
Daydreamologist:
There's something that bothers me about kdramas sometimes. It's their depiction of suicide.
If you look at the dictionary definition of suicide it's literally "Intentionally killing of oneself". What annoys me about suicide in kdramas is that they're always looking for someone to blame for another's suicide. They'd look for someone to call murderer. It's wrong. If someone hurts someone so badly that they want to end their life, the bully deserves to be punished. Painfully. He deserves to be hurt just as much as he hurt others.
But he isn't a murderer. He didn't kill someone. Don't tell me that doesn't count. It does. A person who hurts another that terribly is despicable, but he still isn't a murderer.
I KNOW that sometimes what someone does or says affects the decision to commit something so terrible, but in the end the person chooses to kill himself. It's a horrible horrible choice that just leaves an ocean of wreck behind. But it's still a choice.
Agree with this so much. I see this in a lot of fiction, not just KDramas - an almost romanticization of suicide, when it's a horrible terrible thing that the person committing suicide perpetrates on their survivors and which stems from mental illness. Where attempts are a 'cry for help' I can understand, but ultimately no one is responsible for suicide except the perpetrators themselves.
On a different topic, I'm almost watching this series as a Melo/tragedy and I don't know how I've come to sympathize so with Ji Pyeong. Maybe because he's never had family or any support. It was so painful when the 2 were comparing what they had and you know the Ji Pyeong wanted to say that Do San was better off because he had a family (the drama implies Dal Mi and his name, but I think it's famlly). And the only one who has ever been there for him is Halmoni but Do San is also squeezing him out there.
Anyway, it was clear from this week and Dal Mi and Do San are end game, so I know I will have my heartbroken. So I'm watching knowing that it's going to have a sad ending (for me).
The other funny thing (which never happens to me) is that I had no empathy for Do San's struggle. I know he tried and Nam Joo Hyuk did an excellent job portraying Do San, but I just wasn't moved. I found it whiny and a little over the top (the feelings, not the portrayal) (especially compared to how Ji Pyeong with his much sadder life, in a way, refuses to acknowledge his hardships). And because I couldn't relate to Do San I was having difficulty relating to Dal Mi, who would normally have me in tears. And it's not Suzy - Suzy had me bawling for much of the beginning and middle parts of Dream High - I just didn't feel Dal Mi's pain beyond an intellectual appreciation.