Frings

Show isn't even over yet but I already miss it 🥲🥲

If nothing else it's kind of amusing to see the waves of certainty in the comments constantly shifting from one thing to another hahaha

Not sure if this got posted earlier, but if anyone is curious about it, Starship posted a nice video (ENG subbed) that shows more of Bona (Go Yu Rim) training her fencing last year for shooting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qxYdxrDkExM

Wish we also got something like this with Kim Taeri from TVN or MMM, or even better, of both her and Bona sparring like they've mentioned in interviews 😭

Np! You actually make a really good point, the way she talked about it in that scene did give that impression! I think she would be a great coach (as we saw hints of with Yeji), so it wouldn't be a bad idea. In an alternative universe somewhere maybe HD and YR open a fencing coaching shop together :')

I like theorizing even though I know there's no use for it since we literally have no idea where the writers are going with this LOL Really curious to find out!

Yeah it really depends on the sport and athlete really. For instance, ice skating and gymnastics have a lower retirement age than average against other sports because of how young the athletes start, how grueling the sport is on the body, and how common serious and debiliting injury is. Even knee/ankle/leg injuries from fencing I'd reckon are often less serious than ones you'd get from e.g. soccer or even tennis - not to dismiss fencing's physical toils and requirements of course, just the context of interaction of the body for the sport. The naturally diminishing reflex speed from aging can often be stalled by really good technique and training for some years depending on your competition. As I mentioned before, since 30s is the more average retirement age across the board, with near-40s being commonplace now and 40s and above on its way to not being eyebrow raising, I'm kinda curious to see how they go with this. For HeeDo given the article mentions no fencer since her has won medal, I feel like fencing's competitivity scenario might be relevant: she said she would not like to "change nationalities" to fence, which is often something athletes do as they get older and can migrate to less competitive scenes; she also mentions no match comparing to hers against YR, so maybe it stops being as fun for her?

But yeah, all that rambling aside, we know athletes can retire for many reasons. Since a lot retire not because of health or performance decline, but because they want to focus on family, migrate into less intensive lives, be involved in their sport in another capacity, change careers, etc., those are all also possible for us to see HD deciding to tackle. The articles being from 2019 and 2020 might mean she retired later than we thought, OR, was involved with fencing in a different capacity until then and only around 2019 stopped from fencing completely. Lots of ex-athlete coaches are active until well after old age, and I kinda liked seeing YR and HD in their support and coaching of Yeji a few episodes back, so I wouldn't mind seeing an evolution of sorts from that :')

At least for the sports I follow, around 30s up to 35 (international) is a fairly average age to retire for pro national players, even for HeeDo's time. More and more there are successful 40+ year old national athletes in many sports, e.g. volleyball and soccer (which I personally follow more). I don't know that much about fencing specifically however... it would change sport by sport (how much and in what way it is physically taxing, how competitive it is where the athlete plays, if they relocate to less competitive region or competitions) and the athlete (history of injuries, overall financial condition and support, health overall).

There's also the possibility that she retired as a player but continued as a fencing coach or something along those lines. In other sports you often see players becoming coaches, consultants, broadcasting narrators, etc.

This person translated the news articles that Minchae looks up online in the past eps:

https://twitter.com/imzeroclock/status/1508367889866256387

So now we know that HD doesn't open the shop until she retires. 🤔

Honestly same, but I kind of waver on my certainty every now and then... Here's hoping.

Good point, some shippers can also be satisfied with a different ending if done well! Let's hope for a quality ending regardless of dating status - I rarely would give writers the faith in pulling off something like that, but I think in this case they've earned a bit of optimism haha, so I'm tentatively hopeful. Kinda. Depends on what time of day you ask me. lol

Sure it can, but your question was "I don't know how people are gonna accept it if they didn't end up together", so that's what I was addressing...

I hadn't thought of it, but it is possible for her to be 13 internationally but 15 Korean age if she was born late in the year.

If nothing else it's definitely weird to claim "Yurim dies and that's why Heedo has a daughter" as the "Heedo is happier" ending lol

If nothing else there's definitely "no name" colleges that he could go to. Otherwise, as a college drop-out myself, it'd be cool if he could make it out there without it and still find happiness - though that kind of narrative is quite rare in K-dramas without resorting to something like him becoming famous or something...

I don't know about most, I think many people aren't watching as shippers of these two (myself included). It'd make perfect sense for them not to end up together too. It's just different strokes for different folks.

Ah-ha, that's when they state it then! Thanks for pointing it out for me! I stand corrected :)

She could pass with a low score of 80 because of her athletic scholarship though, right? It would be nice to know he did too however, surely he'd be the pretty boy in a bunch of college classes too :')

Honestly at this point the timelines confuse the hell out of me, I thought they'd met while she was 16 and he was 20 but can't bother to go back to confirm on which part I got that from

Well, if we think about it, Yijin and Heedo also didn't meet when they were 22 and 18...

Also, can yall stop killing my girl Yurim in your predictions 😭😭 I don't want to believe it's a possibility

Ahh, thank you!

Hm, so in 2009 MC is 2, and HD is on her 3rd Olympic games... So HeeDo would've had her (if she's her biological mother) in between the two latter games (ok), but before she was married (huh?)... Unless YJ and her haven't spoken in two years+....? But then why would he congratulate her on broadcast...

Aaaahh this is confusing!! I rarely care about timelines this closely, but now it's nagging at me!