A couple of days ago, in my post on Episode 14, I mentioned a couple of “icky” factors.

The first was the scene when Sungmo placed the ring on his mother’s finger which gave me the impression that they were getting betrothed to each other,

and the second was the scene when Sungmo saw his mom begging his dad to buy a book for him in exchange for a personal favor the mom was going to give his dad.

By the way, I don’t need to tell you that this camera shot is sexually suggestive, right? It’s subliminal, of course.

I said that despite my feeling “squeamish” at those scenes, I was NOT going to infer that anything physically inappropriate happened between Sungmo and his mother. You see, I don’t expect the writer to create an “incestuous” story line between the mother and son in this kdrama

However, I would be very shocked if the notion of Oedipus complex didn’t once enter the heads of this writer and this director.  They would have to be ignorant or uncultured not have heard of it and the Greek myth upon which this famous psychoanalytic theory of Sigmund Freud was based. I expect them to know better because they’re in the business of influencing and shaping minds through entertainment.

Side bar: As I said when I was blogging on “Memories of the Alhambra” and “A Poem… cough…A Crap a Day” we’re not going to be a typical shallow kdrama recapping site. I’m not going to dissect the political and legal aspects of the show because I watch kdramas to escape my day job. But I will discuss what I consider PLAUSIBLE ideas and concepts which influenced the writer and director, no matter how outré or unorthodox these ideas and concepts may appear to others.

That’s why you’re here reading this Bitch’s blog. I don’t do drivels about how hot Kim Kwon is with his hairstyle or how spectacular Park JinYoung’s abs are. You know you can get those from Tumblr and Twitter anyway, right? hahaha.

We’re here to discuss things which others don’t.

Let’s start off with Freud.

I’m sure other erudite people would cite other names as the founding father of psychology but for me, the most influential thinker who shaped modern views on the unconscious mind, dreams, memory, childhood, personality, sexuality, repression, denial, defense mechanisms, and human psychological development is Sigmund Freud. His seminal work “Interpretation of Dreams” stimulated discussion and debate. It also generated a whole lot of controversy. But, undeniably, Freud’s theories sparked people to become interested in analyzing human behavior and mental cognition as never before.

I say Freud is to psychology as Frigidaire is to refrigerator.

Now, according to Freud’s theory of human psychological development, at a very young age, children go through a love-hate relationship with their parents. Essentially, children attach themselves to the parent of the opposite sex (that is, sons to their mothers, and daughters to their fathers) and feel love and desire for them. In contrast, they regard the parent of the same sex (e.g., sons and fathers, and daughters and mothers) as a rival and feel jealousy and anger toward them.

Freud coined the term “Oedipus complex” to define this conflicted feeling a son for his mother and father. Here’s the better definition from Britannica.com

Oedipus complex, in psychoanalytic theory, a desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex and a concomitant sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex; a crucial stage in the normal developmental process. Sigmund Freud introduced the concept in his Interpretation of Dreams (1899). The term derives from the Theban hero Oedipus of Greek legend, who unknowingly slew his father and married his mother; its female analogue, the Electra complex, is named for another mythological figure, who helped slay her mother.

Freud attributed the Oedipus complex to children of about the ages three to five. He said the stage usually ended when the child identified with the parent of the same sex and repressed its sexual instincts. If previous relationships with the parents were relatively loving and nontraumatic, and if parental attitudes were neither excessively prohibitive nor excessively stimulating, the stage is passed through harmoniously. In the presence of trauma, however, there occurs an “infantile neurosis” that is an important forerunner of similar reactions during the child’s adult life. The superego, the moral factor that dominates the conscious adult mind, also has its origin in the process of overcoming the Oedipus complex. Freud considered the reactions against the Oedipus complex the most important social achievements of the human mind.

source: https://www.britannica.com/science/Oedipus-complex

Now, wait a second before you reject Freud’s theory as obscene, you have to bear in mind the extreme importance of mothers to a helpless child. She’s the primary caretaker and food provider to a toddler. It isn’t that creepy for a child who’s so emotionally and physically dependent on his mom, to become also “infatuated” with her to the point that he sees mom as “his” and “his alone.”

 

But it works both ways, mind you.

Cute, right?

Anyway…

Do you see how it ties in with our kdrama?

According to the theory of Oedipus complex, this attachment occurs when the child is three to five years old because that’s the time when children begin to discover the anatomical and gender differences between males and females.

lol. Remember the time when Sungmo’s mom put on lipstick and when his dad forced his mom to read the book to him? If there are no other additional flashbacks of Sungmo’s childhood, then I’d consider that whole incident as his moment of truth. He was discovering and formulating in his mind THE relationship between his mom and dad, between a woman and a man. He saw his mom being degraded by an obsessive psycho.

Look at him intently watching his mom as she read the passage from The Little Prince.

Then look at him as he switched his attention to his dad.

Ugh! Now, tell me that Sungmo’s mind wasn’t screwed up by witnessing that scene.

Moreover, according to this Oedipus complex, the young boy who grows up in a “loving and nontraumatic” environment, will normally go through this stage of love-for-the-mother/rivalry-with-the-father without hitches. Eventually, the boy resolves his conflicting emotions by identifying (or re-aligning) himself with his dad’s values. He learns to adopt his dad’s behaviors.

However, we saw that Sungmo’s mom did NOT want precisely this outcome for Sungmo.

In the flashback that Sungmo’s mom screamed at the dad that she didn’t want Sungmo to imitate and copy the monster of a dad.

She begged for the book, “Please any book. Just one. We have to find something where Sungmo can feel something. Please, or he’ll be like you…”

He asked, “Do you think he’s going to be an emotionless monster like me?”

She replied, “Right, my kid will never be like you. I won’t let him become a monster that’s only obsessed with one person. I’ll never make him that way.”

Of course, Sungmo’s mom was justified in not wanting her son to grow perverted like his dad. I’m not contesting her decision. But as a result of her conscious effort to “remake” Sungmo in a mold entirely unlike the psycho dad, Sungmo also developed a “fixation” on his mother.

You don’t have to take my word for it. Here’s a quote on the effects of unresolved Oedipus complex:

What If the Oedipus Complex Is Not Resolved?

So what happens when the Oedipus complex is not successfully resolved? As when conflicts at other psychosexual stages are not resolved, a fixation at that point in development can result. Freud suggested that boys who do not deal with this conflict effectively become “mother-fixated” while girls become “father-fixated.” As adults, these individuals will seek out romantic partners who resemble their opposite-sex parent.

source: https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-an-oedipal-complex-2795403

To me, this explained his gift to his mother, the ring. I agree with @nrllee on this. Any other jewelry would have been preferable to a ring. Or if it had come in a box that he could present to his mom, in the manner that the mom handed him his rubik’s cube.

Unconsciously, subconsciously, or maybe even consciously, he was stepping into that role of his dad. He was the man his dad had never shown to his mom. He was his dad’s antithesis and rival. It’s the Oedipus complex showing.

lol.

I’m not sure if Jisoo resembled Sungmo’s mom, but for sure, he liked Jaein because he reminded her of his lessons on “beautiful things” with his mom.

Remember that? He smiled for the first time because she was pretty.

So that’s just how Freud’s Oedipus complex relates to this drama, from my perspective. We have to dig deeper than the obvious….

I’m going to move on to Oedipus Rex. Freud named his theory on dysfunctional mother-son bonding after the Greek myth. Hmmm… the original Greek myth wasn’t intended to be dysfunctional or maladjusted relationship. It was just a case of bad luck or cruel fate.

Hmmm… we seem to be going over Greek myths in this kdrama, right?

I mentioned the Orion constellation seen in the night sky and Orion was a hunter. The three bright stars on the constellation were called Three Sisters. I’d like to think however that the mom, Jisoo and Jaein were like the three bright stars targeted by the stalker/dad.

Then, I told you about the Greek myth about the sunflower. I said that a sunflower used to be a maiden madly in love with the sun god that she followed him everywhere until she died. Upon her death, she was turned into a sunflower, by the gods who pitied her, so she could continue following and waiting for the sun god to return her feelings for him.

See how that worked out for Jisoo?

He’s Psychometric: Ep 10 On Sunflowers, Mums and YSS Construction

Now, the story of Oedipus was made into a tragedy by Sophocles called “Oedipus Rex” or “Oedipus Tyrannus.” If we were living around 420 BC, we would be watching this instead of the kdrama “He is Psychometric.”

Okay, here’s the story.

Oedipus was the King of Thebes with two sons and two daughters. He became the ruler after he solved the riddle of the Sphinx and rid the land of this beast.

This painting of Oedipus meeting the Sphinx is drawn inside a komast cup or a drinking vessel, c. 470 BC.

 source: Vatican Museums

The riddle is a famous one now, but during the time nobody could solve it. The Sphinx had asked him, “What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at noon, and three feet in the evening?”

Oedipus answered a man, of course.

The Sphinx was so shocked that her riddle was answered that she killed herself. (So dramatic, right?)

As a reward to solving the riddle and ridding the kingdom of the monstrous Sphinx, Oedipus was made the king of Thebes.

…which was cool because he was also raised by the King and Queen of Corinth. He had heard rumors that he wasn’t the king and queen’s biological son. When he consulted an oracle to see whether the rumors were true, the oracle dodged his original question and prophesied instead that he was fated to kill his father and marry his own mother.

Of course, the oracle’s prediction was more shocking and scandalous than rumors of his being an adopted son of the King of Corinth, so he left Corinth in an attempt to escape his grotesque fate.

He exiled himself and that was how he ended up outside the city of Thebes and confronting the Sphinx who was preying upon the city. He’d been running away from his fate, not knowing that he eventually ended up meeting his fate.

You see, as part of the reward of becoming the new King of Thebes, he also got to marry their queen, Jocasta. The queen had recently been widowed because king Laius and his small army was ambushed on their way back to Thebes.

Can you foretell how Oedipus’ life would unravel?

Oedipus married Jocasta and had children with her. (Four!!!)

Everything was going well with Oedipus until pestilence and misfortune began reoccurring in his kingdom.  So another oracle was consulted and it said that, to end the blight on the city, the murderer of the previous king Laius must be found and banished from within the city.

Oedipus diligently investigated the murder for he had no clue that his fate was so twisted. After piecing together various stories and personal accounts, he finally realized that he had unwittingly fulfilled the prophesy. He murdered his father and married his mother.

You see, King Laius and Queen Jocasta themselves had been warned too that their child would bring them destruction. To avert it, when Oedipus was born, the King had bound the baby’s feet together (hmmm…doesn’t Sungmo’s chains sound familiar, now?) and he ordered Jocasta to kill the baby.

Jocasta couldn’t do it (remember how Sungmo’s mother threatened the dad not to touch the baby?)

Instead, Jocasta ordered a servant to kill the baby for her. But this servant couldn’t do it either so he gave the baby to a shepherd who in turn brought the baby as far away as possible from Thebes and gave the baby to the childless King and Queen of Corinth to raise as their own.

Just imagine the baby Oedipus as a ticking bomb, being passed around like a hot potato.

All along, Jocasta thought she’d escaped the oracle’s prediction because 1) her baby was dead and 2) King Laius was killed in an ambush.

Same with Oedipus. He thought he’d also subverted his fate because 1) he ran away from his parents, the King and Queen of Corinth and 2) he thought the man he killed on the road was just some rude old man in a carriage with a coterie of servants.

Jocasta figured out their whole tragic fate before Oedipus did and she hung herself. When Oedipus discovered this, too, and found her dead, he blinded himself.

So, it’s a tragedy all around.

To me, the moral lesson of the tragedy was that Oedipus couldn’t escape his tragic fate because he was blind to both his past history and present situation. His blindness brought him ruin.

If you want to listen to the story yourself (This is the best adaptation of the Sophocles play), here’s a animation. You only have to listen to about 16 minutes of it to get to the point.

 

But if you want the real thing, here try this:

 

So how does this story of Oedipus relate to our Sungmo and mother? I wish it’ll all be as simple as Sungmo kills his dad, his mom commits suicide and Sungmo lives on as blind man taken care of by his “children” Lee Ahn and Jaein.

For me, it’s about the secrets.

Oedipus was ruined because of his “blindness” to the secrets of his past and present, but Sungmo will be ruined by his “cover-up” of these exact secrets. Oedipus did NOT know the real identity of his father and his mother, but Sungmo knew his father and his mother. Oedipus did NOT want to kill his father and marry his mother. In contrast, Sungmo wanted to kill his father (unless Lee Ahn could stop him) and he wanted to live with mother “happily ever after.” 

That’s ONE of the reasons he gave the ring back to his mom. Among other things, it was message to her that she could live in peace again. Without guilt, without fear of being hunted by the dad, she could live like he’d promised her a long time ago.

If the writer upended the story of “The Little Prince,” well…. I can upend the story of “Oedipus”, too.

And that’s why the ring scene for me was creepy.

He cried for this ring:

because he was “breaking up” with his mom.

The presence of the other couple in the park was particularly awkward for me. If the director had staged a family having a picnic in the background, then this encounter with Sungmo and his mom would have looked less like a couple tryst. But the director just had to put another couple there with Sungmo and his mom, adding to the “icky” factor of the scene.

And oh! One last thing… well, TWO more interesting “tidbits” about Oedipus Rex.

One, do you know what Oedipus’ name stands for? It means “swollen foot” because his feet were bound when he was a baby to be killed.

In Sungmo’s case, however, he had scars because his ankle was chained.

And two, actors in Greek plays wore masks.  Here’s Oedipus in orange toga; his wife/mom Jocasta in blue scarf.

And here, we have Sungmo with that mask background.

That’s it for me.

Remember now, I’m throwing this out here in this blog for you to ponder over…or not. It’s up to you to think about things that are out-of-the-box. As most of you say, all my “icky factors” are just cultural anyway…. 😀