it’s very endearing that now that he’s confessed he’s so comfortable with his feelings and although it’s hard to bear for the prince because she can’t allow herself any vulnerability, jiwoon doesn’t hold himself back and says how much he feels, how he’d keep looking for the prince if he stayed, he’s in love and he’s accepted it even if it can’t lead to anything
