This is what will never be because it never was.
It's a STILL taken for promotional purposes and has nothing to do with how this fictional drama played out.
FICTION:
In my surface search, I have not found any writings about King Chungseon having a BFF.
I am disappointed with the script.
However, the main actors and actress, as depicted on the right, did a more than excellent job.
Im Siwan, did such a great job that I actually got interested in King Chungseon and started looking for any written information in history, and not fiction.
Throughout this series, watching the two boys share a rare friendship, warmed my soul, since the world lacks such people. The best parts of this drama was when there were scenes of the three, just being people. Those scenes pulls on the heartstrings because it CAN and DOES happen to the fortunate few of us in this world. The laughter and lighter moments in our lives when we forget who we had to portray in our real life and just be people without any serious mission.
In history, his mother, the Queen then, did pass away and the drama included that section. There was suspicion that she was murdered.
Perhaps, some viewers never took the side of the Crown Prince because they thought that people should be morally coded at all times. I guess those are the viewers, MOST drama writers, Networks, base their ratings on.
Had I lived back then, I would have gone into a rampage too - if my royal parent, was murdered.
Such wickedness and cruelty cannot expect kindness as a repercussion.
We may never know, why King Chungseon abdicated the throne shortly after ascending it, only to go back to his roots. Perhaps, the loss of his Mother did affect him, also for real.
I am not of royalty and so I'm not familiar with how things are for them, especially back then, when there was no mobile phone, telephone or any form of instant communication.
I accept that this drama is based very partially on Korean History. The drama, which is based on a fictional book (also fiction), uses that point in time, with that specific ruler and built a story around the little that we all know as a fact.
FACT : Queen died suddenly - murdered was on the minds of some
FACT : Crown Prince was married in CHINA as required. He had other Korean wives as well.
FACT : He did ascend to the throne after his mothers death.
FACT : He did abdicate the throne back to his father when he left for China and stayed there for a decade
FACT: He did return to Korea, when his father, the King, passed.
I would never want to watch a drama written like this ever again. As I said in my earlier posts, if I wanted to know more in history, I WOULD GO TO FACT FINDING CHANNELS or buy HISTORY BOOKS on that matter. I would not want to spend my leisure time, trying to understand a complicated plot, some parts which made no sense to me at all.
IM SIWAN - He deserved the award he received years ago, for another K-Drama. He is an excellent actor and I know he will never get to read my comment about him, since I'm not a significant expert anywhere on the screens - but I will say this - IF NOT FOR HIM, I would have bailed out on the series many episodes back. His facial expressions were on point and his acting drove me to start research on King Chungseon.
There isn't much information that google turned up, so I will be going to bookstores and the library to find books on Korean History.
If anything, IM SIWAN, brought to life, a King pretty much misunderstood and one who was lonely, sad yet not as POWER-HUNGRY as he could have been. I think, being a King meant, either you show your colour or someone else is going to shit on your head.
Because of IM SIWAN, I am motivated to find out more about what was.
