😧 Apothecary Diaries Season 2 Ep 9 UNCUT REACTION!
Added 2025-03-13 09:23:04 +0000 UTCwtf bro this was way beyond what we thought was possible
Comments
Such nuanced, non-cliche character writing. Carson's comments on how uncomfortable this situation feels to talk about is so valid and is exactly the emotion that I think the author is trying to evoke. Seeing a victim not always being portrayed as the "perfect victim" character type that is so common in media makes it unnerving when we do see it. But putting Anshi in a situation where she takes a revenge route that feels morally wrong from the viewers' standpoint adds layers and depth to her character that feel way more realistic. I also find the commentary on the cycle of abuse so interesting in this episode. Especially with Anshi reframing the story in her mind as her "own ambitions" (as Lindsay mentioned), this is a pretty common coping mechanism for young girls who were groomed. But we see from the fact that she felt the need to enact this revenge on the Emperor that she was actually revealing her true feelings on the trauma she experienced and where the disgust actually came from whenever she saw him approach another little girl. I love when stories have unreliable narrators - it adds so much depth.
april 🍏
2025-03-30 00:13:20 +0000 UTCI don’t know where the anime will take this, but yeah he does question his identity a lot and it caused issues for him big time (esp having a known pedo as a ~father~.)
Karina
2025-03-15 17:57:34 +0000 UTCfun fact from the novel, Anshi used to wear a lot of yellow because her family produced turmeric, it was simply a dye they had a lot of access to
Iris Mit
2025-03-14 16:56:36 +0000 UTCYou know after watching this episode I got more questions about jinshi as the audience we know the baby swap theory could have happened but from jinshi’s perspective if you were raised as the brother of the current emperor and you look like almost twins to the former emperor how many people would know of the baby swap all this to say I wonder if jinshi really believes himself to be the younger brother since I think he also said that in a earlier episode
Malcolm dean
2025-03-14 10:56:54 +0000 UTCI watched this morning but didn't get a chance to comment until now. I just knew ya'll were gonna have some top tier discussion about this episode because it's such a complex human story. Really makes you think. I can't get enough of The Apothecary Diaries. Looking forward to the rest of the season with ya'll since you're all caught up! Yay! ヾ(≧▽≦*)o
botanbutton
2025-03-14 03:56:51 +0000 UTCThat's just wrong... We clearly hear her speaking with her present voice, not her flashback voice, so she's talking about the exiled child being the daughter of the pedo emperor
ImZeaT
2025-03-13 22:33:52 +0000 UTCActually blew us away
BOLDcast
2025-03-13 21:59:34 +0000 UTCThere are commnets here already explaining the late emperor's trauma and inclination, just wanted to add that it's not a spoiler, it's extra information given by the autor in a tweet: >"The reason the Empress Regnant was overprotective towards her son was that when she was a lower-ranked consort, she wasn't able to completely protect her son from other consorts".
John Spartan
2025-03-13 17:56:22 +0000 UTCI think the exiled child being the daughter of the "late emperor" is Anshi reflecting on it at the time, so the child of her husband's father, not of her husband as I think you were interpreting it (which would be understandable if she were to say "late emperor" from her current point in time, not from the flashback timeline).
Craig Payne
2025-03-13 13:42:08 +0000 UTCOmg great reaction and stellar discussion! Anshi is not the perfect victim and while her later actions can be understood, it does not make them right. Elsewhere it was described that the late Emperor’s mother (the late Empress Dowager) became a low ranking concubine by circumstance, thus had absolutely no political capital to protect her child from higher ranking concubines who saw a beautiful preteen child of royal blood and decided he would be a good enough studhorse (royal blood is royal blood, no matter the age.) Later she amassed power to protect her son as the Empress Dowager (not JUST to protect her son, but with the power she gathered she now had the option) but the damage has already been done. The traumatized late Emperor continued the cycle of abuse and when older Anshi did the same to him, she retraumatized him so much it completely broke his mind. Both of them are victims, both are abusers and it’s an all around fucked up situation. It is really nuanced character writing and development where the reader/viewer has the agency to decide where they stand and how that influences the story, and I love that for us.
Karina
2025-03-13 13:33:28 +0000 UTCever since i read that chapter i’ve been sitting on hot coals waiting for the anime to get to it (and for y’all to react to it ever since you started the show ) Anshi might just be one of my favorite characters in the series because of how complex she is
Iris Mit
2025-03-13 13:08:47 +0000 UTCWhile her actions weren’t morally right, they produced the net positive of the Emperor isolating himself and not raping any other little girl. Which we know for a fact he would have done. If we do the math, he starts raping Anshi at 9 and he was 30, she gives birth at 10 and it’s stated he stops visiting when she stops looking like a young girl which we can assume is 12-13. Anshi states that more and more young girls were sent by their families to appease the emperor. Assuming they all follow the same time line until his death at 61, the emperor would have taken the innocence of 15 separate girls, thus assuming that he only raped a singular girl at a time, which is incredible unlikely considering the large volume of girl being sent to the palace.
Shardonay Hardy
2025-03-13 13:03:38 +0000 UTCi agrred on that
azope
2025-03-13 13:01:14 +0000 UTCI think somethink to note is that is likely that the emperor himself was hurt when he was a child by a grow woman because they want to have a heir from him. It show that is a cycle of violence and when that hapen it need to be fix if some one would have prevent it for the emperor a lot of drama could have be avoid , the emperor was already crack when he first meet her aka his reaction to her older cousin.
azope
2025-03-13 12:59:56 +0000 UTCJinshi being the spitting image of the former emperor is explicitly novel canon and not just an adaptation choice and the hair/eye colors wouldn’t be as different as they look here since most dark purples and blues are just adaptation choices to make the characters more visually interesting (Jinshi has black hair and eyes in the web novel, the color scheme is stylized to purple and pink in the light novel and made more prominent in the anime)
Iris Mit
2025-03-13 12:50:55 +0000 UTCI think Anshi really tries to rationalise her what was done to her by the previous emperor as her choice, reframing it as her "ambitions".
GloriousDawn
2025-03-13 12:17:00 +0000 UTCYes, this was also my impression reading the light novel. Her resentment and trauma finally spilled over. Doesn't make her action right - and she knew that - but it wasn't a shallow sense of jealousy as the show unfortunately gave the impression of. They were both victims that were never allowed wholesome connections, either due to defect bloodlines, mental conditions or trauma. Such a sad set of circumstances. At least the Empress Dowager eventually formed a connection with her son and grandson.
P3nth3sil3a
2025-03-13 11:25:47 +0000 UTCI think the episode actually does Anshi a bit of a disservice here by word choice. In the manga and light novel, they make it clearer that her assault on the Emperor is meant to be an act of revenge. It's not that she's jealous that she doesn't have his love anymore as an adult, she hates that he could take her whole childhood from her like that and then toss her away like she meant nothing to find a new baby doll to play with. The Nekokurage version of the manga also makes it a bit more explicit that she viewed her act as not only taking revenge for herself, but for all of the other girls he traumatized. She wanted to hurt him, and she chose the method she knew would do the most damage. She whispered insults and curses in his ear the whole time.
Melon Bread
2025-03-13 10:30:50 +0000 UTC
