Korean Drama Discussion - Page 109

So, Go Soo Nam ends up marrying Na Yeo Ok, which a lot of people had a problem with. Judging by their choice of semantics sprinkled with a plethora of emoticons, most of these people seem to be teenage fangirls. A lot of the comments seemed to mire in mutual hatred of the male lead, accusations of the directors/writers scripting the drama poorly, and disgust at the show’s attempts to force ‘traditional family/social values on today’s youths.

I feel like they’re forgetting the overall picture and focusing far too much on the details. The entire point of the show, including all the silly plot devices such as switching souls, divorce, cheating, realization, forgiveness, redemption, was to orchestrate the author’s interpretation on the mechanics of faith, forgiveness, and love.

In some ways, I saw the influence of the Hellenic tragic hero. In order to grow as a character, one must commit a wrong, suffer for that wrongdoing, and in repentance, learn from his error in order to gain redemption. Aristotle maintained that inherent virtue was a characteristic that defined all tragic heroes, and you can clearly see it in the male lead. Was he an asshole for cheating on his wife? Sure. A lot of the comments in the beginning were clamoring about the inequality of the soul swap. GSN was the one that cheated yet NYO had to suffer as well? To every problem, there’s no such thing as a one-sided coin. Yet we can’t really blame his wife for an equal amount of wrongdoing. She contributed and maybe exacerbated the reason for his infidelity, but ultimately, he was the one that broke their vow.
Either way, both parties were at fault, which is why the soul-swap makes sense. For them to have truly understood why and how they erred, they needed to walk in their partner’s shoes, literally and metaphorically.

That brings me to the miscarriage, which a lot of people also seem to enjoy heaping the blame on the husband. Technically, he wasn’t even the one to cause the child to miscarry – all he did was accidentally trigger an asthma attack (that he had no foreknowledge of) while sympathetically saving a pitiful person’s life. His character was forced into a circumstance that ‘killed the child and potentially could’ve killed her body.’ Again, I can’t find any issue with his altruism. It was simply the wrong people at the wrong place at the wrong time.

In turn, this segways into a discussion of how Victoria’s character was written. Her depiction was the only thing I had a hard time comprehending in this series. It’s like the writers suddenly went schizophrenic and didn’t know whether to portray her in a sympathetic or pessimistic light. At first, she was the homewrecker that broke up their family, but then we get a glimpse into her pathetic life (I use pathetic because her past seriously invokes empathy and pity from the audience. Abandoned by her biological parents, raped by foster parents, rejected by biological parents again, heart condition, etc). Later on she actually has the gall to tell the ex-wife to leave? What in the fuck? How am I supposed to sympathize with her, even with her past? First she’s a weaselly woman, then she’s a damaged angel, then she’s just spiteful (albeit done out of concern), and finally at the end she’s a non-factor? Come the fuck on. Plus she’s not even attractive, has the most boring fat face ever, always has this retarded pouty puppy-dog look, and kind of clingy.. now I’m simply inserting biases and rambling.

I also wanted to take a moment to mention some dude in the comments that kept saying shit like ‘BITCHES DON’T KNOW HOW TO BE HAPPY. WHAT THE FUCK SHE’S SO ANNOYING WHY CAN’T SHE JUST DECIDE ALREADY’ about the female lead. He repeated it several times in different episodes, which I found kind of funny and irking at the same time. For one, you know when you have good actors/characters when your audience is so polarized, and split clearly by gender. The females tended to rag on the male lead for being an overall douchebag, and the males seemed to rag on the female lead for being so indecisive, confusing, and well, so feminine. At the same time, his comments were annoying as hell because this kid is obviously like 16-20 and can’t tone down his misogynistic tendencies.

Anyways, the ending is where it’s all tied up together, and I rather enjoyed the ending. This couple started out as a way to undo the wrongdoings of their past lives, and to expound fate’s hand in the course of everyone’s life. If she had married with Jang Hyun Woo at the end, that entire segment about their past lives, the way fate plays a role in life, and the justice that karma brings about, would have all been fluff and not actual substance. Their entire soul-swap and the first 10 episodes would’ve just been garbage tossed out the window. Of course, tying the long separated couple who were united in lost affection would’ve made for a more fairy-tale ending, but ultimately it doesn’t make sense for them to be together.

To an extent I understand where all that viewer angst is coming from. There’s this perfect dude who was the female lead’s first love, grew up with the guy, perfect in almost every aspect, altruistic to the end and innocent of wrongdoing. On the other hand, you have this scumbag that cheated on NYO and completely took her for granted, while unable to recognize his error until it was already too late. In today’s society with more empowered women, the choice is pretty clear-cut.
But it’s not just about a black-and-white who’s done more wrong than who, or who’s a better candidate for lifetime partnerships. As the two meddling mystical characters keep saying (I fucking hated these two too, but you can’t really complain too much about plot devices.), it’s not fate that decides the future, it’s the choices you make that have the most impact.

i can see how some people wouldnt like how it turned into a total ajumma drama because it started off so romcomy (probly not a word but whatever) but it seriously made the show alot better PLUS NYO IS SUPER ADOREABLE AND AWSOME , when we found out she had cancer i seriously got soooo fucking sad and was like T_T NUUU NYO <3 and the ending was really good like you could kinda see how it was gona end , like it really did add alot more depth marketing it toward a "older" audience because the storys show alot more emotions , i really really really liked this drama and how it started all fun so you start to like the characters then it gets really deep and dark and she misses her kid and sad , ima stop ranting you already covered all the bases on this wonderful drama xD