Thecla

As I understand it...

Papa Jin believes that Jang Kang wouldn't have brought Bu Yeon back to life unless he (Jang Kang ) was her father. So Papa Jin thinks Bu Yeon isn't his daughter. But that's his jealousy and insecurity speaking, and he is in fact Bu Yeon's true father. (Either married to Mamma Jin at the time of Bu Yeon's conception, or the beneficiary of a "shotgun" wedding soon after?)

Jang Kang hunting Shaman Choi presumably happened more than 20 years ago (she was being hunted for sorcery, not AoS) . That was when Jang Kang obtained the Choi spells for AoS but not the Ice Stone. Mamma Jin wasn't pregnant at the time, and Jang Kang only obtained the Ice Stone from Jinyowon later on.

Not clear to me what Papa Jin means about owing his favorable marriage to Bu Yeon (maybe the shotgun-wedding scenario?)

Anyway, seems clear that Papa Jin is the Choi brother and father of both Bu Yeon and Cho Yeon, and Jang Kang got the AoS spells from Shaman Choi, followed by the Ice Stone from Mamma Jin.

Actually both Jin Mu and Shaman Choi strike me as too incompetent to be ultimate villains, so maybe there is someone behind them. But I guess we'll find out very soon if there really is some massively unpredictable plot twist.

Madam Kim Do Ju is the evil mastermind behind everything ;)

👍

In the previews after Ep 18, there is a line (from the Jin husband/Choi brother?):

"Jin Bu-yeon's immense divine powers not only came from her mother, a member of the Jin family."

Does this mean Bu-yeon's father really is Jang Kang (something I've been skeptical about up to now)?

True --- but new mythology introduced right at the end is exactly what I would call a deus ex machina ;)

[See, for example, "My roomate is a Gumiho," a show I like a lot, but one where the rules that govern Gumihos at the end are completely different from the ones described earlier in the show.]

I will say this: In the Ep 2 scene where Naksu's body is burned, both Seo Yul and Mu-Deok/Bu-Yeon are very conspicuously present. So it could be:

(i) Pedestrian explanation: Yul rescued Naksu's body because of his past (and current!) affections, and it wasn't her real body that was burned.

(ii) Deus explanation: As stated in Ep 18, the ice stone can control water, fire, and wind, so Bu-Yeon could capture Naksu's ashes as they floated away and will be able to restore her body.

To (respectfully!) disagree, I think Deus Ex Machina is the correct term here. The Alchemy of Souls is all about switching souls between bodies, not restoring bodies. When it's explained that the soul ejector can bring the dead back to life, it's by returning their souls to their bodies -- there's nothing about bringing the bodies back.

So personally, I'll be a bit annoyed if Naksu's burnt body is magically reconstituted (by the ice stone or otherwise) as that would feel like something inconsistent with the whole mythology behind AoS that's sprung on us at the last minute.

I could be wrong, but I think that Hwansu and Ice Stone powers are similar. So a mage who hasn't attained Hwansu can use an Ice Stone to do Hawnsu-level sorcery, but without the stone, they can't. A mage who has achieved Hwansu doesn't need an ice stone.

Also seems like Hwansu sorcery is allowed, but Ice Stone sorcery is forbidden, which is a bit weird.

Definitely very possible and no doubt the simplest (but requiring an explanation of why Bu-Yeon isn't his daughter).

As some counter-arguments, Gwigu didn't initially attack Mu-Deok as a soul-shifter either (in Ep 2) and went for the soul-shifted spy instead. Could be similar for Cho-Yeon and Papa Jin (and if you look around Ep 16, 6:00 Papa Jin does have a slight reddish aspect that might indicate energy from a soul-shifter). Also, if Brother Choi was soul-shifted, it could have been via an ice stone (which Shaman Choi possesed) rather than a soul-ejector, and it's not clear that Gwigu would detect that. (Seems like almost nothing in this show can be relied on with certainty!)

I still find Brother Choi an improbable match for the leader of one of the most important mage families in Daeho, even a matriarchal one. For example, Brother Choi could've married into a minor noble family and used that as an opportunity to get access and soul-shift into the Jin family.

Admittedly, we know almost nothing about the Choi clan's history.
In particular, it's puzzling to me why Shaman Choi is the one who possesses the ice stone(s), rather than Jin Mu.

Well, we don't know at this point. Possibilities include:

(a) He's the second husband of Mamma Jin, and Bu-Yeon is daughter of the first husband;
(b) He's the original husband of Mamma Jin and she had an affair (with Jang Kang or someone else);
(c) He's the original husband, but was soul-shifted between the birth of Bu-Yeon and Cho-Yeon.

Personally, I lean toward (c) since there's no evidence of a first husband, and (b) strikes me as totally against character. However, we also haven't seen any evidence that Papa Jin is a soul-shifter.

We did learn a rumor that Shaman Choi's brother married into a noble family, so he is a candidate either for Mamma JIn's current husband, evil from the start without being soul-shifted, or the soul that was soul-shifted into her original husband.

Well, the conjecture is that Naksu's body was switched, a fake body was burned, and her frozen body is being kept somewhere else (possibly by Seo Yul). Otherwise it's hard to see how Naksu could come back to life without blowing up the entire established mythology about the Alchemy of Souls (though, of course, who knows for sure how the writers will explain it).

Star Wars: "Luke, I am your father"*

Alchemy of Souls: "Uke, I am your father, well actually I'm sort-of-not your father because the King soul-shifted into my body and it was his soul that conceived you even though it was my body. Are we good now?"

*https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/star-wars-luke-i-am-your-father/

Yes, it seems very likely to me that Seo Yul rescued Naksu's body. He had both the motivation (knowing from the whistle who Naksu was) and he had the means to do it. Probably, he hopes to transfer Naksu's soul back into her dead body and protect her in the Seo family home.

I guess Naksu wouldn't petrify if soul-shifted back to her own body, but we have some contradictory cases (Jing Kang and the King were ok, Gil-Ju was not).

Looks like you came again after 30 mins ;)

Not that it means anything, but according to the previews at the end of Ep 16, the old mage who was soul-shifted by Jin Mu into the body of his disciple (at the end of Ep 11) runs wild, and Mu-Deok draws Naksu's sword (to protect Jang Uk?).

I used to think that the Jin-father was just a villain and not a soul-shifter, so you could well be right. We know almost nothing about the Choi clan, but...

1) Would the Jin clan really marry into a family from Gaema Village, however low the status of their husbands??

2) There's nothing so far to suggest that mamma Jin had more than one husband or Bu-Yeon was illegitimate, and I don't believe she had any "dalliances" (with Jang Kang or anyone else). So seems like father Jin must have soul-shifted between Bu-Yeon and Cho-Yeon.

3) Who knows how the ice stone works or how many asses it can cover? We just learned Jin priestesses can do who knows what. Hope too many rabbits aren't pulled out of the hat at the end of this show.

HOW COULD THEY KILL THE DOG!!!

This is how I looked at it previously (because of contradictions with father Jin being a soul-shifter), and some serious explanations are required to explaining the timing between when Jin Mu acquired the Ice Stone, and any soul-shifting occurred. But...

1) How could the brother of a Shaman (known for curses) in a seedy part of town be a possible partner for the Queen of Jinyowon? Her (original) husband must've part of the nobility.

2) In some conversation with So-i, which I can't find now, the Jin father/shaman brother strongly suggests that Bu-Yeon isn't his daughter but Cho-yeon is, which would suggest soul-shifting occurred between their conceptions. Absolutely agree that an explanation is required about how this could happen before Jin Mu got the ice stone when Bu-Yeon disappeared (left over soul ejectors?). For that matter how did Shaman Choi soul-shift with the Queen?

3) Seems like the Ice Stone can prevent detection of soul-shifting, even by Gwigu.

Jin-mother only has one husband (that she knows of) and dalliances seem totally against her character.

Honestly, all these theories are overthinking it. Bu-Yeon's father is the real husband of Jin Ho-gyeong (the Jin mother) before he was soul-shifted (sometime before Jin Cho-yeon was conceived).

But Master Lee had attained Hwansu, so I guess the only way Jin Mu and his co-conspirators could do something similar is by using the Ice Stone, which they didn't have before Bu-Yeon found it.

Anyway, I've given up on theorizing and am now just along for the ride :)