I got the connection now of Episode 11 to the First Act of “Giselle.”
I’ll try to sum up “Giselle” quickly and give my interpretation of the characters.
Giselle was a peasant girl who loved to dance and loved a duke named Albrecht. Physically, she had a weak heart so she was prohibited from dancing. Moreover, emotionally, she had a weak heart and she easily fell in love with Albrecht who was disguised as a peasant. Albrecht promised eternal love to Giselle when he was already engaged to another noblewoman. This action of his could be interpreted in two ways.
He was either a lover who truly fell in love with Giselle while he was vacationing away from his fiancée or he was a player who was toying around with the feelings of a naïve country girl while he was already engaged to another. We don’t know; he could go either way.
Another suitor of Giselle is a peasant named Hilarion. From the start, he was suspicious of Albrecht’s identity so he ransacked Albrecht’s hut looking for clues. He exposed Albrecht’s real identity and revealed Albrecht’s real fiancée who was a noblewoman visiting their village.
Just like Albrecht, there were two ways to interpret Hilarion’s motives.
He was either a jealous guy hell-bent on ruining Albrecht so he could have Giselle to himself or he was genuinely in love with Giselle and didn’t foresee that his actions had unintended consequences. His revelation and Albrecht’s deception drove her to madness. She danced her broken heart away until her weak heart gave way.
Here’s my character list:
Giselle: the Dead Girl (aka Matilde) then, YeonSeo now
Duke Albrecht: Kangwoo
Hilarion: Angel Dan
The Real Fiancée: God
Do you see where I’m going with this?
I realized the set-up when I heard the music in the opening scene of Episode 11. The Dead Girl – let’s call her Matilde, lol – was dancing the music from Giselle, the final scene of Act 1.
Matilde’s voiceover in English: People say life is unpredictable. Who would have thought? The naïve country girl, Giselle, would fall in love, be betrayed, and then go crazy.
Somebody’s voiceover in Korean: Just like how I didn’t know I would meet you,
find you, and fall in love with you. Just like…how we don’t what our ending would be.
See there? That was a good ballet move. She was pointing to the heavens. God was her “rival” for the love of Kangwoo.
And when she fell her, she was foreshadowing her death.
The Dead Girl’s encounter with KangWoo resembled the plot of the First Act of Giselle.
She also thought that she was falling in love with a regular guy. She didn’t know that Kangwoo was an angel who was also “engaged” to God and pledged to love God above all things. If we compare him to Albrecht, Kangwoo could be seen as two-timer because he withheld the truth about his First Love.
He loved God and Matilda at the same time but he ditched God to live with Matilda.
That was the whole point of his visit to church to confess to God. We saw in a flashback in Episodes 9 & 10 that he left his angel handkerchief at the altar. That was his leave-taking or the sign of saying goodbye to God.
The Dead Girl/Mathilde asked him “So, you can become a human with this?” KW replied, “No angel knows how, but I’ve to make this confession.” He placed a ring on the Dead Girl, and spoke to the crucifix at the altar, “From this moment on—no, from that moment on, my love belongs to her. That I could meet her, and fall in love with her, is all Your doing. Please, give us your blessing.”
Then, they left the church happily, arm-in-arm.
Mathilde: Are you scared?
KW: No. I’m going to stay with you.
But thunderstorm struck and two monsters, white and black, appeared in front of them. Ha! I refuse to call them angels; that would be blasphemy. KangWoo pushed Mathilde to the side to protect. She couldn’t see the evil twin monsters.
KW: It’s dangerous. Stay there.
The black monster pulled KW to his knees.
Monsters: Listen, Raporas, an angel. You had received a mission of inspiring artists, so they would be able to draw things that will give joy to the deity. Therefore, you’ll be judged.
KW: I’ve completed my duties as an angel. From now on, I want to be a muse for only one person.
A handkerchief with a feather appeared before him. It probably replaced the hanky he left at the altar or it was the same hanky returned to him. It meant that his plea was rejected.
Monsters: Becoming an angel or human. Staring one’s life and ending it, is all the deity’s will.
Wrong! Tsk tsk tsk. Again, this idiot writer has forgot about human free will. If everything is willed by God alone, then love doesn’t exist in the world. God can simply command us all to love him. Boom! And His will be done. See that?
KW: Don’t come closer. Don’t come, please. (addressing Matilda)
KW: He is cruel. (addressing the monsters)
pic
Ugh! This idiot writer’s concept of god is cruel. But the real Christian God isn’t cruel.
KW: If you’re going to punish me, then why did you give me a heart in the first place? You gave me a heart and then told me to overcome my feelings. That’s the devil’s doing.
Monsters: Everything that has been given you by the deity will be taken away.
Silver gun. Really? Messengers of God use a gun to kill people? Isn’t there a gun control up in heaven? What about trident and swords?
He closed his eyes. Hello?? Didn’t he expect the girl to be shot? When he opened his eyes, Matilda was in front of him.
Blood splatters were on her white shirt. She died in her arms.
In another flashback, he was returning home, probably from the funeral? He carried her cremation urn. He imagined her dancing in front of him at home.
The feather on his hanky burned and turned black as he tried to commit suicide by hanging.
KW: I desperately wanted to become a human. But not in the world where you don’t exist.
All his suicide attempts failed.
KW: I couldn’t die or live a proper life. For fifteen years.
Then, he’s back in the real world at the Buddhist temple.
KW: (he addressed air) This time, I think it will work out.
Head Angel (appeared in disguise) You must have lost a loved one. I can still see the waves of yearning in your eyes. As you loved the person with all your heart, I’m sure your loved one will be in paradise. She must be resting in peace.
Nope! A person enters because he’s loved by God, not because he’s loved by a human person. If that were the case then the beggar Lazarus who kept company with the dogs, couldn’t have entered heaven because nobody seemed to love him. lol.
KW: Is peace really attainable? Living is already a suffering. Wishing to be reincarnated is funny. Wishing for peace in the other world is also ridiculous.
Head Angel: Then, what do you want to attain, Sir?
KW smirked and turned away.
The Head Angel looked at him pensively.
The appearance of the Head Angel at the Temple wasn’t a coincidence. Angel Dan had requested him to look into KwangWoo and determine if KW was a good man or not.
To me, Angel Dan would be similar to Hilarion from “Giselle.”
One, he’s suspicious of KwangWoo like Hilarion. Dan wanted the Head Angel to investigate KW and to ascertain that he was a dependable and trustworthy person.
Two, Angel Dan fell out of the hut. lol. (I told you this setting was funny in my last post.)
In the ballet, Hilarion distrusted Albrecht and he hid in the hut to find evidence of Hilarion’s deception. Giselle wouldn’t have duped by Albrecht if Hilarion had been believed in the first place.
Hilarion was faithful to Giselle, just like Angel Dan is trustworthy and dependable angel. The only problem with this comparison is Hilarion died in the end in the ballet show. Giselle couldn’t save him time from the Willis.
Whoops. Have to go again. Date night with my superhero and I still have to change into something fabulous.
Will try to post on Episodes 11/12 tomorrow.
‘He loved God and Matilda at the same time but he ditched God to live with Matilda.
‘ – Golden! That’s the thing. He assumed God will by default accept his apology, so he can leave happily. You’re right, humans have free will, but what probably the writer means is that, kang woo should not have decided on his own that he can leave with matilde, he should have asked for forgiveness and permission from God first. But yes, the killing part by the monsters is too funny and I don’t understand why the command would be killing matilde and not kang woo. It makes no sense.
I so want to read the review of episode 11-12. Hope it’s coming soon! Enjoy your date with the superhero. <3
So, KW is saved by YS (who has to die first) and Dan is killed by the Wilis…
So, will YS die, or only metaphorically, as in give up ballet for real, and grab the reins of Fantasia?
What does it mean to save a fallen angel? Return him to the deity’s good graces, I suppose, but what does that mean in our drama? What does the Catechism of the Catholic Church say about that (I have no idea)?
Given Dan completes his mission (I thought Hu was ambiguous on what the mission really is), what does killed by the Wilis mean in our context? Return to heaven like he was supposed to before his rescue of YS? Or is his heaven on earth? Doesn’t seem likely he will magically learn the ballet and dance to his death (assassin’s bullet on stage would be Hollywood answer)…
Sicarius on DB mentioned that the meaning of Dan in Hebrew is “he who judges.” Do you think the name is a deliberate choice? Does it have a different meaning in the Catholic religion?
LOL. Thinking about this, it’s true that God is the real ‘lover’ who got rejected. By leaving his handkerchief on the altar, KW was essentially returning the ‘engagement ring’. He was rejecting his relationship with God, and his role as servant and muse. He put himself first and sought to serve only 1 person when his job was to be a muse for more than 1 artist. He certainly deserved divine retribution for his deliberate disobedience, however the writer himself ought to be shot for bringing in a celestial gun!
There is a debate about whether the shot was meant for him alone or for Seol Hee (wrongly named Matilde/Matilda in subs). If it was meant for Seol Hee, the conjecture is that his retribution was to live forever in the world without her. But it was of course very remiss of this writer’s flawed god, to leave a loose canon like KW on earth to start messing with other people’s lives.
Oh! Good one! The handkerchief functions like an engagement ring alright!! Angel Dan gave his to YeonSeo. He didn’t replace it with an earthly engagement ring.
We saw the color of the feather darken when they kissed. KW’s handkerchief turned black when he tried to commit suicide, but NOT when he renounced God to live with the Girl.
The hit-men (I don’t want to call them angels, because they look like members of the Mafia) told him, “Everything that has been given you by the deity will be taken away.” They didn’t plan to kill him; they intended to torture him for betraying their Mafia Don. That silver bullet was meant for the Girl. But this is the “religious” explanation of the event: the Girl ran to KangWoo. She didn’t see the invisible hit-men with the gun so she went in front of him and got shot instead of KW.
But in real life, I think the cause of her death would have been suicide. She committed suicide as she was emotionally fragile, like Giselle in the ballet. Naturally, KangWoo would rationalize her death as divine retribution.
Hahaha. Somehow the image of Kangwoo as a loose cannon is more tolerable than angels and demons using a silver bullet to kill off sinners. Really! What a strange idea this writer has about Christianity. If God just killed everybody, angels and mortals, who turned his back on Him, then He would need an endless stock of ammunition. As a matter of fact, his number of saints would be greatly diminished because many of his saints only became saintly AFTER a crisis of faith. But hmmm…maybe that’s the Great Plan here??
Hi @Flying Tool. Nice to read you here!
The link to the Catechism of the Catholic Church on Angels (this can lead to more links on angels so it’s not exhaustive) is: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1A.HTM
Another link I found to be quite thorough on angels is: http://www.catholic365.com/article/2043/the-catholic-teachings-on-the-angels-part-1-the-angels.html
I feel in this show, not every aspect of Giselle needs to be or will be included with regard to making YS totally analogous to Giselle, or Dan to Hilarion. There is enough of a suggestion to enable us to link Giselle with YS.
What I might say is the link in a twisted way is that YS was already ‘deadish’ in her attitude at the beginning of the show, and KW (more in the character of the queen of the Wilis than Albrecht here) calls her forth from her ‘grave’ so to speak. But his purpose is different from those of the Wilis, although YS’s return to her place will cause disruption for others.
Dan as we see in Ep 6 (11/12) has to grapple with KW, and will face near death. He may also, in trying to give up YS to KW, die to self ie. make a self-sacrifice of giving up what he wants. So there are other ways to interpret death.
Saving a fallen angel – If you mean from the Catholic perspective, unfortunately the angels who fell, did so with full knowledge and deliberately, and there is no saving them. Where this writer is concerned, he can concoct any logic he wants to make it possible to save a fallen angel.
That being said, however, I still feel that KW has some elements of good in him and a possibility of being redeemed, but not necessarily by YS as he probably imagines. Since writer is going the way of angels behaving and being treated much as humans, I’m guessing that the same thing will do for angels’ redemption, ie. confess the sins, apologise, maybe do some restitution, and he might be saved.
The love that will save him might be Ni Na’s love or Dan’s. So this is a possible twist to the Giselle tale.
The name Dan – Has only that one meaning, “God is my judge”, and generally should be the same for all regardless of faith.
Let’s say that Dan in ‘Kim Dan’ is really derived from Daniel, then we can see that because he had been carelessly doing as he pleased, he was judged by god and found wanting. Therefore he was sent to fulfill a mission to ‘make up’ for his mistakes.
We hope along the way, the Sunbae Hu is mistaken in how god judges, and that his forgiving and merciful nature will play a role in judging Dan by the end of the show.
I was mentioning in my comment at DB how Sunbae is somewhat lacking in his knowledge and giving of advice.
http://www.dramabeans.com/2019/06/angels-last-mission-love-episodes-11-12/#comment-3473367
Sunbae himself admits Dan is a novice at everything: handling human beings, taking on a job, driving, … but it was only in driving that Sunbae did more rigorous training. In the other areas that Dan really needed help, he was left to sink or swim on his own, and he’s actually done ok, mistakes and all. At least no one has died!!!
That should count for something if poor Dan is going to be judged by god as his name implies.
@packmule3 If the Great Plan is to shoot mortals who are disobedient or who lead angels astray, then the world would be empty of human life. Heh!
If it was a Plan at all, then it probably was concocted by the guy Downstairs and not even the writer’s version of god. I refuse from Ep 6 onwards to give writer’s version of god an upper case ‘g’.
A most ill-conceived Plan that will not earn god any real devotion, and only obedience out of fear.