"The Palace is a dazzling prison"

I feel like that sums up the driving force of this story. It is a tragedy that explores the restraints of the monarchy for all its subjects, even the king. All the characters are trapped in different ways and it made it easy for me to empathise with them all.

But in particular, this story's main focus is the journey of Royal Noble Consort, Uibin Seong, as she battles against the limited free will offered to a Lady of the Royal Court. For the most part, she is a very likeable protagonist who is headstrong and knows what she wants.

The drama perfectly blends fiction with real historical events. It has a great love story, political intrigue, and does not hide away from the realities of the time, all without being too saturated in melodrama like so many sageuks.

I'm a big fan of historical dramas and I'm not ignorant to how few of them let their characters run off into the sunset (shoutout to The King in Love for exceeding my expectations there). Although this drama doesn't have a *super* happy ending, I enjoyed it far more than I ever expected. It is bittersweet and effectively portrays the eventual fate of its main characters.

I'm not sure how to explain why this historical drama stood out to me more than most others. The chemistry between the leads is wonderful, their romance embeds tropes such as met as a child, hidden identity, enemies to friends to hesitant lovers. The pacing of the story was a little rushed towards the end but on the whole, I was never bored watching this series.

I would heartily recommend this show to anyone interested in watching a historical drama.

If you want to learn the basics of this plot to prepare you for any impending heartache (which will happen) research Jeongjo of Joseon, or Jeonjo the Great who reigned from 1752-1800.