cdrama: Face to Fate eps 4-10

[meganbmoore]

So, I've learned most of the main character's names now, but I'm still going to call them by the actor's names.  Why?  Because it's much easier to type "Nancy" and "Frankie" all the time that "Kon-Hung" and "Li Po-Yee."

I seriously wanted to strangle Nancy's father through most of these episodes.  The first few episodes, I was thinking Nancy was a little like Guo Fu in ROCH, except likable and with a sense of responsibility and not nearly as self-centered, but now I rather think she's the reverse.  They're both the daughters of great and respected leaders in the kung fu world and get respect because of that.  But where Fu  accepts the respect as her due and thinks she deserves it just because of who her parents are, Nancy is well aware that the respect comes only because of her father and that she has to work harder to have respect on her own, and she knows she falls short of the standards she has to live up to, resulting in her hotheaded-ness.  Like her step-mother says:  she's immature and hot-headed, but it's only because she's young and trying so hard, not because she's spoiled or deliberately disrespectful.

Her father never sees what she does right, only what she does wrong.  Everything she's done, regardless of whether or not she was right in what she thought was the truth (and really, considering the murder so many of these girls get away with, she hasn't done much) was done because she was trying to do the right thing for the right reasons.  I wanted to punch him when he was mad at her for looking for the traitor among their allies-I mean, regardless of what her father though, everything Nancy found out about the traitor was VERY good evidence, and blowing up at her just because the guy (who ended up being the traitor after all) said he wasn't a traitor.  I mean would it kill him to at least recognize her efforts instead of belittling her and treating her like she's a bad daughter?  And, of course, after Nancy leaves and they find out the guy really was a traitor, he's like "oh, she was right after all.  Guess we should send someone off to find her."  A little more guilt please.

I can't wait for Derek to show up and he has to deal with an assassin (one that tried to kill him, at that) for a son-in-law...serves him right.  Rationally, I realize that he really isn't that bad and that he only treats her te way she does so she'll be able to one day take on his position and responsibilities, but really, does he always have to take it so far?

I loved it when Nancy went after the guys from the allied sect who were badmouthing her and Tavia's senior-they deserved far worse than to have all their butts thoroughly whipped by one little girl (and I spotted a few broken bones between the lot of them, too.)  And I can't BELIEVE that they admitted that it was one girl who did that to them.  I find I can't really be upset that she "let" Tavia take the blame for that...I mean, she obviously hated that Tavia did it, but the way Tavia did it made it impossible for Nancy to stop or contradict her.  And really, as hard as it was to watch Tavia get kicked out of the sect for it, it would have gone a lot worse on Nancy because her father's impossible expectations and the fact that his need to save face would have been greater with his daughter than with his foster daughter.

Another reason I'm not bothered by Tavia taking the blame is that it let her go off with Frankie and Raymond to look for the 5 Greats, which is very fun.  I really love Frankie's character...he's rather like Huang Rong(or, if you'd rather, Yang Guo at the end of ROCH once he's shed all of his childishness and prankster tendencies) in that he's way smarter and more clever than anyone around him and he knows but doesn't flaunt it.  I love how he consistently pawns...well...everyone, often without their realizing it, and I love the way he makes everyone realize what they really want or want to do by giving them what they think they want, like with the one great who became a hermit after he was betrayed by his lover.  His spent all that time hating her and thinking he wanted revenge on her, and then when Frankiw made him think that he(Frankie) had gotten revenge for him, he realized that all he really wanted was to know whether or not she'd ever loved him(and, poor guy, it seems she never did, but at least now he knows.)

I also like that he realizes that while Tavia has a lot of misconceptions about him, she has a good (if ultimately mistaken) reason for them, so he more gets frustrated with her than mad at her.  I mean, she's right in thinking that he's still mooning over Nancy's stepmother because they were in love before she married Nancy's father, but she's wrong in thinking he'll try to come between them.  And really, I think that, while she's clearly loyal and devoted to Nancy's father now and seems to love him, she married him out of duty, so she probably was still in love with Frankie when she married him(it should be noted that Nancy's father is MUCH older than she is.)  They're going to be a great OTP once they figure out they are the OTP, but they're fun now.

I'm not quite sure what I think of Selina so far.  I like the character, but I'm not sure yet that I like Selina as the character, if that makes sense.  I think the main cause of my iffy-ness is because Nancy seems to be off in quasi-limbo when she's around.  Also, she and Raymond are proof that fiction's best cure for a playboy remains a spunky independent widow with a child.  His propositioning of her is priceless, and I love how he goes back to her inn after he's wounded and is all "well...you have to go to friends to hide when your hurt and on the run, and I don't have many friends, so I'll probably come to see you a lot."  And then he pretends his hand is still useless once it's better so she'll keep feeding him (not that she's fooled for long.)  And of course, it seems her father was also a kung fu hero or villain...not sure which yet.  So, while I'm not sure about Selina herself, this is definitely a fun ship.

Meanwhile, with everyone off looking for the 5 Greats, it seems the perfect time for Derek to be sent off to kill Nancy's father... *wills this to happen soon so she can have her assassin/heroine OTP*