Novel spoilers ahead. In the novel at least, it seemed like the fisherman was a somewhat harsh man. From chapter…
Novel spoilers ahead.
Yes, in the novel, HIA knew what the original Baek Sa Eon looked like and after the male lead replaced him she could tell that he was a different person (i.e., that he wasn't the real Baek Sa Eon). She made the mistake of saying something about it in front of Baek Jang Ho. After the car crash, HIA was smart enough to realize that the car crash was orchestrated to kill her or scare her into silence. So she knew that the male lead was not the real male lead and she also knew how far the Baek family was willing to go to keep the secret from the beginning, and that was why she didn't want to marry the male lead and tried to call off the long-planned wedding when it became imminent.
HIA in the novel is pretty similar to HIA in the drama in terms of her ambiguous vibes and the scale of her role. I never felt like she was potential competition for the female lead role. But the two main differences were that novel!HIA knew the male lead wasn't the real Baek Sa Eon from the beginning and when she returned to South Korea (after getting ear surgery abroad) she took a job as a reporter for a rival news agency (not her family's agency).
In the drama, it looked like they made Hong Yu Jin (the half brother) older than he was in the novel when he died. In the novel, his first birthday party was celebrated in the Hong family household some time after HHJ's mother married Chairman Hong and she and HHJ joined the household. It seemed implied that Chairman Hong married HHJ's mother because she had (or was pregnant with) his son. HHJ had at least one birthday (that went uncelebrated, as HHJ's mother didn't want to call attention to the fact that she was not Chairman Hong's biological daughter) in the Hong household before the accident, but it seemed like the accident happened not that long after HHJ joined the Hong household, and the accident occurred on her birthday (her ninth or tenth birthday*). So presumably it occurred on the day of the second birthday that she had after she joined the Hong household. So Hong Yu Jin was most likely either 1 (if his birthday comes after HHJ's, and he was less than 1 at the time of her uncelebrated 9th birthday and then turned 1 between her 9th and 10th birthdays and died on her 10th birthday) or 2 (if Hong Yu Jin's birthday comes before HHJ's, and he was already 1 at the time of her 9th birthday and turned 2 before he died on her 10th birthday) when he was killed in the car crash in the novel.
* The novel is a bit confusing on this point, because HHJ still had her voice / wasn't pretending to be mute yet the first time she met the male lead (she sang for him) and she told the male lead that she was nine at that time. But the novel also says that HHJ was nine when she first started going to the sign language centre, which presumably happened after the accident, even though the accident (and her half-brother's death) occurred on her birthday, so HHJ should have been at least 10 when she went to the sign language centre for the first time.
I assume the drama writers decided to age up Hong Yu Jin and have him be the one who saw the real Baek Sa Eon (instead of HIA) so that they could have HIA discover the truth more gradually and then build HHJ's discovery of the truth on top of HIA's discovery. Because in the novel, HHJ doesn't find out anything about the male lead's true identity until he reveals everything to the world in one go, right before faking his death and disappearing.
As for Baek Jang Ho and the male lead's mother... I think it would be possible for Baek Jang Ho to get the mother safely out of the picture without murdering her. She might've died in childbirth or from some other natural cause. Or, if she didn't die, she might not have wanted to raise the unacknowledged secret baby of a 70 year old man. She might've been perfectly willing to take a huge payoff to walk away, without knowing where the baby ended up. If that was the case, she wouldn't really have posed much of a threat as a loose end, because she likely would not have had enough information to expose his lies when it came to the swap. To protect himself, Baek Jang Ho might even have made her sign an NDA in exchange for her hush money payment, so that she would be financially ruined if she exposed the fact that she gave birth to his illegitimate son. That was the only info she would've had that could have posed any kind of threat to Baek Jang Ho.
Also, Baek Jang Ho did not personally drive the truck that caused the car crash that killed Hong Yu Jin and caused HIA's deafness. He paid for another man to drive the truck. In the drama, Chairman Hong told Baek Jang Ho that he personally chased that man (the hired assassin / driver) all the way to the Philippines, where the man finally confessed that Baek Jang Ho was the one who paid him to do it.
I'm not saying I think Baek Jang Ho is not capable of killing a woman. I'm saying he likely would not have felt that killing the male lead's mother was necessary / the right choice to serve his needs in the circumstances and he's not the type of person who would kill her unless he felt it was necessary.
I hope you enjoy the novel! There are many steamy scenes to look forward to. ^^
Novel spoilers ahead. In the novel at least, it seemed like the fisherman was a somewhat harsh man. From chapter…
You're welcome!
Yes, it's hard to picture Sang-Hoon with a baby or a toddler. I also find it hard to imagine him raising the real Baek Sa Eon when he was a teenager. Imagine how difficult it would be to deal with an extremely moody 17 year old version of the kidnapper.
Hmm. Baek Jang Ho tried to murder his grandson and didn't seem to feel any remorse after he thought he succeeded, because he felt that Baek Sa Eon posed a threat to the Baek family's reputation and killing him was necessary to protect himself, his legacy and the family. He also orchestrated the car crash that caused HIA's deafness and killed Hong Yu Jin (HHJ and HIA's half brother) for similar reasons (i.e., to silence the Hong sibling that knew too much about what the real Baek Sa Eon looked like to the point of being able to recognize that the male lead was a different person - in the novel that was HIA and in the drama that was Hong Yu Jin).
To be honest, I can't really picture Baek Jang Ho murdering the male lead's mother unless she posed some kind of threat to him / his reputation, similar to how the real Baek Sa Eon's issues and murder spree posed a threat to him and his family's reputation and the Hong sibling who saw the real Baek Sa Eon posed a threat because they would be able to reveal the swap. It didn't seem like Baek Jang Ho killed because he wanted to kill or because he felt driven to kill, the way Baek Sa Eon did. When Baek Jang Ho killed, he did it for a reason and he did it carefully.
Yes, the novel is definitely darker than the drama, and I do think the characters are a bit more complex in the novel.
Really!! Did we need the first 30 minutes of the 12th episode? The story was going so well.. would have great,…
The main reason the male lead kept his wife's identity hidden was not for "his political stand". It was to protect her from his critics and enemies, as well as the backlash that he and those connected to him would face after the truth about his identity was finally revealed. He always intended to reveal that secret and the Baek family's other lies and misdeeds. But protecting HHJ from those things wouldn't serve much of a purpose if she was dead, so finding her after her disappearance was more important than keeping her identity a secret.
Separately, the male lead's parents wanted to keep the identity of the male lead's wife a secret because the public originally was told that he would be marrying the Hong family's eldest daughter, HIA. It would be scandalous if the public found out that he swapped out the bride and actually married the Hong family's youngest daughter, and that scandal might hurt the male lead's father's political campaign to become the next president of South Korea.
I didn't understand why the fisherman forbade young Sa Eon to call him dad. At that time, I found his words harsh…
Novel spoilers ahead.
In the novel at least, it seemed like the fisherman was a somewhat harsh man.
From chapter 58 (which includes a flashback to three years after the male lead took over the real BSE's identity, when he would've been about 15), we know that the fisherman's name is Sang-Hoon.
In chapter 56 (which includes a flashback to when the male lead was 12 and still living with Sang-Hoon), Sang-Hoon is described as "reticent" and in chapter 58 he is described as "cold" and "indifferent". In chapter 56, it sounded like Baek Jang Ho considered Sang-Hoon to be the kind of man who could easily get his fingers cut off because he chased after the wrong woman.
From chapter 56, we know that Baek Jang Ho was the only customer of Sang-Hoon's fish farm / fishing grounds and that, as far as the male lead can remember, the male lead first met Baek Jang Ho when Baek Jang Ho visited Sang-Hoon's fishing grounds when the male lead was 12 years old. It sounded like it was around this time that the real BSE's troubling behaviour began to escalate up to murder, and Baek Jang Ho soon started using the fishing grounds as a place to dump the bodies. Based on how he looked at the male lead, this is also around the time that Baek Jang Ho started to seriously think about using the male lead as a replacement for his grandson.
Perhaps Baek Jang Ho paid Sang-Hoon to help him dispose of things (like evidence from his own crimes / illegal dealings) long before he needed to dispose of the bodies of his grandson's murder victims? So when he had an illegitimate son, perhaps he felt that Sang-Hoon was someone with whom he could safely leave the boy and that Sang-Hoon (someone who was effectively his employee who lived alone and didn't normally interact with others) could be trusted to keep the secret. As Baek Jang Ho already visited that area to go fishing regularly, if he decided that he wanted to visit / check up on his illegitimate son at some point, it would be easy for him to do so during a fishing trip without raising anyone's suspicion about where he was or who he was meeting with.
It's a little hard to picture Sang-Hoon dealing with a newborn though. Maybe the male lead was initially raised by his mother as an infant, but then she left the picture for some reason when he was too young for him to remember her (maybe she died, maybe Baek Jang Ho bribed her to leave the country, maybe she wanted to start a relationship with someone else) and Baek Jang Ho transferred the male lead to Sang-Hoon's care at that point. If that was the case, it definitely would have been very early in the male lead's life, because he had no memory of living anywhere else before he lived with Sang-Hoon and he believed that Sang-Hoon was his father for a long time. He only figured out the truth shortly before Baek Jang Ho's death.
Or maybe Sang-Hoon did raise the male lead from infancy. Perhaps the male lead's mother was Sang-Hoon's sister, who became Baek Jang Ho's mistress after he started visiting the fishing grounds. And perhaps she died in childbirth, at which point Baek Jang Ho decided to leave the child unnamed and in Sang-Hoon's care.
----- ----- -----
Chapter 56:
The first time he met the white-haired Representative Baek Jang-ho was when he was twelve, during a day spent in silent company with his reticent father.
The boy had no name. He was born near the water, where his father, a fisherman, lived in a shabby shack by the fishing grounds. The place reeked of fish.
By the lake in the early morning, his father spent his days meticulously cleaning his fishing rods, threading wriggling worms onto hooks—day after day. The fishing grounds had only one customer: Representative Baek Jang-ho.
Every time Baek Jang-ho came, he would scrutinize the boy’s body and face, as if measuring how much he’d grown. Although his face remained expressionless, the boy, with his sharp intuition, could sense a strange mixture of satisfaction and unease beneath the old man’s gaze. At first, he didn’t understand what it meant.
Nevertheless, his father always bowed his head first and occasionally joined Baek Jang-ho on a boat for long trips.
“Father, did you and that old man throw something into the river?”
“...!”
Under his father’s silent gaze, the boy added, “I saw it. You threw something in.”
“Don’t ask questions.”
“But Father—”
“I’m not your father. Don’t call me that.”
“……”
His father mechanically continued to thread worms onto hooks.
I’m just a fisherman, nothing more.
Even if he was a discarded child, it was likely he would grow up to be just like this man—thick-bearded, broad-built, threading worms onto hooks at the water’s edge.
---
One day, Baek Jang-ho brought another boy, an upper elementary student.
“This is my grandson.”
The boy, about the same age as him, smiled brightly.
“I’ll steer the boat today. Can I borrow one?”
His father nodded silently.
As the boat drifted across the water, the boy ran along the hill. It was a circular lake, so no matter how far he went, the water’s path was the same.
Plop—!
He saw a large bag sink into the river. Once it submerged, it never resurfaced.
Is it filled with rocks?
After that, the grandfather and grandson came every weekend. Each time, they tossed a heavy bag into the water. The grandson always laughed cheerfully, while Baek Jang-ho’s expression grew darker and darker.
Over time, the boy grew accustomed to their strange behavior.
----- ----- -----
Chapter 58:
One day, he overheard a conversation while Baek Jang-ho was on the phone.
"Close the fishing ground now."
"…!"
He paused mid-step as he descended the stairs.
"There’s no more evidence to discard there, and the people living there are gone. Reclaim it as private property. By the way, has Sang-hoon been found yet?"
Sang-hoon—he was the cold, indifferent caretaker of the fishing ground.
"Sigh… Forget it. He probably lost his fingers chasing after some woman he loved. No need to track him down anymore."
A flicker of unease appeared in the boy’s eyes.
Since entering adolescence, his emotions often surged like tides, and today was no different. But why was it so unbearable this time? His chest felt as though it were being crushed, making it impossible to breathe.
The boy bolted out the back door, walking aimlessly, guided only by instinct to a place he knew all too well.
Dark. Damp.
As though searching for the origin of his life, he hid in the shadows.
And then, an epiphany struck.
"I always knew I’d come back one day."
His heart pounded violently, the sound reverberating in his ears. He had always vaguely thought he’d return to his hometown someday. Yes, his hometown—the place where he truly lived.
But there was nothing left of it now.
The place, the people—they were all gone, leaving him hollow inside.
Finally, he became aware of the shell he was wrapped in.
Fake.
Everything was a lie.
The past three years came flooding back like an avalanche. He wanted to scream until his throat bled but could only clench his fists tightly.
His mind roiled, his eyes cold as winter, unsure of how to deal with the feelings surging within him. He simply stood there, powerless.
There are two conflicts in the drama. One conflict is in Argan. The other is between Izmael and Paltima.
Argan appears to be based on Afghanistan. The hostage crisis in Argan mentioned early on in the novel and in episode 1 of the drama appears to be based on the 2007 South Korean-Taliban hostage crisis in Afghanistan. And the internal conflict in Argan between government forces and rebel forces (mentioned a few times in the story as existing back when the male lead did his military service and then began his career as a war correspondent in Argan and also depicted at the end of the novel / in episode 12 of the drama) appears to be based on the Taliban insurgency against the NATO-backed Afghan government between 2001 and 2021.
Izmael and Paltima appear to be based on Israel and Palestine (specifically Gaza), and the conflict between those countries referenced in the news bulletin in episode 12 appears to be based on recent developments in the conflict between Israel and Gaza between 2023 and the present.
OP (user "my demon with the glory") only mentioned the Israel and Palestine references in the drama (which were not in the novel), not the Argan references (which were in the novel). So responding that "the war was in the novel" seemed a bit misleading (even if that wasn't your intention) and worth clarifying.
After reading the novel, the trip out of the country in episode 12 isn't that random. Like it's literally from…
In some ways they followed the novel closely, and in other ways they didn’t.
Long before the finale, the drama made major changes to the story so that it differed from the novel. In some ways, they had to make changes, because the sexual parts of the novel were never going to be retained in a show with a TV-14 rating. So it seems like the writers decided to take many of the dark and sexual parts of the drama and make them more fluffy and romantic. But the specific changes they made in the drama ended up making the male lead’s choice to disappear feel a lot more out of the blue and nonsensical than it felt in the novel.
In the novel, things were very unclear between the leads before the male lead disappeared. He didn’t know how much HHJ loved him. He didn’t have a reason to think that his disappearance would feel like a nightmare to HHJ. He thought HHJ would be horrified by the truth about his identity and that he couldn’t even consider the possibility of being with her in a real romantic relationship because of the truth about him, his family, and the things they did to her and her family. He disappeared with no intention of returning, and given how things were in the novel, that made more sense than what we got in the drama.
And yes, HHJ went to Argan and wore a scarf in the novel. But she didn’t go walking off into the jungle alone in designer clothes the second she arrived. She didn’t know where to look for the male lead, so she worked at a sign language institute in Argan for months (hoping to hear about a lead she could follow) and wore clothes and gear that was more appropriate for the setting.
“Her breath caught in her throat, her scarf slipping from her head. After months in Argan, her sun-darkened face was slick with sweat, her hair falling naturally to her ears. She wore a simple black short-sleeved shirt, pants, and heavy military boots. Yet, the gun holster strapped from her shoulder to her waist, and the radio clipped at her side, made her look both unfamiliar and commanding.”
And yes, HHJ was sort of taken by a rebel soldier and sort of rescued by the male lead, but the details were pretty different. HHJ wasn’t taken hostage in the middle of nowhere along with a bunch of other foreigners for no reason. And the male lead wasn’t roaming across the jungle freeing random foreign hostages as he went until he just happened to come across HHJ and single-handedly rescued her (and who knows what happened to the other hostages?). Instead, HHJ was taken from the Argan sign language institute by a rebel soldier specifically so that she could translate for a deaf prisoner of war (the top commander of the Argan government forces, who had been captured), enabling the rebel forces to negotiate terms with him. And she and that prisoner of war were ultimately rescued by the Argan government forces, whom the male lead was secretly working with. The novel took the time to explain that this role for the male lead was a continuation of work that he had started in Argan many years ago, back when he was a war correspondent there. And it also made sense in the context of the male lead’s secret intelligence gathering network / work that he did in South Korea that was shown and explained in the novel, but that wasn’t fully shown or explained in the drama. When it came to rescuing HHJ and the prisoner of war, the male lead’s role mainly involved stalling the rebel forces (by making them think he was working for them), taking out *one* rebel soldier when he threatened HHJ’s safety, and driving away until the government forces could arrive and actually save them.
You’re welcome! I respect and envy your language skills! I really only speak two, and I make many mistakes when I speak in my second language.
Normally I’d say the word “joke” is close enough that people will understand your intended meaning and the difference isn’t important enough to require clarification. But since this topic is such a sensitive one and saying that a joke was made about it would likely make some people *very* upset, this is a rare situation where the difference really is important.
They created a scenario that is obviously based on recent events in Israel and Palestine involving two fake countries with very similar names (Izmael and Paltima), and it was a bad idea for the drama writers to do that given how sensitive that ongoing conflict is. But they didn’t make a “joke”.
I know there are a lot of young, school-aged users in this comment section, but are you not aware that there are also many users here who have completed their academic careers? In some cases a very, very long time ago?
And even for the users who are still in school, if there was ever a time when they shouldn’t feel guilty about spending their free time on MDL instead of on their studies, surely Friday evening/Saturday morning would be it?
Finally finished it and loved every single minute of it. Yes the Argan portion seemed a little out of place but…
Those who have concerns with the politics in this drama are not concerned about the Argan storyline. In the novel at least, Argan appears to be based on Afghanistan and the hostage crisis mentioned in episode 1 appears to be based on the 2007 South Korean hostage crisis in Afghanistan.
The concerns that some people have with politics in this drama are with the “Izmael” and “Paltima” subplot referenced in the news bulletin at the end of the drama, as that subplot appears to be based on recent events in the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is obviously highly sensitive.
*He was a negotiator not a rebel (i know the tactical gear made it vague🙊).
Sort of. When HHJ finally found the male lead in Argan in the novel, he appeared to be acting as a negotiator for the rebel forces. The rebel forces had captured the most senior officer of the government’s military forces. That man was deaf and HHJ interpreted for him. He told HHJ that the male lead had long had a connection with the rebel commander (i.e., a connection dating back to his time as a war correspondent in Argan). HHJ translated the negotiations between the captured government commander and the male lead (who was negotiating on behalf of the rebel commander).
But then when a rebel soldier caused a conflict, the male lead attacked him and helped HHJ and the government commander escape from the rebel forces’ stronghold.
In chapter 67, the male lead and HHJ said the following to each other while they were escaping:
"Why are you even here?" Hee-joo asked angrily.
"Doing what I do best."
The jeeps on either side tried to box them in as Baek Sa-eon accelerated.
"Driving?" Hee-joo asked, confused.
He chuckled darkly. "No, scheming."
"…!"
"Exploiting weaknesses on one side to sell information to the other—it's what I’m best at."
The rear window shattered with a loud crash. He swerved sharply, causing Hee-joo to hit her head against the door.
"Back when I lived here for a while, I partnered with a group of international journalists to set up a shell company. Whether it was rebels or government forces, we gathered intel and traded it for favors," he explained, shifting gears roughly. "That interrogation video I shot back then? It was what got this chairman released from the prisoner-of-war camp. His hearing probably got damaged during that ordeal."
In my opinion, He is one of the best well written villain I have seen recently.As he has his own motive, for that…
You're welcome.
I agree that Baek Jang Ho, Baek Eui Yong and Sim Gyu Jin are villains in this story, but I still view the real BSE as also being among the main villains. Especially in the drama where the real BSE had more autonomy and it seemed like he had not gone to jail for any of his crimes at any point. Yes, he was locked up by his family when he was a kid, but not very effectively if he was able to play with Ji Sang Woo, able to bump into Hong Yu Jin (HHJ's half-brother), and able to kill four young orphans. And later on he was able to live freely with the fisherman.
Novel spoilers ahead.
In the novel, after the real BSE regains his memories, he becomes Sim Gyu Jin's pawn and is used and manipulated by her (and Park Do Jae is also used and manipulated by her). The real BSE is still a villain in the novel, but he arguably has less culpability than the drama version of the character.
In my opinion, He is one of the best well written villain I have seen recently.As he has his own motive, for that…
"Someone pointed out, that when he was cared for by fisherman, he sustained himself from killing people. Which means he was curable if they did it right from the early childhood."
In episode 9 of the drama, the fisherman told the male lead, "I'm sorry. I never should have saved him." and "He had lost all his memories. His mental abilities had weakened. So I thought it'd be okay if I quietly looked after him. But his natural instincts remained the same." Meaning that even after he lost his memories, the real BSE was still instinctively driven to harm animals and people.
In episode 10, when the real BSE confronted the fisherman, the fisherman told the real BSE, "I never should have let you live. When Baek Jang Ho tried to kill you, I should've let him."
Novel spoilers ahead.
In the novel, the fact that the real BSE's psychopathic tendencies and instinct to harm and kill remained even after he lost his memories was made even clearer. The real BSE lost his memories around the age of 15. He was raised by the fisherman for a time after that, but eventually he ended up going to jail for new crimes ("multiple violent crimes and attempted murder") that he committed after losing his memory. Law enforcement remained unaware that he was also the perpetrator behind his earlier crimes (e.g., killing Park Do Jae's sibling). He later regained his memories while he was in jail.
Please consider hiding this comment under a spoiler cover. Some drama viewers may not want to see novel spoilers.
IMO, the drama “missed this part” because the drama could not have used this line. The male lead in the drama did not intend to leave HHJ forever. As he reminded her in episode 12, he told her to wait for him to come looking for her, but he felt he needed to punish himself first.
Novel spoilers ahead.
Whereas the male lead in the novel thought that he could not be with HHJ and had no intention of returning to HHJ when he said that line.
*He was a negotiator not a rebel (i know the tactical gear made it vague🙊).
Episode 12 has two separate international hostage incidents that occur in different countries, and the male lead’s role in each of those two hostage situations is different.
When the male lead was wearing tactical gear and rescued HHJ and the other hostages in Argan in episode 12, he was not acting as a negotiator. He seemed to be acting as some kind of rogue free agent.
In the novel, in both South Korea and in Argan, the male lead had set up intelligence networks that he used to gather and leverage information in order to gain power. When he faked his death and went back to Argan, he was not affiliated with the South Korean government.
Since the drama didn’t really show the male lead’s intelligence gathering network in South Korea, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that the drama also didn’t have him leading an intelligence network in Argan, either.
Later in episode 12, when the male lead was wearing a suit and was dispatched by the South Korean government to help negotiate the release of South Koreans who were involved in the Izmael/Palima hostage crisis (not in Argan), he was acting as an official hostage negotiator and not as a rogue free agent.
Note: A version of the Argan storyline from episode 12 occurred at the end of the novel. Another hostage crisis (the one mentioned in episode 1 of the drama) also occurs in Argan at the beginning of the novel. The separate Izmael/Palima hostage crisis and hostage negotiator storyline from episode 12 did not occur in the novel at all.
3 
1 
1 
Yes, in the novel, HIA knew what the original Baek Sa Eon looked like and after the male lead replaced him she could tell that he was a different person (i.e., that he wasn't the real Baek Sa Eon). She made the mistake of saying something about it in front of Baek Jang Ho. After the car crash, HIA was smart enough to realize that the car crash was orchestrated to kill her or scare her into silence. So she knew that the male lead was not the real male lead and she also knew how far the Baek family was willing to go to keep the secret from the beginning, and that was why she didn't want to marry the male lead and tried to call off the long-planned wedding when it became imminent.
HIA in the novel is pretty similar to HIA in the drama in terms of her ambiguous vibes and the scale of her role. I never felt like she was potential competition for the female lead role. But the two main differences were that novel!HIA knew the male lead wasn't the real Baek Sa Eon from the beginning and when she returned to South Korea (after getting ear surgery abroad) she took a job as a reporter for a rival news agency (not her family's agency).
In the drama, it looked like they made Hong Yu Jin (the half brother) older than he was in the novel when he died. In the novel, his first birthday party was celebrated in the Hong family household some time after HHJ's mother married Chairman Hong and she and HHJ joined the household. It seemed implied that Chairman Hong married HHJ's mother because she had (or was pregnant with) his son. HHJ had at least one birthday (that went uncelebrated, as HHJ's mother didn't want to call attention to the fact that she was not Chairman Hong's biological daughter) in the Hong household before the accident, but it seemed like the accident happened not that long after HHJ joined the Hong household, and the accident occurred on her birthday (her ninth or tenth birthday*). So presumably it occurred on the day of the second birthday that she had after she joined the Hong household. So Hong Yu Jin was most likely either 1 (if his birthday comes after HHJ's, and he was less than 1 at the time of her uncelebrated 9th birthday and then turned 1 between her 9th and 10th birthdays and died on her 10th birthday) or 2 (if Hong Yu Jin's birthday comes before HHJ's, and he was already 1 at the time of her 9th birthday and turned 2 before he died on her 10th birthday) when he was killed in the car crash in the novel.
* The novel is a bit confusing on this point, because HHJ still had her voice / wasn't pretending to be mute yet the first time she met the male lead (she sang for him) and she told the male lead that she was nine at that time. But the novel also says that HHJ was nine when she first started going to the sign language centre, which presumably happened after the accident, even though the accident (and her half-brother's death) occurred on her birthday, so HHJ should have been at least 10 when she went to the sign language centre for the first time.
I assume the drama writers decided to age up Hong Yu Jin and have him be the one who saw the real Baek Sa Eon (instead of HIA) so that they could have HIA discover the truth more gradually and then build HHJ's discovery of the truth on top of HIA's discovery. Because in the novel, HHJ doesn't find out anything about the male lead's true identity until he reveals everything to the world in one go, right before faking his death and disappearing.
As for Baek Jang Ho and the male lead's mother... I think it would be possible for Baek Jang Ho to get the mother safely out of the picture without murdering her. She might've died in childbirth or from some other natural cause. Or, if she didn't die, she might not have wanted to raise the unacknowledged secret baby of a 70 year old man. She might've been perfectly willing to take a huge payoff to walk away, without knowing where the baby ended up. If that was the case, she wouldn't really have posed much of a threat as a loose end, because she likely would not have had enough information to expose his lies when it came to the swap. To protect himself, Baek Jang Ho might even have made her sign an NDA in exchange for her hush money payment, so that she would be financially ruined if she exposed the fact that she gave birth to his illegitimate son. That was the only info she would've had that could have posed any kind of threat to Baek Jang Ho.
Also, Baek Jang Ho did not personally drive the truck that caused the car crash that killed Hong Yu Jin and caused HIA's deafness. He paid for another man to drive the truck. In the drama, Chairman Hong told Baek Jang Ho that he personally chased that man (the hired assassin / driver) all the way to the Philippines, where the man finally confessed that Baek Jang Ho was the one who paid him to do it.
I'm not saying I think Baek Jang Ho is not capable of killing a woman. I'm saying he likely would not have felt that killing the male lead's mother was necessary / the right choice to serve his needs in the circumstances and he's not the type of person who would kill her unless he felt it was necessary.
I hope you enjoy the novel! There are many steamy scenes to look forward to. ^^
Yes, it's hard to picture Sang-Hoon with a baby or a toddler. I also find it hard to imagine him raising the real Baek Sa Eon when he was a teenager. Imagine how difficult it would be to deal with an extremely moody 17 year old version of the kidnapper.
Hmm. Baek Jang Ho tried to murder his grandson and didn't seem to feel any remorse after he thought he succeeded, because he felt that Baek Sa Eon posed a threat to the Baek family's reputation and killing him was necessary to protect himself, his legacy and the family. He also orchestrated the car crash that caused HIA's deafness and killed Hong Yu Jin (HHJ and HIA's half brother) for similar reasons (i.e., to silence the Hong sibling that knew too much about what the real Baek Sa Eon looked like to the point of being able to recognize that the male lead was a different person - in the novel that was HIA and in the drama that was Hong Yu Jin).
To be honest, I can't really picture Baek Jang Ho murdering the male lead's mother unless she posed some kind of threat to him / his reputation, similar to how the real Baek Sa Eon's issues and murder spree posed a threat to him and his family's reputation and the Hong sibling who saw the real Baek Sa Eon posed a threat because they would be able to reveal the swap. It didn't seem like Baek Jang Ho killed because he wanted to kill or because he felt driven to kill, the way Baek Sa Eon did. When Baek Jang Ho killed, he did it for a reason and he did it carefully.
Yes, the novel is definitely darker than the drama, and I do think the characters are a bit more complex in the novel.
Separately, the male lead's parents wanted to keep the identity of the male lead's wife a secret because the public originally was told that he would be marrying the Hong family's eldest daughter, HIA. It would be scandalous if the public found out that he swapped out the bride and actually married the Hong family's youngest daughter, and that scandal might hurt the male lead's father's political campaign to become the next president of South Korea.
In the novel at least, it seemed like the fisherman was a somewhat harsh man.
From chapter 58 (which includes a flashback to three years after the male lead took over the real BSE's identity, when he would've been about 15), we know that the fisherman's name is Sang-Hoon.
In chapter 56 (which includes a flashback to when the male lead was 12 and still living with Sang-Hoon), Sang-Hoon is described as "reticent" and in chapter 58 he is described as "cold" and "indifferent". In chapter 56, it sounded like Baek Jang Ho considered Sang-Hoon to be the kind of man who could easily get his fingers cut off because he chased after the wrong woman.
From chapter 56, we know that Baek Jang Ho was the only customer of Sang-Hoon's fish farm / fishing grounds and that, as far as the male lead can remember, the male lead first met Baek Jang Ho when Baek Jang Ho visited Sang-Hoon's fishing grounds when the male lead was 12 years old. It sounded like it was around this time that the real BSE's troubling behaviour began to escalate up to murder, and Baek Jang Ho soon started using the fishing grounds as a place to dump the bodies. Based on how he looked at the male lead, this is also around the time that Baek Jang Ho started to seriously think about using the male lead as a replacement for his grandson.
Perhaps Baek Jang Ho paid Sang-Hoon to help him dispose of things (like evidence from his own crimes / illegal dealings) long before he needed to dispose of the bodies of his grandson's murder victims? So when he had an illegitimate son, perhaps he felt that Sang-Hoon was someone with whom he could safely leave the boy and that Sang-Hoon (someone who was effectively his employee who lived alone and didn't normally interact with others) could be trusted to keep the secret. As Baek Jang Ho already visited that area to go fishing regularly, if he decided that he wanted to visit / check up on his illegitimate son at some point, it would be easy for him to do so during a fishing trip without raising anyone's suspicion about where he was or who he was meeting with.
It's a little hard to picture Sang-Hoon dealing with a newborn though. Maybe the male lead was initially raised by his mother as an infant, but then she left the picture for some reason when he was too young for him to remember her (maybe she died, maybe Baek Jang Ho bribed her to leave the country, maybe she wanted to start a relationship with someone else) and Baek Jang Ho transferred the male lead to Sang-Hoon's care at that point. If that was the case, it definitely would have been very early in the male lead's life, because he had no memory of living anywhere else before he lived with Sang-Hoon and he believed that Sang-Hoon was his father for a long time. He only figured out the truth shortly before Baek Jang Ho's death.
Or maybe Sang-Hoon did raise the male lead from infancy. Perhaps the male lead's mother was Sang-Hoon's sister, who became Baek Jang Ho's mistress after he started visiting the fishing grounds. And perhaps she died in childbirth, at which point Baek Jang Ho decided to leave the child unnamed and in Sang-Hoon's care.
-----
-----
-----
Chapter 56:
The first time he met the white-haired Representative Baek Jang-ho was when he was twelve, during a day spent in silent company with his reticent father.
The boy had no name. He was born near the water, where his father, a fisherman, lived in a shabby shack by the fishing grounds. The place reeked of fish.
By the lake in the early morning, his father spent his days meticulously cleaning his fishing rods, threading wriggling worms onto hooks—day after day. The fishing grounds had only one customer: Representative Baek Jang-ho.
Every time Baek Jang-ho came, he would scrutinize the boy’s body and face, as if measuring how much he’d grown. Although his face remained expressionless, the boy, with his sharp intuition, could sense a strange mixture of satisfaction and unease beneath the old man’s gaze. At first, he didn’t understand what it meant.
Nevertheless, his father always bowed his head first and occasionally joined Baek Jang-ho on a boat for long trips.
“Father, did you and that old man throw something into the river?”
“...!”
Under his father’s silent gaze, the boy added, “I saw it. You threw something in.”
“Don’t ask questions.”
“But Father—”
“I’m not your father. Don’t call me that.”
“……”
His father mechanically continued to thread worms onto hooks.
I’m just a fisherman, nothing more.
Even if he was a discarded child, it was likely he would grow up to be just like this man—thick-bearded, broad-built, threading worms onto hooks at the water’s edge.
---
One day, Baek Jang-ho brought another boy, an upper elementary student.
“This is my grandson.”
The boy, about the same age as him, smiled brightly.
“I’ll steer the boat today. Can I borrow one?”
His father nodded silently.
As the boat drifted across the water, the boy ran along the hill. It was a circular lake, so no matter how far he went, the water’s path was the same.
Plop—!
He saw a large bag sink into the river. Once it submerged, it never resurfaced.
Is it filled with rocks?
After that, the grandfather and grandson came every weekend. Each time, they tossed a heavy bag into the water. The grandson always laughed cheerfully, while Baek Jang-ho’s expression grew darker and darker.
Over time, the boy grew accustomed to their strange behavior.
-----
-----
-----
Chapter 58:
One day, he overheard a conversation while Baek Jang-ho was on the phone.
"Close the fishing ground now."
"…!"
He paused mid-step as he descended the stairs.
"There’s no more evidence to discard there, and the people living there are gone. Reclaim it as private property. By the way, has Sang-hoon been found yet?"
Sang-hoon—he was the cold, indifferent caretaker of the fishing ground.
"Sigh… Forget it. He probably lost his fingers chasing after some woman he loved. No need to track him down anymore."
A flicker of unease appeared in the boy’s eyes.
Since entering adolescence, his emotions often surged like tides, and today was no different. But why was it so unbearable this time? His chest felt as though it were being crushed, making it impossible to breathe.
The boy bolted out the back door, walking aimlessly, guided only by instinct to a place he knew all too well.
Dark. Damp.
As though searching for the origin of his life, he hid in the shadows.
And then, an epiphany struck.
"I always knew I’d come back one day."
His heart pounded violently, the sound reverberating in his ears. He had always vaguely thought he’d return to his hometown someday. Yes, his hometown—the place where he truly lived.
But there was nothing left of it now.
The place, the people—they were all gone, leaving him hollow inside.
Finally, he became aware of the shell he was wrapped in.
Fake.
Everything was a lie.
The past three years came flooding back like an avalanche. He wanted to scream until his throat bled but could only clench his fists tightly.
His mind roiled, his eyes cold as winter, unsure of how to deal with the feelings surging within him. He simply stood there, powerless.
Argan appears to be based on Afghanistan. The hostage crisis in Argan mentioned early on in the novel and in episode 1 of the drama appears to be based on the 2007 South Korean-Taliban hostage crisis in Afghanistan. And the internal conflict in Argan between government forces and rebel forces (mentioned a few times in the story as existing back when the male lead did his military service and then began his career as a war correspondent in Argan and also depicted at the end of the novel / in episode 12 of the drama) appears to be based on the Taliban insurgency against the NATO-backed Afghan government between 2001 and 2021.
Izmael and Paltima appear to be based on Israel and Palestine (specifically Gaza), and the conflict between those countries referenced in the news bulletin in episode 12 appears to be based on recent developments in the conflict between Israel and Gaza between 2023 and the present.
OP (user "my demon with the glory") only mentioned the Israel and Palestine references in the drama (which were not in the novel), not the Argan references (which were in the novel). So responding that "the war was in the novel" seemed a bit misleading (even if that wasn't your intention) and worth clarifying.
Long before the finale, the drama made major changes to the story so that it differed from the novel. In some ways, they had to make changes, because the sexual parts of the novel were never going to be retained in a show with a TV-14 rating. So it seems like the writers decided to take many of the dark and sexual parts of the drama and make them more fluffy and romantic. But the specific changes they made in the drama ended up making the male lead’s choice to disappear feel a lot more out of the blue and nonsensical than it felt in the novel.
In the novel, things were very unclear between the leads before the male lead disappeared. He didn’t know how much HHJ loved him. He didn’t have a reason to think that his disappearance would feel like a nightmare to HHJ. He thought HHJ would be horrified by the truth about his identity and that he couldn’t even consider the possibility of being with her in a real romantic relationship because of the truth about him, his family, and the things they did to her and her family. He disappeared with no intention of returning, and given how things were in the novel, that made more sense than what we got in the drama.
And yes, HHJ went to Argan and wore a scarf in the novel. But she didn’t go walking off into the jungle alone in designer clothes the second she arrived. She didn’t know where to look for the male lead, so she worked at a sign language institute in Argan for months (hoping to hear about a lead she could follow) and wore clothes and gear that was more appropriate for the setting.
“Her breath caught in her throat, her scarf slipping from her head. After months in Argan, her sun-darkened face was slick with sweat, her hair falling naturally to her ears. She wore a simple black short-sleeved shirt, pants, and heavy military boots. Yet, the gun holster strapped from her shoulder to her waist, and the radio clipped at her side, made her look both unfamiliar and commanding.”
And yes, HHJ was sort of taken by a rebel soldier and sort of rescued by the male lead, but the details were pretty different. HHJ wasn’t taken hostage in the middle of nowhere along with a bunch of other foreigners for no reason. And the male lead wasn’t roaming across the jungle freeing random foreign hostages as he went until he just happened to come across HHJ and single-handedly rescued her (and who knows what happened to the other hostages?). Instead, HHJ was taken from the Argan sign language institute by a rebel soldier specifically so that she could translate for a deaf prisoner of war (the top commander of the Argan government forces, who had been captured), enabling the rebel forces to negotiate terms with him. And she and that prisoner of war were ultimately rescued by the Argan government forces, whom the male lead was secretly working with. The novel took the time to explain that this role for the male lead was a continuation of work that he had started in Argan many years ago, back when he was a war correspondent there. And it also made sense in the context of the male lead’s secret intelligence gathering network / work that he did in South Korea that was shown and explained in the novel, but that wasn’t fully shown or explained in the drama. When it came to rescuing HHJ and the prisoner of war, the male lead’s role mainly involved stalling the rebel forces (by making them think he was working for them), taking out *one* rebel soldier when he threatened HHJ’s safety, and driving away until the government forces could arrive and actually save them.
Normally I’d say the word “joke” is close enough that people will understand your intended meaning and the difference isn’t important enough to require clarification. But since this topic is such a sensitive one and saying that a joke was made about it would likely make some people *very* upset, this is a rare situation where the difference really is important.
They created a scenario that is obviously based on recent events in Israel and Palestine involving two fake countries with very similar names (Izmael and Paltima), and it was a bad idea for the drama writers to do that given how sensitive that ongoing conflict is. But they didn’t make a “joke”.
And even for the users who are still in school, if there was ever a time when they shouldn’t feel guilty about spending their free time on MDL instead of on their studies, surely Friday evening/Saturday morning would be it?
The concerns that some people have with politics in this drama are with the “Izmael” and “Paltima” subplot referenced in the news bulletin at the end of the drama, as that subplot appears to be based on recent events in the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is obviously highly sensitive.
But then when a rebel soldier caused a conflict, the male lead attacked him and helped HHJ and the government commander escape from the rebel forces’ stronghold.
In chapter 67, the male lead and HHJ said the following to each other while they were escaping:
"Why are you even here?" Hee-joo asked angrily.
"Doing what I do best."
The jeeps on either side tried to box them in as Baek Sa-eon accelerated.
"Driving?" Hee-joo asked, confused.
He chuckled darkly. "No, scheming."
"…!"
"Exploiting weaknesses on one side to sell information to the other—it's what I’m best at."
The rear window shattered with a loud crash. He swerved sharply, causing Hee-joo to hit her head against the door.
"Back when I lived here for a while, I partnered with a group of international journalists to set up a shell company. Whether it was rebels or government forces, we gathered intel and traded it for favors," he explained, shifting gears roughly. "That interrogation video I shot back then? It was what got this chairman released from the prisoner-of-war camp. His hearing probably got damaged during that ordeal."
I agree that Baek Jang Ho, Baek Eui Yong and Sim Gyu Jin are villains in this story, but I still view the real BSE as also being among the main villains. Especially in the drama where the real BSE had more autonomy and it seemed like he had not gone to jail for any of his crimes at any point. Yes, he was locked up by his family when he was a kid, but not very effectively if he was able to play with Ji Sang Woo, able to bump into Hong Yu Jin (HHJ's half-brother), and able to kill four young orphans. And later on he was able to live freely with the fisherman.
Novel spoilers ahead.
In the novel, after the real BSE regains his memories, he becomes Sim Gyu Jin's pawn and is used and manipulated by her (and Park Do Jae is also used and manipulated by her). The real BSE is still a villain in the novel, but he arguably has less culpability than the drama version of the character.
In episode 9 of the drama, the fisherman told the male lead, "I'm sorry. I never should have saved him." and "He had lost all his memories. His mental abilities had weakened. So I thought it'd be okay if I quietly looked after him. But his natural instincts remained the same." Meaning that even after he lost his memories, the real BSE was still instinctively driven to harm animals and people.
In episode 10, when the real BSE confronted the fisherman, the fisherman told the real BSE, "I never should have let you live. When Baek Jang Ho tried to kill you, I should've let him."
Novel spoilers ahead.
In the novel, the fact that the real BSE's psychopathic tendencies and instinct to harm and kill remained even after he lost his memories was made even clearer. The real BSE lost his memories around the age of 15. He was raised by the fisherman for a time after that, but eventually he ended up going to jail for new crimes ("multiple violent crimes and attempted murder") that he committed after losing his memory. Law enforcement remained unaware that he was also the perpetrator behind his earlier crimes (e.g., killing Park Do Jae's sibling). He later regained his memories while he was in jail.
IMO, the drama “missed this part” because the drama could not have used this line. The male lead in the drama did not intend to leave HHJ forever. As he reminded her in episode 12, he told her to wait for him to come looking for her, but he felt he needed to punish himself first.
Novel spoilers ahead.
Whereas the male lead in the novel thought that he could not be with HHJ and had no intention of returning to HHJ when he said that line.
When the male lead was wearing tactical gear and rescued HHJ and the other hostages in Argan in episode 12, he was not acting as a negotiator. He seemed to be acting as some kind of rogue free agent.
In the novel, in both South Korea and in Argan, the male lead had set up intelligence networks that he used to gather and leverage information in order to gain power. When he faked his death and went back to Argan, he was not affiliated with the South Korean government.
Since the drama didn’t really show the male lead’s intelligence gathering network in South Korea, I think it’s pretty safe to assume that the drama also didn’t have him leading an intelligence network in Argan, either.
Later in episode 12, when the male lead was wearing a suit and was dispatched by the South Korean government to help negotiate the release of South Koreans who were involved in the Izmael/Palima hostage crisis (not in Argan), he was acting as an official hostage negotiator and not as a rogue free agent.
Note: A version of the Argan storyline from episode 12 occurred at the end of the novel. Another hostage crisis (the one mentioned in episode 1 of the drama) also occurs in Argan at the beginning of the novel. The separate Izmael/Palima hostage crisis and hostage negotiator storyline from episode 12 did not occur in the novel at all.