It's a bit unusual. However, being perma-hermits isn't a glorious thing, so it's not that much of a stretch either.

It's a bit confusing because sword and saber are imperfect translations of the Chinese terms. In English, a saber is a kind of sword. However, sword and saber are translations of jian and dao. A jian is specifically a double-edged straight sword while a dao is specifically a single-edged curved sword. Confusingly, dao can also refer to a wide range of other implements with similar-looking blades. For example, a kitchen knife is a dao. Similarly, Guan Yu's iconic (though ahistorical) polearm is a dao as well.

Going against a powerful ruler's desire can be extremely detrimental to one's career as well as other components of well-being.

There were a lot of pre-modern cultures that expected widows to remain faithful to their husbands. Chinese culture varied on this. In earlier periods, it was seen as virtuous if widows chose to remain faithful to their husbands but it was also normal for widows to enter into new relationships. In later periods, attitudes hardened. Besides that, people aren't necessarily rational about their parents having new relationships, particularly when those people are still so young.

Surprisingly wholesome moment.

This is a terrible idea because it's pretty much going to cement the target of her affection as the one who got away. Simultaneously, it's going to make it very obvious that she isn't very fond of whoever she gets married to, which is going to put her in a very disadvantageous position in that household.

This is just torture. Pretty blatant stuff too.

Compensation in treasure is a classic substitute for compensation in blood.

One could say that he is espousing traditional morals. Essentially, Confucian relationships are supposed to be reciprocal in nature. A subject's loyalty to their ruler isn't absolute. Similarly, a child's loyalty to their parent isn't absolute. There's a classic Confucian story in which a father tries to get rid of the grandfather by leaving the grandfather in the wilderness to die. At which point, the son stops the whole thing by pointing out that he's going to learn from his father in this regard. In other words, if the father goes through with this. Someday, it will be the father's turn.

Pretty sure this has issues as well. Price controls can be useful under certain circumstances. However, a heavy-handed implementation would make for shortages of the relevant goods. Even if the authorities can eliminate the black market, which is rather unlikely to say the least, the more fundamental issue is that producers won't produce as much because it isn't worthwhile for them. There are potential responses to that problem, but those go beyond price controls.

This is a terrible idea. You need a tiered system so that everyone is paying the same tax rates on the same tier of income but with higher tax rates for each subsequent tier. For example, everyone pays zero taxes on the first $2,000, everyone pays 5 percent on $2,000 to $10,000, and everyone pays 10 percent on $10,000+. Otherwise, you create incentive for everyone to tailor their income so that they fall into a lower tax bracket, which creates a wide range of issues. There are also other issues such as how complex tax systems need sophisticated bureaucracies, the establishment of which is an expensive, complicated, and often even dangerous process in its own right.

To be fair, it's a useful way to test how well they can argue a point.

Behold the power of money.

I guess that's true if you're arguing that Victor Frankenstein's disregard for Elizabeth and her feelings made it clear that he understood the surface facade of romantic love but nothing of its true substance.

A lot of people forget this one. Powerful rulers need powerful institutions, which are run by people rather than robots. As a result, even the most powerful rulers had to consider the people around them if they wanted to remain so.

You just know that this is the guy who gets forced to play support in MOBAs. At least his carry is relatively reliable.

He should consider practicing what he preaches. I think most people would react extremely poorly to being kicked out of their family. Oh sure, Chinese culture puts a lot of emphasis on familial ties, but there are a couple of big issues with that in this case. One, the emphasis is often on blood-based familial ties. Two, Chinese people are like everyone else in that they have limits. Indeed, those limits are incorporated in the ideals themselves, as shown by how relationships are supposed to be reciprocal in nature rather than just the inferior always giving ground to the superior.

I guess she was just born unlucky in more than one sense.

Behold the next-level suck-up skills.

It's one of the reasons that continuing the bloodline is such a big deal in Chinese culture. Basically, people are supposed to receive offerings from their descendants, thus enabling them to live in a relatively OK manner in the afterlife. Of course, continuing the bloodline doesn't necessarily mean blood-related descendants. Adopted descendants count as well, with excellent examples being Cao Cao arranging for adopted heirs for both his son Cao Ang and his Cao Chong. If I'm remembering right, he even arranged a marriage for Cao Chong with an official who had a daughter who had passed away because the kid was, well, still a kid when he passed away. No descendants mean that a person gets reduced to a hungry ghost, which is an unpleasant state of being to say the least.