Empress Myeongseong (Queen Min)

I never understood why Koreans liked her. She was a reactionary in a time when reactionaries were dangerous and impeded modernization.  It was her staunch idiocy that in the long run led to a Japanese takeover of Korea through her failure to refrom and modernize.  She was killed by assains hired secretly by the Japanese consolate but there were no such thing as samurai in existence anymore when she was killed.

think about what it represents for Koreans..

a group of lowly gangsters from Japan gangraped and burned your queen(then called the mother of the country)

I have mixed feelings about this woman. She was politically very astute  and had what it takes to be  a capable ruler on the other hand she  was not too keen on reform. 

I don't like her, but Koreans like her because Japanese killed her and that single reason makes her a matyr.  She wasn't too good in politics, and the only thing she cared about was to stay in power, which she did with astounding skills.  She ended up bringing Qing, Japan, and Russia into Korea.  Japan defeated them one by one, killed the queen, and soon took over.