YMMV / Moon Lovers

• Broken Base: Some love this drama for its romance and likable characters, while others hate it for its mediocre, slow-paced story, acting (especially Baek-hyun's, which both haters and fans agree is bad), or for being an unfaithful adaptation of the novel and/or being completely different to the original show that it's based on (Scarlet Heart).
• Fandom Heresy: Go up to a Scarlet Heart fan and say you think Moon Lovers is better than the original series. Go on. Try it. Even fans of the remake almost universally agree the original is better.
• Fanon Discontinuity: As far as most fans are concerned, the series only has seventeen episodes. The quality of the writing and the coherence of the plot both go downhill in the last three episodes, and the Mind Screw-y nature of the Downer Ending is especially loathed.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The show had low ratings in its native country but was surprisingly popular elsewhere (especially in China where it earned 1 billion viewers).
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Hong Jong-hyun plays a Goryeo royal who fakes his death by falling off a cliff. Is this a description of Wang Yo or Wang Rin?
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Queen Yoo crosses it in a flashback when she threatens to kill Wang So as a child. Then she crosses it again when Wang So tells her about the abuse he suffered in Shinju, and she replies with, "What of it?"
  • Wang Wook crosses it when he suggests forcing Wang So to kill Wang Eun.
  • Yeon-hwa crosses it when she figures out Ha-jin is hiding Wang Eun and immediately tells Wang Yo even though she knows she'll get Wang Eun and Soon-deok killed.
• Narm: Wang Mu somehow manages to drown in waist-deep water. Made worse because the water looks deep while Mu is struggling in it, but as soon as Ji-mong jumps in to retrieve his body, he can easily wade over to him.
• Squick:
  • The sheer amount of Brother–Sister Incest, although historically accurate, is deeply disturbing from a modern perspective.
  • Wang So reluctantly agrees to marry his niece. Who's just a child. And who was about to be sent off to Khitan to be a hostage and to marry a complete stranger, on her father's orders.
• The Woobie: Poor, poor Wang So. His mother threatened to kill him and cut his face when he was just a child. Ever since, she's ignored him and encouraged his brothers to hate him. His adoptive family abused him. And that's just the start of everything he suffers.

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