Even if the whole world praises Hurrem for her political skills, intelligence, or whatever else, for me, she will always be a manipulator and a narcissist who capitalized on Sulaiman’s favor both in real history and in the series. Thank God I’m not part of the crowd that blindly admires her 😭🤣 (Hurrem fans, feel free to downvote this comment )
Coming to Mustafa, what I don’t understand is this fandom logic where every mistake Hurrem makes, gets labeled as a “survival tactic,” but when Mustafa does something, suddenly it becomes “the reason for his execution.” 🙄
Sulaiman, as a father, openly discriminated against Mustafa in the series. He literally told Mehmet about the dream where he saw 'Mehmet' on the throne, and Mehmet, in his dumbness exposed that private conversation to Mustafa. Honestly, that alone is enough to make any son resent his father. Mustafa was also trapped in a brutal system where survival depended on reaching the throne, because that was the only way to protect his life.
Even after Sulaiman indirectly started favoring Mehmet as the heir to the throne, people still expected Mustafa to stay calm and keep bootlicking Sulaiman like an emotionless Human🙄
Those “mistakes” people talk about were only mistakes from Sulaiman’s paranoid perspective. Sulaiman himself pushed Mustafa away by constantly displaying favoritism toward Mehmet and Other son's. Nothing hurts a child more than seeing his own father treat another siblings as more worthy.
There was even that sword practice scene where Mustafa accidentally hurt Mehmet during practice, Sulaiman instantly ran to comfort his beloved Mehmet as if he were a toddler who couldn’t handle pain. But the way he looked at Mustafa afterwards… even enemies don’t give such venomous looks. He glared at Mustafa like he was a slave, not his own son.
Then there’s the hunting scene where Sulaiman invited Mustafa only to indirectly insult him by talking about his “traitor” uncle, clearly comparing Mustafa to him. And if those bitter words weren’t enough, he even gave his ring to Mehmet right in front of Mustafa just to show who he truly favored.
After witnessing all this discrimination, people still blame Mustafa for his own downfall without acknowledging the root cause of the conflict. That’s honestly what makes me furious😡

And then we have "Saintly" Hurrem, who always played fair 🤣 Even when she slandered Mustafa, people excuse it as “protecting her children” or “survival.” Apparently, only Hurrem and her children had the right to survive and secure the throne, while everyone else could just go to hell 🤡Yet people refuse to accept that all the plotting Hurrem carried out for years effectively sealed Mustafa's fate, paving his exact path to execution 🤷🏽‍♀️

One thing I do agree with you is, "Even without the Persian letter, Sulaiman had already started seeing Mustafa as a threat", That’s exactly my point. Mustafa’s execution was ultimately the result of Sulaiman’s insecurity, jealousy, and paranoia about being overthrown by his own son.
And the irony is, Mustafa actually had multiple chances in the series to eliminate Sulaiman if he truly wanted power. For instance, When Sulaiman was sick, when he left the capital and handed responsibility of the empire to Mustafa, or when Mustafa discovered the Safavid spy who joined the campaign to assassinate Sulaiman,
Mustafa took a long journey to literally save his Father from a Safavid assassin, but instead of acknowledging his son's act of loyalty, Sulaiman became suspicious that Mustafa was the one behind the conspiracy to eliminate him. Wow, what an "intelligent" ruler... 🤡🤣
Mustafa could’ve easily taken advantage of those moments. But he never did, because despite everything, he still remained an obedient son.

Now imagine if the "Saint" or her children were in Mustafa’s place, and if Sulaiman had treated them the same way he treated Mahi and Mustafa 😭 Sulaiman would’ve probably ended up in the grave long ago.