Chinese GL

The Chinese imperial court was a deeply hierarchical, misogynistic place. The Chinese imperial court of the popular imagination may, in certain respects, be an even more hierarchical, misogynistic place. This presents certain challenges if you're writing a baihe court intrigue novel, because you probably want the main characters to have at least some agency. From my (not that extensive) reading of court intrigue and court intrigue-adjacent novels, here are four approaches you could take.

( very, very mild and vague possible spoilers for the texts under discussion (see tags) )

Let me know if you have any other examples or any other approaches for female characters in historical settings to gain political power! Or whether you see/categorise them differently.

As I read Serenade of Tranquility (清平乐, pinyin: qingping yue), it was difficult not to compare it to the author's later, more assured and stronger work Minister Xie (谢相, pinyin: xie xiang). The latter, if I had to pitch it to Anglo genre publishing, I would pitch it as Sha Po Lang meets The Goblin Emperor. The two novels hit very similar themes: a young (would-be) emperor learns to rule, and in the process falls obsessively in love with an older, more politically experienced woman who stands in a (quasi-)familial relationship to her. There are several key weaknesses in Serenade of Tranquility which are not repeated in Minister Xie, and one which is, so I might as well structure the review around them. I do, however, want to start by highlighting a positive feature, which is rare (IME) in the webnovel scene: Ruo Hua Ci Shu is a serious historical novelist, and takes great care with the language, political plotting, everyday and ceremonial customs and practices etc, to ensure that it hews to some actual era in Chinese imperial history. This is particularly obvious in Minister Xie, which is very much inspired by the reign of Emperor Xuan of the Han Dynasty.

( spoilers for this novel and Minister Xie )

I read the Chinese original of the novel on JJWXC.