Kimsamsoom

Although North Korea has historically been deemed the bad guys. In Snowdrop, they are actually the downtrodden in the writing of Snowdrop, arguable the side we should be rooting for.

Proof of this occurs in how the characters are assembled.

1. In the scene straight out of 300. The viewers will subconsciously sympathize with the group that is outgunned and outmanned.

2. The fishing boat and SK coast guard. The South Korean boat is substantially higher than the fishing boat, and outman and outgun the small North Korean fishing boat.

3. Soo Ho's main intention, or his rallying call to his comrades appear to be vengeance or retribution for their fallen comrade. It is mentioned several times throughout, and shows a strong bond between the North Koreans. In comparison, Kang Moo, seems to have the same intention, but there is less emphasis on it. Soo Ho and his team even takes the time to pour Soju over their comrades grave. If you've seen Anime, this is a typical anime plot device for the protagonist/good guys, in how they respect their fallen.

He represents a country the modern world consider a bad country due to it's leader, and political ideology.

But the actions of the ML right now, seem more akin to self-preservation than anything else.

So ask yourself the question, does doing bad things during war time mean you are a bad person? Or is acting in self-preservation regardless of who you may hurt make you a bad person?

Taedong River 1 was confirmed to be Soo Ho. Or at the least the man Kang Moo suspects to be Taedong River 1 is shown to be Soo Ho. Also Taedong River 1 has been all over the world. Ms. Pi has only ever been in the dorm. So this wouldn't make sense.

The protestor angle, is the obvious one, her actions all seem consistent with someone who is a previous protestors. Which is why I am hoping it's a red herring, and Ms. Pi is actually a villain.

I have a theory of Ms. Pi being a NK spy, hehehe :)

It would make much more sense for her to be, then defect later, than for Hye Reong to be one.

Would also make for a much more interesting plot twist.

First off, this is a secret black op operation that is under the president's nose. So far, it is not shown that the president knew any of this is happening. The president at this point have plausible deniability.

Secondly, some of these spies, like the old man in the repair shop, seems to have been in South Korea for a while, and not just brought in for this particular mission. Or, that old man isn't a spy but rather a communist sympathizer?

Seeing as how readily accepted Soo Ho was by the whole dorm, it is entirely possible that infiltration of South Korea, is the easiest it even has been due to the civil unrest, where even if ANSP were to brand someone a spy, the public would not believe them, and protect that person instead, thus making infiltration crazy easy.

You are making it sound as if North Korea spies cannot enter South Korea, unless someone brings them in. This is factually incorrect, and that it not how spies work. Do you think spies in US or China are brought in by some shadow organizations? Spies only exist because the government of which they are spying, on brings them in?

They are literally called spies, because they sneak in, and pretend to meld in with the local populace.

Where is the twisting, may I ask?

Honest question.

I seem to see some posters wanting to skirt the issue of the controversy, rather than discuss it in thoughtful way.

The protestors, as extreme as they may have become, have logical validity with their concerns.

I feel that people want to downplay the controversy so they can enjoy Snowdrop? As if enjoying Snowdrop, and giving credence to some of the claims cannot work hand in hand?

I am curious so the WHY of this. I feel Snowdrop has positioned itself in a way to open up discussion on the topic, but yet no one wants to speak of it.

Are ANSP really bad people? Was the regime of Chun Do Hwan really that bad? And were North Korea spies disguising themselves or radicalizing the pro-democracy movement?

These are interesting questions I feel.

Tencent invested 100 Billion Won into JTBC in December 29, 2020. Filming for Snowdrop ended in July 2021.

Although the production started before the investment, is it at all possible for the script to have been changed prior to filming ending? Or are script changes, and re-filming of scenes an impossibility?

Slow paced in some parts, unnecessarily action packed in others. After 5 episodes, it has yet to find a pace it is comfortable with.

I feel that although Snowdrop doesn't distort history.

It does instead, beautify the ANSP, and the Chun Do Hwan Government, and it excuses the ANSP's tactics, because Snowdrop is showing how easy it was for spies to infiltrate the protestors, or pretend to be one.

unlikely, her character so far has had very little impact, except her pulling boon ok's hair. It would be very weak writing to paint he as such.

Makes more sense to be Ms. Pi than Hye Ryeong. Hye Ryeong is not even a main lead, just a supporting role. It would be very impactless.

North Korea ended up boycotting that particular Olympics. Prior to 1988, they were still trying to get the IOC to agree to have half of the events in North Korea, so historically, this wouldn't make sense.

Most likely a NK spy who was caught.

Ahh, yeah from my understanding most news website are like this.

They will write articles on unconfirmed sources.

Don't trust twitter.

Just to be a devil's advocate. The other side has seriously weak argumentative skills, so I wanted to posit possible ideas.

1. A North Korean Spy pretends to be a student activist. Although, he doesn't' lead the any of the democratic protest, everyone who knew he was there, assumed he was a student activist, and even paralleled him to other student activist like young-ro's brother. This opens' up the debate, that maybe the ANSP were justified in interrogating so many students, because of how easy it was for a NK spy to pose as a student activist, and how easily people believe a lie like that. Also, Ms. Pi going as far as protecting Soo Ho, even if there was a chance he was a spy, just proves that it was extremely easy for NK spies to hide within student protestors.

Now, the question we have is why would NK spies want to do this? You see, in 1985, Chun Do Hwan actually bid for South Korea to be the place for the Olympics, and they got it. North Korea at this time, wanted half of the olympic events to be in North Korea. Obviously this did not happen. Wanting to show that South Korea is not a great place to hold the Olympics and that other countries should boycott them as well, it is possible that North Korea planted spies within the student protestors in hopes to radicalized the students to be against the government, and as such spew chaos within South Korea.

So eventhough Soo Ho never leads or infiltrates the movement, Snowdrop showing how easy it was for spies to infiltrate the protest shows at the very least that there was a method to ANSP madness. ANSP essentially authorized the use of the ideology guilty until proven innocent. A judicial system that exist in modern day Japan. Now the argument of whether this is an effective method of ruling or not is negligible, because using this method, they are probably able to weed out most of the spies hiding within the protestors.

People can claim that there were no spies in the student protestors, but they cannot know for sure. Just like HK right now, there are reports that there are paid people who are radicalizing the HK protestors to make China government look bad. The rumor is that those radicalized sleeper agents are from US. Is it true? we don't know, but it's not so far fetched of an idea.

2. Did Snowdrop Beautify the ANSP. People will argue they didn't of course. But in reality, when I watch Snowdrop, I never really get the notion that the ANSP are corrupt, but rather the leadership is corrupt. Also, it is never shown that the government is actually aware of any of these black ops that Nam Tae il is doing. So this actually gives the president plausible deniability.

Another important distinction is the torture of Lee Kwang Tae. Although he is shown to have been roughed up a little. A key torture technique that has been publicized with regards to the ANSP is Waterboarding. For those that do not know, waterboarding is considered one of the worst torture that can be done to spies. In fact, this is how Park Yeong Cheol was tortured, and it eventually caused his death. It is a very gruesome torture technique that painted the cruelty of the ANSP. But instead we see Lee Gwang Tae roughed up a bit, and even offered a full meal with side dishes and soup. The same food his torturer is eating. It is a symbolic show that Lee Kwang Tae was treated as an equal. Do you ever see the Prison warden eat the same food as the prisoners? Exactly, Part of the torture techniques should have included starvation to break the will.

In fact, if you delve deeper, it appears the ANSP tactics are all things that a regular intelligence agency would do. Nothing really seems out of the ordinary compared to CIA/FBI. They get a warrant to search the dorm, they don't hit women, they try to save people. From accounts of victims of the rule of Chun Do Hwan, they paint a very different picture. So I believe not only was the ANSP made to look better, but the government was made to look better.

Comments like, "You can't kill 13 virgins, this isn't war time" are comments that can be misconstrued that the 1987 was a time of peace, and thus nefarious acts cannot just be done on a whim. These type of comments, and a few were made in Snowdrop showed that the current government is an effective one, where people cannot just commit crimes.

Now, I have a theory that ever since 1980's Nam Tae il was running a very corrupt ANSP. And only one person stood in their way, and that is Kang Moo. So the chief of the ANSP, sent Kang Moo away. He was gone from the ANSP for 6 years. So the agents, had no choice but to follow Nam Tae il. Which is why they were so excited to get the "Legend" back in Korea, because they were tired of the bad things they were doing. But notice that the minute Kang Moo returns, the agency is willing to follow him, and ignore the chief. This actually shows that the ANSP agents were not following an ideology they believe in their hearts, but just following direct orders. If for example the ANSP agents believe in the true value of socialism, Kang Moo would not be able to sway them so fast.

What this does is show that ONE good man can change the fate and image of the ANSP to be good, just like ONE bad man can make the image dirty and corrupt. In comparison, look at any films about the Nazis, you rarely see one good Nazis or gestapo being able to change the narrative of other Nazis. In fact when you watch those Nazi movies, when one man suddenly has a change in Ideology, and he tells other Nazi's, instead of following him, they brand him a traitor and kill him. This in effect shows that Chun Do Hwan's militaristic regime was actually not very bad, as most people still had semblance of democracy, Not exactly what the victims want to see.a

Snowdrop shows that ANSP had noble goals, but was run by inept and corrupt people. In a way, Snowdrop scapegoats those inept and corrupt people as the SOLE reason ANSP gets a bad reputation. Yet in the end the choice was made by some men, and not every ANSP agent was bad, and most of them did their job which is to protect the citizens. This is very counterproductive with what South Korea victims feel. The fact that they toned down the severity of the interrogations, is already a beautification in itself. Imagine if I show Nazi's, instead of using the gas chambers, instead slapped the people in concentration camps? Big controversy I am sure.

The South Korean victims wanted Snowdrop to portray ANSP and the government who employed them as pure evil. Snowdrop did not accomplish this. They can claim fiction and everything, but it doesn't change the fact that the ANSP is shown in a nicer light, and the government of Chun Do Hwan was given plausible deniability in the vein that a few of his assembly members were corrupt and ordered the innocent killings.

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't these two points the victims are making? I hope someone replies to this for some nice active discussions.

Let the discussions begin!

P.s.

In 1983 there is an assassination attempt in Chun do hwans life by North Korea. Yet another possible reason ASNP were looking for spies.

I forget 4 or 5.

He pretty much tells Su Ho. I need you to finish this mission, we weren't born with a good name, and we have people wanting to stab our backs. If you finish this mission, I will be able to kill my enemies.

He may not have told Su Ho it was all for money, but he didn't tell Su Ho that this is the supreme leaders order, and it is for the good of North Korea. So it's a self-gain mission.

I mean, it's possible that Soo Ho somehow got defected by CIA somewhere in Berlin. So he works for CIA, not SK or NK. But, yeah US meddling with SK affairs won't sit well with people maybe.

What benefit does Soo Ho get? Double agent for what side? Wouldn't make sense it double agent for SK or NK, since they are both supposed to be the bad guys.

I guess there is a 3rd option, Soo Ho is a CIA agent (since out of the blue it is mentioned with connection to Prof Han).

I don't think a hostage situation is what Soo Ho has planned all along, seems to be an adaptation to the situation.

I forget which episode, he literally tells Su Ho his plan and the reason for it, and the importance of the mission.

Oh clearly Soo Ho is a tool.

I am just saying, unless Soo Ho is not listening, that man, literally tells Soo Ho why he needs the mission to succeed. And those reasons were not for the good of NK, but for the good of that particular man.

I see people keep painting Soo Ho an innocent, and he hasn't done anything he can't return from and etc...

But in reality, regardless if you were doing it due to orders or what not, if you killed a person, your not exactly a good guy. Or if you are intending to kill one and what not. And as I said, Soo Ho knew the reasons for the mission was not for the good of NK. I felt that part was quite clear.

I mean, why does rating a drama/anime low mean I am not respecting the hard work? Does it mean rating it high, means I am super respecting it?

Logically it's flawed. It equates rating to respect. You can respect the hardwork, and still rate a work low.