뉴스레터

"The Throne" is a film that was released in September 2015 and drew an audience of more than six million during its run in theaters. The film tells the cruel tale of a king killing the son he appointed as his successor. The fact that the film managed to attract millions with an old tale known widely enough for any Korean to have heard about it at some point in their lives is a testament to how great a performance the director and cast pulled off through the film.

The death of Sado seja, or Crown Prince Sado, is an incident likely to be remembered as one of the most tragic affairs in the history of the Joseon dynasty. What could have possibly driven King Yeongjo to kill the crown prince, his very own flesh and blood? Countless records mentioning Crown Prince Sado and his death have been left behind by King Yeongjo himself, by Lady Hyegyeong, the wife of Crown Prince Sado and birth mother of King Jeongjo, through her memoir "Hanjungnok," and by King Jeongjo through his draft of Crown Prince Sado's epigraph. Mentions of the crown prince and his death even appear in books documenting the views of different political factions that existed around the time such as the Noron, Soron, and Namin. Nevertheless, a comprehensive, systematic review of all the aforementioned sources is yet to be carried out, one that could help scholars form a more widely accepted interpretation of the incident.

Historical Facts Portrayed as a "Family" Affair

Despite featuring a crown prince, "The Throne" focuses on the relationship between a father and a son without involving their political surroundings so as to present the main incident as a family affair instead of a state affair. King Yeongjo was a ruler who had an inferiority complex over his low-class familial background. This made him hold high expectations for his successor to possess qualities perfect for a king, so killing the crown prince was inevitable when he failed to meet those expectations. From where Crown Prince Sado stands, he was a son doomed to exhibit signs of insanity after trying hard and failing to meet his father's expectations. This made King Yeongjo think that eliminating Crown Prince Sado and replacing him with his grandson Jeongjo would be the only way to preserve the family bloodline. The way King Yeongjo saw it, having Crown Prince Sado commit suicide was the best way for the royal family to secure succession to the throne, and because Crown Prince Sado refused to do so, King Yeongjo had no choice but to lock Crown Prince Sado in a wooden rice chest and starve him to death. In other words, with Jeongjo next in line to the throne, King Yeongjo made a necessary choice to prevent his grandson's father Crown Prince Sado from committing treason and to ensure a smooth succession.

In the above respect, the film in its own way seems to have done a faithful job of reenacting relevant historical facts. The amount of such facts presented through the film was in fact huge enough so that not only the average audience, but experts studying the period may find it challenging to keep up with each and every one of them. Therefore, a careful examination by historians would be necessary to determine the veracity of those historical facts. Nevertheless, what the film has certainly achieved is that it has overcome the theory about Crown Prince Sado's insanity still circulating in academia. Although the film's focus is limited to the relationship between a father and son, it persuasively conveys the impression that the tragedy was not simply caused by King Yeongjo's temperamental character or Crown Prince Sado's mental illness, but by a social conflict between a father and his son.

Political Schemes and Conspiracies to Resist Reform

The film The Thorne's shortcoming lies in the confines of its catch phrase "an affair of a family, not a state" created by the film's director and producer. In the case of a king and crown prince, it becomes difficult to find affairs that purely involve family and has nothing to do with the state. That is why there are several scenes in the film that appear unconvincing to the audience. Even after making Crown Prince Sado his proxy, why does King Yeongjo get irritated by the decisions his proxy makes and drives that proxy into a corner? Why did Crown Prince Sado develop an interest in martial arts and painting all of sudden after managing to live up to his father's expectations as a bright young boy?

Without an understanding of the political circumstances surrounding historical facts, theories about personal character alone will not be able to offer satisfactory answers to such questions. Joseon constantly exhibited signs of a crisis during the eighteenth century, even though no particular threats were imposed from the outside. That is because ordinary people strived to increase their productive capacity since the seventeenth century and eventually changed the dynasty's economic framework. However, existing ranks and privileges prevented the dynasty's socio-political framework from reflecting changes in the economy. Intellectuals willing to embrace change for the sake of averting a crisis argued that the privileges the gentry and landowners have enjoyed and the injustices they've caused should be eradicated from the social system. That argument became much more widely acknowledged by the time King Yeongjo ascended to the throne and materialized in the form of a policy named Tangpyeong during his reign.

Crown Prince Sado also agreed that Joseon's system was in need of reform for the kingdom to be able to grow into a prosperous one and clearly recognized the Tangpyeong policy as a means to carry out reform. However, the very forces that had supported King Yeongjo's enthronement became the ones at the heart of opposition against the Tangpyeong policy. So when Crown Prince Sado attempted to reform the system by taking away the privileges those forces used to enjoy, their reaction was to try to come between King Yeongjo and Crown Prince Sado by deploying all sorts of political schemes and conspiracies. Glimpses of those developments appear in the film as well. The scene where Crown Prince Sado as a proxy tries to impose taxes on the gentry owning land indicates that he favored reform. The scene in which Queen Jeongsun devises a plot to make Na Gyeong-eon officially accuse Crown Prince Sado of preparing to commit treason represents a conspiracy forged to get rid of the crown prince. Without an understanding of the political context behind such scenes, it may be difficult to relate to the extreme confrontations that take place between King Yeongjo and Crown Prince Sado. Although the two shared the same aspirations for a new state system, King Yeongjo wished to appease the opposition by embracing it, which was a method Crown Prince Sado found difficult to agree with.

Crown Prince Sado's tragic death is a major incident in the political history of the Joseon dynasty that warrants close examination. Rather than blaming the temperaments of King Yeongjo and Crown Prince Sado, the incident was the consequence of political schemes and conspiracies created by the ruling class who ignored common sense in order to protect the privileges they enjoyed. The incident was triggered by intense conflicts between newly emerging forces in the eighteenth century and forces opposing them, conflicts that impacted palace politics and even pitted the king and crown prince against one another in a contest of life and death. When later efforts by King Jeongjo to overcome such conflicts also ended in failure, Joseon became incapable of modernizing itself and headed toward its downfall upon Japan's imperialism. In that sense, the tragedy of King Yeongjo and Crown Prince Sado can be considered an incident that decided the fate of Joseon. "The Throne" hints that film as a medium may have inherent limitations to being able to convey all the various aspects of such a historic tragedy.