A poster at soompi asked why Wannabe Wife would want to hurt WooHyun if she actually wanted him.

Her behavior can be viewed as retaliatory as in “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” Or it can be viewed as a “sour grapes” like a child would break a toy so nobody else could have it. Or it can be viewed as sheer perversion on her part: she wants to do it because she’s psychotic enough to act on her impulse.

But whatever it is, you have to understand that WooHyun is her key to her gaining acceptance.

WooHyun is her validation ticket for her EXISTENCE as the maknae and the illegitimate child of an entertainment-industry worker (that’s the non-judgmental way of saying it) in a chaebol family. This is her way to get approval from her father and family. To establish “roots” as she told WooHyun’s mom.

To understand HyeJoo, you should watch what sets her off or her trigger points. Here in Episode 13, the phone call from her dad dismissing her “services” or her “utility” only hardens her resolve to get WooHyun. What did she say? She said: for the first time in her life, she isn’t going to follow her dad; she’s going to disobey him.

She wants to attach himself to WooHyun because she sees him as a savior. Pretty much how YooJung saw WooHyun from the beginning, right? A “good man” who’ll save her. He’ll save her from being treated like the runt in her family and he’ll establish her as a bona fide daughter of her father.

Her motivation was established from the start. I discussed it this last month when I popped out in soompi to “rehabilitate” her character to make us understand where she’s coming from.

Here are my posts. A trilogy, lol.

https://forums.soompi.com/en/topic/420260-current-drama-2018-fluttering-warning-love-watch-%EC%84%A4%EB%A0%98%EC%A3%BC%EC%9D%98%EB%B3%B4-wed-thu-2300-kst/?do=findComment&comment=21322559

I stand by with what I said. The current trend in literature, visual arts and op-eds is to “humanize the enemy.” (Except if your last name is Trump. Then you’re Hitler reincarnated or a spawn of the devil. hahaha.)

The intellectual debate nowadays is not whether you can recognize good or evil (that’s too simplistic for many modern ethical dilemmas) but whether you will walk the same path if you walk in the villain’s shoes.

What will you do if you were given – or bogged down – with the same cards by Lady Luck?

Understanding the differences between you and the villain makes you realize quickly that the world isn’t as black-and-white as we think and WANT it to be. Fifty Shades of Grey isn’t just a title of a popular book.

If you wish, you can view Wannabe Wife as very Nietzsche-an. Nietzsche is the old dead dude who said, “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster… If thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” This means that you mirror what you’re looking at in the mirror. You become what you love and hate.  The tormented becomes the tormentor; the beloved becomes the lover; and vice versa.

HyeJoo has gazed too long at her apathetic dad and wanted to become part of a toxic family, so she modeled her behavior to fit them… only to end up with GROTESQUE results.

**********************************

And to save the lurkers here in this blog the time and effort of searching soompi for that November 27 post, here it is:

There, @bebebisous33 If your post were the Declaration of Independence, I’d sign on.

I’m going to break down your post so I can respond properly. Your original comment will be blue; my response is in black.

*****************************

@thistle Actually, I am not bothered by KHJ’s behaviour and actions. The description of her childhood and the scenes with her father underline perfectly why she is so determined to get married to CWH. She doesn’t realize how wrong her actions are because of her selfishness and past trauma. Since she was never acknowledged and was always treated like nothing by her own family (her father’s), she had to become “selfish” in order to “survive”. If she hadn’t been like that, she would have kind of disappeared. Her existence would have been denied. So the circumstances of her life turned her into a selfish person. Her strength became her flaw in the long run as she stopped looking at others. 

>>I disagree with her decisions and course of action although I understand her motivations. She’s not a madwoman, let’s put it that way. The writer didn’t write her as a sociopath or a psychopath. Two things I do like about her — if I may say so without getting killed here, lol — are her honesty and good taste. I didn’t notice these qualities until later on.

On one occasion, in Episode 2, WH went to his father’s office and accused him of taking away his medical privileges. He said, “You stripped my medical gown from me, blocked me from treating my patients. That’s an act more cruel than snatching Choego Group from you.” His father was confused.

Shortly after WH left, the Wannabe Wife came to visit him too. And he asked her, point-blank, if she did that to WH’s hospital? She didn’t even hesitate. She answered, “Yes. WH said if he comes to want something, there’s a possibility to negotiate for our marriage.”

Very very warped of her but the father laughed. I’d rather that she was totally honest about her misdeeds than blame somebody else.

Then on another occasion, she openly admitted to him, “Honestly, at first, I wanted to be the wife of Choego Group. Instead of becoming of CWH’s wife, I thought I had to become your daughter-in-law. (meaning, Choego Group >>> CHW) But the more I see him, my heart keeps going to WH. Even if WH doesn’t want to come to work at Choego Group, I don’t want to lose him.”

The father again commended her honesty.

Me? I commend her good taste. lol. Of course, WooHyun was a better proposition than Choego Group! Even an impoverished WooHyun is better than a world-famous Choego Group. To me then there’s still hope for her if she can recognize the value of a good person above all. 

Then like packmule3 illustrated it, she feels herself like she has no roots. In her eyes, she can only exist when she gets married. Only with her marriage, her father will recognize her and treat her better, besides she will have her own family. Sure, she is also projecting her own mentality into CWH. Since he had a similar past, she also believes that CWH has the same wish and desire. She is not entirely wrong: CWH has been longing for a family and father too which is the reason why he sees YJ’s father as his own father and why he put two bowls on the table, when he used to eat alone.

>>Yes, she thought that she and CWH were hewn from the same cloth. They’re both illegitimate children, the outcasts in very elitist families. Top five family, right?

To the outside world, they project the image of success, competence, self-reliance, and self-assurance. She’s the managing director of the flagship (I’m assuming) Kanghan Hotel while he’s an award-winning, internationally-trained doctor.

However, they’re both loners. She’s mostly seen with her aide while he admits to growing up by himself and to doing solitary activities.

On paper, the two of them would appear identical in personality and taste.

Nonetheless unlike KHJ, CWH is smart enough to realize that belonging to a powerful family will never give him that feeling of family and love. KHJ is in that matter too naive. 

>>Yes. I guess that fire can be seen as beneficial in the sense that it was an eye-opener for him. It allowed him a complete break from his toxic family so he was able to forge his own identity and his own destiny away from them.

First, CWH witnessed the fight between his father and his step-mother, he also noticed that his step-brother was unhappy himself. Another explanation why KHJ and CWH think totally differently is that his own mother had a different approach how to resolve the problem with the lack of roots and connections: she did not run away (moving abroad) in order to hide like KHJ’s mother who tried to commit suicide, his mother chose to find another man in her life. Yes, she failed… as she got divorced so often, however due to her marriages, CWH found a hyung. He was able to connect to others, while KHJ has been focusing on herself all this time. 

>>Exactly! No matter how disenchanted he was with his mother’s flightiness and multiple divorces, he was still better off in that family situation than he would ever have been in the Cha household.  Money and power weren’t the end-all and be-all of his existence.

The choice of his career is another explanation: CWH wanted to ensure that nothing connects him to his biological father, KHJ did the exact opposite. She decided to work for her father (his company) thinking that this might create a bound between her and her father but she failed. 

>> Yes. Because he didn’t grow under his father’s shadow, he didn’t have to live by father’s rules. I wish she had the same option. She’s forced to play her father’s games OR forfeit his approval and her position in his family. Terrible choice to make, right?

Finally, we shouldn’t forget that CWH almost died in the fire which created a huge riff between him and his biological father. So far, KHJ has not been hurt physically by her own father. 

>>Yes, that fire was devastating. IF that was indeed the same fire where YJ’s mother died, then it had far-reaching consequences. However, for WH, the fire was also his catalyst. His character is the way it is today because of that incident.

He’s stronger, independent, resilient, and thank goodness! divorced from that family.

The Wannabe Wife’s whole argument was about “having roots.” But as seen in hers and WH’s examples, if the roots were planted in bad soil, then the seedling wouldn’t have grown beautifully anyway. It’s better to just uproot the plant and relocate it where it can thrive.

@angelangie Far^away In my opinion, KHJ’s background should be revealed as well so that her father’s reputation is tarnished. KHJ became like that because of him… the two fathers should experience the disgrace she and CWH have been facing but the best punishment would be that they are abandoned by their own family. Both fathers are terrible, they only care for their own interest: their company.

>>Yes. They’re all disgraceful although, as I said in my blog, I still haven’t figured out WH’s father’s motivations. I’ve been ignoring all of the subplots and letting them all come to a head. He IS getting mixed readings on my radar so I’m holding off on any judgment on him for now.

In sum, many villains in contemporary stories are not the same villains of yesteryears. Whereas before the villains would be written as completely monstrous and sadistic, there’s a current trend among more mature and experienced writers to HUMANIZE the enemy. Savvy writers have learned to deconstruct evil and to assign mitigating factors like extreme hardship, childhood abuse, systemic corruption, unspeakable mistreatment, etc. More likely than not, the villains are compelled to do a “necessary” evil and that’s why they’re tragic figures. If we were to carefully assess their flaws, we’d see that they were, in some way or another, victims, too.

And I see that the writer of this kdrama taking this route because this is a romcom anyway, not a melodrama.

It’s rare nowadays to see black-and-white characters. They’re usually 50 shades of Grey…errr… gray.