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I agree. I think the biggest mistake that the director did in this drama is marketing 101 “know your audience”. She directed a show full of nuances and contextual meaning which people in early to mid twenties may not get immediately, they are usually black or white. Which is why some very high rated drama are so awful in my opinion like the one which is being aired now the Kim dam mi one, I cannot even seem to remember it’s name. The very formulaic dramas may get a high rating.

Secretary Kim gave me total Kabir Singh vibes, love but very controlling and arrogant. So for me it’s one of the most problematic Koreans dramas out there

I hope this is a good drama and not like now we breaking up. I like noona romance sometimes, but the few that came last year were disappointing.

Oh you also noticed the last scene. I thought I was the only one who saw the panic in his eyes. I actually felt like throughout the drama he likes her more

Me too. I seem to always have the unpopular opinion when it comes to romantic dramas. For example the new one with Kim Dam Mi Our Beloved Summer is so bad (according to me ) that I don’t understand why it’s rated so high. This one showed a real relationship with intimacy, complicated people

I think that the heroine was socially special. She did exhibit mild signs of autism. I have met such brilliant people in real life who are clueless and who don’t understand Manipulations and who have a lot of trouble processing emotions and body language. They are also very idealistic for example they showed her to be very passionate about ecology and environment. In contrast the boy was very normal. Maths focused yes but he had a lot of friends and he knew how to interact with people. Which is why I said that if the drama was brave enough to address that and show us a heroine who was special. What an amazing drama that would have been.

Waiting. Arang and moon embracing sun and scarlet romance are all favourites. I don’t like historical romance but I love love love historical fantasy romance

I loved this drama. I did not think the male lead was toxic since he was clear from the beginning about his intentions. The female lead chose to be with him. Also, we talk about consent a lot during intimate moments and I felt that the male lead never pushed on those boundaries. He kept asking the female lead whenever they were about to kiss if she was keen. I don’t know why people seem to love toxic arrogant men in k drama land and then think this lead was toxic. I am so tired of watching super rich guys grabbing the heroine by her wrists and then kissing her by force. Some guys In k dramas are such jerks. For example in what’s wrong with secretary kim, he abused her at work for 10 years made her work like crazy. And still people love that drama. This drama (nevertheless) is not about love, it’s about consent, having agency in a relationship and choice. They also showed us a capable heroine. For example the first scene where her ex boyfriend makes a very vulgar sculpture of hers, they don’t show her crumbling apart especially when she lives in a conservative Asian country. She stands her ground and eventually breaks up with that guy. With Jae Eon, she chooses him beucase she is attracted. But one gets that feeling that she retains the power in the relationship since she is aware of her surroundings, good at her work and also has friends.

My beef with this drama is how stupid is the heroine. People above the age of 25 have a warning meter built inside their systems. They can easily pick out mean, and dangerous people. The way she keeps ignoring her all powerful and scary boss is so weird. No one would do that in real life. The whole fiasco could have been avoided if she could read the body language of people around her. It would have been an amazing drama if they showed her autistic/ high performing savant then I would have loved the drama but they did not do so. She did not seem socially special in any way so why was she so unaware of what was happening ? I am ok with the age difference since nothing happened when they were student teacher. Male dominated dramas like the goblin showed a pseudo patent (goblin as the guardian of the girl) and the heroine and no one had a problem. I feel that romance with guardians and their charges are much worse. The whole drama (goblin) felt super creepy. This drama is not so

Absolutely agree. I would say this is not exaggeration at all

Honestly real life office politics is far more melodramatic, vicious and ridiculous. Imagine a child playground with people having the maturity of toddlers but lots of power. I have seen far more damage done to people than this. So this drama was very realistic, in fact I would say it was a little less melodramatic 😀😀. But for people less than thirty this might be difficult to watch since you may not have encountered such things yet so it’s hard to watch

Agree and men never get that hate

I totally agree. The double standards is mind blowing. People love goblin when it was an under age romance but since he is a guy no one has any problem. There were so many things wrong with goblin. She was an orphan and he essentially was almost like a parent figure. But just because he was a male lead, people saw no issues whatsoever. What I find weird is that negative comments seem to come from women also. It’s like women are also validating that female characters should always be young, pretty and innocent.

People can be so gender biased and vicious. So ji sub is decades older than her and no one has a problem. But if an actress such as song hye kyo or park min young is cast with someone, the comments from people (women included) can be really mean. Why do people have a problem with older women. Given how long women live (they outsurvive men by like 7 years globally) what are older women supposed to do dissappear, fade away or wear a Harry Potter invisibility cloak.

Well said. It’s just that I shudder to think what happens to people who get such horrible bosses in real life.

Totally agree with you. What I wanted to share was that such people should not be allowed to redeemed. Slapping and bullying someone is bad. Sometime the person who get bullied may internalize it and it may cause a
Lot of pain. I would have liked it if she were made to suffer but we as viewers are made to sympathetise with such a horrible person why ? :) nonetheless I think the actress did an amazing job for me to be so angry with her

Yes but they don’t get glorified. In this drama this character is redeemed why? I go and abuse someone then I am a bad guy I cannot be redeemed to be good. It just shows that this act is not considered bad … one can abuse as one sees for

I have worked in London, India, NZ, and Singapore and I can assure you this is textbook employee harassment and this would not fly anywhere. You cannot touch them or do this ? No wonder I keep reading news about so many suicides in Korea

As someone who has faced workplace bullying. Also someone who has witnessed people battling mental health issues due to toxic coworkers and one instance of a suicide also, I am extremely distressed to see how song ga kyung acts with bae ta mi. Slapping, dismissal on unfair grounds this is bad. In any other time, place she should have been sued. Is Korean work culture really so bad that people can abuse their inferiors so horribly ?

The actress is the one and yes the character too. I mean think this way she is a more of an personality like someone from Blackpink where how they look is important than talent like lady Gaga or Adele