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Dropped: Love and Destiny (宸汐緣) (2019)
While this drama wasn't as bad as I expected, it still wasn't terrific. It was exactly what I expected. I've watched up to episode 10 out of 60, and the main reason that I dropped this show was because nothing was happening. I'm 10 episodes in and I feel like there isn't any plot.
Spoilers up to episode 10.
Story
I know this story is about Lingxi and Jiuchen reincarnating through three mortal lives, but I didn't even get to that part lol. But I think that shows how this story is moving way too slowly.
After episode 1, I felt that nothing of substance happened. In episode 1, Lingxi accidentally awakening Jiuchen from his slumber, and by the end of the episode, she was serving in his household.
In episodes 2 to 10, there was some chatter about Jiuchen's war crimes, we learned about Lingxi's mother, but nothing really happened.
I literally have no idea what is going on. Is this a slice of life? Sigh. Poor scripts really are such a pity, especially when you know they've spent the money to hire well-known actors and production crew people.
As a side note, the writing and dialogue in this show was extremely modern. In particular, characters would use modern slang, which took me out real fast. I know this is a fantasy setting and anything flies, but there's a difference between modern speech and straight up slang. Most of the political court stuff was done in the style of a typical historical Cdrama, which used more formal speech, so the gap between that and Lingxi saying terminology that you'd see on Weibo is just too big to be believable.
Production
Cinematography
I have to say, the camerwork is poor. In the first few episodes, we had some frames where random things were blocking the way. I don't have examples off the top of my head, but I remember some scenes where furniture or walls would be covering like half the screen and our characters were operating in a sliver. There artful ways of limiting what shows up in your frame, and this director did not know how to do it.
There has also been some awkward storyboarding because of the CGI. I think it was the first episode, when Lingxi was hiding behind the tree and the tree started to disintegrate. The view flipped between Lingxi and the guards and the tree constantly, because they didn't want to go through the work of putting Lingxi or the guards in the same frame as the CGI tree. It was very difficult to watch.
CGI
It was better than what I expected, but it still wasn't great. Most of the CGI we've seen is from that big evil monster demon that Jiuchen defeated. The animation for that demon was a lot better than what I expected. But we're obviously not going to get MCU levels of animation.
Style
Oh my god what is up with xianxia. I saw this problem when I was watching the Untamed, but some of the rites and etiquette in this drama are so weird. It feels like people aren't bowing and kneeling at appropriate times and it drives me up the wall.
In the episode when Old Madame Yuan was kneeling to plead with Tianjun ("The Heavenly Sovereign") to seek justice for her son Yuan Zheng. I would've expected her daughter Yuan Tong to kneel with her but she did not, and it was like "...you're gonna let your mom do this on her own?" It was very strange and awkward.
Characters
A lot of characters were introduced so I'm going to try to cut this down lol.
Lingxi
Lingxi was a low level deity, your typical naive young girl character. Her character was always busy running around, without actually doing anything of consequence to the story. She was assigned to work with Jiuchen, but in the 10 episodes that I saw her, I didn't feel that she learned anything. By the time I stopped watching, Lingxi had made it to that place where her mother was, and she saw bits of her future, so that may awaken some things, but you mean to tell me you needed 10 episodes of doing nothing to get to that point?
I will say that Ni Ni was carrying this show on her back though. After watching Battle of Changsha, I've learned that these naive young girl characters are an absolute cakewalk for good actresses, and that is the case for Ni Ni. Lingxi the character was annoying, but I absolutely loved seeing Ni Ni as Lingxi. Ni Ni made Lingxi so cute, despite her irresponsible behaviour. And I say Ni Ni was carrying the show because she had far more things to do compared to Zhang Zhen (more on this later).
I had heard from people that Lingxi's character becomes very annoying, like an absolute damsel. I haven't gotten to the point where I find her extremely annoying. In the 10 episodes that I watched, Lingxi did do a lot of things that I rolled my eyes at, but it never ignited a fiery anger in me, and I think that's because of Ni Ni's sincere portrayal. She was a brat, but I really felt like Ni Ni's Lingxi believed the stuff she was saying, and wasn't just doing it to be a brat. She truly was naive, and that's what made Lingxi a little bit forgiveable.
But again, one character does not save a show.
Jiuchen
Jiuchen is not a character. He is a man who glares and says nothing. How many times have we seen Zhang Zhen open his mouth? Not many. Nearly every time he's spoken is to communicate factual things, things that tell us nothing about Jiuchen the character. Him discussing politics with his allies tells me nothing about who Jiuchen is as a person.
Jiuchen and Lingxi's interactions were also so frustrating because they went NOWHERE. It was always Lingxi talking at Jiuchen, and Jiuchen would glare at her and say nothing. The glare! Is so infuriating!
And what's more infuriating is that I know Zhang Zhen is a good actor! I've seen him in movies and I've liked his acting! This script is just giving him zero opportunities to shine because he has no meaningful dialogue and he does nothing other than meditate.
The best scene of Jiuchen's was when he was trying to gleam information from Lebuo. In this scene, Jiuchen was sitting down and having wine with Lebuo, and it was good because we saw Zhang Zhen actually acting. He was being all amicable and friendly with Lebuo because he was trying to get details on who Lingxi was. Most importantly, Jiuchen was doing something. He was saying things. He had a purpose. Most other times he is just a non-entity.
This show massively underutilized Zhang Zhen and I am so angry on his behalf.
Lebo
When Lebuo appeared on screen, I went "oh boy, this is how it's going to be, huh." So many Chinese dramas have these characters that are just about being squabbly and loud and it's so overdone and tiring. There is a way of being comedically overbearing and in-the-way without it feeling classless and this was not it.
I also didn't really feel the paternal bond between Lingxi and Lebo despite the fact that they've been father and daughter for tens of thousands of years. Maybe that's Lebuo being a bad dad, but the only way he treats her differently from anybody else in this show is just that he won't allow her to leave the house. This is how he shows his fatherly love. He never speaks to her differently, there's nothing he says to her that shows that he isn't just a cardboard cutout of an overprotective dad. Why is he so protective of her? Sure, I can respect the fact that it's supposed to be a secret now, but there's nothing that shows me that he has a valid reason for doing so, and so I don't see him as a good character.
Qingyao
Qingyao has potential to be a good character, but we just don't know her that well. She's a healer herself, but she hasn't really done much on screen other than liaise with Lingxi about her father, and have a beef with Yunfeng.
Oddly enough, I do not find this enemies-to-lovers plotline annoying, because Qingyao is not your typical naive girl, nor is she a girlboss. She has a job that she is serious about, and she has some personal prejudices against Yunfeng for whatever reason which keep me interested.
I know Qingyao's actress from the Advisors Alliance, so I know that she's at least a decent actress, and I think she's performing the character the way she's supposed to come across.
It seems to me that Qingyao's character has done more things than Lingxi has done, both in terms of her character going out and doing things, and in terms of contributing to the plot.
Chengyan
Chengyan is Qingyao's younger brother who is also a student of Lebo. But his character has honestly done nothing. He's supposed to guard The Peach Forest but he always makes a mess of it, which I guess is the point of his character.
Shisan
Shisan was an officer under Jiuchen. I think she was some sort of mermaid/merman. Shisan used to have a male appearance, and went by the name Shishan.
I think Shisan's character had a lot of potential for an interesting plot line. As an officer with a male appearance, she'd become good friends with Siming.
After all these years, Shisan took on a female appearance, and told Siming that she liked him in a romantic sense. Shisan said that the people of her kind didn't even have genders, so this "gender" thing was literally just a made up construct for her. I thought this was very interesting. It would've been a very interesting way to explore gender, but as expected it was just supposed to drive jokes about Shisan being a dude.
Everyone kept calling Shisan a man which obviously angered her. But the ladies in Jiuchen's household got used to her, and I liked that they treated her like a woman. She had some "manly" traits, but that just included stuff like being trained in martial arts and manspreading.
It was the romantic plot line with Siming where things got iffy again. Siming couldn't accept Shisan's love because he knew her as Shishan, which I think does hold some validity. He does need time to think about whether he'd be interested because he never even thought of Shishan, now Shisan in a romantic sense. But I don't love the idea of Shisan "bullying" Siming into a relationship.
Huayan
Huayan was a servant in Jiuchen's household. I didn't expect her to be a character that would pop up so often but I liked that she was. She was cute. She was a human who'd cultivated immortality and that was how she ended up in the god realm.
She posed a contrast to Lingxi who was born a deity. Lingxi felt that Huayan was dumb for cultivating immortality just to be a servant. As a mortal, Huayan was a palace maid, who as we know are very subject to their master's whims. The way I see it, Huayan didn't have the choice of being a mortal palace maid, but becoming a servant to a god was her own choice. She may still be a servant, but she at least could make that decision herself. She could've done anything else, but she chose to serve, and I can respect Huayan for that.
Yunfeng
Yunfeng was an ally of Jiuchen's, and also a very high level god. I liked his character but like most others, he just didn't have a lot of stuff to do. But like Qingyao, he had more to do than Jiuchen did in terms of his character just going out and doing things.
Perhaps I liked Yunfeng and Qingyao's rivalry because the two of them felt like actual characters who had things to do. Qingyao was a healer and Yunfeng was often helping Jiuchen in gathering information.
His actor had the charm to pull off such a character too, which is nice for a change.
Siming/Han Yuanxin
Siming was another of Jiuchen's allies. As mentioned, he was also the object of Shisan's affection. What bothered me about Siming was that he was a different person in the scenes when he was working with Jiuchen vs. in the scenes when he was being accosted by Shisan. With Jiuchen, he was calm, and with Shisan, he turned into a panicky mess. It was very difficult to reconcile these two characters together.
Yuan Tong
Yuan Tong was a general who was loyal to Jiuchen, despite the suspicion that Jiuchen killed her brother, and despite her mother's hatred towards Jiuchen because of that. Yuan Tong believed that Jiuchen had a reason for doing so.
Despite believing in Jiuchen, she was not in a position where she could fight on his behalf. There were too many powerful people who believed in his guilt, and also her mother would not let her do anything to support him based on the belief that Jiuchen had wronged her son.
By the time I stopped watching, Yuan Tong and Lingxi had gotten into a fight because Lingxi had a special power, and Yuan Tong injured her heavily, but Lingxi was found by Qingyao and saved by Jiuchen.
From the beginning, I was under the impression that Yuan Tong would be a love rival to Lingxi based on her unwavering loyalty to Jiuchen. I suspect that seeing Lingxi's power was just supposed to be a catalyst for that hatred.
Old Madame Yuan
Old Madame Yuan suspected Jiuchen of killing her son. She would not drop the subject, and kept asking Tianjun to look into the matter. Jiuchen eventually admitted to her that he had killed her. But I didn't see the aftermath of that.
Old Madame Yuan was portrayed as this evil old woman but like, she has a point. Regardless of whether Yuan Zheng had agreed to be killed to defeat the big bad demon, Jiuchen had ended his life and taken him from his family.
Tianlei Zhenjun
Tianlei Zhenjun was the villain of the first couple of episodes. He wanted to take over as the new God of War, but was interrupted when Jiuchen suddenly awakened.
His character kind of dropped after that though. I know he was liaising with Jingxiu, and he was arranging to frame Jiuchen and all that, but I just didn't find his character compelling.
What also bothered me about Tianlei Zhenjun was his overdramatic acting. He had a very old style of acting that I've seen from the likes of Siqin Gaowa and other older actors, and it might've worked if everybody else in this show was maybe two decades older lol. So he's not a bad actor, he was just in the wrong show.
Jingxiu
I heard that Jingxiu was supposed to be the second lead, and it looks to be this way. Jingxiu was a crucial link between Lingxi and her past. He was supposed to protect her as an infant but had failed to do so and had told her mother that she'd died, but her mother was finding out that it wasn't true.
Jingxiu's character was kind of messy. As a political advisor, he was supposed to be somewhat of a trickster. He was in cahoots with Tianlei Zhenjun, though we don't know whether he was just using him. And we know there was some stuff he wasn't telling Lingyue. Then there was that subplot where he would constantly bump into Lingxi and they would "help" each other out like they were friends. Which wasn't a huge issue for me, until the story threw in his relationship with Baoqing.
Jingxiu just dismissed her as just some silly little girl. Why was he so nice to Lingxi then? Maybe he did like Lingxi and found Baoqing annoying. But he'd known Baoqing from childhood and the relationship there can't be that simple. I just felt that if Jingxiu was as smooth as he was with a stranger like Lingxi, how couldn't he use his words to manipulate Baoqing into leaving him alone?
I was racking my brain over where I'd seen the actor for Jingxiu, and just now I looked him up and realized he was the prince in Legend of Zhen Huan. I didn't love him in Legend of Zhen Huan, but he still did his job. But in Love and Destiny, he didn't work for me at all. I think part of it was the character design, but I think this actor was also miscast for both looks and acting. He didn't match the intended look of Jingxiu at all. It did nothing for him. In terms of his acting, I don't think this actor was as charming as his character was supposed to be. Throw in that stuff about how this character seemed inconsistent and yeah, this character was just too messy for me to enjoy.
Lingyue
Lingyue was the Queen of her own land, and Lingxi's birth mother. What we saw of her in the story involved Lingyue trying to find the truth behind her biological daughter. Otherwise, I didn't learn anything about her.
Baoqing was feeling very insecure that her mother was so fixated on her biological daughter and I don't blame her. But I can also sympathize with Lingyue's shock at realizing her biological daughter was alive. She just also needs to make sure her adopted daughter know that she doesn't love her any less.
Baoqing
Baoqing was Lingyue's daughter. She was a bratty princess, and she was also very insecure, but I don't blame her if she is supposed to be the god equivalent of a teenage girl.
I felt that Baoqing was constantly trying to earn her mother's love, particularly when she sensed that her mother was trying to find her biological daughter again. I don't doubt that Baoqing loves her mother, but she herself didn't feel that she didn't have all of her mother's love.
Then there was her crush on Jingxiu. Her mother wouldn't allow her to marry Jingxiu for whatever reason. She probably just didn't want to give Jingxiu that much political power. I'm not sure why Baoqing was crushing on Jingxiu, considering he was ignoring her. Apparently they used to play together, but then how did they go from that to Jingxiu just ignoring her?
Seeing the relationship between Jingxiu and Baoqing also made me think that Jingxiu would develop feelings for Lingxi, and then Baoqing would hate Lingxi for several reasons. Baoqing would hate Lingxi as a love rival, but also because her mother cared more for her biological daughter than her adopted one.
Other
There were several generals in this show, both supporting Jiuchen and supporting Tianlei Zhenjun. I wish that we'd have different aesthetic looks for each of them so that I could differentiate between them. Maybe they could have colour variations of the same armour, I don't know. It just seemed extremely lazy to give them all the same uniform, especially because none of them had personalities other than to do the biddings of their lords.
Overall
Like I said, this show wasn't as bad as I expected, but it certainly wasn't great. I probably could've continued watching just for Ni Ni, but I don't want to reward a show with a poor plot with more of my time.
Spoilers up to episode 10.
Story
I know this story is about Lingxi and Jiuchen reincarnating through three mortal lives, but I didn't even get to that part lol. But I think that shows how this story is moving way too slowly.
After episode 1, I felt that nothing of substance happened. In episode 1, Lingxi accidentally awakening Jiuchen from his slumber, and by the end of the episode, she was serving in his household.
In episodes 2 to 10, there was some chatter about Jiuchen's war crimes, we learned about Lingxi's mother, but nothing really happened.
I literally have no idea what is going on. Is this a slice of life? Sigh. Poor scripts really are such a pity, especially when you know they've spent the money to hire well-known actors and production crew people.
As a side note, the writing and dialogue in this show was extremely modern. In particular, characters would use modern slang, which took me out real fast. I know this is a fantasy setting and anything flies, but there's a difference between modern speech and straight up slang. Most of the political court stuff was done in the style of a typical historical Cdrama, which used more formal speech, so the gap between that and Lingxi saying terminology that you'd see on Weibo is just too big to be believable.
Production
Cinematography
I have to say, the camerwork is poor. In the first few episodes, we had some frames where random things were blocking the way. I don't have examples off the top of my head, but I remember some scenes where furniture or walls would be covering like half the screen and our characters were operating in a sliver. There artful ways of limiting what shows up in your frame, and this director did not know how to do it.
There has also been some awkward storyboarding because of the CGI. I think it was the first episode, when Lingxi was hiding behind the tree and the tree started to disintegrate. The view flipped between Lingxi and the guards and the tree constantly, because they didn't want to go through the work of putting Lingxi or the guards in the same frame as the CGI tree. It was very difficult to watch.
CGI
It was better than what I expected, but it still wasn't great. Most of the CGI we've seen is from that big evil monster demon that Jiuchen defeated. The animation for that demon was a lot better than what I expected. But we're obviously not going to get MCU levels of animation.
Style
Oh my god what is up with xianxia. I saw this problem when I was watching the Untamed, but some of the rites and etiquette in this drama are so weird. It feels like people aren't bowing and kneeling at appropriate times and it drives me up the wall.
In the episode when Old Madame Yuan was kneeling to plead with Tianjun ("The Heavenly Sovereign") to seek justice for her son Yuan Zheng. I would've expected her daughter Yuan Tong to kneel with her but she did not, and it was like "...you're gonna let your mom do this on her own?" It was very strange and awkward.
Characters
A lot of characters were introduced so I'm going to try to cut this down lol.
Lingxi
Lingxi was a low level deity, your typical naive young girl character. Her character was always busy running around, without actually doing anything of consequence to the story. She was assigned to work with Jiuchen, but in the 10 episodes that I saw her, I didn't feel that she learned anything. By the time I stopped watching, Lingxi had made it to that place where her mother was, and she saw bits of her future, so that may awaken some things, but you mean to tell me you needed 10 episodes of doing nothing to get to that point?
I will say that Ni Ni was carrying this show on her back though. After watching Battle of Changsha, I've learned that these naive young girl characters are an absolute cakewalk for good actresses, and that is the case for Ni Ni. Lingxi the character was annoying, but I absolutely loved seeing Ni Ni as Lingxi. Ni Ni made Lingxi so cute, despite her irresponsible behaviour. And I say Ni Ni was carrying the show because she had far more things to do compared to Zhang Zhen (more on this later).
I had heard from people that Lingxi's character becomes very annoying, like an absolute damsel. I haven't gotten to the point where I find her extremely annoying. In the 10 episodes that I watched, Lingxi did do a lot of things that I rolled my eyes at, but it never ignited a fiery anger in me, and I think that's because of Ni Ni's sincere portrayal. She was a brat, but I really felt like Ni Ni's Lingxi believed the stuff she was saying, and wasn't just doing it to be a brat. She truly was naive, and that's what made Lingxi a little bit forgiveable.
But again, one character does not save a show.
Jiuchen
Jiuchen is not a character. He is a man who glares and says nothing. How many times have we seen Zhang Zhen open his mouth? Not many. Nearly every time he's spoken is to communicate factual things, things that tell us nothing about Jiuchen the character. Him discussing politics with his allies tells me nothing about who Jiuchen is as a person.
Jiuchen and Lingxi's interactions were also so frustrating because they went NOWHERE. It was always Lingxi talking at Jiuchen, and Jiuchen would glare at her and say nothing. The glare! Is so infuriating!
And what's more infuriating is that I know Zhang Zhen is a good actor! I've seen him in movies and I've liked his acting! This script is just giving him zero opportunities to shine because he has no meaningful dialogue and he does nothing other than meditate.
The best scene of Jiuchen's was when he was trying to gleam information from Lebuo. In this scene, Jiuchen was sitting down and having wine with Lebuo, and it was good because we saw Zhang Zhen actually acting. He was being all amicable and friendly with Lebuo because he was trying to get details on who Lingxi was. Most importantly, Jiuchen was doing something. He was saying things. He had a purpose. Most other times he is just a non-entity.
This show massively underutilized Zhang Zhen and I am so angry on his behalf.
Lebo
When Lebuo appeared on screen, I went "oh boy, this is how it's going to be, huh." So many Chinese dramas have these characters that are just about being squabbly and loud and it's so overdone and tiring. There is a way of being comedically overbearing and in-the-way without it feeling classless and this was not it.
I also didn't really feel the paternal bond between Lingxi and Lebo despite the fact that they've been father and daughter for tens of thousands of years. Maybe that's Lebuo being a bad dad, but the only way he treats her differently from anybody else in this show is just that he won't allow her to leave the house. This is how he shows his fatherly love. He never speaks to her differently, there's nothing he says to her that shows that he isn't just a cardboard cutout of an overprotective dad. Why is he so protective of her? Sure, I can respect the fact that it's supposed to be a secret now, but there's nothing that shows me that he has a valid reason for doing so, and so I don't see him as a good character.
Qingyao
Qingyao has potential to be a good character, but we just don't know her that well. She's a healer herself, but she hasn't really done much on screen other than liaise with Lingxi about her father, and have a beef with Yunfeng.
Oddly enough, I do not find this enemies-to-lovers plotline annoying, because Qingyao is not your typical naive girl, nor is she a girlboss. She has a job that she is serious about, and she has some personal prejudices against Yunfeng for whatever reason which keep me interested.
I know Qingyao's actress from the Advisors Alliance, so I know that she's at least a decent actress, and I think she's performing the character the way she's supposed to come across.
It seems to me that Qingyao's character has done more things than Lingxi has done, both in terms of her character going out and doing things, and in terms of contributing to the plot.
Chengyan
Chengyan is Qingyao's younger brother who is also a student of Lebo. But his character has honestly done nothing. He's supposed to guard The Peach Forest but he always makes a mess of it, which I guess is the point of his character.
Shisan
Shisan was an officer under Jiuchen. I think she was some sort of mermaid/merman. Shisan used to have a male appearance, and went by the name Shishan.
I think Shisan's character had a lot of potential for an interesting plot line. As an officer with a male appearance, she'd become good friends with Siming.
After all these years, Shisan took on a female appearance, and told Siming that she liked him in a romantic sense. Shisan said that the people of her kind didn't even have genders, so this "gender" thing was literally just a made up construct for her. I thought this was very interesting. It would've been a very interesting way to explore gender, but as expected it was just supposed to drive jokes about Shisan being a dude.
Everyone kept calling Shisan a man which obviously angered her. But the ladies in Jiuchen's household got used to her, and I liked that they treated her like a woman. She had some "manly" traits, but that just included stuff like being trained in martial arts and manspreading.
It was the romantic plot line with Siming where things got iffy again. Siming couldn't accept Shisan's love because he knew her as Shishan, which I think does hold some validity. He does need time to think about whether he'd be interested because he never even thought of Shishan, now Shisan in a romantic sense. But I don't love the idea of Shisan "bullying" Siming into a relationship.
Huayan
Huayan was a servant in Jiuchen's household. I didn't expect her to be a character that would pop up so often but I liked that she was. She was cute. She was a human who'd cultivated immortality and that was how she ended up in the god realm.
She posed a contrast to Lingxi who was born a deity. Lingxi felt that Huayan was dumb for cultivating immortality just to be a servant. As a mortal, Huayan was a palace maid, who as we know are very subject to their master's whims. The way I see it, Huayan didn't have the choice of being a mortal palace maid, but becoming a servant to a god was her own choice. She may still be a servant, but she at least could make that decision herself. She could've done anything else, but she chose to serve, and I can respect Huayan for that.
Yunfeng
Yunfeng was an ally of Jiuchen's, and also a very high level god. I liked his character but like most others, he just didn't have a lot of stuff to do. But like Qingyao, he had more to do than Jiuchen did in terms of his character just going out and doing things.
Perhaps I liked Yunfeng and Qingyao's rivalry because the two of them felt like actual characters who had things to do. Qingyao was a healer and Yunfeng was often helping Jiuchen in gathering information.
His actor had the charm to pull off such a character too, which is nice for a change.
Siming/Han Yuanxin
Siming was another of Jiuchen's allies. As mentioned, he was also the object of Shisan's affection. What bothered me about Siming was that he was a different person in the scenes when he was working with Jiuchen vs. in the scenes when he was being accosted by Shisan. With Jiuchen, he was calm, and with Shisan, he turned into a panicky mess. It was very difficult to reconcile these two characters together.
Yuan Tong
Yuan Tong was a general who was loyal to Jiuchen, despite the suspicion that Jiuchen killed her brother, and despite her mother's hatred towards Jiuchen because of that. Yuan Tong believed that Jiuchen had a reason for doing so.
Despite believing in Jiuchen, she was not in a position where she could fight on his behalf. There were too many powerful people who believed in his guilt, and also her mother would not let her do anything to support him based on the belief that Jiuchen had wronged her son.
By the time I stopped watching, Yuan Tong and Lingxi had gotten into a fight because Lingxi had a special power, and Yuan Tong injured her heavily, but Lingxi was found by Qingyao and saved by Jiuchen.
From the beginning, I was under the impression that Yuan Tong would be a love rival to Lingxi based on her unwavering loyalty to Jiuchen. I suspect that seeing Lingxi's power was just supposed to be a catalyst for that hatred.
Old Madame Yuan
Old Madame Yuan suspected Jiuchen of killing her son. She would not drop the subject, and kept asking Tianjun to look into the matter. Jiuchen eventually admitted to her that he had killed her. But I didn't see the aftermath of that.
Old Madame Yuan was portrayed as this evil old woman but like, she has a point. Regardless of whether Yuan Zheng had agreed to be killed to defeat the big bad demon, Jiuchen had ended his life and taken him from his family.
Tianlei Zhenjun
Tianlei Zhenjun was the villain of the first couple of episodes. He wanted to take over as the new God of War, but was interrupted when Jiuchen suddenly awakened.
His character kind of dropped after that though. I know he was liaising with Jingxiu, and he was arranging to frame Jiuchen and all that, but I just didn't find his character compelling.
What also bothered me about Tianlei Zhenjun was his overdramatic acting. He had a very old style of acting that I've seen from the likes of Siqin Gaowa and other older actors, and it might've worked if everybody else in this show was maybe two decades older lol. So he's not a bad actor, he was just in the wrong show.
Jingxiu
I heard that Jingxiu was supposed to be the second lead, and it looks to be this way. Jingxiu was a crucial link between Lingxi and her past. He was supposed to protect her as an infant but had failed to do so and had told her mother that she'd died, but her mother was finding out that it wasn't true.
Jingxiu's character was kind of messy. As a political advisor, he was supposed to be somewhat of a trickster. He was in cahoots with Tianlei Zhenjun, though we don't know whether he was just using him. And we know there was some stuff he wasn't telling Lingyue. Then there was that subplot where he would constantly bump into Lingxi and they would "help" each other out like they were friends. Which wasn't a huge issue for me, until the story threw in his relationship with Baoqing.
Jingxiu just dismissed her as just some silly little girl. Why was he so nice to Lingxi then? Maybe he did like Lingxi and found Baoqing annoying. But he'd known Baoqing from childhood and the relationship there can't be that simple. I just felt that if Jingxiu was as smooth as he was with a stranger like Lingxi, how couldn't he use his words to manipulate Baoqing into leaving him alone?
I was racking my brain over where I'd seen the actor for Jingxiu, and just now I looked him up and realized he was the prince in Legend of Zhen Huan. I didn't love him in Legend of Zhen Huan, but he still did his job. But in Love and Destiny, he didn't work for me at all. I think part of it was the character design, but I think this actor was also miscast for both looks and acting. He didn't match the intended look of Jingxiu at all. It did nothing for him. In terms of his acting, I don't think this actor was as charming as his character was supposed to be. Throw in that stuff about how this character seemed inconsistent and yeah, this character was just too messy for me to enjoy.
Lingyue
Lingyue was the Queen of her own land, and Lingxi's birth mother. What we saw of her in the story involved Lingyue trying to find the truth behind her biological daughter. Otherwise, I didn't learn anything about her.
Baoqing was feeling very insecure that her mother was so fixated on her biological daughter and I don't blame her. But I can also sympathize with Lingyue's shock at realizing her biological daughter was alive. She just also needs to make sure her adopted daughter know that she doesn't love her any less.
Baoqing
Baoqing was Lingyue's daughter. She was a bratty princess, and she was also very insecure, but I don't blame her if she is supposed to be the god equivalent of a teenage girl.
I felt that Baoqing was constantly trying to earn her mother's love, particularly when she sensed that her mother was trying to find her biological daughter again. I don't doubt that Baoqing loves her mother, but she herself didn't feel that she didn't have all of her mother's love.
Then there was her crush on Jingxiu. Her mother wouldn't allow her to marry Jingxiu for whatever reason. She probably just didn't want to give Jingxiu that much political power. I'm not sure why Baoqing was crushing on Jingxiu, considering he was ignoring her. Apparently they used to play together, but then how did they go from that to Jingxiu just ignoring her?
Seeing the relationship between Jingxiu and Baoqing also made me think that Jingxiu would develop feelings for Lingxi, and then Baoqing would hate Lingxi for several reasons. Baoqing would hate Lingxi as a love rival, but also because her mother cared more for her biological daughter than her adopted one.
Other
There were several generals in this show, both supporting Jiuchen and supporting Tianlei Zhenjun. I wish that we'd have different aesthetic looks for each of them so that I could differentiate between them. Maybe they could have colour variations of the same armour, I don't know. It just seemed extremely lazy to give them all the same uniform, especially because none of them had personalities other than to do the biddings of their lords.
Overall
Like I said, this show wasn't as bad as I expected, but it certainly wasn't great. I probably could've continued watching just for Ni Ni, but I don't want to reward a show with a poor plot with more of my time.