He was probably traumatized by the whole situation that happened in his previous life and wanted to escape from it & build a new life. He blamed himself for the deaths of his wife & daughter because he neglected them and took them for granted. He missed all the signs that his wife was suffering from mental illness (probably schizophrenia) and this led to her killing their child. This must have been a devastating blow for him as a parent, esp given that he's a doctor & probably would have seen the signs that his wife was sick had he paid attention.
He moves to Tokyo to start over, but then he meets the FL. He wasn't planning on ever seeing her again so he gives her a false name (probably because he didn't want her to google him & find out about his past?). But as fate would have it, they did meet again & they fell in love. She asks him to move in and before he knows it the years fly by and it became more difficult to tell her the truth.
That would be my guess anyway.
What's interesting is that he learned from his past mistakes. A part from the lie, he did his best to be a good partner to her, not taking her for granted, showering her with love .... but then she took HIM for granted, doing a lot of the same things to him as he'd done to his previous wife. Isn't life a real b*tch...
Haha thanks. This blacklist has gotten me a lot of haters on MDL, but I'm glad you approve.As for your points…
Don't worry, I'll give Hwang Jung Eum a chance if she's in something I'm really interested in watching. I don't 'hate' her like some of the other people on the list. I just don't like the things I listed about her. I do acknowledge that she can be a fairly decent actress. I liked her in Secret, but disliked her in Kill Me, Heal Me because she's the epitome of the over emotional, screeching FL that I can't stand. She was somewhat tolerable in Can You Hear My Heart, but I didn't like that drama overall.
As for Lee Jong Suk .... what bothers me the most are his nose AND lips. It's so clear that he has had multiple lip fillers. Plus, to me he has a very ugly smile. I've never been able to look pass how he's ruined his face to focus on his acting. Seriously it's abhorrent how much the South Korean entertainment industry pressure their young stars into getting all kinds of weird plastic surgery procedures that they don't need.
I love Kim Ræ Won! I chose to watch Gangnam Blues for him too, and he was great as usual, but I really took notice of LMH here. I doubt I'll ever be interested in him as a drama actor, but I want to watch The King for a variety of reasons. First of all, I like the FL and screenwriter Kim Eun Suk has rewritten dramas that I've enjoyed previously (Lovers, City Hall, A Gentleman's Dignity). Even though her last 4 dramas were total misses for me (I so wanted to like Goblin, but I didn't! It was sooooooo boring to me, it took me 6 mths to complete it! :/), there are certain aspects of her writing that I like. So I'm willing to keep an open mind regarding The King since I have no major negative reaction to the cast. Unlike Descendants of the Sun ... which I knew I was never going to watch from the day it was announced because I disliked the casting. I saw absolutely NO chemistry between Song Hye Kyo & Song Joong Ki and thought they looked horrible as a couple (both on TV & in real life).
I hear there isn't going to be any romance in this drama.
We'll see. I think even if there is romance it will be very minimal or just hinted at. Ji Sung is now in his 40s, married and has kids. I've noticed that in Korea, once actors, especially those over 40, are married and have a family, they rarely do romance dramas anymore. They're considered to be over the hill ... I think it's very sad .... :(
Everybody talks about her only in Korean Odyssey but her last role was in the Crowned Clown an she was terrific…
I first saw her in a family drama called The Gentlemen of Wolygyesu Tailor Shop. There she played a comedic role as a love struck young woman who did the most ridiculous things to win over the guy she loved. She was very convincing in that role because of how cute & genuinely funny she was! Her character didn't have much depth, but she really brought something special to the role. Like the ML you couldn't help but fall in love with her! In TCC I was a bit disappointed, not by her, but by how her character was written. Very bland and with nothing to do except pine over the king. I think the drama did her a disservice or she did herself a disservice by choosing that drama. While her role in TCC wasn't that much different from TGoWTS, at least in TGoWTS she had a chance to show off her comedy skills. Most of the time she had you giggling or smiling at her antics so you kinda just forget or don't care how silly her role really is. I usually don't like medical dramas, but I might give this a go just to see how she interprets this role. I like Ji Sung too.
You had me at Blacklisted! It is endearing to find someone who shares a perspective similar to mine on this matter.…
Haha thanks. This blacklist has gotten me a lot of haters on MDL, but I'm glad you approve.
As for your points above: I've updated the list with the particular reasons why I can't bear to watch these people on screen. Maybe that will give more insight. I've also updated my profile to better reflect who I am as a drama watcher; you can check that out to better understand how I choose my dramas & why someone may end up blacklisted.
Lee Yo Won and Hwang Jung Eum are only about 70% blacklisted. There's still that 30% chance I will watch their stuff if I'm particularly taken with the story and or they're cast opposite one of my favourites. The actors on the lower half of the list all fall into this category. The ones that are high up are complete NO GOs.
I find Ha Ji Won totally intolerable - she's 100% blacklisted forever. When I first got into Asian TV & cinema, I watched some her earlier movies Closer To Heaven & Love So Divine, and even then, when I had not really formulated any opinions about Asian entertainment or their performers, something about her immediately rubbed me the wrong way though I still got some level of enjoyment from those movies. In her more recent works, I've hated her in everything she's done. I just don't like her facial expressions, she has very spiteful eyes and her acting feels very fake and inauthentic to me. I am never moved by anything she's ever done. I feel the same way about Song Hye Kyo, although I find her slightly less bothersome.
So I absolutely will not watch Empress Ki because the thought of hanging out with HJW for 50+ hrs distresses me. If I ever decide to watch such a long historical drama with someone from my blacklist, I'd rather it be Queen Seon Duk because I actually don't dislike Lee Yo Won (I loved her in Golden Empire, for eg). Moreover, I HATE weak characters, ESP if they're men & I've heard the male lead in Empress Ki is a sniveling, weak, rampaging manboy .... so nah.
Some women like the strong FL, weak ML get up, not me ... and definitely not when HJW is the FL.
Lee Min Ho ... haha, funny you should ask because I recently commented on his acting on the page for his upcoming drama, The King: The Eternal Monarch. You can check out my commentary there because posting it here would make this post longer than it already is.
I am so sorry The Dude In Me wasn't entertaining ♥ But I really really hope that The Great Battle will be more…
Honey, you have absolutely nothing to be sorry about it! This is just me & my weird tastes! :-) Thanks for the article & new recs for my ever growing PTW list!
I like Jerry Yan quite a lot, but wouldn't the drama work as just as well if his co-star was at least some years…
It totally would. I love 20 somethings, but seriously there's no reason to get hitched with a 40 odd yr old person at that age. S/he's gonna try & run your life! :-) Not because they're a bad person, but when you live to see 41 you have a bit of life experience under your belt, and as much as you have good intentions, you're going to have some control freakish behaviors, esp when your partner is half your damn age!
This sounds like a remake of the american movie ''Just my luck '', with Lindsay Lohan and Chris Pine. Also, not…
Right, and if she acts juvenile on top of it, that just make matters worse. I don't know what in the world's going on in Asia! Noona romances going wild in Korea & Japan, now this! lol
Ok, so I love me some Jerry Yan, but 20 years? What's going in Asia? It's like the whole region is going through a midlife crisis. Ev'rybody going for 'em young'uns. What's wrong with dating people closer to your own age? Anyways, I'mma watch this.
Ugh, it's a shame how true this was! I honestly didn't even realize how much I agreed with all of this until reading…
Girl, when I started to notice that no decision was reached by consensus between two adults with mutual respect for each other, I said to myself that I don't need to watch anymore. She always gaslighted him into thinking that he was in the wrong when he wasn't, thereby getting her own way. And I always hated that. This is essentially a one-sided love that will eventually end badly. That's what I think, regardless of the 'happy' ending.
"Most of her other childish actions in this drama towards Se Hee? Uncompromising."
Yessssssss. Of the two Ji Ho was most emotionally healthy. She's never had her heart crushed the way Se Hee had so it's easier for her to open herself up and put words to her feelings. Se Hee, on the other hand, has gone through heartbreak and is more cautious about making himself vulnerable to her or anyone; he doesn't want to get hurt again. Anyone who's experienced heartbreak knows this feeling well.
Closing himself off, not verbally expressing his emotions, it's a self-preserving mechanism. Ji Ho, who loves to pretend that she's so 'woke', as you said, should have understood that time & patience & love was what Se Hee needed. Even though she's inexperienced in love, she wasn't completely clueless because her 2 best friends are experienced in relationships and are a sounding board for her.
She had more than enough information & guidance on how to deal with someone who is trying to get over heartbreak, but she couldn't be bothered to go the extra mile to understand Se Hee ... because in reality, she doesn't really LOVE him. She's in love with the idea of being in love. She's not ready to give love in the 1 Corinthians 13 type of way. She's way too self-centered and immature.
Of course, I understand the need to want to know where you stand in a relationship. As a woman, I totally get wanting to hear those words! But as you pointed out it wasn't like Se Hee was totally inept in expressing his feelings for her. He DID his best to SHOW in actions, if not words, that he loved her. That should have been enough for the time being. It's not like they've been together for 20 years with no progress on his part. They'd only been together a few months & already she wanted grand declarations from love from a guy who she knew was still healing from a deep heartbreak. She wanted things to go way too fast without even TRYING to understand the emotional toll opening one's self up after heartbreak has on a person. That's why I continue to maintain that she never loved Se Hee. She only THINKS she's loves him.
All she had to do is create a safe environment in the relationship where he feels safe to express his feelings verbally. Because he did love her, I think he eventually would have gotten there had she been more patient and understanding of his process of healing from his past hurt. Alternatively, she could have just confronted him. Have the gumption to confront him and straight up demand what she wanted from him. Had she explicitly asked Se Hee "Do you love me?" "Do you want me to leave?" She would have gotten the answers she wanted to hear without having to emotionally traumatize him anew. You know, that little thing called COMMUNICATION???
SHE was always the stronger party emotionally, not Se Hee. She has balls to confront everything else in her life, but when it comes to what *she* claims really matters, speaking up for what she wants in her relationship, she loses all courage? In the context of how the show is written, I'm just NOT buying that. It's total bullshit & insulting to one's intelligence. There was simply no excuse. If this were Se Hee ... all these keyboard warriors would be dragging his name thru the mud!
What she did was a very telling sign of someone who is not really invested in the relationship. People can say well. what about Se Hee, why didn't he fight for her? And my respond would be that he did ... in the capacity that he was able to at the present time.
Man, I knew this drama had the potential to majorly piss me off the moment I started it so that's why I dropped it early on. After 7 yrs of drama watching, I no longer have the patience to sit through sh*t dramas that raise my blood pressure. My damn life is stressful, you know! lol This is why I have a slight preference for watching male - centred dramas because even though men will behave like jerks, they eventually admit their faults & come to the realization that they need to start acting like decent human beings. Female centred shows are often very one sided with sometimes dubious messaging that tend to conclude in ways that defy rational thought & logic. At least in my experience. If you have some good female centred shows with imperfect but empathetic characters, please recommend them!
This drama was so damn pretentious, it literally made me want to puke! People online have said oh the writers just wanted to show that Ji Ho was imperfect and only human, but no, not buying that! What she was, was selfish, self-centered and entitled. She's only using Se Hee until she gets tired of him, then she'll drop him like a bad habit just like his ex. Being with her, he's definitely going to get his heart broken again. Poor Se Hee.
I'm probably the only viewer who hated Ji Ho's character (specific egs in the spoiler). She's the type of heroine…
Ji Ho from the first moment we met her was cast as the perpetual victim. First she was a victim of her family, then she was victim of her superiors at work, then she was a victim of that sleazy guy who tried to rape her, then she was a victim of the economy, then she was being put in a situation to be a victim with the ML and their arrangement. Everyone has the potential to be a victim, but the WAY in which she carried around her victimhood like a trophy annoyed me & made me unable to sympathize with her. I seriously have a very strong aversion to characters like this!
Furthermore, when, after having just moved into Se Hee's apartment, she intruded on his personal life by showing up unannounced at his work and naming his cat. Se Hee told her he didn't feel comfortable with her intruding on his life like that ... and instead of apologizing she got all huffy. Once again she was the victim. But why? Why did she think she was entitled to do all that and not have him react negatively? SHE was the one in love, not him ... to him she's just a roommate so naturally, he'd feel weirded out by her showing up at his job acting like they're an item and basically taking over his life otherwise. She overstepped an unspoken boundary. Yet she had the gall to get offended when he complained. Like how dare he not like her back when she likes him? This was the first indication that she's an entitlement princess who expects everyone, esp her man, to bend to all her wishes or else ....
Just because she caught feelings for him didn't give her the right to impose those feelings on him so soon and so sudden. He was just barely getting used to having her around. She should have waited a bit or used other methods to win him over if she liked him so much - without coming on too strong too fast, esp when she knew he was a bit ornery & gun shy from day one. If the roles were reserved I'm sure she would have felt burdened too and no one would be defending the ML, that's for sure! We women love holding men to standards we ourselves can not live up to.
Given all this in first 6 episodes, the dick move she pulled at the end was exactly within her character. She's very manipulative and emotionally abusive and when she gets called on it, she acts like the victim! Ugh .... I can't stand her!
I'm probably the only viewer who hated Ji Ho's character (specific egs in the spoiler). She's the type of heroine that rubs me ALL the wrong ways. I love flawed characters, but I found her to be very selfish and an entitlement princess with a deeply rooted victim mentality that made her believe the world owed her something. For this reason I found her hella annoying and couldn't stand to see her jerk around a decent guy like Se Hee. That is not to say Se Hee was perfect, he had his annoying traits too, but hers annoyed me more .... maybe because people like her really piss me off in real life. I dropped the drama at ep 6, but I did watch the last two episodes because of all the discussion around them. I have to say Ji Ho's horrendous behaviour didn't surprise me at all. Her actions were very consistent with the toxic, entitlement princess behaviour she showed at the very beginning of the show. I perceived Ji Ho's 'love' for Se Hee to be a very selfish, conditional kind of love. When he was doing what she wanted and behaving how she wanted, she 'loved' him, but when his personal shortcomings manifested - making him sometimes do dumb sh*t - she withdrew her 'love' and manipulates and gaslights him into getting her way or making him think he was at fault, when he wasn't. She didn't love Se Hee, she was in love with the IDEA of being in love. I don't know how or why people hold this up as 'romantic' and the hallmark of a 'healthy' relationship. Personally, I see this as a very toxic relationship. The drama tried to be fake woke, but anyone who has gone through REAL relationships will see it for the pretentious mess that it is. A great ending for me would've been if they'd broken up. Ji Ho doesn't deserve Se Hee. She really doesn't. Ji Ho is manipulative & emotionally abusive. She's eventually going to fuck up his life. My 3 cents!
great drama, nicely executed,slow paced love....just..just if only the male lead know how to fight for his love.…
There is something called communication though. More people should try it sometimes. Maybe the world would be less fucked up and maybe less hearts would get broken. If you're not getting what you want, ask for it. Until the person tells you point blank no, it's never safe or good to assume anything (as the saying goes, when you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of U and ME - Ji Ho made a colossal ass out of herself by pulling that stunt at the end & Se Hee too for taking her back). Moreover, she knows how his personality is, she knows that he's still emotionally scarred from being abandoned by his first love .... if she wants him to show her his love SHE should've fought for him to show it ... not emotionally abuse him even more by leaving him high & dry, with NO explanation. Please tell me if the roles were reserved and Se Hee did this to Ji Ho, if we all would have been so understanding? I do not think so!
The problem I always had with Ji Ho is that she's very entitled & she has a nasty victim mentality that makes her think everyone owes her something. If Se Hee wasn't behaving the way she wanted him to behave and how she wanted him to behave, she withdrew her love & treated him like crap. To me, that's not real love; it's selfish love. I'm not saying Se Hee was all perfect, but at least he TRIED to be out and open with his feelings, in actions if not always in words. That's why I'm probably the only viewer who hated Ji Ho's character! lol
Your 4 points all make sense. I think, though, your # 4 weighs heavily above all the others. Here's my reasoning:
Ryo had this intoxicating effect on women because he was so mysterious and enigmatic, handsome, sexy ... the women all wanted to possess him and make him love them. But all of them had emotional problems and suffered from low self-esteem. They didn't realize that Ryo himself had severe emotional problems too so whenever he got together with these broken women, being equally, if not more, broken himself, the situation became toxic. Death often followed.
The fact that he couldn't love them had nothing to do with them (he was broken inside and needed to fix himself), but they all latched on to him and became obsessed with him. Then when he rejected them, they went crazy, thinking there's a flaw with them.
Yuko, on the other hand, wasn't emotionally damaged. She was in a better place, emotionally, to help Ryo heal from his past. And she was doing that. He opened up to her & fell for her. That's the first healthy relationship he's ever had. Where the girl loved him and he actually loved her back.
For Yuko too, her love was genuine. She loved Ryo for Ryo, even with all his scars and bad things he's done. All the other girls loved him because they needed him to heal them from their own emotional wounds. But hurt people hurt people so that's why those relationships always turn toxic, instead of healing.
I really think if it didn't turn out that they were siblings, they would have worked out as a couple. Ryo was changing for the better for her.
Furthermore, they were in that honeymoon stage of love where you feel like you can't live without the other person. At this point even the fact that he was her blood brother became insignificant. She already loved him too much and couldn't bear the thought of living on without him, esp since she was the one who killed him. She was going to be with him, whether in life or death.
That's my analysis, anyway. :-)
Thanks for sparing with me about the drama even though you watched it a long time. It is appreciated.
Did anyone get why she left for several months at the end? Something like checking if she really likes him or…
I dropped this drama because I couldn't stand the FL. Something about her just rubbed me the wrong way. Out of curiosity I did watch the last 2 episodes and I think a recent review I read sums up my thoughts on Ji Ho's behaviour exactly so I thought I'd share it here. It's very disturbing that people think the way she mentally abused him at the end is okay. I guarantee you that if the situation were reversed and he did this to her, I doubt we'll be seeing all these glowing reviews and understanding excuses of why she picked up left & left him hanging. Anyway here is the review text from user narutochatsrcool that I agree with 100%:
"I have a big issue with one of the message about relationships; we learn that Ji Ho knew that Se Hee was going to confess before she decided to end the contract and move out. She tells everyone else that she loves him but wants him to open up his most vulnerable self to her. But, she doesn't tell him that. Instead, she lies about why she's leaving. She could have said, "I want to end the contract because I'm having feelings. Can we talk about that and whether you are, too, and whether we want to be a real couple?" Instead, she tortures him. Knowing that he's in love with her, she leads him to believe she is traveling far away and has ended everything. Also knowing that a lot of his pain is from having been abandoned by someone he loved before. He's literally in a bad emotional state and I'd argue in a state of actual depression. Meanwhile, she's having fun in Seoul at the hostel and with her friends. Laughing it up at the sauna, etc.
When they are reunited, she doesn't wake him up to talk. She talks to him while he's half asleep, thinking he's dreaming. When he wakes up, she acts as if its completely normal that she's there doing laundry and making breakfast. He's rightfully angry. She smiles. He's rightfully angry that she's smiling. But, somehow, she gets to apologize with a smile on her face and be happy that he's angry and its all okay?
If someone had done this to me, I'd be over them. It was manipulative and cruel. It was TOXIC. I'd never trust her again. Here was this man who, despite his wounds, was always considerate and kind. He was definitely overly-cautious. But, he was so respectful of boundaries. He was protective. In his shocked state, after seeing his ex, he still thought to make her some tea. You don't always need words to know that someone loves you. Those actions are far more telling. If you fell in love with this person, why are trying to make him be different? And, if you need something from him, why don't you just say so instead of this cruel, underhanded behavior?"
1 
He moves to Tokyo to start over, but then he meets the FL. He wasn't planning on ever seeing her again so he gives her a false name (probably because he didn't want her to google him & find out about his past?). But as fate would have it, they did meet again & they fell in love. She asks him to move in and before he knows it the years fly by and it became more difficult to tell her the truth.
That would be my guess anyway.
What's interesting is that he learned from his past mistakes. A part from the lie, he did his best to be a good partner to her, not taking her for granted, showering her with love .... but then she took HIM for granted, doing a lot of the same things to him as he'd done to his previous wife. Isn't life a real b*tch...
As for Lee Jong Suk .... what bothers me the most are his nose AND lips. It's so clear that he has had multiple lip fillers. Plus, to me he has a very ugly smile. I've never been able to look pass how he's ruined his face to focus on his acting. Seriously it's abhorrent how much the South Korean entertainment industry pressure their young stars into getting all kinds of weird plastic surgery procedures that they don't need.
I love Kim Ræ Won! I chose to watch Gangnam Blues for him too, and he was great as usual, but I really took notice of LMH here. I doubt I'll ever be interested in him as a drama actor, but I want to watch The King for a variety of reasons. First of all, I like the FL and screenwriter Kim Eun Suk has rewritten dramas that I've enjoyed previously (Lovers, City Hall, A Gentleman's Dignity). Even though her last 4 dramas were total misses for me (I so wanted to like Goblin, but I didn't! It was sooooooo boring to me, it took me 6 mths to complete it! :/), there are certain aspects of her writing that I like. So I'm willing to keep an open mind regarding The King since I have no major negative reaction to the cast. Unlike Descendants of the Sun ... which I knew I was never going to watch from the day it was announced because I disliked the casting. I saw absolutely NO chemistry between Song Hye Kyo & Song Joong Ki and thought they looked horrible as a couple (both on TV & in real life).
As for your points above: I've updated the list with the particular reasons why I can't bear to watch these people on screen. Maybe that will give more insight.
I've also updated my profile to better reflect who I am as a drama watcher; you can check that out to better understand how I choose my dramas & why someone may end up blacklisted.
Lee Yo Won and Hwang Jung Eum are only about 70% blacklisted. There's still that 30% chance I will watch their stuff if I'm particularly taken with the story and or they're cast opposite one of my favourites. The actors on the lower half of the list all fall into this category. The ones that are high up are complete NO GOs.
I find Ha Ji Won totally intolerable - she's 100% blacklisted forever. When I first got into Asian TV & cinema, I watched some her earlier movies Closer To Heaven & Love So Divine, and even then, when I had not really formulated any opinions about Asian entertainment or their performers, something about her immediately rubbed me the wrong way though I still got some level of enjoyment from those movies. In her more recent works, I've hated her in everything she's done. I just don't like her facial expressions, she has very spiteful eyes and her acting feels very fake and inauthentic to me. I am never moved by anything she's ever done. I feel the same way about Song Hye Kyo, although I find her slightly less bothersome.
So I absolutely will not watch Empress Ki because the thought of hanging out with HJW for 50+ hrs distresses me. If I ever decide to watch such a long historical drama with someone from my blacklist, I'd rather it be Queen Seon Duk because I actually don't dislike Lee Yo Won (I loved her in Golden Empire, for eg). Moreover, I HATE weak characters, ESP if they're men & I've heard the male lead in Empress Ki is a sniveling, weak, rampaging manboy .... so nah.
Some women like the strong FL, weak ML get up, not me ... and definitely not when HJW is the FL.
Lee Min Ho ... haha, funny you should ask because I recently commented on his acting on the page for his upcoming drama, The King: The Eternal Monarch. You can check out my commentary there because posting it here would make this post longer than it already is.
Not because they're a bad person, but when you live to see 41 you have a bit of life experience under your belt, and as much as you have good intentions, you're going to have some control freakish behaviors, esp when your partner is half your damn age!
"Most of her other childish actions in this drama towards Se Hee? Uncompromising."
Yessssssss. Of the two Ji Ho was most emotionally healthy. She's never had her heart crushed the way Se Hee had so it's easier for her to open herself up and put words to her feelings. Se Hee, on the other hand, has gone through heartbreak and is more cautious about making himself vulnerable to her or anyone; he doesn't want to get hurt again. Anyone who's experienced heartbreak knows this feeling well.
Closing himself off, not verbally expressing his emotions, it's a self-preserving mechanism. Ji Ho, who loves to pretend that she's so 'woke', as you said, should have understood that time & patience & love was what Se Hee needed. Even though she's inexperienced in love, she wasn't completely clueless because her 2 best friends are experienced in relationships and are a sounding board for her.
She had more than enough information & guidance on how to deal with someone who is trying to get over heartbreak, but she couldn't be bothered to go the extra mile to understand Se Hee ... because in reality, she doesn't really LOVE him. She's in love with the idea of being in love. She's not ready to give love in the 1 Corinthians 13 type of way. She's way too self-centered and immature.
Of course, I understand the need to want to know where you stand in a relationship. As a woman, I totally get wanting to hear those words! But as you pointed out it wasn't like Se Hee was totally inept in expressing his feelings for her. He DID his best to SHOW in actions, if not words, that he loved her. That should have been enough for the time being. It's not like they've been together for 20 years with no progress on his part. They'd only been together a few months & already she wanted grand declarations from love from a guy who she knew was still healing from a deep heartbreak. She wanted things to go way too fast without even TRYING to understand the emotional toll opening one's self up after heartbreak has on a person. That's why I continue to maintain that she never loved Se Hee. She only THINKS she's loves him.
All she had to do is create a safe environment in the relationship where he feels safe to express his feelings verbally. Because he did love her, I think he eventually would have gotten there had she been more patient and understanding of his process of healing from his past hurt. Alternatively, she could have just confronted him. Have the gumption to confront him and straight up demand what she wanted from him. Had she explicitly asked Se Hee "Do you love me?" "Do you want me to leave?" She would have gotten the answers she wanted to hear without having to emotionally traumatize him anew. You know, that little thing called COMMUNICATION???
SHE was always the stronger party emotionally, not Se Hee. She has balls to confront everything else in her life, but when it comes to what *she* claims really matters, speaking up for what she wants in her relationship, she loses all courage? In the context of how the show is written, I'm just NOT buying that. It's total bullshit & insulting to one's intelligence. There was simply no excuse. If this were Se Hee ... all these keyboard warriors would be dragging his name thru the mud!
What she did was a very telling sign of someone who is not really invested in the relationship. People can say well. what about Se Hee, why didn't he fight for her? And my respond would be that he did ... in the capacity that he was able to at the present time.
Man, I knew this drama had the potential to majorly piss me off the moment I started it so that's why I dropped it early on. After 7 yrs of drama watching, I no longer have the patience to sit through sh*t dramas that raise my blood pressure. My damn life is stressful, you know! lol This is why I have a slight preference for watching male - centred dramas because even though men will behave like jerks, they eventually admit their faults & come to the realization that they need to start acting like decent human beings. Female centred shows are often very one sided with sometimes dubious messaging that tend to conclude in ways that defy rational thought & logic. At least in my experience. If you have some good female centred shows with imperfect but empathetic characters, please recommend them!
This drama was so damn pretentious, it literally made me want to puke! People online have said oh the writers just wanted to show that Ji Ho was imperfect and only human, but no, not buying that! What she was, was selfish, self-centered and entitled. She's only using Se Hee until she gets tired of him, then she'll drop him like a bad habit just like his ex. Being with her, he's definitely going to get his heart broken again. Poor Se Hee.
Furthermore, when, after having just moved into Se Hee's apartment, she intruded on his personal life by showing up unannounced at his work and naming his cat. Se Hee told her he didn't feel comfortable with her intruding on his life like that ... and instead of apologizing she got all huffy. Once again she was the victim. But why? Why did she think she was entitled to do all that and not have him react negatively? SHE was the one in love, not him ... to him she's just a roommate so naturally, he'd feel weirded out by her showing up at his job acting like they're an item and basically taking over his life otherwise. She overstepped an unspoken boundary. Yet she had the gall to get offended when he complained. Like how dare he not like her back when she likes him? This was the first indication that she's an entitlement princess who expects everyone, esp her man, to bend to all her wishes or else ....
Just because she caught feelings for him didn't give her the right to impose those feelings on him so soon and so sudden. He was just barely getting used to having her around. She should have waited a bit or used other methods to win him over if she liked him so much - without coming on too strong too fast, esp when she knew he was a bit ornery & gun shy from day one. If the roles were reserved I'm sure she would have felt burdened too and no one would be defending the ML, that's for sure! We women love holding men to standards we ourselves can not live up to.
Given all this in first 6 episodes, the dick move she pulled at the end was exactly within her character. She's very manipulative and emotionally abusive and when she gets called on it, she acts like the victim! Ugh .... I can't stand her!
I love flawed characters, but I found her to be very selfish and an entitlement princess with a deeply rooted victim mentality that made her believe the world owed her something. For this reason I found her hella annoying and couldn't stand to see her jerk around a decent guy like Se Hee. That is not to say Se Hee was perfect, he had his annoying traits too, but hers annoyed me more .... maybe because people like her really piss me off in real life.
I dropped the drama at ep 6, but I did watch the last two episodes because of all the discussion around them. I have to say Ji Ho's horrendous behaviour didn't surprise me at all. Her actions were very consistent with the toxic, entitlement princess behaviour she showed at the very beginning of the show.
I perceived Ji Ho's 'love' for Se Hee to be a very selfish, conditional kind of love. When he was doing what she wanted and behaving how she wanted, she 'loved' him, but when his personal shortcomings manifested - making him sometimes do dumb sh*t - she withdrew her 'love' and manipulates and gaslights him into getting her way or making him think he was at fault, when he wasn't. She didn't love Se Hee, she was in love with the IDEA of being in love. I don't know how or why people hold this up as 'romantic' and the hallmark of a 'healthy' relationship. Personally, I see this as a very toxic relationship. The drama tried to be fake woke, but anyone who has gone through REAL relationships will see it for the pretentious mess that it is. A great ending for me would've been if they'd broken up. Ji Ho doesn't deserve Se Hee. She really doesn't. Ji Ho is manipulative & emotionally abusive. She's eventually going to fuck up his life. My 3 cents!
The problem I always had with Ji Ho is that she's very entitled & she has a nasty victim mentality that makes her think everyone owes her something. If Se Hee wasn't behaving the way she wanted him to behave and how she wanted him to behave, she withdrew her love & treated him like crap. To me, that's not real love; it's selfish love. I'm not saying Se Hee was all perfect, but at least he TRIED to be out and open with his feelings, in actions if not always in words. That's why I'm probably the only viewer who hated Ji Ho's character! lol
Ryo had this intoxicating effect on women because he was so mysterious and enigmatic, handsome, sexy ... the women all wanted to possess him and make him love them. But all of them had emotional problems and suffered from low self-esteem. They didn't realize that Ryo himself had severe emotional problems too so whenever he got together with these broken women, being equally, if not more, broken himself, the situation became toxic. Death often followed.
The fact that he couldn't love them had nothing to do with them (he was broken inside and needed to fix himself), but they all latched on to him and became obsessed with him. Then when he rejected them, they went crazy, thinking there's a flaw with them.
Yuko, on the other hand, wasn't emotionally damaged. She was in a better place, emotionally, to help Ryo heal from his past. And she was doing that. He opened up to her & fell for her. That's the first healthy relationship he's ever had. Where the girl loved him and he actually loved her back.
For Yuko too, her love was genuine. She loved Ryo for Ryo, even with all his scars and bad things he's done. All the other girls loved him because they needed him to heal them from their own emotional wounds. But hurt people hurt people so that's why those relationships always turn toxic, instead of healing.
I really think if it didn't turn out that they were siblings, they would have worked out as a couple. Ryo was changing for the better for her.
Furthermore, they were in that honeymoon stage of love where you feel like you can't live without the other person. At this point even the fact that he was her blood brother became insignificant. She already loved him too much and couldn't bear the thought of living on without him, esp since she was the one who killed him. She was going to be with him, whether in life or death.
That's my analysis, anyway. :-)
Thanks for sparing with me about the drama even though you watched it a long time. It is appreciated.
"I have a big issue with one of the message about relationships; we learn that Ji Ho knew that Se Hee was going to confess before she decided to end the contract and move out. She tells everyone else that she loves him but wants him to open up his most vulnerable self to her. But, she doesn't tell him that. Instead, she lies about why she's leaving. She could have said, "I want to end the contract because I'm having feelings. Can we talk about that and whether you are, too, and whether we want to be a real couple?" Instead, she tortures him. Knowing that he's in love with her, she leads him to believe she is traveling far away and has ended everything. Also knowing that a lot of his pain is from having been abandoned by someone he loved before. He's literally in a bad emotional state and I'd argue in a state of actual depression. Meanwhile, she's having fun in Seoul at the hostel and with her friends. Laughing it up at the sauna, etc.
When they are reunited, she doesn't wake him up to talk. She talks to him while he's half asleep, thinking he's dreaming. When he wakes up, she acts as if its completely normal that she's there doing laundry and making breakfast. He's rightfully angry. She smiles. He's rightfully angry that she's smiling. But, somehow, she gets to apologize with a smile on her face and be happy that he's angry and its all okay?
If someone had done this to me, I'd be over them. It was manipulative and cruel. It was TOXIC. I'd never trust her again. Here was this man who, despite his wounds, was always considerate and kind. He was definitely overly-cautious. But, he was so respectful of boundaries. He was protective. In his shocked state, after seeing his ex, he still thought to make her some tea. You don't always need words to know that someone loves you. Those actions are far more telling. If you fell in love with this person, why are trying to make him be different? And, if you need something from him, why don't you just say so instead of this cruel, underhanded behavior?"