the politics are a bit of a hassle for me to understand. do we actually know if the yeonjo...

He's a traitor on a technicality.
He was loyal to the King they overthrew. When you get rid of a leader, you also get rid of anyone loyal to them.
Then when you're in power, you brand anyone that was loyal to the previous leader a traitor.

during the time when hee ryang killed him, was the king still on the seat or was he overthrown already?

I believe that incident was part of the overthrow.

ahhh basically his father is technically not a bad guy, it's just that he's a loyal subject to the old king? welp that makes their situation even more complicated. i thought at the end they will use a quick fix when yeonjoo knows his father is actually a bad guy or something lol so his grudge will be gone

do we know why they overthrow the old king though? is he an evil tyrant or just incompetent?

They never go into whether or not his father was corrupt, but a kid will not see that even if it was true. Perhaps the truth, one way or the other, will come out later. If I'm remembering correctly, it was the former ruler's younger brother who staged the coup. At that time in history, that's what they did. lol I think I need to reread this to get my politic straight.

Idk if it was incompetence per se. My understanding from the seme's flashback is that they didn't like his handling of the hostiles.
They felt the previous Kings were too academic or too soft to do what needed to be done for the kingdom.
Plus they were ambitious and wanted power.
The seme talks about how he can't say everything was purely for the good of the kingdom because he greatly benefited from helping to overthrow the old king.
The seme does state that even though the current King was most likely power hungry, he was the better choice as leader.
There's nothing to imply the uke's father was a bad guy, they were collateral damage during a power struggle.
I highly doubt the uke would feel better about it even if he found out his father was a bad guy. He has fond memories of his father and loved him dearly.

oh damn, so that makes it even more complicated. nobody at fault, it's just they have different ideology.

so what are they trying to do now? why are they trying to kill seme? why do they think seme is a threat?

The hojok thrived when the war with the outlanders was more tense. Now that things are more peaceful, their way of life is being threatened and they feel like they're being absorbed by the government. They kinda used to be outlaws I guess. They could kinda do whatever they wanted.
Now there is way more government oversight on them and they hate that.

So now, they want to separate from the government and do their own thing. Their plan is to kill the seme and team up with the outlanders to form a resistance.
The seme was a big part in securing the current government's power. They want to kill him to remove destabilise the government.

Basically, the hook want independence because they don't like government oversight.
This is my understanding though. If anyone has a different explanation, they can throw in their 2 cents.

Loved this thread thank you for starting it XD

oh my, thank you for the explanation. i didn't have the slightest idea this was happening while i was reading it haha i thought they were trying to kill seme bcs they wanted to bring him down/they wanted his position. thank you so much, i really appreciate it

i

i would love to say you're welcome but honestly i was too dumb/lazy to understand the politics so i asked other people instead