Eleison

Thanks! 🤗

Awesome, I appreciate it!

Thank you so much!

Would someone mind listing out the relics again, and the member of the squad that each relates to? I remember people posting it a while ago but it's too far down in the comment section to find now without scrolling endlessly... 🫣

Aw, thanks for circling back to let me know! 🥰

So, if Extraordinary You were a Chinese costume drama? (Complete with abuse and suffering, as pseudo-historical romance wuxia or xianxia Cdramas love to incorporate! 😅)

LYN has been one busy fellow!

Just went to post something similar and then saw your comment! 😅 Hopefully it's better than School 2021, though. 🫣

It was also these actors who I thought would have paired better in School, and here they are! 😅

Yeah, they were a subtitle tragedy. Never seen anything so bad! 😅

Agree about the show being brilliant, though. 😉

Yes, that's true, but the lack of any other significant support characters in the cast list that we haven't already seen makes me think we've already seen the Bigger Fish (I honestly do think it's Yu Jeong)?

I actually found knowing who Drug Monster is (while the characters did not) a special kind of stressful/suspenseful. 😅

I was thinking, it actually feels like it IS being framed like a boxing match. There are rounds and different winners in each round, especially as Dong Ju has been using that analogy multiple times now (and you always know who your opponent is in a boxing match; no mystery there, just strategy for how to outsmart or outmaneuver him). The end of Episode 3 was a win for Dong Ju, for instance, and the end of Episode 6, for instance, was a win for Yu Jeong... 🤷‍♀️

Yu Jeong has only his own brain, but Dong Ju (thankfully!) has a team (kind of cheating, but good guys can cheat that way! 😋).

Just a theory! 😆

I still don't think I responded fully to all your points, but oh well, here's maybe a longer post than yours to read! 😅

After reading your second post about your favorite Cdrama again, I'm not sure we disagree all that much, but it's more of how we're framing situations and maybe only disagree by degrees.

I was mainly put off by your first post that spoke in absolutes, bringing out dangerous over generalizations like "always" to describe people and dramas. 😅

Dramas (which I've seen, since I can only speak to those) in some ways are as subtle or nuanced as a freight train, but in other ways are usually more nuanced than you've described, and I think it's difficult to stereotype them the way you do. In fact, I'd like to see more specifics of the types you're describing.

A few of the Cdramas I was thinking of when I responded to you that I think did pretty well with couple dynamics are New Life Begins (which I already mentioned; only the ML and FL are portrayed with nuance, though), and then The Double and A Dream Of Splendor for the way the couples interact and support each other in healthy ways. Some others with healthier dynamics: Military Prosecutor Doberman, Alchemy Of Souls, You Are My Glory, When I Fly Towards You, My Sweet Mobster, Lovely Runner (very unrealistic and fantastical, though), I'm Not A Robot, Knight Flower, Shooting Stars, He is Psychometric, Castaway Diva, My Lovely Liar, etc.

Kdramas don't tend to portray married couples as main leads in domestic settings very often. Maybe there are a few recent ones I haven't seen that you have? I haven't kept up with romantic Kdramas as much, and several of the Cdramas I've seen have been very light on the romance recently.

(I tend to look more at the arcs characters go through (did they grow in an interesting/satisfying way?) rather than focus on the way characters are written before they change or even always after (like I love the character of Gu Jun Pyo in BOFs because he grows a heck of a whole lot and I like to watch his story arc; that sort of thing is what attracted me to dramas).

I do agree that East Asia, in my exposure to entertainment from China and Korea (but probably also Japan based on what I've heard) idolize work and success in work (another user pointed this out and I hadn't thought about it before, but I think they were right). So maybe they won't portray stay-at-home moms because they (or Asians seem to THINK they) don't/can't exist in those economies (that's at least what most dramas lead me to believe), unless they're chaebols, and that's when they fit the more stereotypical roles. I think the expectations for roles come out more from parents in dramas, not the young people.

And I honestly don't necessarily disagree with the points you made about men and women in domestic situations, and the world is quickly changing so the variety in family dynamics is only increasing; my point about traditional roles is they're prescriptive in a way that's demeaning.

No spouse should be made the servant of another in that they're always subservient to the other (as you described), but I appreciate more dramas showing men serving their girlfriends or wives (not to get sex from them but because they respect them and admire them as human beings who they are doing life with and being vulnerable and intimate with, and have value outside their sex appeal, cuteness or "feminine qualities") and being sacrificial and partnering with them in making choices (and not showing women making decisions as men ALLOWING women to make choices; a couple should be a team and partnership, not a hierarchy), and showing men treating women with more respect, being gentle, asking permission, etc. has been a good development in more recent dramas.

Some dramas have veered to the extreme you mention, but not often with the leads. I couldn't think of any that show the leads portrayed that way?

I also admitted that being a traditional housewife is not demeaning (taking care of kids and cooking for your family is necessary and good for a parent to do), but when it's EXPECTED of women specifically and women are raised to do that and to just be homemakers and feel like it's their job to make sure their husband is satisfied sexually since he's "bringing home the bacon," IS demeaning.

Girls and boys should be raised to be whole people, who know that commitment in a relationship means sacrifice and partnership. Both should be proficient at cooking so they can feed themselves and others (as you mentioned above about not being able to boil an egg 😅), if need be, and can work well with kids, fix the toilet if it breaks, hang the picture frame on the wall, get on the ladder, drive the car, balance the budget, grill the burgers, give the kids a bath, get their hands dirty when necessary, make breakfast, be ready to defend their family, be responsible for hard choices and all that lovely humanning, parenting stuff, and divvy up all that after conversation and expertise has been differentiated. 😏

A lot of storytellers are still figuring out how to write women who aren't in relationship to a man or their "role" as a women in the traditional sense. They're still not very good at it (dramas included), and these stories are the growing pains (at least that's my assessment), and I don't think they're perfect or always good, but they're steps in the right direction.

Also, dramas are often written to feed female fantasies, and that's a very real influence on the writing sometimes, too (because most consumers of dramas are women).

What's interesting is the the mucky-mucks are still corrupt and bad in this the farther up you go, but they're not the mastermind (at least as it appears), which is unique. I'm curious to see where they'll take this since it is curiously different in the way you described. 🤔

And also showing us the villains from almost the get-go is interesting, too. It's like they're setting up their rivalry (the villain's and the ML's) like a boxing match, and each back and forth between them is like a round of fighting in the match (at the end of Episode 6, the villain won that round) It's set up this way instead of building mystery surrounding the discovery of the culprit, which is usually what crime shows rely heavily on. This drama is taking a different tack; curious to see if it will stick the landing once they hit the Episode 9 or 10 danger zone where solid or good dramas become mediocre/bad/forgettable dramas. 😅

It is odd how much power he has, but there's no one else in the cast list that seems like a Big Bad besides him (and he's a main).

Maybe they're trying to shake things up with the tropes? I do find it interesting. It's not that mucky-mucks aren't bad in this, they're just not the mastermind. He's probably blackmailed them all.

Such a great actor! Wish he landed better projects that would allow him to shine.

Yeah, but it's all implied. 😅 The most they do is cuddle. I don't think they ever kiss?

Phew, there is a lot to unpack here. 😅 It will probably take me a bit to respond and do your thoughtful counterarguments justice, but it might not be all at once. And maybe we can respond moving forward with the spoiler tag so we don't blow up the comment section? I don't mind long comments but other people who just want to read people's thoughts on the drama might not appreciate it since it's tangential to the drama.😏

I don't think you're wrong that dramas are primarily watched by women, but old dramas (even still some recent Cdramas) with more traditional gender roles and male/female personality sterotypes write men sexually aggressive, kissing without consent, grabbing the FL's arm constantly, fighting over her with the SML like she's an object and has no mind or opinion of her own, throwing her down on the bed, pushing her up against the wall, etc. and I think what you describe evolving in dramas now is, believe it or not, an upgrade. At least now they're not portraying men hurting women or trampling on their boundaries as romantic. Men have more power to hurt their partner physically, and historically many have not hesitated to wield that power, and to see women, at best, like their beloved pets, who are not equals, and who, like a pet, are just expected to submissively provide them things "they need" or want. 😉 Many women are done with that picture of marriage/relationships, because they're realizing how demeaning it is; being single in today's world with a fulfilling job objectively outpaces that lifestyle in quality of life.

So, I think this shift means that women are changing in what they consider to be romantic. And sometimes female screenwriters write these flipped gender role stories (sometimes almost to the level of parody) to make a point (Cdrama New Life Begins is an example).

For instance, if a guy finds it insulting and degrading to do the things a woman "traditionally" does, why wouldn't a woman feel the same? And it's to expose, not that the things that women do traditionally are inherently degrading (there's nothing degrading about cooking or taking care of children), instead, it's that being expected to do that, merely because one is a woman, that is degrading. Because men with traditional mindsets think they're above it (because if they didn't, why would they be insulted by having to do "traditionally female" activities?).

Along that reasoning, a single guy should eat frozen meals and junk food until he can get a wife or girlfriend to cook for him? Poor guy better not wait too long, then, or he'll destroy his health.

And so drama writers flip the script to make a point and draw a parallel (and push buttons on purpose) and almost edge into satirical territory for the sake of evoking thought, or, less productively, to give women a fantasy picture of what they can't experience in reality.

And in addition to the dramas you describe, which just show the opposite extreme of men "controlling" women, unfortunately, I guess you haven't seen those dramas where ML and FL are both intelligent, smitten with each other and working together, and who treat each other like equals, respect each other's boundaries, and support each other in their respective endeavors and skills with graciousness? They do exist, and are actually getting more and more common. 😏

I'm sure it'd be interesting if that's what you're signing up for, but I'd prefer to watch something fantasy/sci-fi, though, not a real life psychological struggle. That hits different, and if I wanted to watch that sort of thing, I'd watch a drama that deals with mental health struggles or trauma intentionally. If this drama is all about psychological trauma and its side effects, I'm not sure it's my cup of tea. 🤔 That's why I was asking. ☺️

Depends on the platform. Viki only has 6 episodes uploaded so far. Episodes 7 and 8 will be available late tonight, PST. It seems officially, though, it's somewhere around Episode 19 or 20?

When does this plot point show up? I'm not sure I like the sound of this.

Good points! DJ does keep using boxing analogies. He's impulsive, but not dumb, and that helps offset his sometimes reckless (though well-intentioned) behavior. He sure does get away with a lot!

Ah, and it should NOT be okay to kick your coworker in the shins, even if you're their superior. The commissioner kicking Man Sik feels like something out of a drama from a decade ago. 😬🤦‍♀️