Sometimes when I write my First Impressions, I creep myself out when I find that my snap judgments are proven right. In Episodes 7 and 8, we see more of the “missing piece” of Yeoji’s and Dalmoon’s characters. To me, it’s important to get a good grasp of the characters’ mindset (i.e., what their aspirations are, what triggers them) so we can predict how they’ll act in the future.

Frankly I wasn’t surprised that three characters, namely the King, the good Prince and the Good Inspector, died in this episode. I expected them to be eliminated from the script to make way for the real plot action.

The King was dying anyway, the good Prince was in the way, and the Good Inspector Han had to be cut down as an example to other inspectors who would dare go against the power of the ruling faction, the Norons. And I checked the list of casts at the beginning of the show. These three actors didn’t get top billing. lol.

Three things interest me in these episodes because I think they’ll have bearing on the story.

First, when Minister Min abandons Lee Tan, he discards him ruthlessly like a used tissue. He has no fear of offending a royalty because he regards him as debased. “When I see the likes of you, I see that status is only a delusion. Humans are just talking beasts. That’s what you find out. And the world still has to go on so a thing like you will be spared to live, too.”

He openly insults Lee Tan because he doesn’t see him as a credible threat to his plan of installing a prince. Nothing stops him from showing his contempt for him.

Lee Tan goes outside sits on the stone steps like a stray dog that he is. His girlfriend/the concubine of the Prime Minister berates him to get up and reminds him of his promise to make her the queen. Here now we get to see Lee Tan’s original source of mayhem. She manipulates him to go after those out to get what’s rightfully his. Lee Tan might no longer be of use to Minister Min, but the girlfriend/concubine still see him as her ticket to a better life.

Sigh! Why is it that there’s always a evil woman behind every villain? Why blame Eve?

Second, the conversation between YeoJi and Lee Geum is equally interesting. Although I’m fine without a romance brewing between the two characters, I think this dialogue is the longest they’ve had together and it shows his awareness of her.

He’s proven before that he isn’t indifferent to her. Let me list the previous times.

1. He witnessed YeoJi bemoaning her lack of boobs, and pretended not to notice.
2. He recognized her as a female thief even before she kicked him in the balls and rescued her from Lee Tan.
3. He indirectly complimented her looks. He told her, “I’m not sending you off because you’re pretty.”
4. He saved her from being jailed by pretending to be interested in men. He said, “Yes, I had her dress that way. By making her disguise herself as a man, I thought I could restrain my heart.”
5. He flirted with her before he found out that she knew who he was. “Well, I suppose it’s about time you get curious about someone as charming as me.”
6. He asked her if she was okay after she fought off the attackers in the forest.
7. He accepted her offer to drink with her and the gang.

I thought that moment in the previous episode was comical — the meeting of the three women in his life.

There was his wife who screamed at him for sending them both on exile in Tamra island. She cast his clothes at him, which if I’m not mistaken was tantamount to declaring a divorce. lol.

Then, there was JoHong or his slave girl. She was willing to pick up the discarded clothes as she would be needing them when SHE accompanied Lee Geum to Tamra. She brazenly usurped the wife’s role and said that she was going to pack their clothes.

But both the wife and the slave girl JoHong were out-hustled by YeoJi who whisked him away from the women with the invitation to drink and eat with the guys. YeoJi had no shame returning later that night to him if it was too inconvenient for him to leave at that moment.

I thought his involvement with these women because he looked trapped. They all had competing claims over him but he chose to go and follow the one woman who looked like a guy, YeoJi.

And now here, in Episodes 7/8, he’s alone with her again.

LG: How about going home now and taking some rest? It’ll get dark soon. If you’re scared of the nightfallen roads, well… I can come with you. (lol. Again, this must be a first. Offering to escort a damo home.)
YJ: No. How can mere nightfallen roads be scary?
LG: But of course, you wouldn’t be. What were you doing?
YJ: I examine the terrain and landmarks around the temple. Prince Milpoong might leave his men there. If a close range fight breaks out, I have to be prepared.
LG: You? What can you do alone?
YJ: Not only among the damos of the Saheonbu, but also among all the assistant investigators, I’m the most outstanding martial artist and case investigator.
LG: What?
YJ: A master of all forms of disguises and infiltration skills, that’s a given, and fluent in Mandarin and Japanese. Some refer to me, who’s all that, as a macho man, a human weapon or a walking military unit of 100 soldiers.
LG: Ohhh. Are you bragging? (amazed that she could define herself in this way. She was preoccupied with “masculine” endeavors.)
YJ: No, it’s the truth.
LG: Definitely, you’re not normal. Don’t you have any self-awareness as a woman?
YJ: Oh, that’s right, I’ve heard that you and Lord MoonSoo have become pledged brothers.
LG: Oh that…
YJ: I heard that I’m the youngest. What should I do? Call you Hyung-nim?
LG: What? Hyung-nim?! (lol, he’s freaked out.)
YJ: You wouldn’t like Orabeoni. I don’t know why but when I use that term, everybody acts awkward.
LG: You don’t know why they feel uneasy when you call them orabeoni?
YJ: No. Orabeoni is the right term for a younger woman to call older males but strangely when I use that term, they freak out.
LG: You don’t know the reason? You really don’t know it? Really, you’re not normal.

Of course, her colleagues freak out when she calls them orabeoni because the honorifics reminds them that she’s a girl, and a very pretty one at that. They probably don’t want to see her as a girl. Apart from the Good Inspector Han who’s now dead, only Lee Geum notices that she’s a girl… from the start.

She hasn’t had this kind of conversation with the others. Whenever Moonsoo calls her “macho man,” she reacts with a poker face. And in Episode 1 when the others remarked on her hair-tying skills and her name missing one stroke to make it read as “woman”, she simply ignored them.

So, this is the first time she wonders how she’s perceived by others.

Last, Dalmoon.

My guess was right. Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, his primary concern is “home,” to provide protection and safety for the people of his own kind. That’s why he’s willing to be paid for his services by the most powerful man as long as he can get protection from the most powerful man. For him, the notion of good or evil is only linked to the desired outcome. If his people are protected in the end, then the means of achieving that protection, no matter how wrongful or criminal, is good. For him, the end justifies the means.

But he’s not too far gone to be persuaded to change.

LG: That’s right. It surely was strange. Why didn’t the beggars show up there? This happened a few days ago. I hired an entire gisaeng house and invited over all the ragtag of the capital. But not one beggar showed his face there. Isn’t that strange? Why weren’t there any beggars where free food and free alcohol were unlimited? Oh, was that at the bidding of the head of the band?
DM: Your highness, Prince Yeoning.
LG: And we’ve met before. Your name was probably DalMoon.

LG: So it was you, the dealer of gossip and scandals in the capital. Wow. That’s amazing. A band of beggars taking over even Gae Dol’s gisaeng house. You must have secured a rather dependable and corrupt backer.
DM: What does it matter, who the sponsor is as long as I can support my family?
LG: Is Min Jin Heon the one behind you?
DM: You will not gain the answer that you seek.
LG: An innocent person might get hurt.
DM: Unless that is one of my own, I give zero fucks.
LG: Then, how much would be sufficient for you to reveal your dealings with the Minister of Interior? Yes, if I can catch him, I will give you all that I have.
DM: No, it’s power, Your Highness, that can protect the likes of us. Money? Law? Government? No. What can protect the powerless is, ironically, power. And I mean, the power that a person like you, Your Highness, can never give us. I’m saying that my family can stay safe only under the aegis of that power.
LG: Is that why you let others get hurt instead? Are you really fine when someone else, not one of your own, getting beaten, robbed and killed? I guess you cannot answer that. Merely trying to appeal to your conscience is a waste of time.

But the prince’s words must have sunk in because he relayed the one information that he knew. That Lee Tan is still in Hanyang in the vicinity of the other prince.

His last-minute change of heart tells me that he can be rehabilitated and convinced to join the team of Lee Geum, MoonSoo and YeoJi.

Anyway, those are the three important points that I see in these episodes. Let’s see what the writer has in store for us in this week’s installments.