This story is also driven by, well, spite at the fact that it's the rapist and stalker princess who generally gets celebrated as the ~queer icon~ while her enslaved victims are erased or treated as props to her queerness. It's the princess who is the protagonist of both the novel-length fictionalizations of this incident I'm aware of, which... look, I get that princesses are appealing, and it does seem badass that she literally fought the patriarchy in her standoffs against her father-in-law Sejong's moralizing (yeah, THAT Sejong), but... hello? Rape and stalking accusation by an enslaved woman who was torn away from the girlfriend she loved??

I also get the urge to explain the rape allegation away, e.g. Sejong was looking for an excuse to expel her (he really was not, he'd already expelled one Crown Princess Consort before her and was willing to overlook a boatload of the second one's improprieties because he really, REALLY didn't want to air the royal family's dirty laundry again), she was unjustly persecuted for loving a woman, her lover/accuser was forced to make a false accusation, she was trying to protect her lover, etc. etc. There are a hundred routes to turn if you find the princess a sympathetic figure and badly want her to be a anti-patriarchal queer heroine.

But. What if we lead the discussion with the radical proposition that a rape victim might be telling the full truth of her victimization? Even if we like the alleged perpetrator? Even if the person accused is herself sympathetic and attractive in some way? Even if we want her to be a good person we can keep on liking? Do you see the uncomfortable similarities to so much rape apologist rhetoric in the present day?

Hence this story as what I see as a necessary counterbalance, if a small one. I'm not saying the fictional versions that sympathize with the princess are bad or their authors deserve some kind of moral censure. I'm pointing out the structural and emotional reasons that drive these understandings and fictionalizations, and how necessary it is for SOMEONE to point out what goes undiscussed. And I guess that someone is me because I'm the one who cares enough, which is an uncomfortable position to be in but there you have it.

With this story I feel like I paid a debt as a queer Korean lover of history, and can move more lightly and freely as a creator and researcher because I laid down my case on this incident as well as I know how. I hope it brings honor to the real Sossang and Danji who to me are the true and central heroines of this incident, and I hope to others who learn their story.