Episode 15 (the Penultimate of the series) is queued up and waiting for me to hit play....
Now, heading into this.....
Soo and his fake dad are applying horrible pressure on our female lead to do what they want her to. The sad part is it is not a lie...At this point, she has a nobleman's name and is living with him pretending to be his dead daughter. His family name and respect are on the line. The king's reputation and strength are on the line since he has opening picked her. And with all the maneuvering by all the evil people in the court, her not showing up would likely put a target on a lot of peoples heads.
She did choose to pretend to be a noble woman and did apply for the royal court and thus yes is now stuck with that responsibility....no matter how much her heart and our main lead want otherwise.....Sorry.
Of course it still makes Soo into a power overlord dick too. So glad he can sleep at night.
Our Tall drink of water Do Joon has been basically missing in action. We know he learned that the woman (Who he told was meeting in secret with the king and was preselected to be the king's bride) has used that information against all of them...and has not cared about it or admitted that he was the one that gave it to her. He also has learned that she had been the master to our female leads enslaved brother and using him as a bargaining chip and that now that she is angry and losing, sold the brother off to work the "mines." He goes and pays double to get the brother back...I'm guessing this is supposed to redeem him and his actions......but we haven't spent any time with him and I get the feeling that he is not going to care that she did this and still be in love with her.....
So yeah, he's likely still dead to me as a character.
Now our short kinda chubby probably gay matchmaker and the heaps of backstory we are now getting here at the end to try and justify his character and the actions he is about to take....
Sorry writers, sorry fans, sorry to the other characters that will probably in the end let him get away with this....BUT FUCK NO.....
Your actions are yours. Again, for the sake of plot he tells no one what is going on...even though they are supposed to be like a family and always help each other and out maneuver the bad guys. Instead he is staying silent and working actively against everyone else on the show....BECAUSE OF HIS BACKSTORY. Yeah that is called manipulation. To try and justify actions BEFORE they happen with sudden tragic background......
Now, he hasn't done it yet, and it could be one of those things, where off-screen he has told the others what is happening and they have come up with a plan that we will watch unfold and then have flashbacks showing us how he chose right...But that is really the only way this can go to have his character have any type of worth at this point....Maybe him dying to save someone.....but if it goes any other way.....then....
He is also a worthless character...at least I didn't like him from the start.
Hoon...yay for finally telling someone about your dad. I guess that means you are done with the situation....I'm sure those wrist wounds on the assassin are long healed....
Not looking forward to the bad action sequence that must be coming. All of them have been horrible in this show and are very very bad blights on the production value....I cringe every time someone is supposed to be fighting.
Yeah...so I'm guessing everything will go wrong in this episode 15 and then everything will be made right in the last episode 16 with everyone who isn't dead being forgiven......
I'm just guess...its how all these dramas seem to go....
This show is, so far, (I'm finishing ep. 12) very forgiving and more interested in the plights of the male characters.
People on here liked Do Joon, even his MDL profile uses this role as Byeon Woo Seok's jump to spotlight and fame in his profile description. But his character is a very awful human being. In the beginning I thought he was playfully, fun, kind and open minded.
But I was very wrong.
The show has turned him into a selfish, unloyal, narcissist that falls for a "pretty" woman just because she won't give him the time of day like all the other girls do no matter how awful of a human being she is. He has an excuse for everything she does and sees her heinous acts as understandable. Which considering he uses everyone around him without guilt makes sense. (Like the courtesans proving that he never considered them actual people but props to give him information and have sex with and now he is tossing them aside with no moral problems.) He judges women based on his mother, which magically changed into false memories and he was actually the monster that broke her heart not the other way around. And now, that the "pretty" woman he wants has rebuffed him, to get in her good graces he throws the rest of the Flower Crew and especially our female lead under the bus. Giving this evil character "pretty" woman information and fuel to destroy the king and our female lead, as well cause our female leads brother to be sold off as a slave. WHILE, the Flower crew and our female lead are actively trying to prove our female leads nobility to this very woman.......
Its fucking monstrous and ridiculous...and people still like him. I can't stand him at all.
And then Soo....
Our female lead is like begging at his feet and being honest with him and crying and pleading because she loves someone else, and he is getting angry and I think is about to pull his king rank and be a true asshole....
Does anyone remember that he up and disappeared, ruining her reputation, and leaving her in huge debt, not to mention alone and heartbroken on her wedding day?
That he was missing for months.......and when he shows back up he lies to her and gives her an excuse that he is an aristocrat and that is why he left her at the alter and has been MIA for I dunno how long. As if this was an actual viable excuse and explanation. Even as she stands here confessing her love for someone else, he still does not tell her the truth...
And I'm supposed to feel bad for him? I mean, I get it, his life hasn't been roses either. But if not for the man she is now in love with....then her life would have been a living hell.......mostly due to him.
Why does no one see this? Why is she so in the wrong? How can anyone honestly expect her to remarry a man who left her at the alter, disappeared, and his been lying to her ever since?
Why is Ma Hoon not telling anyone anything? Why is he not helping take his father down? He claims he wants to protect Gae Ddong but how is anything that he is doing protecting her? Instead he just seems to be putting her in more danger and is leaving his father in a powerful position that is terrorizing not only the king but almost everyone around him, not to mention putting everyone's lives in danger...... Literally he knows his father even put out a hit on his aunt when she wouldn't give her daughter over for marriage. He knows his father has assassins running around killing people.....
I mean, I love him, and he is my favorite character in the show....but I'm ignoring a lot of his behavior and weird story/plot line choices in order to do so....because these things make him a pretty terrible person as well.
So, I've been letting so many things slide. Like so many ridiculous things in an attempt to keep this show going…
Ummmm..........
Our male lead now knows:
1) His father just killed at the minimum the crowned prince of the kingdom.
2) That he also has killed others, including his own brother, and is forcing his aunt into being a forever widow to gain the prestige of the 3 gate family.
3) That his father is actively hunting the girl he is falling for to gain leverage over the newly appointed King. A king he pulled from the wedding that destroyed our female lead and has caused her great pain and heartache.....
And it seems his answer is to not tell anyone....
BUT instead to secretly marry our female lead off to the king. Because....why? Is it supposed to make her safe? Because our second lead lives in constant fear and danger as the king and has no power and is constantly spied upon....his father already killed the prince.....so making her queen will do what exactly except put in the snake pit that is the palace and in constant danger........
BTW, is this show made for teenage girls, adults, or general audiences? Because there is techno kpop music all over the place when this is set in ancient times.
And how many days passed before they started counting the 3 days the bad guy had to find the woman for the gate. Because even at the end of the episode they still had 3 days left.
AND HOW CLOSE IS THIS TOWN TO THE MAIN PALACE? I mean if the army general was hiding with a secret heir to the kingdom and no one has known where he was for 20 years.....is seems he was just outside the palace doors in the surrounding town.....because everyone travels to and from the palace during the course of day like it is right around the corner.
So, I've been letting so many things slide. Like so many ridiculous things in an attempt to keep this show going and not give up....
But really, Soo comes back and says:
"Unknown family showed up and told me I was an aristocrat" and our female lead just accepts this as an excuse and explanation.
That he disappeared on their wedding day.
That he went all but missing with no one knowing where he was and left her checking bodies in the morgue for a corpse.
That she hasn't heard from him, in what is now I'm taking months of time.
Oh people told me I was an aristocrat..........
Oh okay!! Cool, I thought it was something bad, yeah I'll wait for you for however long you need so we can get married.........give me a piggy back ride.
Like WTF?
And that tall matchmaker who I thought was a playful sweet playboy....is turning out to be a jerk. Liking a woman who has so far been nothing but ruthless to everyone in her path since we have met her, and openly and brazenly abuses staff, people, and slaves is his love interest. (He's an information broker, he really doesn't know this about her already when she is from one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the kingdom...he must suck at his job because everyone else seems to know it) Someone who is vying to be queen, having him spy information on the king behind his back, and is holding our female lead's brother in the balance as she tries to disgrace the female lead's standing......
While he apparently beds every woman from here to Busan.
And then has the gall to turn around and refuse to help marry a 30 something widow who has lived in solitude for 15 years because her husband died like the moment she married him. That he feels its her place to sit in longing for him forever.....because apparently he has momma issues....
Screw this asshole. I guess short money grubbing superficial matchmaker wasn't the worst after all.....
And why the hell has our female lead not told anyone about finding her brother? Why? Just like seriously why? Why is she not telling why she wants to learn to be a noble woman......What is gained by anyone in her keeping all this to herself? How does it make sense for her to hide this? Here is the poor writing police making the plot have control so they can artificially create drama........yay.
And how can anyone not look at our main characters relationship and the short superficial matchmakers relationship as not homosexual? Really, is this supposed to be comical is that it? The guy is jealous of a girl stealing his time. So our main lead has to go and buy him a perfume pouch and promise that they will spend time together and nothing has changed between them and he means so much to him, more than the girl. Is this normal in straight guys relationships?
Okay, so I've only been watching Kdrama's for about 8 months or so, and this is like my 8th or so attempt at a Joseon story in that time frame. So far I have only finished 3 out of all that I tried.
That 1st completed was the first I tried, and I loved it. But then the second one started out different and then by episode 5 was the same story as the first. Then the 3rd was was the same story in the 1st episode....on and on and on...just a repeat. Every single one just everyone vying for the throne and doing back handed dealings. The people of the court in small groups of power trying to form a coup on the sitting ruler. The sitting ruler powerless to it all. Evil men with beards moaning Jonah in low voices as they stare wickedly at each other........
Now, here is my question, and I really would like it answered because it is starting to grate me to no end, and is one of, if not THE, reason I end up giving up on these stories (Outside of the constant repetition).
Why is anyone wanting to be king?
In every story the king is powerless. Locked in a room with a eunuch and told how severe this situation or dire that situation or how they can't do this or cant do that. In short, the ruler is always just sitting there at the mercy of every other character in the show.
The councilors, or mayors, or generals, or whatever that make up the court are always more powerful than anyone ruling, yet they are all fighting over the throne. It makes no sense.
They can amass secret armies and have assassins, come and go as they please, trap the kings and queens in schemes, have people punished, killed, jailed, tortured, start wars....everything and anything while again, the king can't even go take a poop without their permission let alone even leave the palace grounds under threat they will all be killed. So why are they coveting the spot?
And again, why would anyone want the throne when, if you are to believe all these stores, the kings and princes are all killed right and left and there is a new ruler every other Tuesday.
This show is proving no different. Sold as a matchmaking series dealing with the common people one of which is secretly the son of the king, unbeknownst to him. It is a "comedy" and "romance." But the opening scene is of the king dying and the prince being murdered and now here we are in episode three with one of our leads locked in the throne room with a eunuch being told what he CAN NOT do as a ruler.................................heavy sigh and whatever.
Why doesn't somebody tell him what he CAN do? Because at this point I don't even know what there is left for him to even attempt besides finger painting to pass time. But he better ask permission cause it might cause a mess.
And, he is under threat of life and limb to even leave the palace grounds, yet a concubine accidentally scrapes him and his being tortured with hot pokers for her sins of hurting him. Can someone make up their minds? How is he being openly threatened with death if even touching him will cause you to become publicly scarred for life.
Why is the guy who kidnapped him and knocked him unconscious able to roam free?
Why the hell is our main lead talking to his fake dad? The man lied to him his whole life, and then allowed him to be forced onto the throne when in love and marrying another. He kidnaps him and forces him back to the palace and so far after handing him over to the wolves has made the King (His fake son that he raised) follow every single order those around him have given including hurting others while also denying his "son" the love of his life.
He is basically the worst guy on the face the earth and I hate him far more than any of the evil guys. Selfish and cold hearted and a complete ahole. Who, for the most part seems pretty happy being back at the palace and having down time for arrow practice. I suppose the life of a blacksmith was to tenuous. Yet the king keeps running to him for help and it's so effing frustrating to watch because his answer is always no, you can't do anything, we can't do anything we all will die.
King dude grow a brain and put this douche in your past, or better yet kick him out of the palace and decree that he never lay eyes on you again.
And yes, give the man who is terrorizing you and causing the most pain more power, because fake daddy tells you to.
And outside of the one short kinda chuby matchmaker (who I really don't like and is a winy brat that just degrades the female lead and only cares about money, material objects, and superficial beauty, all the worst qualities in a person) and his annoying cat call soundtrack as he uses wrong words and is shown to be basically stupid. There is no other comedy here.
Everything is pretty damn serious and tragic so far.
I'M ONLY ON EPISODE 3 so don't act like I'm throwing spoilers out here.....
Will the king be a moron for the whole show? Just a powerless, flaccid. and childish do nothing that cries over his situation and begs everyone to help him to no avail. He is either going to end up being bad and following the rule of those around him that will lead to him against the love of his life and a threat to our matchmaking group. Or he is going to end up dead. Or a wimp that finally becomes good like in the last episode and learns to be king. I just do not know if my frustration will allow me to make it to the end and find out....
I have learned that I apparently really enjoy these types of slow burns. A lot of my higher ranked series fall into this tempo.
With that said, I am starting to have issues with how this story is being relayed to me.
I am about to start episode five and I am lost when it comes to the main male lead.
The female lead's story is slowly being poured out to me. The trauma of her past, the actions people have taken against her, the choices she has made. I like this, her character is being pieced together as the story unfolds, and I am expecting to have a full picture by the time its done, warts and all.
However, the main male lead's life is being given in trickles. I have, even at this point in the story, almost nothing to go on when it comes to him. He has a loving family, a book store, insomnia, a life long pining for our female lead, and something in the woods........something.......and all this is really just a sketch outline of a character. Where are his drivers, desires, and deeper understanding?
Even with what little we do know his characters actions do not seem to fit this story. There are really weird moments with him. Like in the woods when he sees our female lead, he watches her and doesn't give her a clue he is there until she runs up on him and his scared. He then is cold towards her, and really odd and uncomfortable, basically brushing her off until the next day where he acts normal again....While there is nothing toxic about this, I would have probably felt uncomfortable enough that I would have left his place before morning and made other arrangements if I wanted to stay in town. It is fine if he wanted to hang out or whatever, but I would no longer want to share a space with him and would put some distance in the relationship.
What did I miss in that interaction from episode 3.....when our female lead asks him why he calls one auntie and the other by their first name? I get the whole honorifics of the situation in question, but his response seems pretty straight forward...because she asked him to call her by her first name. As I understand it, that is normal, if parties agree to that communication. But the scene begins getting awkward, he acts sheepish, and she gets kinda mad. I was lost.
Why is he so standoffish? There is no reason for it....and if there will be a reason told to me later....there is no HINTING at that reason....If he is supposed to be geeky then they really cast the wrong actor because he is very hot, and even back in the flashbacks of school he is like the sexiest one in class. Everyone seems to like him and depend on him. His family treats him well and they show love and affection. He is intelligent, and even in episode 2 when they went to the reunion dinner he seemed to be popular. He also runs the whole bookstore and bookclub, writes, and has love affair with the printed word.
Yet even in school and even more so now, he is like a mute, (Maybe 10 lines of dialogue per episode and he is the second most character on screen) whose personality keeps shifting from happy-go-lucky, kind, and lovelorn to stern, creepy, and weird. The whole thing of the woods, being called a wild animal, and whatever is happening there seems to be something really strange and dark.
I dunno....like I said I'm lost and am too busy trying to make sense of his character instead of enjoying what is happening in the show.
P.S. Why didn't he open a drink shop instead of a bookstore. From the opening shot of the series so far through every episode, EVERY SCENE HE IS IN, he is making hot drinks or serving hot drinks or offering hot drinks or finishing hot drinks. With how deep product placement is in Kdrama's, they missed a goldmine opportunity here with how there is always steaming pots, boiling water, and mugs of some liquid if he is in the scene.
Dude. You are only on 3 of 16. Give it time. You will see why he acts like this!
The flashback scene I thought was out of place, unbelievable, and actually caused a plot hole in how the male lead has treated the female lead and how the story between them unfolded. But that I felt was a narrative issue and not an issue with the the validity of the relationship being toxic or not.
As for abuse, ehh, we can go round on that one. I do feel he repeatedly subjects the female lead to mental abuse. Yes he never gets physical, which a lot of people only consider the true abuse. But for me how he acts towards her from episodes 3-5 I would consider mental abuse. He openly degrades, demoralizes, and ridicules her. She comes to feel very worthless and tucks in her head and looks down towards the floor repeatedly.
Whether or not she chooses to accept it is on her. And as an audience member you can come to your own conclusions.
We can also very much argue on the female lead being intelligent enough to recognize being abused, because the show has her abused from many people both presently and in her past. She is basically a punching bag the entire time. Her character given to us in the beginning is not the same character we spend the bulk of the series experiencing. You can argue that it is because she is dealing with grief and loss, but then that just further exacerbates the whole aspect of the dynamics in play...she is already hurting, and thus is vulnerable to the predation that happens to her.
And that is my point, what she has to come to accept, swallow, and bare for our male lead in order for them to be in love, is demonstratively larger than anything he as to put up with from her. And while I would never call her perfect, she is far far from it, and at times is actually hard to respect as a character. He does not really have to overcome anything for her.
Dude. You are only on 3 of 16. Give it time. You will see why he acts like this!
Not hat you were trying to or needed to in anyway. I'm just stating that you have reasoned and argued well and I respect it. And though, our opinions are different, I did send a friend request....I also like that you don't have a single 10 in ratings....its a pet peeve of mine.
Your points are true, but I feel rationalized. That our female lead comes to her own understanding after-the-fact of events does not negate the events themselves.
That is, we are beginning to view what the main lead does in a way that exempts his behavior because we want to like him. Not because he deserves to be liked.
Dude. You are only on 3 of 16. Give it time. You will see why he acts like this!
Also, what does the male lead have to learn to accept from our female lead? What personality traits does she exhibit that he must ignore in order to love her?
There aren't any.
Again the story is all about him being a dick, abusing her, and her enduring it, while staying silent, and using her softness to calm him and make him fall in love. She is to ignore his negative traits and come to understand who he is and accept him for it.
It is all on her for him....he has to do nothing when it comes to her except save her.
Dude. You are only on 3 of 16. Give it time. You will see why he acts like this!
This analysis I complete agree with.
And I have admitted that the male lead grows greatly through the course of the series. Again, back to the Beauty and Beast Storytelling, the end makes him a prince and all is forgotten and forgiven. Again we are told that this is how it should be.
But, it doesn't excuse the repetitive nature that came before of repeated angry and volatile behavior. the show never has him admit his wrong doing or ask for forgiveness.
I even commented in one of the spoilers, I want to love him, I want to ship this, I have it in me, but I need the show to make the lead ask for forgiveness. It is the one act that shows he knows his wrongdoing and wants to move beyond it.
But the show never does.
Likewise, as to everyone being angry. I agree as well. So why is our female lead not allowed? She is designed to endure, ignore and accept.
Dude. You are only on 3 of 16. Give it time. You will see why he acts like this!
He never says "whore." That is the inferred contextual word that I used, so it wasn't me picking it out of context.
He tells her to go sleep with him ( the other male lead) for 2 million. and of she did she would probably get 20 million from him. And considering her reaction is to slap him across the face. I think the translation, whether it was softer "go into his arms" infers the same meaning and the translator was just literal. That is he told her to go act like a whore and get him his cash.
But this is semantics, no matter how harsh the words were or not, the general jest or meaning of them are the same. Her reaction proves as much.
As for the argument itself, the whole point of the scene, and the stress between them, is not her being there for another man and thus defending the perpetrator. She never once claims the other man was right. It is that his pride is hurt, and he has been demoralized. She bare witness to it and it was done by a man that is his rival and her ex. Thus, he projects his anger onto her because, like you said, he is immature, and using anger to deflect his pain.
Also, no matter what, it still keeps all the other points in tact. That the show allows him to express his anger, for whatever reason, and gives him his voice and place to do so. While it does not do this for the female lead when it is done to her.
Also that this is a Beauty and the Beast story which has entire college courses worth of dissertations on the male female dynamic and the learned (to use a modern buzz word) toxic behavioral patterns it exemplifies.
Also, that Dali becomes a Mary Sue who must be saved by everyone with no agency of her own is another huge issue of the series that supports the sexist storytelling. Even Dali herself finally comments on this in a moment of META analysis. That she hates her self always having to be saved by men. And while, even in my comments I give props for this, she and the story never changes even after admitting it, up to the very end she is dependent on the men that want her.
Dude. You are only on 3 of 16. Give it time. You will see why he acts like this!
This is a great counter argument!!!!
However, there was never a point where there is bias over her being a woman from the male lead. The bias is that the show itself forces her, Dali, to accept his actions , threats, and as you put it immature behavior without complaint. Has her, for the most part, ignore it.
But then does the same thing to the male lead, and Dali has to deal with the consequences. He snubs her, leaves her on the side of the road, wont answer her calls, and then fights with her in front of his home because she actually waits for him. She, playing the role of a woman, apologizes for the actions of a man she was with to another man, over doing the very things our lead did to her.
He is allowed to be angry and act out, she is not.
The scene leads to him calling her a whore and then them kissing.
And as I am understanding you are saying it doesn't matter what he says, how he says it, or the threats that he makes, all that matters is if he actually follows through with it. And, I don't feel the same. Words carry weight, her staff and the public shamed her and made her feel inadequate over his actions. For an entire day she had to play damage control over what de did in her gallery. There were real life consequences. And he comes back again the following day and does it all over....though at least he feels guilty for it this time.
And you are right the whole point of the story, as old as time, Beauty and her Beast, is that a good natured, kind, caring woman, has to change the asshole man into being a decent human being.
And where is it written that his her job? There are actual entire studies and deconstructions on how storytelling world wide teaches this lesson to children starting with nursery rhymes and through children books, and up to, like here, adult entertainment. It is the woman's job to be abused and through her love change the man.....
Its unrealsitc and extremely unhealthy, and conditioned inside our society.
Dude. You are only on 3 of 16. Give it time. You will see why he acts like this!
Hey there, I do not feel attacked. I am sorry if that is what came across. My apologies. That is not my intention.
What I feel is dismissed. That this entire issue and problem and troublesome storytelling are all just whatever to everyone.
I haven't gotten responses describing how these scenes aren't toxic. How this relationship is actually healthy. How the actions I've described are justified. There is no dialogue at all.
Instead, its just either denial, as in people stating I don't find anything toxic. Or just basically your loss then, you can feel however you want but stop making me have to read it. Calm Down, the show will excuse this.
In other words, its complete apathy. Yeah, this is what happens. This is how the show is, So what? I like it anyway, and I'm fine with stories being told like this, women being treated like this, and male leads being held up as good and heroes when they do these things to the female leads and other characters unapologeticly and with no repercussions. It is what it is.
I tried to show how the evil characters do the same things and people hold it against them and it builds their evil nature. Yet, when the good guy does it, its brushed off as excusable...because the audience has decided to root for him no matter what.
And that bothers me. It shows why we as a society cannot progress past this, because people just don't care. He's cute and hot and made me laugh. Who cares about anything else.
While you can read my step by step reactions in the comment section below as the plot unfolded, be warned that is filled with spoilers and emotional reactions...the review is a more holistic concise overview that will not spoil the tale for those that have not yet seen it, while maybe giving those that have something to think about or agree/disagree with.
Whew this is hitting me where it hurts...I have teared up twice, very unlike me. My last couple of shows have…
I am in love with this drama. I am about to start the penultimate episode (so 2 left)....
Right now its sad.....
But I'm okay with that...because the story has progressed so naturally. And I still have 2 episodes for it to turn around... Maybe its just my mood, or I dunno what, but I am very invested in these characters and story. So many people say its slow, and compared to a romantic comedy it is slow. But this is a drama, an actual romance. and it has huge doses or reality. Thus its not a fast paced fun romp .
There has been no trip and fall in slow motion or 18 minute long staring contests or kisses in slow mo from 25 different angles.....
But what is here is beautiful, honest, touching, and for me, I can't stop....I have now been up almost 24 hours....watching this........straight through.
1 
2 
Now, heading into this.....
Soo and his fake dad are applying horrible pressure on our female lead to do what they want her to. The sad part is it is not a lie...At this point, she has a nobleman's name and is living with him pretending to be his dead daughter. His family name and respect are on the line. The king's reputation and strength are on the line since he has opening picked her. And with all the maneuvering by all the evil people in the court, her not showing up would likely put a target on a lot of peoples heads.
She did choose to pretend to be a noble woman and did apply for the royal court and thus yes is now stuck with that responsibility....no matter how much her heart and our main lead want otherwise.....Sorry.
Of course it still makes Soo into a power overlord dick too. So glad he can sleep at night.
Our Tall drink of water Do Joon has been basically missing in action. We know he learned that the woman (Who he told was meeting in secret with the king and was preselected to be the king's bride) has used that information against all of them...and has not cared about it or admitted that he was the one that gave it to her. He also has learned that she had been the master to our female leads enslaved brother and using him as a bargaining chip and that now that she is angry and losing, sold the brother off to work the "mines." He goes and pays double to get the brother back...I'm guessing this is supposed to redeem him and his actions......but we haven't spent any time with him and I get the feeling that he is not going to care that she did this and still be in love with her.....
So yeah, he's likely still dead to me as a character.
Now our short kinda chubby probably gay matchmaker and the heaps of backstory we are now getting here at the end to try and justify his character and the actions he is about to take....
Sorry writers, sorry fans, sorry to the other characters that will probably in the end let him get away with this....BUT FUCK NO.....
Your actions are yours. Again, for the sake of plot he tells no one what is going on...even though they are supposed to be like a family and always help each other and out maneuver the bad guys. Instead he is staying silent and working actively against everyone else on the show....BECAUSE OF HIS BACKSTORY. Yeah that is called manipulation. To try and justify actions BEFORE they happen with sudden tragic background......
Now, he hasn't done it yet, and it could be one of those things, where off-screen he has told the others what is happening and they have come up with a plan that we will watch unfold and then have flashbacks showing us how he chose right...But that is really the only way this can go to have his character have any type of worth at this point....Maybe him dying to save someone.....but if it goes any other way.....then....
He is also a worthless character...at least I didn't like him from the start.
Hoon...yay for finally telling someone about your dad. I guess that means you are done with the situation....I'm sure those wrist wounds on the assassin are long healed....
Not looking forward to the bad action sequence that must be coming. All of them have been horrible in this show and are very very bad blights on the production value....I cringe every time someone is supposed to be fighting.
Yeah...so I'm guessing everything will go wrong in this episode 15 and then everything will be made right in the last episode 16 with everyone who isn't dead being forgiven......
I'm just guess...its how all these dramas seem to go....
People on here liked Do Joon, even his MDL profile uses this role as Byeon Woo Seok's jump to spotlight and fame in his profile description. But his character is a very awful human being. In the beginning I thought he was playfully, fun, kind and open minded.
But I was very wrong.
The show has turned him into a selfish, unloyal, narcissist that falls for a "pretty" woman just because she won't give him the time of day like all the other girls do no matter how awful of a human being she is. He has an excuse for everything she does and sees her heinous acts as understandable. Which considering he uses everyone around him without guilt makes sense. (Like the courtesans proving that he never considered them actual people but props to give him information and have sex with and now he is tossing them aside with no moral problems.) He judges women based on his mother, which magically changed into false memories and he was actually the monster that broke her heart not the other way around. And now, that the "pretty" woman he wants has rebuffed him, to get in her good graces he throws the rest of the Flower Crew and especially our female lead under the bus. Giving this evil character "pretty" woman information and fuel to destroy the king and our female lead, as well cause our female leads brother to be sold off as a slave. WHILE, the Flower crew and our female lead are actively trying to prove our female leads nobility to this very woman.......
Its fucking monstrous and ridiculous...and people still like him. I can't stand him at all.
And then Soo....
Our female lead is like begging at his feet and being honest with him and crying and pleading because she loves someone else, and he is getting angry and I think is about to pull his king rank and be a true asshole....
Does anyone remember that he up and disappeared, ruining her reputation, and leaving her in huge debt, not to mention alone and heartbroken on her wedding day?
That he was missing for months.......and when he shows back up he lies to her and gives her an excuse that he is an aristocrat and that is why he left her at the alter and has been MIA for I dunno how long. As if this was an actual viable excuse and explanation. Even as she stands here confessing her love for someone else, he still does not tell her the truth...
And I'm supposed to feel bad for him? I mean, I get it, his life hasn't been roses either. But if not for the man she is now in love with....then her life would have been a living hell.......mostly due to him.
Why does no one see this? Why is she so in the wrong? How can anyone honestly expect her to remarry a man who left her at the alter, disappeared, and his been lying to her ever since?
Why is Ma Hoon not telling anyone anything? Why is he not helping take his father down? He claims he wants to protect Gae Ddong but how is anything that he is doing protecting her? Instead he just seems to be putting her in more danger and is leaving his father in a powerful position that is terrorizing not only the king but almost everyone around him, not to mention putting everyone's lives in danger......
Literally he knows his father even put out a hit on his aunt when she wouldn't give her daughter over for marriage. He knows his father has assassins running around killing people.....
I mean, I love him, and he is my favorite character in the show....but I'm ignoring a lot of his behavior and weird story/plot line choices in order to do so....because these things make him a pretty terrible person as well.
Our male lead now knows:
1) His father just killed at the minimum the crowned prince of the kingdom.
2) That he also has killed others, including his own brother, and is forcing his aunt into being a forever widow to gain the prestige of the 3 gate family.
3) That his father is actively hunting the girl he is falling for to gain leverage over the newly appointed King. A king he pulled from the wedding that destroyed our female lead and has caused her great pain and heartache.....
And it seems his answer is to not tell anyone....
BUT instead to secretly marry our female lead off to the king. Because....why? Is it supposed to make her safe? Because our second lead lives in constant fear and danger as the king and has no power and is constantly spied upon....his father already killed the prince.....so making her queen will do what exactly except put in the snake pit that is the palace and in constant danger........
BTW, is this show made for teenage girls, adults, or general audiences? Because there is techno kpop music all over the place when this is set in ancient times.
And how many days passed before they started counting the 3 days the bad guy had to find the woman for the gate. Because even at the end of the episode they still had 3 days left.
AND HOW CLOSE IS THIS TOWN TO THE MAIN PALACE? I mean if the army general was hiding with a secret heir to the kingdom and no one has known where he was for 20 years.....is seems he was just outside the palace doors in the surrounding town.....because everyone travels to and from the palace during the course of day like it is right around the corner.
But really, Soo comes back and says:
"Unknown family showed up and told me I was an aristocrat" and our female lead just accepts this as an excuse and explanation.
That he disappeared on their wedding day.
That he went all but missing with no one knowing where he was and left her checking bodies in the morgue for a corpse.
That she hasn't heard from him, in what is now I'm taking months of time.
Oh people told me I was an aristocrat..........
Oh okay!! Cool, I thought it was something bad, yeah I'll wait for you for however long you need so we can get married.........give me a piggy back ride.
Like WTF?
And that tall matchmaker who I thought was a playful sweet playboy....is turning out to be a jerk. Liking a woman who has so far been nothing but ruthless to everyone in her path since we have met her, and openly and brazenly abuses staff, people, and slaves is his love interest. (He's an information broker, he really doesn't know this about her already when she is from one of the wealthiest and most powerful families in the kingdom...he must suck at his job because everyone else seems to know it) Someone who is vying to be queen, having him spy information on the king behind his back, and is holding our female lead's brother in the balance as she tries to disgrace the female lead's standing......
While he apparently beds every woman from here to Busan.
And then has the gall to turn around and refuse to help marry a 30 something widow who has lived in solitude for 15 years because her husband died like the moment she married him. That he feels its her place to sit in longing for him forever.....because apparently he has momma issues....
Screw this asshole. I guess short money grubbing superficial matchmaker wasn't the worst after all.....
And why the hell has our female lead not told anyone about finding her brother? Why? Just like seriously why? Why is she not telling why she wants to learn to be a noble woman......What is gained by anyone in her keeping all this to herself? How does it make sense for her to hide this? Here is the poor writing police making the plot have control so they can artificially create drama........yay.
And how can anyone not look at our main characters relationship and the short superficial matchmakers relationship as not homosexual? Really, is this supposed to be comical is that it? The guy is jealous of a girl stealing his time. So our main lead has to go and buy him a perfume pouch and promise that they will spend time together and nothing has changed between them and he means so much to him, more than the girl. Is this normal in straight guys relationships?
I watched Nobelman Ryu's Wedding...but that was a different kind of joke.
That 1st completed was the first I tried, and I loved it. But then the second one started out different and then by episode 5 was the same story as the first. Then the 3rd was was the same story in the 1st episode....on and on and on...just a repeat. Every single one just everyone vying for the throne and doing back handed dealings. The people of the court in small groups of power trying to form a coup on the sitting ruler. The sitting ruler powerless to it all. Evil men with beards moaning Jonah in low voices as they stare wickedly at each other........
Now, here is my question, and I really would like it answered because it is starting to grate me to no end, and is one of, if not THE, reason I end up giving up on these stories (Outside of the constant repetition).
Why is anyone wanting to be king?
In every story the king is powerless. Locked in a room with a eunuch and told how severe this situation or dire that situation or how they can't do this or cant do that. In short, the ruler is always just sitting there at the mercy of every other character in the show.
The councilors, or mayors, or generals, or whatever that make up the court are always more powerful than anyone ruling, yet they are all fighting over the throne. It makes no sense.
They can amass secret armies and have assassins, come and go as they please, trap the kings and queens in schemes, have people punished, killed, jailed, tortured, start wars....everything and anything while again, the king can't even go take a poop without their permission let alone even leave the palace grounds under threat they will all be killed. So why are they coveting the spot?
And again, why would anyone want the throne when, if you are to believe all these stores, the kings and princes are all killed right and left and there is a new ruler every other Tuesday.
This show is proving no different. Sold as a matchmaking series dealing with the common people one of which is secretly the son of the king, unbeknownst to him. It is a "comedy" and "romance." But the opening scene is of the king dying and the prince being murdered and now here we are in episode three with one of our leads locked in the throne room with a eunuch being told what he CAN NOT do as a ruler.................................heavy sigh and whatever.
Why doesn't somebody tell him what he CAN do? Because at this point I don't even know what there is left for him to even attempt besides finger painting to pass time. But he better ask permission cause it might cause a mess.
And, he is under threat of life and limb to even leave the palace grounds, yet a concubine accidentally scrapes him and his being tortured with hot pokers for her sins of hurting him. Can someone make up their minds? How is he being openly threatened with death if even touching him will cause you to become publicly scarred for life.
Why is the guy who kidnapped him and knocked him unconscious able to roam free?
Why the hell is our main lead talking to his fake dad? The man lied to him his whole life, and then allowed him to be forced onto the throne when in love and marrying another. He kidnaps him and forces him back to the palace and so far after handing him over to the wolves has made the King (His fake son that he raised) follow every single order those around him have given including hurting others while also denying his "son" the love of his life.
He is basically the worst guy on the face the earth and I hate him far more than any of the evil guys. Selfish and cold hearted and a complete ahole. Who, for the most part seems pretty happy being back at the palace and having down time for arrow practice. I suppose the life of a blacksmith was to tenuous. Yet the king keeps running to him for help and it's so effing frustrating to watch because his answer is always no, you can't do anything, we can't do anything we all will die.
King dude grow a brain and put this douche in your past, or better yet kick him out of the palace and decree that he never lay eyes on you again.
And yes, give the man who is terrorizing you and causing the most pain more power, because fake daddy tells you to.
And outside of the one short kinda chuby matchmaker (who I really don't like and is a winy brat that just degrades the female lead and only cares about money, material objects, and superficial beauty, all the worst qualities in a person) and his annoying cat call soundtrack as he uses wrong words and is shown to be basically stupid. There is no other comedy here.
Everything is pretty damn serious and tragic so far.
I'M ONLY ON EPISODE 3 so don't act like I'm throwing spoilers out here.....
Will the king be a moron for the whole show? Just a powerless, flaccid. and childish do nothing that cries over his situation and begs everyone to help him to no avail. He is either going to end up being bad and following the rule of those around him that will lead to him against the love of his life and a threat to our matchmaking group. Or he is going to end up dead. Or a wimp that finally becomes good like in the last episode and learns to be king. I just do not know if my frustration will allow me to make it to the end and find out....
Here is my overall feeling of the series and my spoiler light (But not free) review.
https://kisskh.at/profile/soundinfinite/reviews/176803
It wasn't perfect but was enjoyable and I'm delighted someone recommended it. 7.5/B/ 3 3/4-Stars
https://kisskh.at/profile/soundinfinite/reviews/173089
Original Post:
6.5, 3 & 1/4th star, C+ rating....I wrote a review if you want details.....but the boys sure are hot and our female lead is cute as a button.
With that said, I am starting to have issues with how this story is being relayed to me.
I am about to start episode five and I am lost when it comes to the main male lead.
The female lead's story is slowly being poured out to me. The trauma of her past, the actions people have taken against her, the choices she has made. I like this, her character is being pieced together as the story unfolds, and I am expecting to have a full picture by the time its done, warts and all.
However, the main male lead's life is being given in trickles. I have, even at this point in the story, almost nothing to go on when it comes to him. He has a loving family, a book store, insomnia, a life long pining for our female lead, and something in the woods........something.......and all this is really just a sketch outline of a character. Where are his drivers, desires, and deeper understanding?
Even with what little we do know his characters actions do not seem to fit this story. There are really weird moments with him. Like in the woods when he sees our female lead, he watches her and doesn't give her a clue he is there until she runs up on him and his scared. He then is cold towards her, and really odd and uncomfortable, basically brushing her off until the next day where he acts normal again....While there is nothing toxic about this, I would have probably felt uncomfortable enough that I would have left his place before morning and made other arrangements if I wanted to stay in town. It is fine if he wanted to hang out or whatever, but I would no longer want to share a space with him and would put some distance in the relationship.
What did I miss in that interaction from episode 3.....when our female lead asks him why he calls one auntie and the other by their first name? I get the whole honorifics of the situation in question, but his response seems pretty straight forward...because she asked him to call her by her first name. As I understand it, that is normal, if parties agree to that communication. But the scene begins getting awkward, he acts sheepish, and she gets kinda mad. I was lost.
Why is he so standoffish? There is no reason for it....and if there will be a reason told to me later....there is no HINTING at that reason....If he is supposed to be geeky then they really cast the wrong actor because he is very hot, and even back in the flashbacks of school he is like the sexiest one in class. Everyone seems to like him and depend on him. His family treats him well and they show love and affection. He is intelligent, and even in episode 2 when they went to the reunion dinner he seemed to be popular. He also runs the whole bookstore and bookclub, writes, and has love affair with the printed word.
Yet even in school and even more so now, he is like a mute, (Maybe 10 lines of dialogue per episode and he is the second most character on screen) whose personality keeps shifting from happy-go-lucky, kind, and lovelorn to stern, creepy, and weird. The whole thing of the woods, being called a wild animal, and whatever is happening there seems to be something really strange and dark.
I dunno....like I said I'm lost and am too busy trying to make sense of his character instead of enjoying what is happening in the show.
P.S. Why didn't he open a drink shop instead of a bookstore. From the opening shot of the series so far through every episode, EVERY SCENE HE IS IN, he is making hot drinks or serving hot drinks or offering hot drinks or finishing hot drinks. With how deep product placement is in Kdrama's, they missed a goldmine opportunity here with how there is always steaming pots, boiling water, and mugs of some liquid if he is in the scene.
As for abuse, ehh, we can go round on that one. I do feel he repeatedly subjects the female lead to mental abuse. Yes he never gets physical, which a lot of people only consider the true abuse. But for me how he acts towards her from episodes 3-5 I would consider mental abuse. He openly degrades, demoralizes, and ridicules her. She comes to feel very worthless and tucks in her head and looks down towards the floor repeatedly.
Whether or not she chooses to accept it is on her. And as an audience member you can come to your own conclusions.
We can also very much argue on the female lead being intelligent enough to recognize being abused, because the show has her abused from many people both presently and in her past. She is basically a punching bag the entire time. Her character given to us in the beginning is not the same character we spend the bulk of the series experiencing. You can argue that it is because she is dealing with grief and loss, but then that just further exacerbates the whole aspect of the dynamics in play...she is already hurting, and thus is vulnerable to the predation that happens to her.
And that is my point, what she has to come to accept, swallow, and bare for our male lead in order for them to be in love, is demonstratively larger than anything he as to put up with from her. And while I would never call her perfect, she is far far from it, and at times is actually hard to respect as a character. He does not really have to overcome anything for her.
Your points are true, but I feel rationalized. That our female lead comes to her own understanding after-the-fact of events does not negate the events themselves.
That is, we are beginning to view what the main lead does in a way that exempts his behavior because we want to like him. Not because he deserves to be liked.
There aren't any.
Again the story is all about him being a dick, abusing her, and her enduring it, while staying silent, and using her softness to calm him and make him fall in love. She is to ignore his negative traits and come to understand who he is and accept him for it.
It is all on her for him....he has to do nothing when it comes to her except save her.
And I have admitted that the male lead grows greatly through the course of the series. Again, back to the Beauty and Beast Storytelling, the end makes him a prince and all is forgotten and forgiven. Again we are told that this is how it should be.
But, it doesn't excuse the repetitive nature that came before of repeated angry and volatile behavior. the show never has him admit his wrong doing or ask for forgiveness.
I even commented in one of the spoilers, I want to love him, I want to ship this, I have it in me, but I need the show to make the lead ask for forgiveness. It is the one act that shows he knows his wrongdoing and wants to move beyond it.
But the show never does.
Likewise, as to everyone being angry. I agree as well. So why is our female lead not allowed? She is designed to endure, ignore and accept.
He tells her to go sleep with him ( the other male lead) for 2 million. and of she did she would probably get 20 million from him. And considering her reaction is to slap him across the face. I think the translation, whether it was softer "go into his arms" infers the same meaning and the translator was just literal. That is he told her to go act like a whore and get him his cash.
But this is semantics, no matter how harsh the words were or not, the general jest or meaning of them are the same. Her reaction proves as much.
As for the argument itself, the whole point of the scene, and the stress between them, is not her being there for another man and thus defending the perpetrator. She never once claims the other man was right. It is that his pride is hurt, and he has been demoralized. She bare witness to it and it was done by a man that is his rival and her ex. Thus, he projects his anger onto her because, like you said, he is immature, and using anger to deflect his pain.
Also, no matter what, it still keeps all the other points in tact. That the show allows him to express his anger, for whatever reason, and gives him his voice and place to do so. While it does not do this for the female lead when it is done to her.
Also that this is a Beauty and the Beast story which has entire college courses worth of dissertations on the male female dynamic and the learned (to use a modern buzz word) toxic behavioral patterns it exemplifies.
Also, that Dali becomes a Mary Sue who must be saved by everyone with no agency of her own is another huge issue of the series that supports the sexist storytelling. Even Dali herself finally comments on this in a moment of META analysis. That she hates her self always having to be saved by men. And while, even in my comments I give props for this, she and the story never changes even after admitting it, up to the very end she is dependent on the men that want her.
However, there was never a point where there is bias over her being a woman from the male lead. The bias is that the show itself forces her, Dali, to accept his actions , threats, and as you put it immature behavior without complaint. Has her, for the most part, ignore it.
But then does the same thing to the male lead, and Dali has to deal with the consequences. He snubs her, leaves her on the side of the road, wont answer her calls, and then fights with her in front of his home because she actually waits for him. She, playing the role of a woman, apologizes for the actions of a man she was with to another man, over doing the very things our lead did to her.
He is allowed to be angry and act out, she is not.
The scene leads to him calling her a whore and then them kissing.
And as I am understanding you are saying it doesn't matter what he says, how he says it, or the threats that he makes, all that matters is if he actually follows through with it. And, I don't feel the same. Words carry weight, her staff and the public shamed her and made her feel inadequate over his actions. For an entire day she had to play damage control over what de did in her gallery. There were real life consequences. And he comes back again the following day and does it all over....though at least he feels guilty for it this time.
And you are right the whole point of the story, as old as time, Beauty and her Beast, is that a good natured, kind, caring woman, has to change the asshole man into being a decent human being.
And where is it written that his her job? There are actual entire studies and deconstructions on how storytelling world wide teaches this lesson to children starting with nursery rhymes and through children books, and up to, like here, adult entertainment. It is the woman's job to be abused and through her love change the man.....
Its unrealsitc and extremely unhealthy, and conditioned inside our society.
What I feel is dismissed. That this entire issue and problem and troublesome storytelling are all just whatever to everyone.
I haven't gotten responses describing how these scenes aren't toxic. How this relationship is actually healthy. How the actions I've described are justified. There is no dialogue at all.
Instead, its just either denial, as in people stating I don't find anything toxic. Or just basically your loss then, you can feel however you want but stop making me have to read it. Calm Down, the show will excuse this.
In other words, its complete apathy. Yeah, this is what happens. This is how the show is, So what? I like it anyway, and I'm fine with stories being told like this, women being treated like this, and male leads being held up as good and heroes when they do these things to the female leads and other characters unapologeticly and with no repercussions. It is what it is.
I tried to show how the evil characters do the same things and people hold it against them and it builds their evil nature. Yet, when the good guy does it, its brushed off as excusable...because the audience has decided to root for him no matter what.
And that bothers me. It shows why we as a society cannot progress past this, because people just don't care. He's cute and hot and made me laugh. Who cares about anything else.
https://kisskh.at/profile/soundinfinite/reviews/176433
I hope I'm not alone, but am prepared to be.
https://kisskh.at/profile/soundinfinite/reviews/176415
While you can read my step by step reactions in the comment section below as the plot unfolded, be warned that is filled with spoilers and emotional reactions...the review is a more holistic concise overview that will not spoil the tale for those that have not yet seen it, while maybe giving those that have something to think about or agree/disagree with.
Right now its sad.....
But I'm okay with that...because the story has progressed so naturally. And I still have 2 episodes for it to turn around...
Maybe its just my mood, or I dunno what, but I am very invested in these characters and story. So many people say its slow, and compared to a romantic comedy it is slow. But this is a drama, an actual romance. and it has huge doses or reality. Thus its not a fast paced fun romp .
There has been no trip and fall in slow motion or 18 minute long staring contests or kisses in slow mo from 25 different angles.....
But what is here is beautiful, honest, touching, and for me, I can't stop....I have now been up almost 24 hours....watching this........straight through.