Aramintai

He's not really a soul shifter since he shifted into a dead body without a soul and he reached Hwansu level of magic - he can't run wild.

Tbh, I wasn't really convinced of mama Jin's sudden return of sanity and her being content with Naksu walking around in JBY's body. She recoiled too quickly after master Lee told her JBY's soul was actually JSR's. Does it really matter for an obsessive mother who raised her child from birth? Yea, JBY was kinda creepy and knew too much when she was a child, but still.
Personally, I wanted mama Jin to die for her crazy stunts in both parts, but I guess her not really getting her daughter back is also a win. In the end, she's just a tired old woman who lost a lot. "Pitiful" was the word used in the drama itself and it fits her perfectly.

It was a happy ending, all the bad guys died, all the good guys survived and all the couples got married.

It's because of the format. Gotta keep the audience in suspence until the very last episodes. Pacing issues and rushed endings is a bane of many a kdrama. Could have been better, but it's not so bad here in AoS.

I'm glad that at least one theory voiced here earlier was actually correct - JBY's soul was actually JSR's soul from the ice stone. I enjoyed theorizing with you, guys, here, even if most of the time we couldn't predict s*it 🤪🤣.

Can't say that I liked as many. Some turned out to be very boring or disappointing in the end. But it was a quite a good year for quality kdramas overall.
My favorites from 2022 were these:
A Business Proposal
Alchemy of Souls
Crazy Love
Extraordinary Attorney Woo
Gaus Electronics
Little Women
May It Please the Court
Tomorrow

She officially stays as JBY as a cover. Just like when she was pretending to be Mu-Deok. But she's still Naksu as a soul.
And JBY is gone for good after defeating the fire bird. And she wasn't actually JBY at all, she was 200 years old soul of JSR who transmigrated into mama Jin's dead baby.

Yea, swapping her with child actress because it's cheaper was pretty lame. She's a grown up woman, actually she's a 200 years old grandma, why they had to make her a child in visions?

She no longer has her mage powers and doesn't care to relearn them. They're a dynamic duo of a different sort now: as a priestess she has the ability to find escaped artifacts, and Uk fights them as a mage.

But I agree, priestess powers are pretty lame compared to mages powers. But what she's got to do? She's stuck in this body now and should be grateful for it.

She is Naksu/Cho Yeong as a soul and is inside JBY's body that got transformed to look like Naksu/Cho Yeong.
But officially she stays JBY, I guess. Mama Jin admitted in the end that she's content her daughter lives on through her.

1. Yes to memories, no to her magical powers, she'll stay in JBY's priestess body. She will remember herself in episode 8.
2. JBY who's actually 200 years old JSR will briefly return to help fight the fire bird and then vanish.
3. Uk finds out in episode 9, but aside from Yul, master Lee and few other people nobody else will know about it.
4. It was a very happy ending for all the good guys, leads included.

1. It wasn't. It's an unresolved plot hole basically. I've no idea why JSR needed Naksu's soul stuck together with hers in JBY's body. She could have done everything herself as JBY body's owner. But I do get why she needed Uk, the King's star.
The only thing that was mentioned that if Uk and Naksu were left to their devices Naksu probably would have killed Uk to avenge her father, who died because of Uk's father. Not much of an intertwined fate, if you ask me. But then again, maybe future is set in stone and JSR just had to make it happen.

2. It's because of the body. She'll just indefinitely stay protected by JBY's body just like in part 1 and now there is no Jin Mu with his bells to threaten her life.

First of all, I gotta say that I liked romantic chemistry between og Naksu (played by GYJ) and Uk way more than when she was played by JSM. And I liked that the overall story ended on a happy ending, which it desperately needed after part 1's devastating ending. For these two factors I'm willing to forgive a lot of things that were done quite sloppily in part 2, for example:

1. Dragged out FL's amnesia plot and repetitive misunderstandings.
The villains took a bit of a back seat this time around, the main course of part 2 was rekindling the relationship between the leads who, due to FL's amnesia and different looking body, couldn't recognize each other. Very cliche, but not a bad thing in itself. However, for 8 episodes straight the plot was basically going around in circles like this: ML says something cold and nasty to FL, she gets upset and leaves, ML regrets his harsh words and runs after her, they reunite until ML has another bout of unjustified cruelty towards FL.
Only in the last 2 episodes the plot finally I kicked into high gear and the good guys swiftly, if a bit hamfistedly, dealt with all their problems.

2. Most characters' intelligence got dumbed down compared to part 1.
For the sake of dragging out the drama and misunderstandings they were frequently shown unable to add 2 and 2 together and unable to finish their line of thought when suspecting someone.
For example, ML, who was very bright and quick to catch on in part 1, in part 2 couldn't figure out that FL is Naksu even with heavy hints given to him since part 1. He couldn't even catch on immediately after she basically spelled it out for him and showed her blue eye marks 🤦‍♂️.
Another example is Jin Mu immediately recognizing Naksu's face, but not investigating this veeery sus occurence further after simply examining her aura and learning she's a priestess, not a mage.
And the list goes on...

3. Contrived new rules and plot devices that contradict already established lore.
Master Lee, the blatant writers insert, almost every episode kept sparingly throwing newly invented sh*t into the fan to keep the audience in suspence and characters scrambling. Some plot holes remain open because of it.
- For example, Naksu, for whatever reason disappearing from the body (that even looks like her now) when she regains her memories, of all things. Why didn't she disappear earlier when she was Mu-Deok? Nobody knows. But in the end, even her disappearance turned out to be a lie and she simply took a back seat temporarily for Jin Seol Ran to fulfill her duty.
- Or the fire bird being the original reason Jinyowon was built, no mention of it whatsover in part 1. Was this bird the cause of drought 200 years ago? How was it even captured? 🤷‍♂️
- Or the previously established lore that only priestesses with divine magic can perform the rain ritual and that it is being kept in Jinyowon. But no, apparently Jin Mu, a mage, had it ready all along and could perform it himself.
- Or that it was 200 years old Jin Seol Ran, who, as was mentioned in part 1, refused the ice stone and died, planned this whole thing all along so that Naksu and Uk could get together and defeat the fire bird, because she could forsee the future. 🙄
I get Uk being the King's Star with superpowers, but why the heck JSR needed Naksu's soul stuck together with hers in JBY's body still remains unclear.
And the list goes on...

4. The villains overstayed their welcome.
Jin Mu, a very cautios and clever villain in part 1, in part 2 turned into a tired cliche of a tropey mustache twirling, maniacally laughing villain. But his schemes somehow kept working because the good guys, as was mentioned above, were intellectually dumbed down and kept being unmotivated to finish him off until the very end. No smart shaman this time around to boss him around, so he had to contend with dumb sidekicks, creepy crazy queen and greedy grandpas who wanted to live forever. And they all died like total dumbasses, because they grossly underestimated ML's power.

5. Naksu never regained her mage powers.
No badass Naksu expertly wielding sword and magic from S01E01. In the end she was lucky enough to stay in JBY's body through JBY/JSR's grace and kept that body's divine powers, which turned out to be pretty lame, compared. But at least she survived, I guess that's a win.

6. Promised indepth exploration of side characters' stories was a lie.
Most of the time was wasted on retired Park Jin cooking "black matter" to everyone's dismay, while much needed screen time for characters such as Park Dang Gu and Jin Cho Yeon was cut to a minimum. Even Crown Prince got overshadowed by a turtle, of all things.

7. Cheap fake deaths for drama's sake.
In the end none of the good guys died, the audience got duped again just for cheap nail biting thrills. This lessened ending impact by a lot, as the stakes turned out to be pretty minimal. But at least master Lee did something useful for once.

8. ML's reactions to learning that FL is Naksu and that she'll soon disappear were underwhelming.
I dunno what happened to LJW there, but I wasn't feeling any impact from those scenes and he didn't look emotional enough. He looked more like blank faced Yul, but even Yul was more emotional when he learend FL is Naksu.

9. Last episode was a bit rushed, blurry and weirdly edited.
In the end, technically everything was done right, but somehow still left a feeling of being rushed. I dunno what it was, perhaps weird, out of order editing was to blame, or that there was too much focus on side characters' endings instead of main leads.
I think that leads wedding should have happened at the end of the story when all the issues were resolved, not when FL was about to disappear. It looked out of place considering their current circumstances and reminded too much of part 1 ending when they were in denial and carelessly making future plans and marriage.

So, did Alchemy of Souls require 2 parts for a complete story? Personally, I don't think so, part 1 already suffered from pacing issues, but in part 2 they've dragged the plot out even more and added lots of new plot holes, to boot. If the writers kept the plot tight, I think they could have ended the story in one season.
But then again, I really liked GYJ's Naksu character and I liked that she too got plenty of time to shine, like JSM did in part 1.
All the other cast, LJW especially, did a really excellent job as well and production value of part 2 is still through the roof.

Flaws and all, Alchemy of Souls is still a very memorable and gripping kdrama that I'm sure will be remembered for years to come as a great classic. There's nothing quite like it in kdramaworld right now and I hope it will be an inspiration for more quality dramas like this. Overall, I'm giving part 2 a generous 8 out of 10.

Ok, I'm ready to summarize my thoughts about part 2:

Naksu survived. JBY/JSR returned her the body after she completed her duty of destroying the fire bird and disappeared herself.

I'm still mulling over how to summarize a bit rushed, blurry ending with weird editing, and part 2 overall.
But two questionable plot holes are giving me pause. Can anyone extrapolate?
1. Jin Mu wanted to summon the fire bird to cause the drought and then use the lake ritual. I was sure that only the Jin priestesses were able and knew how to perform it and the rite was kept inside Jinyowon. But at the last moment he revealed that he already has the rite and can perform it himself. Really? 🤔
Also, does the rite require the drought to work? It wasn't specified. Couldn't he just perform the rite at his leisure at any time without summoning the bird to destroy everything he wanted to rule?

2. While I can accept that it was JSR's overcomplicated plan all along because she could forsee the future, I cannot for the life of me understand what's up with this new rule that Naksu's gonna disappear once she regains her memories? Naksu was quite fine in part 1 with the only different parameter being her body looked like JBY. But in part 2 the body even looks like Naksu's, so why the ef would she be seated to the backrow now because of her memories, of all things? I think it would have been better if JSR just appeared to her or master Lee in a vision and told them that she'll require to take the helm for a while because she needs to stop the fire bird. That would have made all that soapy drama where everyone though Naksu'd die totally unnecessary.

Naksu’s still Naksu? JBY left her the body?

Is it a happy ending? Who died in the end?

I dunno, Chinese mythology also has a phoenix analogue called Fenghuang.

But that aside, if JBY's soul was JSR's soul all along and it will take over, because it was her plan all along from the time she intervened with Naksu's aos, I'll be really angry. It means that instead of returning Naksu her powers and have her avenge herself like everyone is waiting for since the start, they'll instead take away her agency in the endgame and replace her with a different person who will do all the remarkable things in her stead. That would be f*cked up and I'll lower my scores accordingly.

Basically part 1 ending repeat - let's be in denial and go live together somewhere until we die (soon).