yuna

Patbingsu and Mochi <3

Goblin is the reason why I'm watching K-Drama again. I contemplated why it felt so pleasant watching the series and now I think I have the answer. When I was little I watched Boys Over Flowers, Goong and Winter Sonata with my family but honestly I couldn't deal with the bullying, betrayal, misunderstandings and dragging melo-aspects (it felt very sufficating for me), so I avoided Kdramas for over a decade. But Goblin is devoid of the typical antagonists in Kdramas, like disapproving/bullying mother-in-law, scheming ex/love-rival, greedy mangement members trying to overtake the company etc, who are usually causing most of the conflict (in Goblin there is only the laughable aunt's family and very later a real "enemy"). The "higher power" aside, neither of the two main leads have their family and social obligations/expectations breathing down on them, so it was kind of refreshing seeing the two explore and develop their relationship at their own pace.

I totally welcome the new trend because I cringed everytime when a condescending jerk whose only "redeeming" feature is his money/good looks, coupled with cliché plot deviced like accident/amnesia/mean mother-in-law etc, is treating the poor heroine like crap "because he doesn't know how to express himself" - for me, that's not an excuse. It creates a power imbalance in the relationship which often puts the heroine in a position where she is vulnerable to bad treatment/bullying. I mean, if the jerkish main guy wasn't a model chaebol, nobody would look twice at him. If you take away money, appearance and status, then you see a pitiful husk. I'm korean but I don't like the materialistic value system of our country - so perhaps it might be a personal opinion but I rather prefer main leads who might be poor but are hard-working and have intrinsic value like wholeheartedly loving the heroine.

Interesting concept with time traveling and butterfly effects but I really couldn't connect with the two main leads. In my opinion PSW is either being angsty or a selfish jerk, totally unreliable and abandoning his friend most of the time, while JMY is annoyingly immature, self-centered, whiny and obnoxious.

Does anybody know which timeframe it plays? Because technically it should be ten years in the past but in episode 7 it said "2017 college entrance exam" and the cinema movie "train to busan" was also released 2016.