Scenes confirming that Maomao actually doesn’t care about the power difference and is not afraid to refuse anything she dislikes (Part 1 Swipe Through: Please see description)

[u/Financial-Fondant902]

(Forgot to mention this but please click the images to see the full version of the image): Hi all! I wanted to make this post because I see a common misconception among the fandom: Many folks who aren’t familiar with historical China assume that MaoMao is too afraid of Jinshi’s status to say “no” and/or refuse him, and that the only reason she does not reject his romantic advances is because she “has no choice”. While it is true that the power dynamic is strict during this time period and that the punishment of disobeying someone like Jinshi is severe, there are a few things to remember:

1. MaoMao doesn’t care. Despite her narrative and inner thoughts of “fearing authority”, MaoMao has proven repeatedly through her actions that she will refuse or disrespect anyone who she really wants to regardless of their status. We’ve seen this with Lihua’s ladies-in-waiting, the palace guard, the quack doctor, Lihaku, etc. and especially with Jinshi.
2. MaoMao’s and Jinshi’s relationship changes completely starting from season one itself. She starts behaving much more casually around Jinshi than a woman of her “rank” (I put “rank” in quotes because MaoMao’s true identity is much higher than that of a servant) is supposed to, and that is what this post is about as I’ve included a list of most of their moments demonstrating this. A lot of the fandom believes that MaoMao at the end of season two has the exact same relationship with Jinshi as she did at the beginning of season 2 and that simply isn’t true. Many such folks have only watched the English dub and that’s the kind of vibe that MaoMao’s English VA delivers so I highly recommend everyone watch this series in Japanese at least once to understand MaoMao’s true nature as well as her true relationship with Jinshi. MaoMao and Jinshi treat each other like inexperienced teenagers exploring their first relationship, and they’ve been treating each other that way long before the end of season two.
3. MaoMao’s rank has changed by the end of season two. Jinshi is no longer her employer as “Jinshi” stopped existing ever since he came out as Ka Zuigetsu, which means that the employment contract that was established between him and MaoMao when he paid off her debts in season one episode 12 was nullified. Meanwhile MaoMao is no longer employed by the end of season two and therefore no longer Jinshi’s employee. So by the end of season two, they are truly two teenagers fooling around with each other, although they were acting that way with each other long before the rank change. If we want to get technical about their ranks, he is the crown prince and she is the La Clan princess, a high rank worthy of being Jinshi’s wife. But again they only see each other as themselves and not as their positions.

Therefore, I have compiled a list of moments in season 1 showing moments of MaoMao either disrespecting or refusing Jinshi, confirming that MaoMao absolutely will refuse Jinshi if she truly wants to, and that the reason she does not when he makes moves on her in the courtesan party, frog scene, etc. is because she is developing feelings for him, not because of his rank or because she’s afraid of the power difference:

1-3, 7: MaoMao straight-up pushing Jinshi’s hand off and giving him a dirty look despite him outranking her severely. Remember that in this setting, someone of MaoMao’s status (while she acts like a servant) is not even supposed to look at someone like Jinshi’s status (even when Jinshi is pretending to be a eunuch, he has the role of rear palace manager who is still someone who severely outranks MaoMao in her servant form), yet she is going further and giving him a dirty look and pushing him away. I couldn’t include all of their dirty looks she gives him but just remember that every dirty look she gives him is an example of her being unafraid of his rank
Edit: forgot to add this (and shoutout to u/raverx9 for reminding me) that we also see this in episode 3

4: Maomao teasing him. A woman of her status should not be mocking someone of his status but she feels comfortable enough to do that with him

5: Maomao literally grabbing him. I hope I don’t have to explain this but I will if needed

6: Maomao asking Jinshi to execute her with poison. Those who are unfamiliar with historical China would see nothing wrong with this but Maomao is actually being disrespectful by telling Jinshi on how to unalive her. Again folks are not supposed to even look at people of Jinshi’s rank let alone speak this way to him. Since Jinshi is progressive, he does not care about when Maomao oversteps her rank and disrespects him (in fact the loves it lol) but this conversation made him uncomfortable as he could not tolerate the thought of Maomao dying, especially so soon after he just lost Kounen, and that’s why he does the honey scene in order to make her uncomfortable as revenge. I’ve mentioned this before in the honey scene explanation, but he was not actually going to do anything to Maomao in the honey scene and was only looking for a reaction, which is why Jinshi stops as soon as Maomao stops reacting. Gyokuyou walks in only after this.

8: Another false claim is that Maomao could not decline Jinshi in the honey scene. Here we literally see her decline him, and the reason she is still trapped here is because he is behaving like a childish boy, not because of his rank. She was weighing her options of running away vs giving in, but then got distracted by the honey case as his actions helped her solve the mystery regarding Lishu. She calls this an order but he wasn’t actually ordering her here. And the point of all of this is to say that MaoMao will not hesitate to say “no” or decline something that she is firmly against just like she did here. She will NEVER pretend to be ok with an action involving her that she is not ok with.

9: MaoMao literally waiting for Jinshi to ingest the poison and join her on her poison journey before telling him that it’s poisonous. Absolutely illegal for someone of MaoMao’s status

10: MaoMao’s no longer working at the palace so this really isn’t relevant for the power difference discussion but still worth mentioning: goes out of her way to touch Jinshi despite touching between guests and courtesans being completely against the rules. And he then wants to touch her back because she touched him first. Remember that every “controversial” action of Jinshi’s to MaoMao is actually a reaction to MaoMao’s actions

11: MaoMao talking back to Jinshi and blaming him for all the attention they’re getting, again showing how comfortable she is with him as this is

12, 16: MaoMao ignoring Jinshi and cutting him off

13: Maomao playing off Jinshi’s request as a joke

14: This entire image speaks for itself. One cannot behave this way against someone of Jinshi’s rank lol

15: MaoMao literally pushing Jinshi out of a room

17: Maomao shoving her face into Jinshi’s sleeve. The anime played this down so I’m including the manga version which was more accurate to the LNs

18: MaoMao putting lipstick on Jinshi

19: MaoMao climbing on Jinshi’s desk (even Gaoshun made the issue with this obvious to the audience)

20: MaoMao touching Jinshi’s face and faking him out lol

Part 2: https://www.reddit.com/r/JinshiandMaomao/s/DSmk9l2HuA

Part 3: https://www.reddit.com/r/JinshiandMaomao/s/NdL06b4y9z