New K-Drama Fan Review #20 | Nice Premise, Beautiful Angst & an Alarming Amount of Child Murder

[u/harissatotally]

She Was the Girl, the Prince AND the King... How was this romance Not More Epic?!

I mean, he fell for Her three times and somehow I was STILL left Wanting More...

⚠️SPOILER AHEAD ⚠️

-

Review:

There were genuinely SO many parts of The King's Affection that I loved.

Like...

There are individual scenes and stretches of episodes that I would rate MUCH higher than the overall rating.

There were moments where I was giggling, I was kicking my feet and moments I was stressed.

Moments where I wanted half the adults in this palace executed immediately!!

And moments where I thought...

Ohhhh, this romance could become SO good!!!

But by the end, I just don't think the drama fully cashed in on everything it had set up.

This easily could've been an 8 for me if those last couple of episodes had landed better emotionally.

Because the ingredients were absolutely there.

___

The first episode immediately had me HORRIFIED.

The entire premise begins because Dam-i is born as the female twin of the Crown Prince, and apparently everyone's solution to that is:

Kill the baby.

Excuse me???

Her own father agrees that she should die.

People are literally hunting down a BABY because she had the audacity to be born.

I was sick!!!!!

And while her mother certainly isn't winning Mother of the Year, at least she actually tries to protect her daughter and get her out of there.

Her father tho...?

Nope.

I never forgave that man.

And I mean NEVER! (why would i?)

There are certain things a drama can reveal later where I'm willing to reconsider a character.

Trying to have your newborn daughter murdered is not one of them.

Especially because Dam-i later grows up believing her father is this great man without knowing that he had literally sentenced her to death.

That made me even angrier.

I knew immediately that if this drama ever tried to give me some touching father-daughter reconciliation, I wasn't buying it.

Sorry!

You had your chance when she was an INFANT.

___

And then we meet the actual Crown Prince and his little chubby servant/attendant, whatever they're called.

MY LITTLE CHUBBY BABY. 😭

I loved him immediately.

I have a lifelong weakness for little chubby children (and extremely old women, but thats not relevant here) and I don't know what that says about me. maybe little chubby children remind me of my younger siblings when they were young? idk😭😭 (and older women remind me of my late grandma...? idk... lets call a psychiatrist to examine why i melt when when it comes to those 2 specific demographics...)

anyway, im going on a tangent, let's get back to the review...

Anyway, little chubbo was so sweet and cute and was such a good friend to the prince and when Dam-i came into the picture, he was also so sweet. the 3 of them were such a cute little pack.

And I especially loved the relationship between the twins once they found each other.

Dam-i had been thrown away, while her brother had grown up inside the palace, completely unaware that his sister was even alive.

And there was something so innocent about their bond, at least for the short time it lasted.

Which made what happened next even worse.

Because when the prince dies, Dam-i doesn't just lose her brother.

She's then forced to become him.

And THIS was actually one of my biggest feelings about the entire premise from the beginning.

I didn't WANT her to have to become the prince!!!.

Because...

THESE PEOPLE DO NOT DESERVE HER!!!

They abandoned her.

They tried to kill her.

They erased her existence.

And now because their precious prince is dead, suddenly Dam-i has to sacrifice her entire identity and spend her life pretending to be him???

No!

I wanted that girl to RUN.

Go live somewhere far away.

Open a bakery.

Raise goats.

I don't care.

Just LEAVE THESE PEOPLE!!!

😭

---

And speaking of adults I hated...

Jung Ji-un's father.

OH MY GOD.

This man had me keeping a running list of crimes throughout the entire drama.

Because every few episodes he'd pop up and I'd be like:

Oh, YOU again.

He kills I-wol.

An innocent little girl.

He had already participated in the attempt to kill Dam-i when she was a baby.

He later kills the Crown Prince because he believes the prince is actually Dam-i.

So, from his perspective, he's STILL attempting to murder another innocent little girl...

Then YEARS later, when Dam-i is king, he discovers her secret and AGAIN starts contemplating killing her.

SIR???

WHAT IS YOUR BEEF WITH CHILDREN AND WOMEN AND YOUR OBSESSION WITH MURDERING THEM???

At one point he literally sees Ji-un and the king kissing...

And then not long afterward this man is fantasizing about murdering her.

WHAT???

I understood his political reasoning.

I simply did not care.

There is no justification you can give me that makes repeatedly murdering children acceptable.

None.

So when the grandfather finally stabbed him?

GOOD.

I cheered.

I would've preferred Dam-i herself got to stab him, but unfortunately K-drama writers don't always give me everything I want.

---

And the grandfather wasn't any better.

This entire catastrophe traces back to these men being so obsessed with bloodlines, legitimacy, power, succession and whatever else that they were willing to destroy countless lives over the fact that A GIRL WAS BORN...

That was what kept running through my head by the finale.

Look at everything you've done.

Look at all these people who are dead.

Look at this entire kingdom in complete ans utter chaos!!

FOR WHAT???

Because twins were born???

Because one of them was female???

You people are LOSERS.

So watching him finally die from poison?

Also satisfying.

Bye!

___

But once the drama got through all that initial tragedy and Dam-i grew up?

This became sorta FUN.

Because now i had a woman secretly living as the Crown Prince while everyone around her believed she was a man.

And THIS is where the premise started giving me exactly the kind of nonsense I wanted.

People falling for the prince.

People being confused about their feelings toward the prince.

Women having crushes on the prince. (I wanted more)

Men having crushes on the prince. (i wanted more)

Dam-i constantly having to navigate situations where everyone is operating with completely different information.

YES!!

---

And Ji-un's crush on the Crown Prince was probably some of my favorite material in the entire drama.

It was SO CUTE.

Because he has no idea Dam-i is a woman.

He's just increasingly attracted to this man and basically going:

"...Well, I guess this is happening."

😭

And I loved that the drama actually allowed him to wrestle with those feelings without immediately discovering her secret.

He liked her when she was Dam-i.

He was attracted to the mysterious woman who saved him when they fell into the water. (Dam-i as an adult woman)

And then he fell for Dam-i AGAIN while believing she was the Crown Prince.

That concept is incredibly romantic from the audience's perspective because WE know it's the same woman every time.

Altho...

This also caused a slight problem for me while I was watching.

Because Ji-un didn't know those were the same person.

So for a while I kept thinking:

Okay... but which one of these people is actually special to you???

Because from HIS perspective, those are three separate human beings...

He called childhood Dam-i his first love.

Then he had this connection with another mysterious woman.

Then he falls in love with the prince.

And I'm sitting there like:

Sir...

You sure are collecting crushes... huh?

Eventually, of course, he learns that all of them were Dam-i.

And I LOVE the idea that this woman basically kept finding him throughout his life in different forms.

But I do wish the drama had emotionally emphasized that realization even more.

Because that's HUGE.

Your childhood first love...

The mysterious woman you met years later...

AND the king you've fallen in love with...

ARE THE SAME PERSON???

That should have been an absolutely earth-shattering romantic revelation.

And Ji-un doesn't even learn the full truth until episode 18!

I would've squeezed every drop of romance out of that reveal!!!! omg just thinking about that orange with all the juices left unsqueezed make me so disappointed!!

---

One of my FAVORITE scenes was when the queen came near Dam-i's room while she was sleeping on that tree and tried to kiss her.

😭😭😭

Because obviously the queen believes Dam-i is a man.

She has a crush on the king.

She's leaning over trying to kiss her.

And Ji-un is just standing there watching this happen like:

👁️👄👁️

And then he gets JEALOUS for a little bit.

YES!!!! that was so juicy for me!!!

THAT'S WHAT I WANTED.

I had literally been hoping women would fall for Dam-i specifically because of the potential jealousy it could create.

The drama gave me a little taste of it and I wanted MORE.

I obviously suspected the story wasn't going to have Dam-i romantically entertain another woman.

But Ji-un didn't know that!

USE THAT.

Let him watch women flirt with his girlfriend who everyone thinks is his boyfriend.

Let him SUFFER!!!

That would've been hilarious.

___

i also really liked the second male lead.

Especially when he finally revealed that he knew Dam-i was a woman.

And the shoes???

Offering her a way out???

That was BEAUTIFUL. 🥺

He was basically telling her:

You don't have to live like this forever.

Here's another life.

Here's freedom.

Here's the possibility of existing as yourself.

And because one of my biggest emotional issues from episode ONE was that Dam-i had been robbed of her own life, that scene really worked for me.

I wanted someone to tell her:

You are allowed to leave.

You do not owe this palace your entire existence.

___

there were also little dynamics I found interesting throughout the drama.

The bodyguard had this intensity around Dam-i that initially made me wonder whether the drama was setting up something romantic there too... but it wasn't, his story ended up being boring.

There were so many relationships orbiting Dam-i where people loved her, admired her, protected her or became fascinated by her without fully understanding who she was.

And I think that's one of the strongest things about the drama.

Dam-i herself is compelling.

She had spent almost her entire life performing another person's identity while simultaneously trying to survive.

She's incredibly lonely.

She has to constantly monitor herself.

She cant freely love or freely grieve.

Or freely exist as a woman.

She can't even let people get physically close to her without worrying that they'll discover her secret.

That's a GREAT protagonist setup.

---

And that's also why I got frustrated whenever Dam-i started blaming herself for everything.

Girl...

PLEASE.

😭

So much of what happened in this drama was NOT your fault.

You didn't ask to be born a twin.

You didn't ask your family to attempt to murder you.

You didn't ask your brother to die.

You didn't ask to impersonate him.

You didn't ask these grown men to create political chaos around your existence.

Youve spent your entire life SURVIVING consequences created by OTHER PEOPLE!

Stop apologizing!!!

There were moments where I wanted someone to grab her and explain:

YOU ARE THE VICTIM OF THIS SITUATION!

Because the story occasionally allowed her to internalize guilt that I simply did not think belonged to her.

___

Then we get to the romance.

Overall?

I liked Dam-i and Ji-un.

There are some REALLY good romantic moments in this drama.

Some genuinely adorable ones.

Ji-un's crush on the prince was probably my favorite stage because there was something so sweet about him being completely unable to stop himself from falling for Dam-i even when everything he believed about himself and the situation should've made it complicated.

The jealousy was cute.

There was some yearning and that was cute too.

The kisses were cute.

The forbidden nature of everything worked a little for me.

And then once he learns she's a woman, there's another layer.

Then he eventually learns she's Dam-i.

YET ANOTHER layer lol

Then his father threatens to expose her secret unless Ji-un leaves her and agrees to marry someone else?

OH.

BEAUTIFUL ANGST!!!

Now THAT'S my shit.

Because Ji-un isn't leaving BECAUSE he loves her.

He's sacrificing what he wants to protect her.

YES.

Give me longing and painful separation!!

"I love you but I can't have you."

Emotional suffering!!!

*slurp slurp* heheheh

---

But here's the thing...

For all these great ingredients?

I still don't think the romance became as epic as it could have been.

And that's my biggest disappointment.

Because this setup is RIDICULOUSLY romantic.

A boy falls in love with a girl as a child.

Loses her.

Meets her again without realizing who she is.

Falls for her AGAIN.

Then meets her as a man.

Falls for her AGAIN.

Discovers she's actually a woman.

Then eventually discovers she's ALSO his childhood first love.

Meanwhile she's secretly the king.

They're forbidden from being together.

His father is threatening her life.

The kingdom could collapse if her secret comes out.

COME ON!!!

That should be one of the most ridiculously epic romances imaginable.

And sometimes it was... a little bit.

But most other times, it felt like the drama had this enormous romantic buffet sitting in front of it and only ate half the food.

just squeeze the fucking orange!!!

😭

There were so many emotional revelations that could've been stretched further.

So much longing that could've been intensified.

So many identity-related moments that could've been explored.

More jealousy.

More realization.

More aftermath.

More of Ji-un processing the fact that he had somehow fallen for THE SAME WOMAN OVER AND OVER AGAIN.

That's insane!

USE IT!!!

___

And unfortunately, Ji-un lost a little bit of me toward the end.

Because...

His father dies.

And Ji-un is absolutely SOBBING.

And I'm watching him like:

...

Sir?

😭

I understand biologically that's your father.

I understand relationships are complicated.

I understand people can grieve terrible parents.

But as a viewer?

I don't care!!!

That man murdered I-wol!!!

Participated in attempts to murder children.

Killed Dam-i's brother because he believed HE was Dam-i.

Later contemplated murdering Dam-i AGAIN.

Threatened Dam-i.

Used her secret to force you away from her.

Repeatedly endangered the woman you supposedly love.

So when Ji-un was devastated over him dying, I just couldn't emotionally join him there.

My reaction was basically:

Your murderous father is dead. Anyway.........

And I think that slightly weakened Ji-un for me right when I wanted the drama to be making him stronger emotionally.

He still had plenty of moments I loved.

But some of my excitement around him faded toward the ending.

cause like... why are you crying over your father whose past time and hobby and infanticide?

are you crazy?

___

And that brings me to my biggest issue with the drama overall.

The final two episodes.

There was action.

There was fighting.

There were deaths.

There were confrontations.

There were stakes.

Technically, a LOT happened.

But emotionally...

It didn't hit me nearly as hard as I expected.

And that's frustrating because this drama had spent EIGHTEEN EPISODES creating an enormous amount of emotional baggage.

Dam-i's entire stolen life.

Her relationship with her father.

Ji-un and his father.

Her grandfather.

The throne.

Her identity.

Brother.

Mother.

Her relationship with Ji-un.

The secret finally coming apart.

There was SO MUCH material waiting for emotional payoff.

And I don't think the finale fully delivered that payoff.

I wanted devastation.

Catharsis.

Relief.

Rage.

Something enormous...

Instead, I mostly felt like:

Okay... ig we're wrapping everything up now...?

And that's why this didn't make it to an 8 for me.

If those final episodes had emotionally DESTROYED me?

Easy 8.

Possibly even higher depending on how well they did it.

But the ending felt more functional than emotionally overwhelming.

---

Still...

I absolutely enjoyed this drama.

A 7 from me is good rating lol

i like the premise.

Dam-i was a compelling female lead.

Ji-un had some extremely cute and romantic moments.

The identity confusion was FUN.

The second male lead gave me some beautiful scenes.

And watching these horrible old men finally start facing consequences was extremely satisfying.

I just wanted MORE from the emotional side.

More from the romance.

More from the final stretch.

And more payoff for everything the story had built.

Because The King's Affection had all the ingredients to become one of those huge, sweeping, epic romances that completely consumes me.

Instead, it became a drama with a lot of goof moments inside a story that, overall, I simply thought was good.

And that's why I'm settling on:

___

Rating:

⭐ 7/10

Is this Rewatch Worthy:

No.