Critical reception Overall, ''The King's Affection'' was well received by critics, both in South Korea and abroad. Several outlets felt that it opened a new horizon in the stories of women disguised as men, and that Hwi's independence and how she repeatedly saved Ji-woon constituted a 180° shift in the gender roles of a typical romantic series, appreciating "the rare attempt" to make the female lead occupy a higher social position, instead of recounting the sad love between a high-ranking man and a woman of humble origins, Calling the drama "interesting and different" from previous series in which the female lead wore male clothes, such as
Coffee Prince,
Sungkyungwan Scandal or
Love in the Moonlight, the Thai news agency
Workpoint Today noted that the fact that the hero fell in love regardless of the other person's gender could be considered an attempt to help normalize boundless love, blurring the lines between femininity and masculinity still deeply rooted in South Korean society, and appreciated the absence of the classic scene in which the male lead wonders why he likes a person of the same sex. Through the revival of stereotypical scenes, but in which Ji-woon adopts behaviors usually attributed to female characters, and through the debates on
Confucius' teachings, it also identified the desire to shatter the distinction between male and female roles particularly clear in historical series, and the conviction that traditional beliefs should no longer define sexuality. In general, critics appreciated the more open vision of love presented by the series, considering it more daring than previous historical dramas with the same concept given the greater presence of
queer elements, not only in the
BL relationship between Hwi and Ji-woon, but also in the
GL one between Hwi and Ha-kyung. and to the more nuanced one by
Park Eun-bin, whose complete identification with the character was considered one of the main reasons for the popularity of the series. However, he noted that it was a "strangely exciting" drama, probably because of the love story that transcends hierarchy and gender, and that, despite the ridiculous situations and the low plausibility, it had managed to capture the audience by making them believe that such a story could actually take place. Stephen McCarty of the
South China Morning Post noted that the series could have cut some bloodshed without losing narrative strength. ''The King's Affection
placed sixth on NME'''s best Korean dramas of 2021 list.
Viewership According to Nielsen Korea, ''The King's Affection
debuted in South Korea with a national average share of 6.2%. Episode 6 scored the lowest ratings for the series, with a national average share of 5.5% and 4.8% in the Seoul metropolitan area, but after the conclusion of Lovers of the Red Sky'', one of the competing programs of the evening, episode 7 recorded the best ratings for the drama, which reached a share of 10% with episode 13 and ended with 12,1%. In the span of two weeks, ''The King's Affection'' entered the top 10 of Netflix's most viewed programs globally and the top 5 in
Hong Kong,
Indonesia,
Japan,
Malaysia,
Philippines,
Singapore,
Thailand and
Vietnam. Following the release of episodes 9 and 10 on November 10, it ranked eighth globally, and first among the most viewed Korean programs for three consecutive days, while on November 23 it was fourth in Netflix's Global Top 10 (Non-English), with 15.64 million hours watched. == Awards and nominations ==