The Awesome older Women of the 사극

https://www.sageukparadise.com/sageuk-paradise/empowered-women

Sageuk Shop —Sageuk Paradise

지소여왕 artwork by Kdoraneow

Something that isn't frequently discussed in the American fandoms, but should be, are the awesome older women of the 사극.  The characters who immediately come to mind, as I have watched many over the past five years, and cannot possibly remember them all! So the ones that I can immediately recall are 지소여왕 of 화랑, 미실 of The Great Queen 선덕, Madame 서 of 나의 나라, Empress Dowager Budashiri of 기황후, and Princess 원성 of The King Loves.

미실, artwork by Kdoraneow

 A few common threads among all of these women are that they are in positions of authority.  The degrees of which are most certainly variable.  Queen 지소, Empress Dowager Budashiri, and Princess 원성 have the highest authority, which they were born into.  As a concubine, 미실 also has high authority, but it is essentially at the mercy of the royal family, and it most certainly wasn't handed to her. She had to earn every last bit of it.  However, what differentiates her from Madame 서 is that she was born into the nobility.  While Madame 서 is a head 기생.  As a result, 미실 is able to gain more compliance from more men on a direct level, while Madame 서 has to be significantly more indirect, and has to play the system much harder.

 

Empress Dowager Budashiri, artwork by The Bluedevil

Queen 지소, Empress Dowager Budashiri, and Princess 원성 have the common thread of being concerned about the direction their male heirs are thinking of taking with the kingdom.  All efforts have been made by these women to establish power in a specific way that is constantly being undermined by the heirs who have yet to learn what goes on behind the political scenes.

What I like about these older women is that they are not portrayed as ugly witches who need to wither up and die.  Instead, they are women who had to work hard to obtain a lot of power, and it is explained to the viewer why they sometimes make poor or dangerous choices.  And sometimes, the choices are the same as what their male ruling counterparts would make, and it forces the viewer to take a hard look at the double standards.  For it is far easier for us to accept a male character killing someone for "knowing too much," while we look at a female character with pure horror for doing the same thing. Some common things that run through our minds when a powerful female character kills someone for knowing too much or stepping out of line is "How could she? She's supposed to reinforce this impossible notion of the sappy sisterhood!" (That in itself is a barf inducing narrative that has historically been pushed on women in the US).

What I like about these older women characters is that they are strong and respected.  Do some of them die unnecessarily in the end? Yes, but none of it is completely perfect, and I'm aware the Republic of Korea has its own set of gender issues.  These women aren't immediately tossed to the side because they don't cater to the male demographic.  Instead, I learn from these characters how to carry myself with class and dignity.  How to negotiate and solve problems of my own without resorting to triangulation, how to assert myself, and how to understand choices others make that I don't agree with.