YMMV / My Vow To My Liege

• Awesome Music: The Transcending Fish Dance, the BGM that plays whenever Yiguang comes to your rescue.
  • The epic opening theme, My Vow to Thee, which really does set the mood for a sweeping historical fantasy.
  • The lovely, haunting ED, Young Reeds Before Flowering.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Goujian is the biggest target of this. How sincere are his gestures toward Fuchai? Is he a whiny manipulative selfish Drama Queen who plays Fuchai for a sucker, and in the bad endings, destroys her life and her kingdom, while his only punishment is that he feels bad about it? Or is he a tormented Tragic Hero who gave his whole heart to a captor who invaded his kingdom and befriended him under false pretenses, has every reason to feel resentful and vengeful, and pursues a justified turning-of-tables only to bear its scars on his soul for the rest of his life? Is his good ending unrealistic, unearned, and unlikely to last, or is it the perfect capstone to the game's theme of moving beyond revenge?
• Base-Breaking Character: Goujian is the most popular of the love interests, and also the most controversial. Your view of him depends on how justified you find his betrayal, how highly you regard his romantic obsession with Fuchai, and whether you consider him a Karma Houdini for being the only love interest who survives all of the route endings.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Wu Zixu, the one older love interest in a Cast Full of Pretty Boys. Some of his now-biggest fans went into the game with zero interest in the angry old man who acts like your overbearing dad, only to get emotionally wrecked by his route. It also helps that, while Fuchai is no shrinking violet in any of the routes, she's arguably at her most kingly and assertive when pursuing him— protecting him the way he once protected her, plotting a Thanatos Gambit, actively proposing sex, and taking charge of the political situation without his help—which has its own appeal given the rarity of more dominant protagonists in otome games.
  • Gongsun Yi is regarded fondly despite not even having an unique sprite, thanks to his endearing long-suffering personality and one moment of hilarious heroism.
• Genius Bonus: The game contains many clever references to history and classic literature.
  • Chenfeng's name comes from a poem from the Book of Odes about a woman despairing that her husband has forgotten and abandoned her.
  • Historically, Wu Zixu died because he entrusted his son to the care of a Qi minister—while his kingdom was about to fight a war with Qi—rather than have him stay in a kingdom he believed was doomed to fall, but personally chose to return to face the consequences. His act was interpreted as treason, and Fuchai ordered him to commit suicide over it. His fate in the Chenfeng and Yiguang routes echoes this, but instead of his son, he sends off the protagonist with the Qi envoy(s). He himself returns to Gusu and is captured and ordered to commit suicide by the fake Fuchai.
  • Goujian's nickname Ah-Jiu is likely a reference to an alternate writing of his name as Jiujian(鳩淺), found on his still-extant sword.
  • The Steam achievements themselves are full of subtle references
    • The icon for obtaining Goujian's good ending is a jade ceremonial axe-blade◊, a symbol of royal authority, known as a yue.
    • The icon for obtaining Wu Zixu's good ending is a jade ritual object called a zhang◊, mentioned in a famous Book of Odes poem as a fitting toy for a ruler's newborn son and heir, whereas a ruler's newborn daughter would only be fit to play with a spindle. Joke's on tradition: in that ending, not only does Wu Zixu mentor one ruler's daughter into a worthy king, his own daughter with that king will become ruler one day.
    • The icon for Wu Zixu's bad ending is a rigid whip◊, and a reference to him whipping the corpse of King Ping of Chu, fitting for an ending where the characters are unable to overcome their desire for vengeance.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Fuchai's realization in Wu Zixu's route that she's loved him all along without understanding her own feelings adds a new layer to her Heroic BSoD at his death in other routes.
• Ho Yay: A whole lot of players want a Shao Jiang route.
• Iron Woobie: Fuchai herself, who's lost her entire family, blames herself for Yiguang's apparent death, was forced to become king under the guise of her dead brother and take up the family curse, suffers from nightmares, phantom pains, and body image issues as a result, and feels so desperately lonely and besieged that she's ended up befriending the boy who killed her father under false pretenses.
• Jerkass Woobie: Goujian might be resentful and manipulative, but his reasons are understandable when you get to see him through his own eyes.
• Memetic Mutation: Quite a few on Chinese sites.
  • Yiguang's god-slaying Catchphrase.
  • Chenfeng being a sweet doggo who needs a rabies shot.
  • Wu Zixu's impressive chest.
  • Goujian and green tea.^note "Green tea bitch" is Chinese slang for someone who acts innocent and harmless but is secretly manipulative.