I try to avoid watching sageuk dramas as much as I can because of these common tropes.
- the "strong" FL
- the handsome ML
- court intrigue involving a puppet king and corrupt court officials
- clan rivalries
If you've finished one sageuk drama, then you've already finished most of them.

Korea must have hated their monarchy to a point where they almost never appear good or in actual control of the situation. The monarchy is either represented as being corrupt of being mere puppets.

This is another example of a noona romance that is if you don't mind seeing an ML who is not yet legally adult during the "courtship" bumble his way about the FL who is late into the socially acceptable marriageable age at the time. Although I'm a fan of noona romances, I must admit being disturbed and cringing at the interaction between the FL and the ML. Perhaps because the series primarily centered around the female point of view instead of the male POV. I also felt like the romance between the leads was unnecessary. They could simply have focused on the court historian portion of the story.

This series is notorious for its tonal shift from being a romcom to being a serious sageuk in the latter part of the series with the last episodes being too rushed to be fully satisfying.

Regardless of the villains getting their just desserts, they still succeeded in making sure that the true heir to the throne never becomes interested in being king by starving him of freedom and knowledge while growing up. So the bad guys still won while the audience is fooled into thinking the Male Lead's freedom is all that he deserved.