Empress Myeongseong (aka Queen Min, aka “Minnie”), was chosen as the consort for the king of modern-day Korea almost primarily for her beauty. She was also from a prestigious family who posed no threat to the ruling factions, but the beauty part was a pretty big factor. How could someone so small, beautiful and soft-spoken ever cause any trouble, amirite?!
Needless to say, they had her all wrong. This quiet and beautiful young girl would go on to disrupt the status quo for the next 20 years.
In Queens Podcast’s first venture into the complicated history of Korea, we learned there was never a dull moment as Min did her best to bring her country and her unimpressive husband into the current day. Korea had been living in a time of isolationism and it was time to get their asses in shape. And she decided she was just the leader to do it.
But problem after problem thwarted her vision of a new Korea. One such obstacle was Minnie’s father-in-law from hell who was not ready to give up his grasp on his under-educated son (the emperor) or his views of tradition. This guy sucked and was honestly super scary.
Another problem was Japan and their complicated relationship with Korea (ie: they didn’t yet have total control over Korea and that really complicated their position of world domination). So, Min’s story is one of adversity, family drama, political intrigue, a whole lot of murder and even a little bit of love (but more murder).
Cheers, guys!
Some sources :
Wikipedia because we have full-time jobs (sorry)
Unfortunate Ends (lol, spoiler alert)