I’m slowly moving a few of my posts from soompi over here for archiving.  One of these days, I’ll delete that account. 😀

You don’t have to read this. This is one of my more serious and philosophical posts.

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From fikachuuu:

Sorry to cut your post and this may sound like a stupid question but just wanted to clarify some thing. Btw I do enjoy reading your post even though it took me a long while to process lol. But anyways moving on to the question:

Initially I thought when you said ET has become immortal and living out her afterlife with Shin, I thought you meant that she has come back to “our world” (the land of the living/mortal world) and came back as an immortal in the literal sense and her “afterlife” is in our mortal world with Shin. However, when I re-read your post again I realised you could also have meant it immortal in another sense that Shin has finally found a way to end his long life in the mortal world (after giving out probably a gazillion miracles I don’t know) and gone to the afterlife where ET found him in the afterlife version of Quebec. Hence, making ET immortal because the afterlife is where eternity is and death doesn’t exist (based on my personal beliefs) since you mentioned that she scored perfectly in the test of life, escaping reincarnation and gone to the afterlife. So I was just wondering whether you mean the former or the latter?

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It’s the first one, @fikachuuu. 🙂

However, to me, it would be catastrophically funny if Shin ended his life here and went up to heaven just as ET was being born here on earth. It would be like one of those “missed connection” tropes we see in a kdrama where the hero gets on the train using door A while the heroine gets off the train using door B. If I were KES’ alterego, that would be my evil plot twist. I love wicked irony, don’t you?

I don’t think it’s possible for Shin to end his immortal life. Logistically and logically speaking, I don’t see how he could kill himself. Do you know that irresistible force “paradox”? This is similar: Does an “unstoppable” death machine exist that can kill the immortal Shin? Answer: no. If Shin is truly immortal, then it follows logically that there’s no unstoppable death machine to kill him.

IN SPOILERS From the psychological standpoint, I don’t think he would ever self-terminate as long as his bride is out there coming to him. He survived that arctic tundra, didn’t he? And from a Christian perspective, @romanov, @maryofbethany and @CatWhiskers, et al. will understand this point —

So, my answer to your question @fikachuuu is ET becomes immortal and lives out her afterlife with Shin in this earthly life.

I think this is time to talk about “Afterlife is a u-turn” because it relates to your question. Shin and the Reaper shared the same reflection on afterlife. I’m sure that line can be interpreted in myriad ways, but I believe that KES specifically meant two interpretations, at least based on the script.

But first, a courtesy public announcement —

IN SPOILERS To my antis: I checked soompi and it’s still an open forum. People are free to believe what they want to believe in. Please don’t tag me because I do block people in a New York minute. You’ll waste network bandwidth and precious time writing an undeliverable post. Have a great weekend! – pm3

For me, a U-turn in the afterlife means to RELIVE your life. It’s an opportunity to do-over your life. Based on the drama, I observed two reasons for people to relive their lives again after death.

One, the reincarnation premise. People, like the Reaper and Sunny, reincarnate in order to correct their sinful history. Wrongdoers can purify their souls each time they undergo the rebirth/death cycle. They have a lesson to learn, and once they have gained enlightenment and fulfilled their destiny on earth, they can escape the unending cycle, and return to the spirit/soul world.

According to reincarnation dogma, each time the soul is reborn in a different body, the soul loses its memories of its previous life.

According to the SCRIPT, however, this “oblivion” is a gift of mercy from the gods, so the reincarnated soul won’t be burdened by its past sins. The reincarnated soul is born supposedly with “a clean slate” so it can experience life from a different perspective.

But if we carefully scrutinize the lives of the Reaper, Sunny and ET (who had a temporary amnesia), their memories of their previous lives weren’t totally obliterated. There were still traces of remembrances (like Reaper’s Stendhal syndrome, and Sunny’s aversion for her name Kim Sun, and ET’s feeling of intense heartache whenever it rained) locked in their unconscious.

By the way, do YOU see any logical problem there with this reincarnation premise, @fikachuuu?

IN SPOILERS A billion people may believe in reincarnation, but, logically, it doesn’t work for me. With my memories obliterated, I’m incapable of self-introspection or SOUL-SEARCHING. How then can I rectify my sinful history, if I can’t remember my sinful deeds? I can’t learn the lesson that I failed to do in the past when I’m clueless about the lesson. I’ll hate not knowing my crimes, and I’ll be as desperate as ET wondering what went wrong and who had the answers.

Desperately seeking for answers.

My existentialist questions: “Where did I go wrong? Am I committing the same mistake over and over again? Why is this hellhole happening to me?” Reincarnation doesn’t give me sufficient answers. Lol. Even at a legal trial, the court is informed of the exact charge and the guilty plea or verdict before the accused person is sentenced: be it a fine, an incarceration, or a discharge. So, I expect more from my Afterdeath Judgment.

In fact, this weakness in the reincarnation theory was exposed by the Reaper-is-Queen theory. But I’ll have to explain this some other time because the 1% are correct….

“Oblivion” may be a blessing to others, but it’s definitely a curse for me. I’m with Sunny/King here: Get your hands off my memories!

Hence, one reason to RELIVE your life is for atonement, and reincarnation provides the method for this atonement in this kdrama.

However, for ET (and Shin, too) there was nothing to atone for. She was already as close to perfect as she could when she died. She even made her peace with her aunt. And she sent off her last remaining ghost friend to the afterlife.

She knew it herself: it was a perfect day. She woke up in Shin’s arms, she made perfect sunny-side up eggs, and her work was well done. To borrow Christian language, she died in a STATE OF GRACE.

For Catholics, this means being in a good relationship with God and not living in mortal sin. For a nonreligious viewer, this can be re-interpreted as being at peace with the world and not harming anybody. If a dying person is in a State of Grace, she goes right to heaven upon death.

True, ET’s sacrifice for the children made her death even MORE noble and inspirational to other. But, as I was PM’ing somebody here in soompi, ET’s life was already perfect, as it was then. Even if ET had died falling in an open manhole on the street or tripping over a banana peel, she was already destined to go to heaven. Reincarnation was pointless and unnecessary for her. 😉

Two, the heaven premise. According to this kdrama, the second reason to relive your life is REUNION, or to meet again with your loved ones. If you notice, the most touching death encounters with the Reaper are those involving loved ones. For example, the blind man with his loyal dog. The mother who ordered a drink called paradise for her daughter. The bereaved old lady finally meeting her soldier who never returned. All these reunions are compatible with what is taught about heaven. (well, sort of compatible… I’m not sure about pets in heaven. Lol)

But one common misconception about the heaven is that it’s a realm entirely separate from earthly life. No, that isn’t entirely true. If I understood my catechism correctly, heaven is primarily a STATE OF BEING, rather than a defined hole-in-the-sky. I also know that other Christians understand heaven to be a place where God comes down to dwell with his holy people on a new earth. Heaven can also be established here on THIS very earth, because God Himself CREATED this world, and He called it “very good.” Therefore for me, it’s perfectly logical, and theologically sound, that ET lives her immortal AFTERLIFE here ON EARTH with Shin. Her heaven does not have to be some mansion up in the puffy clouds. Shin already has a mansion or two on earth ready for her, remember?

These mansions:

IN SPOILERS

Original mansion (I was looking for one with the portrait of the house….)

 

Honeymoon mansion

 

Château Frontenac lol

More importantly, heaven is HOME.

What makes heaven a heavenly place is the presence of loved ones. Who cares about the cherubims, seraphims, and the whole hosts of angels? For me, it would be hell (not heaven) if I were all alone after death with strangers, without my family and friends. Likewise, for ET, it would be hell (not heaven) if she were to go around the “many rooms” in Heaven and not finding Shin in any of them.

IN SPOILERS One room! She only had to seek him out in ONE room and she was already distressed not to find him there.
If ET were to wander in heaven searching for Shin, then she would be as pitiful as the mad King wandering around in Goryeo.  

To use a legal term, Shin is the sine qua non of ET’s heaven. An essential condition. Without him, it wouldn’t be heaven. He’s the non-negotiable in her “divine contract” with God. lol Didn’t she say so?

For me, then, it’s entirely logical that the afterlife for our immortal ET (cough. Angel. 1004) is heaven here on earth with the immortal Goblin.

You see, ultimately, what “Afterlife is a u-turn” meant for ET is a HOMECOMING with Shin. Homecoming sounds so much better, right @CatWhiskers?

Hope this clarifies my earlier answer. 🙂 I’m sorry I took so long to respond. I had to back up my arguments with screenshots and that took me a while.

pm3

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BTW, @CatWhiskers I’m glad you pointed out the time difference between Reaper/Sunny’s reincarnation and ET’s homecoming. I’m not sure if the scriptwriter intended it to happen, but it’s logical and consistent with the heaven/angel theory, that ET comes back at a later date than Reaper/Sunny. As I said before, time is different between an immortal and a mortal (kairos vs chronos). For an immortal, five hours can be five decades in mortal years because there’s no “fixed” or segmented time for gods.

We saw this happened when Shin was walking in circles in the frozen purgatory. What SEEMED like Shin walking around for a whole day was actually 9 years in ET’s lifetime. But if you want to take a second look at those tundra scenes and observe it “logically” or “clinically”, you’ll notice that only Shin’s lips had become frostbitten. Frostbite happens in the first 30 minutes of exposure to frigid temperatures. Shin’s ears were red, but the nose, cheeks, chin, and hands, were fine. To me, these were physical signs that he wasn’t out there in the cold for long before ET summoned him. However, in ET’s world, she was in a personal LIMBO for almost a decade. Like Einstein’s theory of relativity: what seems like forever to us is but a fingersnap to gods

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Lastly, to @Amber Byul, thanks for waiting, too. You had asked:

did KS became a Tokkaebi because he lived that kind of life and died that fate OR was KS meant to live that fate in his life and died that fate, to become a Tokkaebi?

I’m inclined to go with the first choice. The second option sounds like “negative” version predestination, to me. Again, my background isn’t at all theology (I deal with crooked, not holy, people lol) — so I’m likely to mangle this explanation. Sorry. 🙁

The first option implies that Shin had a free will to live his life and because of his choices he made, he became a goblin.

The second option, on the other, suggests that Shin was predetermined or fated to live the way he did. It’s “negative” because it implies that he didn’t need to exercise his free will, and make choices of his own; he didn’t actively participate in the creation of his life because he was “meant to live and die” that way ANYWAY. Do you understand what I mean?

But this is contrary to what we know of Shin’s actions. That Goryeo Shin exercised his own free will to enter the palace gates, to march up to the king, to stop in front of the king, to choose the person to stick the sword in him, and to die right there. Sure, he was imposed upon by his sister the Queen, or forced by circumstances, but at every step of the way, he could have turn around and surrender. Sunny herself observed that. She said that Shin was “stubborn” and that Shin could have decided not to return. Being stubborn means getting your own way.

In essence, he became a Tokkaebi, but the Tokkaebi didn’t become him.

from soompi, goblin forum, p 1045

https://forums.soompi.com/en/topic/396037-drama-2016-2017-guardian-the-lonely-and-great-goblin-%EB%8F%84%EA%B9%A8%EB%B9%84/?do=findComment&comment=20353943