There’s this scene in Episode 7, when Secretary Ma asked Mawang which one would be better: a fated meeting or an arranged meeting. When Mawang replied a planned meeting, Secretary Ma smiled to herself because she knew something that Mawang didn’t know. Earlier, Jonathan had given her the picture of SunMi asking her help to find her. He had encountered SunMi again in the hallway of the building and he figured that Secretary Ma, of all people, would be able to identify her.
Secretary Ma thought it was all fate.
Hmmmm….
I noticed that in Korean kdramas, fate and destiny are often interchanged. Even the subbers do this. They use the English word “destiny” when fate is the term they actually mean. However, in Western philosophy, fate and destiny aren’t the same. There’s a subtle but very defined distinction between fate and destiny.
I’ve written about this difference several times in that other site and I think I need to bring it up here again.
Fate is something you have no control over. You cannot change it. It’s pre-set and pre-determined for you. It’s been given to you and it shapes who you are. It could be the family, physical abilities, economic status you were born in, your country or your race. When you say that fate is “written in the stars,” there’s this sense that your future is something out of your reach like the stars, and something beyond your control like cosmic movement. Therefore, you allow events to happen according to “fate” unresistingly, passively.
On the other hand, destiny is what you do with this fate given to you. You have control over your destiny. You can change your destiny. You can mold it. You can even recreate it.
The big difference between fate and destiny is choice. You have a free will to choose what to make of your own destiny while with fate, you’re bound to it.
In the Western mindset then, fate is usually tied to a sense of resignation and passive acceptance, and the connotation is usually negative. That’s why we have words like fatal, ill-fated, fatalism and fatalistic. There’s a sense of being mortal, disastrous, and doomed, for instance, “The rebels were fated to die in battle” or “He was fated to live in the slums.”
…which is so different from destiny.
With destiny, there’s a sense of hope, of triumphing over adversities, of fighting against your limitations and of doing your best. That’s why we usually hear, “He’s destined for greatness” and not “He’s destined to become a loser.” Instead, we say, “he’s fated to lose.”
A presidential candidate can feel that he’s “destined to win” the elections, but never is he “fated to win” elections because elections, in theory and practice, must be won by hard work and campaigning.
There’s a poem often associated with taking charge of your own destiny. It’s called Invictus (meaning unconquered) by Will Henley. As a young boy, the poet caught an illness so his leg was amputated. Years later, he must have expressed how he felt about the terrible circumstances.
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
The last two lines are excellent cri de coeur of rebelling teens. 🙂
So what’s the relevance of this mini (and free) lecture on fate-vs-destiny to Hwayugi?
Perspective.
As smart bitches, we can’t simply accept whatever we see or hear on kdramas without discernment and scrutiny. Is it true? Is this what I believe in? Is this EVEN what I want to believe in?
The way I see it Jonathan believes it is his fate (in the Western definition) to be reunited with his first love. However, what he – and Secretary Ma – don’t realize is he was making things happen himself. He was creating his own destiny. He created the story revolving around the first love. Even if he did accidentally meet SunMi at Namsan Tower and at Lucifer Entertainment building, he would eventually meet SunMi once the movie was done. Sooner or later, SunMi would have realized that she was the girl with the yellow umbrella. The movie project was all about her. He’d been searching for her, and trying to make his future with SunMi happen.
Personally, I think it’s more romantic when the guy exerted all his energy and made it his life-work to meet his “first love” again. I wouldn’t settle for a guy who’d leave our reunion up to chance and fate. 