Can’t say what happened to Si Won’s father (who is dead and only serves as a reason Si Won resents her mom)…
I appreciate your thoughts, I just wish we could do more than theorize about why some things happened and what MIGHT’VE happened if certain things were suggested or attempted, yk? I enjoy ambiguity and making space for interpretation, but I also think there’s such a thing as TOO MUCH ambiguity.
Of all your proposed explanations, the one I’m most skeptical about is how Si Won provoked the Forces of Evil (or whatever). I was under the impression that what transformed the app into an occult weapon was Hye Ryung’s death—the ritual of the act combined with her innate spirituality. Si Won then reinforced the curse by making a dying wishing for it to continue. But let’s say it all started before that, with Si Won developing the app… Why? The legend of using a Saju to make wishes was already a thing and was likely utilized to wish ill upon others before, why would attaching it to some code and making a video suddenly imbue it with so much power? Because Si Won was already being stalked by the thing that latched onto her father (I still want to know how HE got tangled up with such a thing and why he married a shaman if he was so intolerant of her practice)? Because she’s a shaman’s daughter? Because she tested it on someone with extraordinary gifts? It’s not so much that I can’t invent a solution, but that I can invent too many. I find that especially problematic when it comes to the origins of the curse, because that’s literally the basis for entire show to build on. That, at least, should be more substantial.
When it comes to Hye Ryung’s suicide—I can buy WHAT was done, but I struggle to believe that a single bullying incident would be enough to push someone with no previously established suicidal ideation to slit their own throat. That’s such a brutal way to take yourself out, and it feels disproportionate to the severity of the cause. She wasn’t ostracized and tormented for weeks or months—she was betrayed and publicly humiliated ONCE. The amount of stress one would have to be under to override the brain’s instinctual defense of the jugular would have to be IMMENSE. Teenager or not, going to such lengths as a first resort is so nonsensical it’s almost an insult to the intelligence of characters that are only a few years shy of being able to VOTE. But. That doesn’t mean this progression of events can’t work. They could’ve stretched the bullying out more, with it escalating over a period of time, or (I prefer this actually), they could’ve fleshed out the entity that had it out for Si Won’s bloodline. Maybe her mom had been holding it at bay all this time, even resorting to forbidden rites to protect Si Won. But, with Hye Ryung’s help, they unwittingly created a crack in the window of opportunity for the entity to flex its influence. This entity fanned sparks of resentment and betrayal into a forest fire—that’s why things escalated so quickly. Maybe this entity could’ve even been partly responsible for Si Won’s volatility and aversion to going home. Maybe her discomfort was an extension of the ENTITY’S discomfort with being exposed to a sacred space. Listen, idk. I’m just spitballing here, but something like this would’ve provided more clarity without requiring much more screen time, it would’ve made Si Won and Hye Ryung feel more sympathetic without total absolution, and it hints at WHY Girigo isn’t gone for good: This didn’t start with Si Won and Hye Ryung, so it can’t end with them either. They were just pawns, and even though THEY are gone, the entity that was using them isn’t. And after 3 years of harvesting the souls of Si Won’s victims, it’s stronger than it has been in centuries. Or something.
Anyway, I agree with you that wishing for the cycle to end or bringing the wishers to Ha Young wouldn’t have worked. It’s more about the principle of refusing to acknowledge the option. Have the characters suggest or even attempt something that is shot down or fails. Give them hope, then make them confront uncomfortable questions, only for the execution to yield nothing more than guilt or despair—or have them put a pin in it as a last resort because they all want to survive together. Have them split up to try to track their friends down and bring them to Ha Young, only to hit a dead end, or follow the trail back to where the final boss is anyway. The best storytellers don’t ignore questions they can’t answer or common sense troubleshooting that might complicate the trajectory of the story. They make space for their characters to explore their options, and then they systematically take those options away to progress the plot in the intended direction. THAT’S how you show respect for your characters and viewers.
And, lastly (bc this has gotten way too long lol)… Conceptually, I don’t mind that Se A ISN’T a special snowflake. The Chosen One trope is, admittedly, so overdone it’s tough to do without it feeling cheap, and there is something deliciously tragic about a character that could’ve been spared the misfortune if they just… hadn’t bumped into that person, or hadn’t missed that bus, or hadn’t cut their finger on that talisman, etc. It could’ve happened to anyone. The thing with Se A is that she didn’t FEEL like just anyone to me—I kept getting the sense that, while every other member of the friend group could’ve been swapped out for someone else, Se A was always going to be there. The others were just meteoroids hijacked by the Girigo’s gravitational pull, but Se A was already in its orbit. That’s what I thought the narrative was hinting at, so when no existing connection was revealed, I was a little confused by the mixed signals 🤷♀️
I fail to see how portraying the reality of sex work is male gaze. It's meant to be uncomfortable that's the whole…
It’s dubious because they villainized a self-proclaimed “feminist” character to critique voluntary sex work. There are ways to explore the addictive and destructive nature of self-commodification for validation, but how episode 4 chose to do it comes dangerously close to reducing sexually-liberated and body-positive women to tragically misguided girls who just don’t know what’s best for themselves. Plus, when you take the whole franchise metanarrative into consideration, having Nanno target Blossom likens the actions of (basically) an OF creator to the crimes of rapists, pedophiles, and murderers. Which is just…. a grossly imbalanced and tactless comparison, intentional or not. Personally, I resent the insinuation that a woman’s salacity is a sin as severe as abuse, predation, and lethal violence.
So you can still do magic without spiritual veins but only on a basic level. Having spiritual veins gives someone…
See, yes. If that’s the case, I can accept that. Absolutely power corrupts absolutely and all that. I just find it crazy that we’re sitting here, this far in, and all we have is speculation lmao
So you can still do magic without spiritual veins but only on a basic level. Having spiritual veins gives someone…
Okay, yeah. Ji Bozai’s GMD was the only GMD in existence. Cool. Why do half these characters care, though? Especially those who already have spiritual veins. Situ’s motivation makes sense—he wants to grow spiritual veins. Ming Yi’s motivation also makes sense—she’s been poisoned by HG, and GMD is the cure. There’s a brief mention that the GMD can help an immortal ascend to the next cultivation stage. Is THAT why so many people want it? Is there an immortal out there who has ascended to the final stage before godhood and they need the GMD to help them become all-powerful, or something? Or maybe the antagonists want the GMD to destroy it, because if anyone obtained it and managed to reproduce it wholesale, that would topple their world order. That would make sense and also make for a fun twist. My point is—based on what we’ve been told about HG and GMD up until now (I’m up to date on the Netflix releases. If there are more episodes out elsewhere, I haven’t seen them yet), the GMD just doesn’t sound enticing enough to warrant how many different factions want it. If anything, HG sounds the most attractive because anyone who secures a monopoly over it can use it to sabotage their opponents and seize power. It’s the ultimate trump card, but no one seems half as interested in HG as GMD. Whyyyyyyyy?????? If GMD is that overpowered, tell us what makes it overpowered. If it’s actually NOT that overpowered, the protagonists should question what their enemies want to use it for, no??? I feel like I’m missing something 😭😭😭
Imma be honest y’all, I do not understand why the GMD is such a big deal. What exactly does it DO beyond grow spiritual veins and cure Heavenly Grief? What do spiritual veins enable someone to do that they cannot do without them? We’re told Situ doesn’t have spiritual veins, but we also see him use some type of magic on numerous occasions. Where exactly is the line between what someone can do without spiritual veins vs what they can do with? And if Heavenly Grief has already been circulated and presumably done damage, would that damage not be cancelled out by circulating GMD wide-scale? By enabling everyone who wants spiritual veins to grow them, would it not end the classism? If someone dangerous tries to abuse their newfound powers, could they not put those nail things in them that suppress spiritual veins? It feels like the mundane analogy for this situation is formulating a virus and its cure, the virus causing an outbreak, and then the virologist responsible going “Well, the virus broke containment. Guess we gotta destroy the cure now.” HUH???????? I’m so confused. And what’s the significance of it being it being called the Golden MILLET Dream? Does it look like a millet seed? Is it culturally symbolic?? Please explain.
Okay, y’all. Can someone do me a solid and let me know if/when the leads stop acting like a couple of teenagers? Cause as cute as puppy love can be… I just don’t find it cute when all involved parties are literally thousands of years old. And please tell me the FL grows out of this stubborn/clumsy/quirky phase. I’m so burned out on that character archetype rn. I just need to know if these elements mellow out enough to keep watching
nexxt season of PD when? i need more fabricated drama and new bops of winning group. im BEGGING you, mnet!
There probably won’t be one. After the voting manipulation scandal, the PD franchise has likely come to end. Mnet tried to redeem themselves with Girls Planet 999, but it was lower budget, featured even MORE evil editing, and failed to attract even a fraction of PD48’s viewership. Supposedly there’s going to be a Boys Planet sequel, but unless it completely blows up, I suspect it might be Mnet’s last survival show for a while. Even without the scandal, the Korean public is losing interest in this genre due to over saturation.
On the bright side, Chinese survival shows are taking off. In fact, one of my favs is Youth With You (season 2 is the gg version). If you haven’t seen that, I highly recommend!
A question for those who have finished this: But first, a quick explanation… Back in the day, I dropped more dramas than I finished. Sometimes I wasn’t impressed or lost interest, others I just got distracted by a new shiny thing and never came back to what was left unfinished. These days, I’ve done a complete 180. I force myself to finish nearly everything, no matter how much it makes me want to trip over a knife.
I’m trying to find a happy medium.
I started The Untamed last year but stopped before halfway because I noticed I was having to force myself to continue. Does it improve in the second half, or should I just cut my losses and accept that this one just isn’t gonna do it for me?
The freshies and sophomores were done dirty by being given that song! Like one of the comments said below, hot…
They definitely could’ve offered the S&F’s a better song than “Hot Sauce,” but given that pitting “Décalcomanie” against “I” was also unfair, I think it sort of balances out. Not only is “Décalcomanie” a much higher energy song than “I” on sound alone, but “I” is a stationary song. Not even Taeyeon herself performs choreography to it. I mean, it’s technically pop-rock, but she delivers it like a ballad. In the end, whatever team selected these songs sabotaged both alliances.
Of all your proposed explanations, the one I’m most skeptical about is how Si Won provoked the Forces of Evil (or whatever). I was under the impression that what transformed the app into an occult weapon was Hye Ryung’s death—the ritual of the act combined with her innate spirituality. Si Won then reinforced the curse by making a dying wishing for it to continue.
But let’s say it all started before that, with Si Won developing the app…
Why? The legend of using a Saju to make wishes was already a thing and was likely utilized to wish ill upon others before, why would attaching it to some code and making a video suddenly imbue it with so much power? Because Si Won was already being stalked by the thing that latched onto her father (I still want to know how HE got tangled up with such a thing and why he married a shaman if he was so intolerant of her practice)? Because she’s a shaman’s daughter? Because she tested it on someone with extraordinary gifts?
It’s not so much that I can’t invent a solution, but that I can invent too many. I find that especially problematic when it comes to the origins of the curse, because that’s literally the basis for entire show to build on. That, at least, should be more substantial.
When it comes to Hye Ryung’s suicide—I can buy WHAT was done, but I struggle to believe that a single bullying incident would be enough to push someone with no previously established suicidal ideation to slit their own throat. That’s such a brutal way to take yourself out, and it feels disproportionate to the severity of the cause. She wasn’t ostracized and tormented for weeks or months—she was betrayed and publicly humiliated ONCE. The amount of stress one would have to be under to override the brain’s instinctual defense of the jugular would have to be IMMENSE. Teenager or not, going to such lengths as a first resort is so nonsensical it’s almost an insult to the intelligence of characters that are only a few years shy of being able to VOTE.
But.
That doesn’t mean this progression of events can’t work. They could’ve stretched the bullying out more, with it escalating over a period of time, or (I prefer this actually), they could’ve fleshed out the entity that had it out for Si Won’s bloodline. Maybe her mom had been holding it at bay all this time, even resorting to forbidden rites to protect Si Won. But, with Hye Ryung’s help, they unwittingly created a crack in the window of opportunity for the entity to flex its influence. This entity fanned sparks of resentment and betrayal into a forest fire—that’s why things escalated so quickly. Maybe this entity could’ve even been partly responsible for Si Won’s volatility and aversion to going home. Maybe her discomfort was an extension of the ENTITY’S discomfort with being exposed to a sacred space.
Listen, idk. I’m just spitballing here, but something like this would’ve provided more clarity without requiring much more screen time, it would’ve made Si Won and Hye Ryung feel more sympathetic without total absolution, and it hints at WHY Girigo isn’t gone for good:
This didn’t start with Si Won and Hye Ryung, so it can’t end with them either. They were just pawns, and even though THEY are gone, the entity that was using them isn’t. And after 3 years of harvesting the souls of Si Won’s victims, it’s stronger than it has been in centuries.
Or something.
Anyway, I agree with you that wishing for the cycle to end or bringing the wishers to Ha Young wouldn’t have worked. It’s more about the principle of refusing to acknowledge the option.
Have the characters suggest or even attempt something that is shot down or fails. Give them hope, then make them confront uncomfortable questions, only for the execution to yield nothing more than guilt or despair—or have them put a pin in it as a last resort because they all want to survive together. Have them split up to try to track their friends down and bring them to Ha Young, only to hit a dead end, or follow the trail back to where the final boss is anyway.
The best storytellers don’t ignore questions they can’t answer or common sense troubleshooting that might complicate the trajectory of the story. They make space for their characters to explore their options, and then they systematically take those options away to progress the plot in the intended direction. THAT’S how you show respect for your characters and viewers.
And, lastly (bc this has gotten way too long lol)…
Conceptually, I don’t mind that Se A ISN’T a special snowflake. The Chosen One trope is, admittedly, so overdone it’s tough to do without it feeling cheap, and there is something deliciously tragic about a character that could’ve been spared the misfortune if they just… hadn’t bumped into that person, or hadn’t missed that bus, or hadn’t cut their finger on that talisman, etc.
It could’ve happened to anyone.
The thing with Se A is that she didn’t FEEL like just anyone to me—I kept getting the sense that, while every other member of the friend group could’ve been swapped out for someone else, Se A was always going to be there. The others were just meteoroids hijacked by the Girigo’s gravitational pull, but Se A was already in its orbit.
That’s what I thought the narrative was hinting at, so when no existing connection was revealed, I was a little confused by the mixed signals 🤷♀️
I just find it crazy that we’re sitting here, this far in, and all we have is speculation lmao
Why do half these characters care, though? Especially those who already have spiritual veins.
Situ’s motivation makes sense—he wants to grow spiritual veins. Ming Yi’s motivation also makes sense—she’s been poisoned by HG, and GMD is the cure.
There’s a brief mention that the GMD can help an immortal ascend to the next cultivation stage. Is THAT why so many people want it? Is there an immortal out there who has ascended to the final stage before godhood and they need the GMD to help them become all-powerful, or something?
Or maybe the antagonists want the GMD to destroy it, because if anyone obtained it and managed to reproduce it wholesale, that would topple their world order. That would make sense and also make for a fun twist.
My point is—based on what we’ve been told about HG and GMD up until now (I’m up to date on the Netflix releases. If there are more episodes out elsewhere, I haven’t seen them yet), the GMD just doesn’t sound enticing enough to warrant how many different factions want it. If anything, HG sounds the most attractive because anyone who secures a monopoly over it can use it to sabotage their opponents and seize power. It’s the ultimate trump card, but no one seems half as interested in HG as GMD.
Whyyyyyyyy??????
If GMD is that overpowered, tell us what makes it overpowered. If it’s actually NOT that overpowered, the protagonists should question what their enemies want to use it for, no???
I feel like I’m missing something 😭😭😭
And if Heavenly Grief has already been circulated and presumably done damage, would that damage not be cancelled out by circulating GMD wide-scale? By enabling everyone who wants spiritual veins to grow them, would it not end the classism? If someone dangerous tries to abuse their newfound powers, could they not put those nail things in them that suppress spiritual veins?
It feels like the mundane analogy for this situation is formulating a virus and its cure, the virus causing an outbreak, and then the virologist responsible going “Well, the virus broke containment. Guess we gotta destroy the cure now.”
HUH????????
I’m so confused.
And what’s the significance of it being it being called the Golden MILLET Dream? Does it look like a millet seed? Is it culturally symbolic?? Please explain.
(I’m on ep 23 btw)
(But ty, I’ll hold out for the next arc)
And please tell me the FL grows out of this stubborn/clumsy/quirky phase. I’m so burned out on that character archetype rn. I just need to know if these elements mellow out enough to keep watching
On the bright side, Chinese survival shows are taking off. In fact, one of my favs is Youth With You (season 2 is the gg version). If you haven’t seen that, I highly recommend!
But first, a quick explanation… Back in the day, I dropped more dramas than I finished. Sometimes I wasn’t impressed or lost interest, others I just got distracted by a new shiny thing and never came back to what was left unfinished. These days, I’ve done a complete 180. I force myself to finish nearly everything, no matter how much it makes me want to trip over a knife.
I’m trying to find a happy medium.
I started The Untamed last year but stopped before halfway because I noticed I was having to force myself to continue. Does it improve in the second half, or should I just cut my losses and accept that this one just isn’t gonna do it for me?