I noticed I was gritting my teeth while watching this Episode 14. 
Part of it is due to my frustration with the whole body-swapping thing. I don’t get it. Here’s a list of my reasons for being skeptical.
1. Isn’t body-swapping = fate-swapping too?
The Priestess took SamJang’s identity: body, energy, and memory. So, why didn’t SamJang’s fate transfer over to this new SamJang/Priestess, too?
She confirmed it later. She’s SamJang. The Death Bell curse is technically hers, too. 
2. I thought the Priestess could predict the future. She told SunMi that she had the power to manipulate souls and predict the future here.
If so, why then couldn’t she see the sad ending of OG and SM that fate had in store for them?
She coveted OG as her husband because she knew of OG’s great power and she saw OG’s tender protection of SM. It baffles me that while she was observing OG’s interactions with SM, she was unable to foresee one of them killing the other. Perhaps OG and SM aren’t fated to have a tragedy?
She only found out about the Death Bell curse from eavesdropping on General Frost and Summer Fairy’s conversation. She herself didn’t see a predestined doom in OG’s and SM’s future together. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have envied SM and desired what belonged to SM.
3. Once she found out from General Frost that the SunMi and OG were fated to kill each other, WHY on earth would she want to exchange lives with the SunMi?!
She would become SunMi’s proxy and take on SunMi’s bad fate. Wasn’t she scared that OG would kill HER – as SunMi’s stand-in – and be done with that whole Death Bell bullshit?
After all, OG didn’t love her, and he had no stake in keeping her alive. The only reason OG didn’t snap her precious neck in Episode 15 was because Mawang warned him that the real SunMi wasn’t dead yet. While the real SunMi lived, the Priestess survived. Had General Frost gone through with their original plan to shatter the censer in order to trap SM in her dream world, Mawang would have lost their only connection with SM, and NOTHING would have held back OG from slaying her.
Also given that a human like SM only had a short existence, did she really expect to hold onto OG for years? I’d given SM’s body to last a week, tops, without water. lol. But hey, that’s just me. I need my 8 glasses of water everyday or else I shrivel up.
4. Since we’re on this body-swapping thing, part of me wondered whether OG could foist off their “curse” onto another couple. Say, the Priestess and Kang Daesung.
In the same way that Mawang took on the 10000 years of punishment for Princess Iron Fan’s release from her stupid reincarnation, give the other unlucky couple this SamJang-Protector fate of SunMi and OhGong, and let them kill each other. lol.
The Death Bell curse is a hot potato. Just pass on the stupid curse to the next bitch who desires to be SunMi.
Those are my four takes on this body-switch of SM and the Priestess. On a different note, here are my four comments on the rest of Episode 14.
1. It’s interesting to note that the Priestess visited Kang DaeSung AFTER PK talked to her about Buja’s death. Like many of you, I’m inclined to think that she was moved by her conversation with PK.
PK: ASN, I heard that you also had a really pitiful death?
ASN: I don’t need your sympathy.
PK: Buja died a really pitiful death. She didn’t even know why she died. But even so, she was a kind of girl that never even thought of searching for her enemies. Now that you’re spending time with a kind girl, I see that you’re starting to become kind now as well.
I like to think that PK holds the wild card here. The Priestess is inadvertently forming a bond with him because of his devotion to her host-body, Buja. She was a bad priestess, made MORE evil, because she’s been harboring deep anger for her betrayal for a 1000 years. But she’s also hungry for real affection and unselfish love.
I know that in the REAL story of the Journey to the West, PK is supposed to attain god-status too (– although I don’t understand what’s so worthy about joining this heavenly rank when all the gods are crappy). Maybe “rehabilitating” ASN, the priestess, was his mission in life.
2. I don’t think ASN is going to make Kang DaeSang her king … or if she does, she isn’t going to trust him with her life. She knows he’s only going to exploit her for his political ambitions like she was deceived and manipulated by her king before. She wants loyalty and protection, the kind that OhGong displays for SM.
To me, Kang DaeSang didn’t understand that Karma just paid him a visit in his lecture hall and left a calling card. ASN is his karma. And this is her message: I’ll come and find you, wait.
And karma’s a bitch. Buja was a zombie, but this Priestess is karma personified. lol.
3. SunMi was able to have visions of bad things because of her body-switching with ASN.
I think this is actually one silver lining to that whole Coffin Exchange: she gained the power to foresee the future herself. She saw the baby in the stroller involved in a motorcycle accident, and she was able to prevent the tragedy from occurring.
Why is this important?
For me it’s important because I’m hoping that she’ll eventually learn to understand that the future is fluid. What she sees is only a “PROBABLE” future and she has the ability to determine her ending and that of others. Sure, she can predict a bad “fate” but she can control the circumstances to avoid or alter her course. She too can save protect.
Sigh. She only began to realize this… in Episode 14. 
For me, this is a no brainer. If I were fated to die under an avalanche of snow, you could bet your bottom dollar that you wouldn’t find me living in a Scandinavian country … or Utah. I’d move to the some place on the Equator and raise goats or something.
SunMi is too passive and too weepy for my taste as a heroine.
I wish she’d grow a spine so she doesn’t have to be “watched over” each and every single time.
4. The person who is actually prophetic in the story is OhGong. And HE doesn’t even believe in fate. lol.
Didn’t you notice that many of the things he said in this episode proved true? (Let’s not even talk about the time in Episode 11 when he warned Mawang about disturbing something big when toppling the tree.)
For instance, he told SunMi that death is the price of a betrayal.
SM: Even though evil spirts seem like they have none, they do have a sense of loyality. Secretary Ma and Sa Oh Jeong both. once they take care of you, they’re endlessly loyal. To be honest, among human relationships, nothing last forever.
OG: For us, once we have a relationship, it lasts forever. If we commit a betrayal, we pay with our lives.
He was a foreshadowing of Summer Fairy’s death. Summer Fairy offered her death as atonement for her brother’s betrayal.
Then, when SM was happy to discover her new ability of seeing the future, he was suspicious about it.
Same with Buja’s arrival at their house with her fake concession. She told them that she was ready to die, and OG told her that she doubted she would have changed into a new leaf.
I like OhGong in this Episode precisely because he uses plain good old common sense rather than sixth sense to deal with reality.
I swear I would have dropped this romcom around Episode 10 if it weren’t for his no-nonsense approach to all the bullshit about soulmates, match-made-in-heaven, reincarnation, blind obedience to capricious gods, and fate. These things are anathemas to me.
lol. That’s also the primary reason I was gritting my teeth throughout this Episode. I was waiting for him to resolve his and SunMi’s problems with his usual aplomb. I was rooting for OhGong all the way because he’s the sole rational and self-determined creature in the story that I can identify with.
Not sure about the fate swapping but if that happened maybe ASN does not believe in fate either? Or at least believes she can do stuff to change it and she does not need to refrain from doing what she wants because of stupid death bells. Or maybe she’s so much into marrying OG that she does not care that he would just kill her once SunMi is really dead (if General Frost would have destroyed the censer). She’s willing to try and beat the odds. Or maybe she’s just stupidly overconfident. Why else would she ever try to marry OG when it’s so obvious he has zero interest? And is smart and powerful enough to not get tricked by her.
As for not seeing the future of SM and OG maybe her visions of the future don’t work like that. Maybe she can see random stuff and not that much things she’d want to know
You said, “Not sure about the fate swapping but if that happened maybe ASN does not believe in fate either? Or at least believes she can do stuff to change it and she does not need to refrain from doing what she wants because of stupid death bells”
I think so, too. Maybe she believes in her powers to change things. What she did, required a lot of guts for a mere priestess. (Was she an immortal? I presume not?) Wasn’t SHE worried about the gods? She seemed unfazed that she was making a mess of their preordained fates for SM and OG. And did you notice that she was also egging on Mawang to doubt the gods.
You also said, “Or maybe she’s so much into marrying OG that she does not care that he would just kill her once SunMi is really dead (if General Frost would have destroyed the censer). She’s willing to try and beat the odds. Or maybe she’s just stupidly overconfident. Why else would she ever try to marry OG when it’s so obvious he has zero interest? And is smart and powerful enough to not get tricked by her.”
I agree. She seemed to be headstrong. She’s really a “fun” antagonist. Meaning, she’s evil enough to make it fun punishing her later on. But also, she’s fun because she goads SunMi to the limits of her goodness and tolerance. Like when SunMi was so irritated that she couldn’t put the lids back on properly. Or when SunMi gave her the brush-off and told her not to mess with her and OG because they’re two birds of a feather. Meekness is good in moderation; but since she’s dealing with demons and evil people 24/7, she needs a bit more bitch-craft to survive.
As for this, “As for not seeing the future of SM and OG maybe her visions of the future don’t work like that. Maybe she can see random stuff and not that much things she’d want to know”–
Yes, we do not know what she can or cannot see. Maybe her powers aren’t 100% back yet. But I do find it interesting that she visited Mawang after dropping by SunMi’s place. We haven’t been told yet why she chose Mawang as her second destination, right? I wonder if she was working with a plan or a vision in mind.
Initially, I wanted ASN in the plot for a maximum of three episodes. But I guess she IS here to stay for the duration of this romcom. We only have four more episodes left. The Hong sisters have always been spotty about their endings. I hope they’ve reserved the last episode for couple time — to indulge us, viewers. If one of them, SunMi or OG, has to die and go on a long absence/time-travel, I want it to happen this weekend (Episodes 17 and 18) so we can have the following weekend for wrapping up loose ends. It would soooo suck if SM and OG were to separate in the penultimate episode, because then everything would be crammed in the last episode. We have the Happily Ever Afters for Mawang, PIF, Secretary Ma, CEO Sa, PK, the Octopus, Buja, and Hanjoo to consider as well as the HEA for OG and SM, of course.
I thought when the priestess occupies the body, she only takes the physical aspects of it. Since the memories are stored in the brain which is a physical object, she will have it. Fate is tied with the soul?
And when she told OG that she’s Sam Jang, she only meant by the name, not the real Sam Jang. After all, if the change is reversed, I doubt she’s going to be taking on the role of the monk.
What I don’t understand is OG saw through her when she possessed Buja, so why in the world would she think that she could get away pretending to be JSM? I would rather she come straight out with OG, like at the office scene, when they both knew and agreed to continue to knowingly deceive each other. That would make more sense.
While I think OYS make a good ASN, I didn’t like her laughter part. She laughed when taunting both Ma Wang and OG.
Hmmmm… you may have a point there. Let me think about what you said here: I thought when the priestess occupies the body, she only takes the physical aspects of it. Since the memories are stored in the brain which is a physical object, she will have it. Fate is tied with the soul? And when she told OG that she’s Sam Jang, she only meant by the name, not the real Sam Jang. After all, if the change is reversed, I doubt she’s going to be taking on the role of the monk.
I’m used to thinking of fate as tied to both body AND soul, and I thought that in Buddhism (the Legend of the Monkey King is Buddhist in origin, right? Not Confucian??) the body and spirit are NOT separate, but linked together as well. But if you say that fate is tied only to the soul, and not to the body, then, yes, the body-swapping ≠ fate-swapping will make sense. 🙂
I agree with you. I prefer the compromise in the office where they both agreed to mutual deception. lol. She’ll pretend to fool him and he’ll pretend to be fooled. I know that the arrangement sounded absurd when OG and ASN discussed it. But it actually made sense to me…and you. lol.
I’m used to thinking of fate as tied to both body AND soul, and I thought that in Buddhism (the Legend of the Monkey King is Buddhist in origin, right? Not Confucian??) the body and spirit are NOT separate, but linked together as well. But if you say that fate is tied only to the soul, and not to the body, then, yes, the body-swapping ≠ fate-swapping will make sense.
Where this show is concerned, I’m just taking what they gave, and try to make as much sense as possible since not much explanation given and if there is, seems to be a twist to what was previously stated.
I mean, the fact that the heaven realm has their weird sense of logic says a lot about what is to be expected.
Hi
It’s me again. In a way, I can understand why you don’t like the main heroine. By the way, have seen the drama “Heartless City”/ “Cruel City”? The main heroine there is absolutely the worst.
Okay, back to Hwayugi while it is true that Sunmi follows her heart rather than her brain. At least she isn’t the worst heroine like the one from the “Jugglers”, or help me the one from “Bad Guys”. But neither is she the best if anything she falls somewhere in the middle.
Which is a shame because if I were the writer and the director, I would have changed her character. She can still be a compassionate person that’s fine but she would be at least have intelligence. After all, how did she survive through all these years?
I’m actually surprised that she is so naive, it doesn’t make sense to me. Trust me I know & meet people that had tough upbringing such as no parents, lonely life etc. And I, in fact, live a rather lonely life and I have to say that not me or other people behave the way she does. If anything we’re either bitter, paranoid, have trust issues, you get the point.
Okay, I feel like I lost my point somewhere through my rambling post.
Sorry (English is not my first language)
See ya!
Hey…come back! You weren’t rambling. Lol.
I can tolerate SM’s meekness, non-aggression, and passivity because I understand that those qualities belong to the monk SamJang whose nobleness she must carry on too. But what I can’t tolerate is her dependence on superstitions and fate to determine her love or to validate her love. THAT is stupid and juvenile.
To me, blaming OG for keeping her in the dark is the superficial understanding of the cause of their trouble. It has little to do with “trust issues.” He could have told her the truth about the Death Bell two days prior the Coffin Day or two hours or two minutes, her reaction would have been the same: It’s the Death Bell!!!!!!! and I can’t love youuuuuu!
THAT is the root cause of their problem. How far was she going to allow an outside force determine her life? I keep on saying this: it’s Fate versus Destiny.
Look at OG. He has already “self-determined”. 👍🏻He made his own choice. He decided that the GGG didn’t matter anymore because he WILLED that he was going to wear it. He said, “This is my will.” Meaning, the stupid capricious gods have no control over him any more. He isn’t going to sit and wait at the gods to toss shit at him. He’s going to be proactive because he loves her.
Do you see now why SunMi’s love seems weak in comparison to OG’s love? He’s willing to fight for her, but she isn’t. She is letting the Fate determine whether her love should exist or not. 😂
To simplify it for you, what if you’re thirty-five years old, president of your own business, healthy and emotionally stable. You’re dating this wonderful guy who loves you so much that he’ll willingly leave his high-paying job at Amazon.com and follow you anywhere. When he proposes, instead of saying yes, you tell him, “Wait! I have to consult the fortune teller to see if our marriage is fortuitous. We have to be a match made in heaven. Because I don’t want to bring you bad luck in the future.”
😤😖😱What the hell??
THAT is what SunMi is doing here.
She should be adult enough to CHOOSE to make their love life fruitful and happy. It’s burdensome and unfair to her partner that HE’s the only one willing to make their marriage work come hell or high water. She’s still dithering.
And no, I disagree. Compared to the heroine in Jugglers, who I found very charming, SunMi is woefully lacking in courage to pursue a mature love. The heroine in Jugglers knew who she wanted and she declared she would love him no matter what. She would – and DID – stick to him like glue whereas here we still see OG begging SunMi to hold onto him tightly. As I see it, RIGHT NOW, as SunMi stands, I don’t want her married to OG until she grows a backbone.
My two cents.
I think the problem with SunMi is not that she’s superstitious but that she needs something (a powerful thing) to guarantee that he’ll still love her after the GGG is removed. Fate is not necessarily needed. Whatever guarantee would have worked for her probably. Fate just happened to be the tool she found.
But love is no fun like that. With or without the GGG, to give your love only when you are sure the other really loves you (and will continue to love you in the future) is just meh. There’s nothing grand in that. But then again she’s been lonely all her life and I suppose a person like her would not jump into relationships she does not trust to be mutual and long lasting. The painful thing about her clinging to the fate thing is that she does not trust Oh Gong’s love at all. With all the things he’s told her she accepts the relationship mostly because of the false reassurance of what she thinks is the love bell. The scene when she tells him about it when he’s on her bed is annoying and really disappointing (for the viewers and for the monkey too probably). What she does not get is that however artificial the cause of his love might be (the GGG, assuming there were no feelings before – though there might have been) his pain is real (like Summer Fairy said) and his love is real too (even if it may not be in the future). It may not have been that real in the beginning (when he was going back and front between saying “I love you” and also that he can’t wait to get rid of the GGG – when his reason and emotions were not in sync because he thought his feelings were fake, because of the GGG). But the monkey grew out of that. He no longer really thinks his feelings are fake and rationally he only chooses steps to keep loving her. He is not sure how he’d feel without the GGG so he does not want that to be removed but even if he’s unsure about the future in the present he’s accepted his emotions rationally.
I think it’s pretty obvious the feelings are real and will keep existing with or without the GGG. Does it really matter what the reason is for one’s affection for a certain thing/person once that bond is already formed? If the reason to start something is removed will the bond break? Because I don’t think so.
It kinda reminds me of your post about the cotton candy scene. When Oh Gong says
“OG: Are you stupid? This will still exist. Even if not for Geumganggo’s sake, what’s sweet is sweet, and what you like is still what you like.”
you wrote
“>>He’s almost being scornful and derisive here. Yet his blunt words still thrill SM. Again, she’s being pathetic. He’s only stating a fact (i.e., that sweet is sweet regardless of changing circumstances) but she finds hope in his words. She quickly swallows the cotton candy, and then finds a flimsy excuse to leave him so she can savor his words in private.”
But that is not how I felt the scene. I understood why she finds hope in his words because what I was hearing is exactly that: that his feelings for her will still exist. What you like is still what you like means at least the memory of his affection will be real. The moments in which he’s happy with her (because he loves her, because of the GGG or whatever, who cares) will still be moments he liked. But also if no GGG is there to force him to love her in the future, will his affection just disappear? Just because it started artificially? Does it even matter?
Son Oh Gong doesn’t care anymore why he loves her, does not care about a life without loving her, doesn’t care that he might not suffer after the GGG is removed and he could kill her without pain. He could not be in any pain after she dies but he wants none of that. He wants to love her and he wants her safe.
But SunMi STILL cares that his love could be fake, that’s why the fate bs is relevant to her. That was annoying.
There’s another thing with the coffin and SunMi accepting to sleep in it to avoid the fate of the death bell while Oh Gong is calling bullshit on all that and will fight whoever to change it.
I think SunMi can sort of be excused because Oh Gong has a solid plan B. If he does not manage to f up Heaven’s plan and the fate they gave them and have no one die, he’ll be the one to be killed. And he has no doubt that he can achieve that. And with this plan B it’s easier to fight. It’s easier to be defiant in front of heaven when killing the person you love is not something you risk.
I don’t think SunMi can guarantee she has the power to make herself the one to be killed. Even if she’s Sam Jang, even if according to what she thinks, if she removes the GGG, OhGong won’t love her and she could get him to kill her with her blood. But she does not have the same confidence as Oh Gong. And it’s sort of understandable. He’s dealt with all sorts of things and as a trickster he knows how to manipulate whatever comes his way to get what he wants. He has experience there. She doesn’t. So.. one could be annoyed at her lack of confidence and be in awe at his defiance (which I most definitely am) but their past/who they are makes it perfectly logical that they react the way they do. Both of them. So that’s why here I wasn’t bothered about SunMi trying to run from her fate instead of trying to change it. It’s not that her love is weak and is not willing to fight for it but that for her the risk of having him killed is more real.
I can’t believe how much I’ve wrote. I’m sorry 😐
Good points, Oli!! I’m beginning to like my blog.
lol. NOooo. good points. Keep them coming. 😀
The more we think about this and discuss this, the more we see things we didn’t before, and appreciate the plot.
I just have to reply to your posts immediately because for some reason this wordpress thinks you’re spamming me if you post consecutively. hahahaha.
Hi
Let’s agree to disagree about the heroine in “Jugglers”.
However, I feel the more flawed female character is the more interesting she is.
Actress Kim Ji-won plays such a character in “Fight my way”. Though even that drama has a lot of cliches just to name some: birth secrets, the long-lost parent that suddenly appears, misunderstandings, oh and if you are not giving up your dream I’m going to break up with you! aka noble idiocy.
Anyway, some female characters start off likable enough but then fall into the pit of the abyss. Meaning that often the K-drama world present female character that supposed to be “smart” but ends up making a dumb decision after a dumb decision. Until she goes crying to her love interest and says “SAVE ME!!!!!!” or something like that.
This is why I also can’t “ship” two characters that feel’s incomplete when they are not together.
Nor do like when a guy/girl is being needy or want his/her significant other to change for them.
I believe that the first person he/she should love is himself/herself (not the point of narcissism mind you), but to the point that he/ she can feel happiness within himself/ herself and only then that person can enter into a relationship be it platonic or romantic.
At least that is what I believe.
Bye!
🙂
I think we can blame the movie Jerry MacGuire for that notion that love has to be about completing the other person.
The famous “You…complete me” scene.
https://youtu.be/NpWAlvWNZj0
If it weren’t for him, this whole Platonic concept of finding your other half would have been forgotten by youngsters. Lol. After all. who reads Plato nowadays? Plato was the one who wrote in The Symposium about the creation myth of men. According to Greek mythology, humans originally have four legs, four arms and two faces. They were monstrous creatures to behold. But then to contain their powers, their supreme god Zeus decided to chop them. From that time on, each man/woman were doomed to search for his/her other halves for the rest of their earthly life. 😀
Yes, this whole “Save me because I’m a woman” annoyed me ever since I watched Olive Oyl and Popeye. I thought Olive Oyl was too ugly to live anyway so why should Popeye save her? pwahahaha.