Thecla

So do I have this right?? Season 1 was Jang Uk's romance with Naksu's soul in Bu-Yeon's body, and Season 2 will be about Jang Uk's romance with Bu-Yeon's soul in Naksu's body? With poor old Seo Yul left aside in both cases, and Naksu's soul /Bu-Yeon's body both destroyed at the end of Season 1?

Didn't know about Chef Hua before, so I'm glad to learn about it. As an off topic comment, the much lower budget J-Drama Isekai Izakaya Nobu (25min eps) is sort of similar: lots of great cooking and anytime it seems like things are going to go wrong they work out well instead.

Ashes of Love :)

If this is to do with the (notoriously deceptive) preview for Ep 20, I'd be a bit cautious about taking literally the cuts bewteen Jin Mu ringing a bell and Mu Deok rising from her bed.

Not to claim Jin Mu hasn't figured out that Mu Deok is Naksu (the mystery is more about how there's anyone who hasn't figured that out).

It's hard to know how exact Park Jin is being about the "20 years ago."

In terms of causality, I think it has to go: (1) Jang Kang acquires AoS spells from Shaman Choi fire; (2) Jang Kang gets ice stone from Mamma Jin to revive Bu Yeon; (3) Jang Kang soul-shifts with the King and Jang Uk is born.

Why/how/when Mamma Jin and the Choi brother get together is still very unclear to me (and doesn't make much sense atm). I also think that Mamma Jin wasn't married, or in any relationship, with the utterly unsuitable Brother Choi when Jang Kang caught Shaman Choi. Which is why Mamma Jin couldn't have been pregnant at the time (we know Papa Jin is the real father of Bu Yeon).

Anyway, as you say, we'll find out the answers in a few hours (or, perhaps, four+ months).

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?).