(Warning: spoilers likely below)

The fantasy genre in general is my favorite, so I'm already a little biased. This one was a gem, however, The world building was excellent, the mystery build up good, and the relationship between the FL and ML was sweet and non-toxic.

The sound track was very good--and used very well, there was this eerie song that really set the mood during certain scenes (like the one where she is revealed to be the Goddess to the entire court...).

Both leads did very well. They were comfortable in their roles and you could really believe in the ML as a teenage king who genuinely wanted to do good by his country (though why he decided to make that one evil guy prime minister....I thought at first he'd done it on purpose knowing that it would drive Yin Xiao [way cool sword btw!] to execute him, but nope, turns out he was serious?). Both evil main characters gave me the absolute creeps which meant they did their jobs well.

And of course, there is the dad who's just great. And for once, they had an actor of the appropriate age play someone's father--in a period drama based on ancient Chinese culture where marriage at an early age was common, a man who, in his late teens, became a father would not be older than forty and that actor was perfectly believable in that role.

If you like the fantasy genre, I don't think you'll be disappointed in this one. Its not perfect (I haven't yet watched one that is), but its enjoyable, the ending for the couple is happy (though, fair warning, for few else). There's also some good lessons about Machiavellian displays of power (e.g. making 'deities' in order to maintain power).