logiquement

"sometimes i'll even check out the watchlist for people who gave poor ratings"
Wait that's so smart hahaha, I'll start doing that too! I hope you like my watchlist then. Some are not even accurate because I watched them a while a go when my standards were a little lower.

"like boys over flowers"
noooo, how dare you? This kdrama belongs to sewer please T_T
I feel like romance is fine if it's well dosed. One thing I hate is when they introduce romance in a show that is not about romance and then romance starts to take a big part of the screen time. I didn't sign up for this! I agree that romance is not bad if you go for romance from the get go and it's mature.
Sometimes I'll go for romance and be surprised by depth and that's when I like romance the most. And it's actually rare in kdramas so I agree with you on the corny comment.
For exemple The red sleeve that came out in 2022, I only checked it because it's a historical drama and so far I seem to enjoy them + the actors didn't look like teenagers so I thought "ok, that's more on the adult side". I knew it would be about romance but the depth they gave to the main female character is what made me love the drama. I love that they didn't compromise the woman she was until the end. I wouldn't have expected that from a kdrama. I see that it's not on your list so I won't spoil if you ever give it a shot, but a certain level of feminism is not what I expected to see when I started it.

"i've been branching out to other asian thrillers since it seems like i only really enjoy 1 or 2 kdramas a year lately"
You and I both, they just don't seem to be willing to pay good writters for some reason.
I added a couple of your highest rated cdramas on my watching list so I'll be watching them asap ! I'll let you know!
I don't know much about chinese productions but one of the movies that marked the most is chinese (Better days; yes I seem to have something with bullying but not in a weird way, I promise....), so I hope I'll love chinese dramas.

"someone will reply back saying it's an issue of taste"
yeahh haha and then they say that they weren't particularly bothered by what you are poiting out. If it's a small thing, sure, but when it's a huge plot hole or something, how can you not be bothered?
The probleme is that there are a lot of people who hype bad dramas because they only recently got in kdramas. Kdramas are very specific to SK so if you come from another country, it usually is something very new to your eyes and you tend to be blown away by anything. They're among the ones who rate bad kdramas 10/10.

So I do literally exactly like you, I usually go to one of my 10/10 kdramas and go on the watchlist of people who rated it 10/10 too to see if they have the same taste than me and then just watch what they rated good lool

"there have been a few times now where i'll watch a highly rated drama only to find out it was complete shit and the people hyping it up were fans of the actors"
I think the worst part is when the actor is not even good and I'm like "the plot is bad, the actor is bad, what are you here for?"
I lost so much time when I got into kdramas because that. All those romance kdramas that are soo highly rated that I gave my time to, still mad about it.
I tend to be wary of popular kdramas now. The last one I have a shot that came ouf this year was Attorney Woo and I regretted it -_-

I never gave cdramas a shot yet, mainly because I wouldn't know where to start and can't lose time like I did when I got into kdramas, but I've seen some movies and they were really good. I might get into it at some point.

"for someone who's had 20 years to plan, there should be no room for error"
exactly ! a whole flat in front of her bully's house full of nothing but photos made it seem like she had this huge perfect plan, but nothing.
I feel like a lot of the incoherent things happening in kdramas still happen because people don't raise their standards and so writers don't care to write things right. MDL is not SK but for exemple here, eveytime someone points out defaults in a drama plot, often than not, people get mad because they were either reaching or being hateful for no reason (?).
It's not surprising when you see the kind of popular dramas on this site, the plots are usually empty.

Honestly I don't mind her being with the bully's husband if it means not being with that kid actor that looks like he's 20 years younger than her T_T

lmaoo I literally commented that she relied too much on luck a few days ago on the glory mdl page and had someone try to convince me that she didn't, like, so many part of her plans is just going her way not because she made sure it does but just because she was lucky that it did

it's always like that lol

Because the plan was bland (so far). They introduced her planning her revenge for years and then most of her plan so far is spying in the present and getting outside help + a bit of luck, rather than having things gathered and prepared for years. You'd expect more from someone who's been preparing for years. She seems unprepared and depends on a lot of external factors or external help. And so far she did nothing apart coming back in their lives and scaring her old bullies (who all becam pushovers over the years for some reason when they used to be the most cruel people she could have meet).

Actor and actresses who refuse to take on roles fit for their ages are ridiculous af. Song Joong-ki also went and played a teenager and then college student at his grown age in his last drama, it was ridiculous how much they smoothed his skin for it.

Hard hard agree. Had I watched the glory after TKOP I could have enjoyed it better but because I saw TKOP first, all I see is defaults in her plan and things that don't make sense....

"him going with the plan or not didn't affect her plan that much because what she needs was the hair"
Without him she wouldn't have had the DNA and if she could have then why didn't she use another way ? He also gave her Sa ra's book which she used to leverage her. He was useful to her plan. All those years of planning all this relied on one of her ex bully's cooperation? It's not very elaborate to me.
"He has always want to be more but he can't, she gives him the outlet"
Again, I know that, the writers did their job to explain those things perfectly, but it's still dumb luck. They allowed her to have him on her corner.

"what she aimed is the feeling is hopelessness"
I didn't state in in my original comment but I'll say it here, the difference between young YJ and adult YJ is also too out of character for me. No way did that scary bully turned into that pushover would get anxious that easily. Someone this cruel just doesn't change that much just because she got older. You would expect her to be even more cunning actually. She killed a girl, tortured others, no way would she feel hopelessness just because an old victim is back. She's someone who believes money can solve any-thing. All she had to do was transfer her daughter and call her bluff.

"Also this is 1st part"
which is why I said "so far" in my original comment, I'm waiting to see the rest to be able to fully judge the story. There are other points that bother me but I'll wait to see what they do with is before making a full judgement.

"no contingencies means it more based on luck"
No contigency means full control, nothing else can happend apart from what you planned. No ifs, no other possibilities. Meaning no luck. A lot of things could have gones different ways, it didn't, because of luck, not because of control.

"Not to mention this drama isn't even over yet people compare it to a fully aired drama."
You asked be to develop my point and I did, it's your pick. I also wrote "so far", because again, waiting for part 2 to fully judge.

Exactly!
You'd think that after planning for so long she would have make sure to have controle over everything but no. So many things can happen that could make whatever plan she has go south. And I'm just left thinking "all those years of planning for it to still be a plan in the making?". If you plan for years, I'd expect no room for errors, no room for the "victims" to change their fate. And why have everyone believe Myeong did it just to let them all know it was her like 2 days after?

" I don't get why she had to insert herself into Do Young's life with Go"
I honestly have a lot of questions myself but since part 2 hasn't aired, I wanted to wait to see what explanations they will give us on some part of the plot, but yeah, that's one of those. If your point was to send him a picture of the two of you (for what?) just to tell him your story, you didn't have to learn to play Go for that. And again, the point of Myeong here ? To mess with the others maybe, but him? He doesn't even know him. It's anticlimatic. To let us believe that learning the game for years was for like this great purpose just for it to be over after 3 meetings ??
My problem is that they showed us years of planning for very disapointing results so far.

Don't take it the wrong way but I haven't read all of it because like I said in my first comment, I'm not saying there are not explanation to those things, I watched the drama so I know how the writters explained them.
But it doesn't change the fact that a lot of her plan falls on convenience.
The plot was written that way.
Like, the tattooed guy, we know why she went to him, he was the most likely to betray them but it was out of convenience that they wrote a character that could break so easily. But what if he didn't? What if the main bully changed her daughter from school in the middle of the school year, which she can because they have money, then what? She might not find leverage on the next director, then what? Like I said, what if the daughter was indeed the husband's, then what? If the mother of the steward's boyfriend didn't take a liking in her, then what ? The revenge plan and how it's going is too smooth to me and relies a lot on external variables that could or not go her way. There shouldn't be any "ifs". If there are, things should go south at some point. If not, then it's luck. The plot is just written that way and it's not a preference of mine. Explaning something by plot doesn't mean it's not luck. If there is always someone to save a hero, the plot explains it but it still makes the hero lucky. You have different ways of writting a story. I thing they made it easy for her is all.
I'm not saying there should be no luck in someone's revenge plan, I do aknowledge a certain level of luck in TKOP for exemple, but the plot was straightforward, they were bullies, so they died, period. You can't mess that sort of easy revenge plot.

"I am not saying that she is unlucky but it feels like your post didn't acknowledge how much she plan everything and stand through the hardship to get where she is right now."

I didn't say she didn't plan everything. She even did it for years so that's remarkable, but years of planing, again, should have no contingencies imo. Maybe it's because she planned for years that I expected her to have more control over her plan ? Maybe that's why I'm disapointed a bit. But I still enjoyed the show, don't get me wrong haha.

She worked hard to get to the same school as the daughter, had they changed her school there is nothing she could have done. Yes she told the mother to not do it beause she would follow but that's not sure.
She got the tattooed guy on her side when he could have said no and tell the others. The daughter not being the husband's biological is all luck, it's the main piece of her plan I think and had he been the father, then what?
She got lucky that the husband didn't stop going to that game place she met him and didn't stop playing all together. It's also convenient that she was so good at it even though she played against people who played all their lives.
She was lucky that she got caught snooping by a woman who needed something too and didn't tell on her.
I'm not saying there are not explanation to those things, obivously the writters made it so that way, but it's very convenient for her plan that a lot of "external" variables go her way.
In the king of pigs there is little place for luck, everything is made so that things go exactly how they are suppose to go. The main leaves no room to luck or external help that hasn't been there for a long time. So I couldn't help but compare.

lmao he said "all in"

So far, in term of revenge for bullying, The king of pigs did it way better. In the glory, a lot of the main lead's plan relies on her luck.

Here to remind you to go watch the grown up (and better) version of this show that the The King of pigs is!

The CGI in part 2 was a bit off so I assumed the budget might not have increased from part 1 to part 2.
There were a lot of unnecessary scenes so I think they could have squeezed other important things, one episode lasts more than one hour. But they focused a lot on the love story because that was the main plot. The rest was extra and it shows. I think they didn't want to go too far away from yor typical kdramas love story concept.

Exatcly! They find ways to build a lot of expectations around a lot of plot points and characters and did not deliver, the endig felt flat.

I agree, and a lot of discussions, things that have been implied, hints etc... have never been brought up again. What was the point of pointing out the fact that Jang Uk had the power to make Naksu stay if it's never explored again? It's feels like they led us into thinking a lot was going to happen when nothing happend.

"then you don't want anyone to produce a fantasy drama that isn't from the west"
where did I say that? You can't make people forget the other productions from other countries they watch. You opinions are based on everything you watch. I can't lower my standards just because I'm watching something from another part of the world lol.
Making a beautiful show is not enough, the plot has to follow and imo it didn't. Fantasy is a hard genre to write in the west or in asia, it doesn't matter. If it's bad, it's bad.
You're also acting like fantasy belongs to the west, talking about "korea learning" when the problem is just the writters doing something that they were not ready for.

The reality is, if one puts the beautiful decor and outfits and CGI aside...the plot is actually pretty weak. I won't be talking about everything that was wrong because there is too much and I'm tired.
Jin mu deserved to be a better antagonist than they let him be. It seems like all of his escapes in both parts were due to luck when he had the potential to be such a good vilain with enough brain to get away with everything he did through cunning and planning, and yet they just made him lucky and ridiculous some times.

Then the fire bird thing was...laughable honestly lol. They wanted to do something very epic (as one would expected in fantasy) but...what was that ? So anticlimatic. They just don't know how to do fantasy right imo and it showed. Then and also at other times honestly.
The way Naksu kept on coming back/not dying was also anticlimatic, and let's not talk about the 3 dead that were in fact not dead in the end. What was the point ??
I feel like anticlimatic is the word to describe this part 2.


I'm sorry but you can't just ignore the bad way this fantasy drama was written. It was amazing to watch because the cinematography was really nice (apart from when the assembly was burning in the flames, lmao what was that?), but the plot was all over the place. Fantasy is a real work of world and plot building, not everyone can do it. I get that they wanted to do something different and that's nice because I'm one to enjoy new directions for kdramas, but to come right after those big fantasy shows that the west gave us at the end of 2022 really didn't do them any service. The writing just is not at the same level and there is too much to just be able to ignore it.