Kingdom of the Winds Vol 1
Jun. 17th, 2008 07:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganbmooreMan, that manhwa was dense.
KotW is a fantasy retelling of the life of Muhyul, the grandson of Jumong and the third emperor of Goguryeo (ancient Korea.) His father, King Yuri, is cruel and hateful and suspicious of his children, constantly belittling and accusing them. On the same night Muhyul’s wife, Yeon, goes into labor with their first child, his older brother, Haemyung (also called Yeojin…it flip flops back and forth between names) disappears. Muhyul leaves Yeon in the care of his older sister, Seryu, a warrior hated by their father for her ability to control birds, to find Haemyung, but a tortiose spirit named Sagu, and Enemy of Jumong’s, steals Haemyung away and drowns him. This catapults Muhyul’s life into a new level of political intrigue, as his father now has a new weapon to use against him, and he’s now short one ally. There’s also his father’s concubine, who rules him, and Goeyu, Haemyung’s general who is now loyal to Muhyul and seems to have formed a partnership with Seryu.
The book seems to be amazingly researched and historically researched, but between that and the mythology, there are mass infodumps that take up a lot of the book. Sometimes, it was hard to keep up and keep everything straight, especially given how quickly the plot is moving so far. The infodumps were daunting, but then there are things like the fact that Seryu seems to be able to bend any mystic force to her will (maybe the king is right to be afraid…) Haemyung’s ghost apparently binding itself to Hodong (Muhyul’s son) as a guardian spirit, vengeful ancient spirits, and all sorts of mythic beasts. Not to mention the mass collisions of cute that are the flashbacks of Muhyul and Yeon’s pre-angsty-crown-prince-and-his-true-love days.
I wish the mangaka (manhwaka?) wasn’t cramming so much into the book at once, but I’m very curious to see where the story goes. Even if I could probably get the gist of it just by looking Muhyul up on wikipedia.
KotW is a fantasy retelling of the life of Muhyul, the grandson of Jumong and the third emperor of Goguryeo (ancient Korea.) His father, King Yuri, is cruel and hateful and suspicious of his children, constantly belittling and accusing them. On the same night Muhyul’s wife, Yeon, goes into labor with their first child, his older brother, Haemyung (also called Yeojin…it flip flops back and forth between names) disappears. Muhyul leaves Yeon in the care of his older sister, Seryu, a warrior hated by their father for her ability to control birds, to find Haemyung, but a tortiose spirit named Sagu, and Enemy of Jumong’s, steals Haemyung away and drowns him. This catapults Muhyul’s life into a new level of political intrigue, as his father now has a new weapon to use against him, and he’s now short one ally. There’s also his father’s concubine, who rules him, and Goeyu, Haemyung’s general who is now loyal to Muhyul and seems to have formed a partnership with Seryu.
The book seems to be amazingly researched and historically researched, but between that and the mythology, there are mass infodumps that take up a lot of the book. Sometimes, it was hard to keep up and keep everything straight, especially given how quickly the plot is moving so far. The infodumps were daunting, but then there are things like the fact that Seryu seems to be able to bend any mystic force to her will (maybe the king is right to be afraid…) Haemyung’s ghost apparently binding itself to Hodong (Muhyul’s son) as a guardian spirit, vengeful ancient spirits, and all sorts of mythic beasts. Not to mention the mass collisions of cute that are the flashbacks of Muhyul and Yeon’s pre-angsty-crown-prince-and-his-true-love days.
I wish the mangaka (manhwaka?) wasn’t cramming so much into the book at once, but I’m very curious to see where the story goes. Even if I could probably get the gist of it just by looking Muhyul up on wikipedia.
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Date: 2008-06-18 02:33 am (UTC)+=)
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Date: 2008-06-18 02:50 am (UTC)(He will be playing his own grandson, in a way...)
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Date: 2008-06-18 04:30 am (UTC)for korean comics, the comic creator is called manhwaga, unless my memory failed me completely. XD
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Date: 2008-06-18 04:36 am (UTC)gaaah...cannot learn new proper term!