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The Romance of Tiger and Rose - Ending Discussion

charmingz

Hi guys! I know, for weeks we were anxious whether this drama has happy or sad ending. With the OTP's undeniable chemistry and great plotline of course we're rooting for the happy and satisfying one.

 I haven't completed TROTAR yet, first because VIP users can only access up to the 18th episode and second, I don't understand Chinese/Mandarin. But since Chinese users already have all the episodes, spoilers were floating around in different socmed platforms. And yey! Fortunately, TROTAR's writer came up with a happy ending scenario. But for me it wasn't satisfying. There were so many questions left unanswered . 

So I just wanna ask what's your theory, interpretation and explanation of TROTAR's ending?

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r o s e

From my interpretation, it was definitely a happy ending but I kinda wanted more lol. So she wakes up from her dream and is obviously disheartened as Han Shuo does not exist in her real world. She goes to the hospital because the actor that was supposed to play Han Shuo was hospitalized after a car accident. She goes in still expecting that he may be Han Shuo but he shows no clue of knowing her and/or having Han Shuo's memories until he calls her "橙子同学 (chéng zi tóng xué)" (literally: orange classmate) which is when she realizes that he does in fact have Han Shuo's memories. He also had the same dream CXQ had but had thought it was just delusions caused by his car accident. So happy ending :)

[Hope this helped clarify!]

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charmingz

I think the confusing part of the ending is if Han Shou in ancient time is also the Han Shou in the modern world. I mean why does he not recognize Chen Qian Qian/Xiao Qian in modern world as the scriptwriter before? Also, why is he not aware of what's happening and his surroundings in the the ancient time unlike CQQ/Xiao Qian?

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gwennie call
 charmingz:

I think the confusing part of the ending is if Han Shou in ancient time is also the Han Shou in the modern world. I mean why does he not recognize Chen Qian Qian/Xiao Qian in modern world as the scriptwriter before? Also, why is he not aware of what's happening and his surroundings in the the ancient time unlike CQQ/Xiao Qian?

I agree with everything you're saying - I read (putting in spoiler tags just in case) that he lost his memory and entered the 'dream' world at the same time she did, in a car accident. Which is pretty convenient, if you ask me!

I suppose it was too much to ask that the ending was as funny and well plotted as the rest of the series. C-dramas often have a problem with pacing and tone-shifts, but I'd hoped this one would be exempt. For example, the last episode or two in the 'ancient world' pretty much turns into a weepy melodrama, and I got so frustrated, there are so many of those online, while actual funny comedies with real emotions are rare. 

I'm gonna spoil for episodes 19-24, which I watched without subs, 'cos I couldn't wait! This is something which happened that I had a major problem with, and it kind of soured me on the rest of the series.

 I think I made sense of the main events, but I hope the subs are going to help with one particular event which kind of messed up the show for me, though they'd have to be some brilliantly written subtitles, lol.

TRIGGER WARNING for ATTEMPTED NON CON 

Basically, in episode 19 Han Shuo took over the city and QianQian is living with him (or he's in her house - unclear). There's this back and forth with Pei where HS is kicking him to the curb over and over , and QianQian tries to protect Pei, so HS throws her over his shoulder (literally) and carries her back inside. Now, that's cliched enough, especially when the scene ends with Pei on his knees in the rain, crying. 

But then, we cut to HS, still carrying QianQian, throws her on the bed, and yeah. Fine, I don't know what they're saying. But at one point, he's pushing her down, trying to kiss her, and she's crying and screaming. He stops (either because she says something or slaps him) and he looks shook, and leaves. I can't tell if he ever apologizes, and soon we're back to our usual hijinks, but I've kinda lost the taste for it, if you know what I mean. 

I'm so disappointed in Han Shuo - I had just got over him trying to kill QianQian (so many times!), and now this.

Like I'm saying - I keep checking my sites to see if the subbed Ep 19 is up (don't know what the subs will do, lol) which will maybe put a different slant on the scene? IDK.

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Nikolean

I heard this from somewhere else, but someone mentioned that she was only asleep for a day, while the actor was in an accident two days prior. We could say that maybe he entered the dream upon his character's birth or a while before because time flowed differently in the dream than in real life right? We could then use the argument here that he was a character while Xiaoqian was the scriptwriter in terms of memories while in the dream. So Han Shuo had no memories of modern times because he was just a character, while Qianqian had her memories because she was the scriptwriter.  When they woke up in modern times, she remembered right away, but it makes sense for Han Shuo's memories to be a little hazy and flow in later than hers because of his accident- which probably left his body weaker and stuff? He likely suffered a light concussion or something considering he was out for 3 ish days (and his manager mentioned that he had just woken up when the scriptwriter arrived so he was still getting his bearings and his mind and body were tired from the accident).

Hopefully that made sense.

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2hahahahaha

Thanks @Nikolean  for the info. It makes so much sense after you explained it.

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MusicalVeggies

My personal interpretation:

It seemed to me that both of them had the same dream at the same time - that both their consciousness entered this same dream-verse and interacted there but the actor's consciousness was more passive (it's like one of those dreams where you can't control what's going on and you're experiencing as it goes along) while Xiao Qian's consciousness was more aware (like one of those dreams where you know you're dreaming and you can make certain decisions in that dream but you just can't exit from it).

So, from my personal perspective, they both met and fell in love in that dream-verse (he when he had that car accident, she when she fell unconscious from illness), and woke up at the same time. The actor was confused because it felt as though he had experienced one very long and realistic dream and probably didn't want to believe it was real until Xiao Qian said "too 'tiger'" which reminded him of how she said in the dream that the term 'tiger' meant different things: In Xuanhu, it means valiant and strong while in Huayuan it means pathetic but in the modern world, it means silly and cute. You could see his face soften like Han Shuo when he said "really 'tiger'?" It's something their in-dream characters would only know so I guess at that point, he realised that what he was dreaming was real.

Anyway, it's all interpretation but the coincidence of the lung injury and all does sort of reinforce the idea that whatever was experienced in the dream-verse would also be reflected in the real world in some way (or vice versa).

I noticed that Qian Qian in dream-verse made a lot of reference to 'dreaming' and 'waking up' from the first episode onwards. Her consciousness is in the dream-verse and she's aware she's dreaming - the only problem is not being able to wake up, lol.

But for the actor, I suspect he entered the dream-verse a lot earlier because his accident was 2 days ahead. So, he might have been born as Han Shuo and experienced life in Xuanhu City with heart disease and yadda yadda. I think he was more immersed in his dream, and had a much longer dream, hence the level of confusion when he eventually woke up.

The way they entered the dream was also the same. In the 1st episode, Xiao Qian saw this bright light and then woke up in Huayuan City. Same with Actor Han - he said he saw this bright light when the car accident happened.

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hk-lo

Seems that they could of explain it a bit better how they shared the same dream or got transported to the past. I think if they both got into an accident when they first met would of at least made it more plausable.

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Sherry

My interpretation is more straightfoward. There are technically 4 characters: 

  1. Scriptwriter Xiao Qing
  2. Actor Han
  3. Third Princess Qing Qing
  4. Han Shou

As for what happens:

  • Actor Han gets in a car accident and is knocked unconscious for a night and day.
  • While Actor Han is unconscious in the hospital, Xiao Qing falls asleep and enters her script.
  • Xiao Qing completely takes over Third Princess. Third Princess ceases to exist as a separate consciousness, which is why she no longer has martial arts.
  • {Everything in the script world takes place.}
  • When Xiao Qing exits the script world through the "portal", Han Shou's consciousness also escapes the script world and enters the real world.
  • Han Shou's consciousness enters Actor Han, which he describes as a "weird-shaped thing ran at me, and then I had a long, long dream". Because Han Shou's consciousness entered Actor Han when Xiao Qing exited the script world, Actor Han--who only recently woke up --is still trying to make sense of his new memories about Xiao Qing in the script world.
  • Xiao Qing meets Actor Han at the hospital, and his reference to "Orange" reveals that he has Han Shou's memories.

This ending was foreshadowed in episode 22 when they have a discussion about scriptwriting and that, possibly, Xiao Qing's world is also a script. Thus, we can logically deduce that if Xiao Qing's consciousness can enter the script, Han Shou's consciousness should be able to exit it. The main difference is that Actor Han wasn't taken over completely by Han Shou's consciousness.

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hk-lo

Thanks for the great explanation!

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mpruel

Is it only me who think this drama is not happy ending? haha because han shuo and modern hanshuo is a different person.. its like modern hanshuo just a dream and share hanshuo's memory not his thought.. maybe he has a feeling to xiao qian because he feels connected to hanshuo but he's not hanshuo anyway.. 

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Cherish
 gwennie call:
He stops (either because she says something or slaps him) and he looks shook

uhh he stopped because his heart softened after seeing her cry

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Cherish
 gwennie call:
QianQian is living with him (or he's in her house - unclear).

He didnt live with her, she wouldnt even allow it lol

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Cherish
 gwennie call:
I'm so disappointed in Han Shuo - I had just got over him trying to kill QianQian (so many times!), and now this.

But its kind of reasonable lol cos QianQian faked an incident and made HanShuo the culprit, leaving his stuff at the crime scene (including the badge thingy where he gave her, the soldiers of his country will protect the person with this badge at all costs). She purposely sends him to a place where nobody knows, because she cant risk letting ppl from Han Shuo's country come save him (this is all bacause she thought that the endings of the characters will not change - in her script han shuo dies, so she has to bring him somewhere safe so he will be less likely to die) 

So, HanShuo was oblivious that QianQian came from the modern world and they are all in her script, so he is heartbroken. He tries to talk to QianQian and see if she is doing this out of no choice or this is actually all planned by her all along. QianQian smashes a gift from HanShuo painstakingly (a stamp with a heart shape he made himself), so HanShuo actually thinks that QianQian has planned this all along and is devastated. 

HanShuo was sent to that secret place (imprisoned), but on their way there, ChuChu saves HanShuo and  teams up with him to go back to HuaYuanCheng, where she wants to be the leader of the country. Hanshuo will get the oil factory thing in return, so he does so, and he also wants to get revenge (QianQian said she has planned this all along, just to get his trust and imprison him, cos both countries were enemies) 

So i think it is kind of reasonable for him to do that lol, and his heart also softened when he made QianQian cry, and he also didnt rly try to kill her anymore after falling in luv wif her (only scared her).

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allemood

@Nikolean thank you T^T seeing it that way, it makes a looot of sense and I want to think it that way.

 Because it's true that the car accident was two days ago and she may be slept for a day or less (when she felt sleep in the first episode we can see that the light in the window and all the things are in the same place as when she woke up in the last episode). 

We can also see in the first episode that she worked on the script for one day or more without sleep and this is the time that he was in a coma because of the accident, so it makes sense that he enters the world while he's in a coma and the edits that she was doing (like she replaced his memorys with, let's say, the memories of Han Shuo while she was rewriting aaall of the script) may be the cause of his memory lost and he adapted to the character.

And there is another thing. He wokes up before she arrived to the hospital, so maybe that means that Han Shuo died and he returned to the world and then she appears in the hospital room.  

In conclussion, he's Han Shuo, Han Shuo is him. So Han Shuo is alive and they're together T^T.

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