Jingmum sweetly, sincerely coaxes and manipulates her way from a low level concubine to highest consort and effectively Empress in, uh, less than two years. After having been a concubine for thirty years or so.

She's an interesting mirror for Jingyan in that, I think: they both have the capability to seek and hold power, and use it well, but until MCS comes along, neither of them take action towards that -- which is both a function of their close history with the executed 'traitors', and their distaste for the people who have the power after that -- and for both of them, it's a path chosen for *other* people's sake. I love their little family.