Look, I am definitely not the president of the Tin Fan Club or a member of his doe-eyed defender squad, but my fingers are literally twitching and I have to defend the man for a second. Let's actually put on a 1932 Siamese royal's custom leather shoes for a hot minute! 😎
Criticism number one: “He knows people are suffering and still lives in luxury.”
Fair point, but contrary to popular belief, it doesn't prove he's just putting on an act. Tin grew up in a gilded bubble; that excessive lifestyle is literally just the water he swims in. He didn't invent systemic inequality for fun. But here’s the kicker: the show immediately calls him out on it. When Phob points out that they shouldn't be feasting while people starve, Tin doesn't get defensive. He just goes, you're right. That’s such an important moment! If the writers wanted to make him a performative phony, they would've written a cliché standoff where Phob says “People are starving” and Tin rolls his eyes and goes “Well, the elite need to maintain appearances.” Instead, Tin owns the cognitive dissonance. His problem isn't that he's blind to the suffering; it's that seeing the rot doesn't magically give you the blueprint to fix it. That makes him so much more interesting.
Criticism number two: “Ugh, why didn't he just cut off his family after the revolution?”
Look, this is so frustratingly disconnected from how history works. You can't judge a 1932 character by twenty-first-century progressive standards. Cut them off and go do what? The man is a literal royal prince. His entire life, brain wiring, career, and safety net are wrapped up in the palace. The revolution goes down, his brother is caught up in corruption, their assets get seized, his dad faces political ruin, and people are sitting on Twitter going, "Well, he should have just walked away." Walked away to where? Do y'all realize this happened ninety-four years ago in 1932? It wasn't last week! What does walking away even mean in that context? Is he supposed to issue a public press release disowning his family? Join the rebels? Leave his father high and dry while everything burns? Pretend to be a card-carrying revolutionary when he's fundamentally not one? Strip down to his bare feet and perform an ideological confession? None of that makes sense for the guy the show has actually written.
Let’s not forget that Tin never promised to be Phob. That’s the whole point. Phob’s radicalization took a decade of exile, French political science textbooks, deep-seated trauma, and experiencing systemic oppression first-hand. Tin spent that exact same decade climbing the corporate ladder of the royal government. Expecting them to be on the same page when they reunited is wild because their starting points couldn't have been more different.
Another big one is people saying, "Tin thinks only the upper crust should run the country."
Like, no, the show hasn't actually shown us that at all. What we do know is that Tin is a firm believer in competent institutions and professional governance, which is a totally different ballpark. There's a world of difference between "only blue-bloods should be in charge" and "we need steady leadership, and I think the existing setup can be fixed." Tin is definitely leaning toward option two. Plus, living in Britain adds up. He saw a constitutional monarchy up close, so in his mind, the progression goes: absolute monarchy → constitutional tweaks → modernized state. Phob has fundamentally blown past that into full-blown revolutionary territory: absolute monarchy → tear it all down → brand-new regime. That's why the restaurant confrontation hits so hard. Phob is essentially asking, Can you cross the finish line with me? And Tin can walk right up to the line, but he can't make the jump. That doesn't make him stupid or malicious; it just means his brain is wired by a completely different set of experiences about what's possible.
There’s also a massive reason why Tin can’t just sit down and do some modern self-reflection like Phob. Like I was saying earlier, Tin isn’t operating out of a political playbook; his entire internal world runs on family and tradition. The words that actually break him are things like duty, honor, sacrifice, family, and love. So when his dad corners him with "Your life isn't yours alone," Tin doesn't quote political theory at him. He just breaks down and says, "I just want to be free." That is everything. Tin’s first real act of rebellion isn't about tearing down the monarchy; it’s him finally demanding the right to own his own existence. That's why I'm so hyped for what comes next, because watching him untangle his own mind is going to be so much more interesting than watching him suddenly turn into a card-carrying revolutionary.
The core of Tin’s problem isn't just that he's backing the wrong political horse. It’s that he doesn't actually know who he is when he isn't playing a part. His entire existence has been scripted for him: by his dad, by the crown, by titles, by protocol, and now, entirely by Phob. His ultimate rebellion against his father doesn't even break the mold, because it's still just about Phob: "Let me have the man I love." So sure, he's fighting for his freedom. But he’s like a dog chasing a car; if he catches it, he has no idea what to do next.
Can we talk about how wild it is when people say Tin made the revolution "all about himself" just because he was apologizing?
Like, no! That is such a misread. If anything, the complete inverse is happening. Tin is throwing himself under the bus for every single thing that goes wrong because he’s been wired his whole life to believe he's personally accountable for the universe. Look at how he speaks: "I'm sorry, I'm so stupid, I'm sorry." That’s not a narcissist center-staging himself; that is the text-book definition of crushing, pathological self-blame. It's literally his M.O. throughout the entire story. Tin’s brain operates on a loop: Disaster strikes → It's my fault → Time to martyr myself. He did it in 1921 when he left Phob, he did it when he tried to bury his feelings, he did it when he took a literal bullet, and now he's right back at it. It's tragic, but it makes total sense for who he is.
Think about what just went down right before this. Tin finds out information that basically hands him his worst nightmare on a silver platter: The guy I'm in love with only came back because he's running a political op that's going to destroy my family. But does he throw a tantrum about treason and monarchy? No! His first reaction is just a devastated, "Why, Phob?" That is pure heartbreak talking, not political outrage. And then he limps home and has a full-blown breakdown sobbing into his dad’s arms, calling himself stupid. Why? Because his entire reality just got ripped away. He spent this whole time believing, He came back because he loves me, only to have to face the sickening thought, Oh god... what if I was wrong about everything? For someone who carries the weight of the world on his shoulders and blames himself for everything, that is the ultimate psychological hit.
This is why the whole "Tin is making the revolution about himself" argument falls totally flat for me.
Tin isn't sitting there throwing a tantrum saying, "The revolution is bad because it inconvenienced me." He’s having a total crisis of faith in his own brain: "I thought I knew the person I loved. I thought I could trust my own judgment. What if I was completely blind, and my stupidity is the reason everything went to hell?" That is worlds away from narcissism. He is literally drowning in self-blame for things that are completely out of his control. Enter his dad, who seizes on that exact weak spot and throws him a lifeline: Don't blame yourself, darling. Phob just used you. Of course that sounds comforting. It gives Tin somewhere to shove his crushing guilt so he doesn't have to keep carrying it. But Tin doesn't actually buy into the easy villain narrative. Look at what he actually tells Phob later: "I understand your ideology." Drop everything for that line, because it's huge. If Tin was just throwing a selfish, ego-driven fit, he'd demonize the politics entirely. Instead, he does the hardest thing possible: he separates the politics from the personal. He’s basically saying, I get why you had to burn the world down, but I can't be the person you throw into the fire. That is so devastatingly mature. He’s not saying Phob shouldn't care about the country; he's saying, "I'm breaking because I can't survive being your sacrifice." It's heartbreaking, and it fits his character arc to a T.
Tin’s fundamental issue isn't just that he's privileged, it's that he has virtually zero concept of his own desires as having inherent worth. Look at how routinely his happiness gets treated as an open negotiation. His father orders him to marry; Tin argues that he won't be able to make the bride happy. His father invokes family honor; Tin tells him to disown him. His father declares that Tin's life belongs to the dynasty; Tin responds that he simply won't live it. And with Phob, Tin falls into the exact same trap: I will break myself so he can stay whole. That isn't noble selflessness. That is self-erasure wrapped up in a shroud of duty. Tin never learned how to say, "I deserve this happiness." He only knows how to say, "I'll take the punishment." That is precisely why the fallout from this revolution is going to shatter him. For the very first time, the institutional scaffolding that gave him an identity is going to vanish, and he is going to have to figure out who he is when he isn't being useful to someone else.
And this is precisely what makes the father's accusation against Phob so fascinating. The father essentially tells Phob: You were never sincere. You just weaponized his love. Whether the father is objectively right is almost beside the point. What matters is that even though Tin didn't hear those exact words, this is the exact narrative Tin is most agonizingly primed to believe. Because Tin's default operating system is already, "I am the root of the problem." So his father's poison gives him a tragic out, a way to make sense of the unbearable paradox from Tin's own POV: Phob loves me, yet Phob is willing to throw me to the wolves. Tin's brain simply cannot reconcile those two truths. Consequently, telling himself, "Maybe his love was a lie all along" feels psychologically safer than facing the crushing reality: "Someone can genuinely love me to pieces and still choose a cause over me." And that is the devastating lesson both men are forced to swallow. Because Phob genuinely loves Tin, but he also genuinely believes in a future bigger than their romance. And Tin genuinely loves Phob, even though he once believed his royal duty eclipsed it all. Neither man was faking his devotion. They both just fell for the fatal delusion that love could survive being repeatedly thrown on the altar of sacrifice. Episode 8 is where that fantasy finally goes up in flames.
Now, let’s expand the prediction for the rice-mill storyline, because Tin working there could genuinely be fantastic television.
The real question is: What is this arc trying to teach him? I’ve already laid out the lazy, poorly written trap the writers could fall into, but there is a much more brilliant path available. The rice mill can strip away everything and teach Tin something he has never experienced a day in his life: What it feels like to exist with zero institutional protection. That is a completely different ballgame.
See, Tin has always intellectually understood poverty, but he has never actually experienced powerlessness. Those are two entirely different universes. Up until now, his life came with a permanent safety net: a royal title, a family name, a palace, generational wealth, elite education, institutional authority, servants, high-level connections, his father's shield, and the unshakable luxury of assuming someone else would always step in to fix the crisis. Now? All of it vanishes. That is potential rocket fuel for character development. It’s that terrifying, floor-dropping-out-from-under-you realization: "Oh my god... I have never known what it's like for there to be nobody left at the top to save me." That is the exact missing link in his worldview. And it completely reframes what he told Phob back in Episode 7 ("I don't have enough power to solve these problems"). Because now Tin is finally going to live on the flip side of that coin: What does it actually feel like to be completely, utterly powerless? That is infinitely more compelling.
But let's look past the poverty angle, because there's an even bigger emotional gut-punch here. Tin needs an arc where he finally breaks free from the two men who built him in a lab when he was just a caged prince: his dad and Phob. The symmetry of his life is actually insane if you map it out. Pre-1932 Tin? A puppet dancing to his father's tune ("You belong to this family, do as you're told"). Post-return Tin? An absolute goner whose entire identity shifted to being defined by Phob ("I am Phob's Tin"). His whole emotional core became about serving Phob and keeping him breathing. And then the rug gets pulled. The revolution destroys the monarchy, his dad loses everything, Phob walks into power with the new government, and all of Tin's safety nets (the titles, the money, the palace) evaporate overnight. Left standing in the dust is the scariest question imaginable: Without his father's name or Phob's gravity, who is Tin left with?
Okay, but Tin turning down Phob's rescue? Elite tier storytelling. Perfection. Because it would finally be the moment Tin looks all of his keepers in the face and goes: "You don't get to run my life anymore." Not his dad, not the crown, not Phob, no one. Talk about a glow-up. Picture Tin stripped of his title, his cash, and his safety net, rolling up his sleeves and going, "I'll work for a living." And not because he's throwing a pity party or trying to earn a saint badge, but because he's finally taking the wheel: "This is mine. Let me handle it." That turns his whole "I just want to be free" mantra on its head. Freedom stops being code for "Let me stay tethered to Phob" and finally transforms into: "Let me find out who the hell Tin is on his own." I am begging for this exact arc.
This also completely fixes the whole "Tin needs to understand the poor" debate that people keep recycling.
The biggest misconception is thinking Tin has to morph into Phob 2.0 to be redeemed. No! He doesn't need a party card, a radical manifesto, or a sudden socialist awakening. He just needs his massive blind spot popped. Put him at the rice mill and let him realize that everyday people aren't a monolith: some are rooting for the new regime, some hate it, and a lot of them are just trying to survive and don't trust any politicians, old or new. That would shake Tin to his core in the best way possible. Instead of viewing the world through abstract political teams, he’d actually have to look at real people with messy, contradictory lives. That’s the kind of actual, hard-earned development we want to see.
The ultimate setup of this whole series is so clear once you look at it: Tin and Phob are both addicted to the exact same toxic martyrdom loop. And then the 1932 revolution comes in and clears the board. Tin doesn't have a royal title to hide behind anymore, and Phob can't use "for the greater good" as an excuse to sacrifice Tin, because there's literally nothing left to sacrifice. All their safety nets are gone. Which means they finally have to face the real question: Can you love somebody without trying to play God and decide what's best for them? That right there is the true romantic climax. It’s not about whether a royal and a rebel can hold hands in public; it's about whether two people who are used to weaponizing protection can step back and let the other person breathe. That is so much more satisfying. And if the writers are as genius as they've been all season, that emotional reckoning is what the rice mill is building toward.
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