Now that I tackled the angel and death in another post, I can review these episodes in peace.
1. Kangwoo’s mission
We knew from the start that Angel Dan’s last mission is love, but we still don’t have a clear idea what Kangwoo’s last mission is all about. His objective is purportedly to get YeonSeo to dance again. As he was once the muse of artists, he’s passionate to see her return to the stage. Unfortunately he doesn’t rule out the use of violence to accomplish his mission. He assaulted Angel Dan after he overhears him asking YeonSeo to stop dancing.
KW: Telling a dancer to quit is like taking her life.
Dan: What do you mean?
KW: After YeonSeo went blind, do you know she tried to kill herself?
Dan blinks. Yes, he knows. He said so in Episode 1. Remember this scene?
KW: (continues) She just got her sight back and decided to dance again, and you told her to give up? To quit? How dare you? Who do you think you are to say such nonsense? Quit your daydreaming. YeonSeo’s standing at the edge of a cliff. Just one step and she plummets into the darkness. Don’t push her! That will be the fiery pit of hell to her.
KW: (continues) I’m warning you for the last time. Resign and disappear tomorrow. If not, first of all, I will toss you into the fiery pit of hell.
Note on the use of “fiery pit of hell”: Christians believe in hell which is a “place of punishment for the damned.” Three characters mentioned “fiery pit of hell” this week, namely, Kangwoo, Angel Dan, and the Butler (in Episode 15).
Angel Dan discusses hell when he clarifies for Kangwoo that hell isn’t an option for people like him. He also says that Kangwoo does not have a power to send him to the fiery pit.
As for the Butler, she warns the Four-Eyed Minion to “gather up his courage” or he’ll have to live in the fiery pit forever. She wants him to confess and come clean.
With Kangwoo, not only does he threaten Angel Dan with hell but he also compares the inability to dance to being thrown into the fiery pit. That’s why he wants YeonSeo to dance again.
But he’s projecting his own notion of what hell is onto YeonSeo. In YeonSeo’s words, “They say a ballerina dies twice. The first time is when she gives us dancing. The second is when she stops breathing. When I stopped dancing, it was total darkness. Why should I wait around for my second death? Why not experience both of my deaths at once?” She talked about death, not hell.
Now I get that Kangwoo has a hidden agenda for wanting YeonSeo to dance again. But what I don’t get is how he transformed from muse to artist. The difference between an artist and his muse is similar to the difference between creator and creation, and a choreographer to his dance. To an artist like Kangwoo, his muse is either his source of inspiration, his instrument to express that inspiration, or both.
However, when I review Kangwoo’s love affair with the Dead Girl, the muse in that relationship was him. He was HER muse. She was inspired to dance Giselle because of him and their romance together.
Remember her voiceover in Episode 11?
Dead Girl’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.
Her 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 know what our ending would be.
Furthermore, according to the head angel, his mission was to inspire the artists. “He took on the human form and was given a mission to inspire the artists. He met his person as he began to grow tired of picky artists. They say it’s easy to get confused, angels of art especially. He mistook inspiration for love.”
But now, Kangwoo has switched roles. He’s become like the picky artists he used to pose for, and he’s adamant that his muse shall be YeonSeo. He’s molding her to play Giselle like his Dead Girl. His refusal to accept no one else is eerily similar to the Old Lady’s clinginess to Angel Noel, her stand-in for her dead husband.
His insistence on using YeonSeo is suspicious because he talks to his Dead Girl as if YeonSeo is only the means to his ends, and her return to the dance world isn’t really his final goal.
KW: Why am I like this, Seol Hee? I thought it’s done, that I’m almost there. He really gets on my nerves. I can’t stand him.
DG: Is it really him that gets on your nerves? What’s making you waver? Is it that man or is it your heart?
It seems to me that both he and Angel Dan have the same dilemma. They both have missions which revolves around YeonSeo’s participation.
They both need the other guy to complete their mission (i.e., Kangwoo needed Dan to get convince YeonSeo to dance, and Dan needs Kangwoo to be the “rib” of YeonSeo).
They both now have their end goals in sight. But they’re wavering at the eleventh hour.
Their distrust of the other guy causes them to hesitate. KangWoo detests Angel Dan (probably because he’s good and kind, which Kangwoo isn’t) and he’s willing to throttle him to get rid of him. On the other hand, Angel Dan distrusts Kangwoo.
He runs after Kangwoo to remind him of his promise to always consider YeonSeo’s happiness above all in whatever he does.
And he warns Kangwoo, “If you give her a hard time over dance or anything, I’ll make you pay.”
See their other difference? Angel Dan doesn’t threaten Kangwoo with “fiery pit of hell” but payback. Only God can send wicked people to hell.
2. YeonSeo’s strength
I like YeonSeo because she’s a natural bitch…like me. It takes one to know one.
You never know what to expect of her. She doesn’t dance around issues. She doesn’t put up with disrespect. She calls her own shots.
In one stressful day, she confronted her company sponsors, her greedy aunt, her cousin Nina, and the corps de ballet on strike. She adapted her arguments to match the situation.
For instance, with her company sponsors, she showed them her haughty side. The big (literally big) sponsor demanded that she kneel down and apologize to him to show that she was sincere.
For a second, I was worried that she would subject herself to humiliation. Instead, she pretended. “Ahhh. I see. Kneel down? Sincerity? It’s that.”
She spoke in a subdued voice. She walked slowly over to him with eyes downcast.
Her general demeanor suggested servility but both Kim Dan and Kangwoo moved closer as if anticipating that she’d explode and go berserk. lol. Of course, they knew her temper.
YS: Do you like ballet? What’s your favorite show? What’s your favorite role? Do you know how many dancers we have in our ballet theater?
Big Man: You were in the middle of your apology. What nonsense are you jabbering about?
YS: You don’t like ballet, right? You know those people in the association? They are ignorant but they want to look sophisticated and believe that they could buy taste with money. They sit in the best seat and doze off. Those annoying snobs.
This was the worst insult she could give to the moneyed class: that these people are just try-hard nouveaux riches.
She threw a challenge that they couldn’t risk. She was going to make them love ballet because THAT will make all the money, they’ve invested in the foundation worth it.
With her aunt, she showed her rage.
YS: Since when did you start coveting Fantasia? Was it when my father took you and your husband in because you had nowhere else to go?
This was her worst insult for her aunt: a reminder that her aunt and her family were nobodies.
YS: (continuing) Or was it when my parents passed away? Did you think it would be easy since I was young and alone? Did you begin to get greedy?
Aunt: Stop denouncing me. You don’t know anything.
YS: If that’s not it. When did you become delusional and begin to think that’s it’s yours because the only heiress is now blind? Did you ever feel bad for me as your family, even once? If you didn’t do something like this, today I would have…No, I would have put everything down ages ago.
Aunt: You’re using me as an excuse to the very end.
YS: I’ll also show you that I’m worthy of this.
Her aunt claimed that Fantasia belonged to her because she was the one who “grew” Fantasia and worked hard for it. The obvious interpretation of YeonSeo’s last line is that she was going to prove that she’s worthy of being the heiress, owner, chairman of Fantasia. “I’m worthy of THIS.”
But I’d like to think that she had a second meaning here. To me, YeonSeo resented that her aunt treated her only as a cash cow, and not a family member. Angel Dan criticized the Aunt for her treatment of YeonSeo. So, to me, when YeonSeo said, “I’m worthy of THIS, ” she meant “loved.” She too was worthy of being loved for herself.
3. The YS-Dan Romance
Nope. This bridal carry
and this ramen scene didn’t move the needle of my romance-o-meter. Sorry.
I’ve been watching too many Chinese dramas so I thought his bridal carry was unnecessary.
Then, his invitation to eat ramen is outdated. “Agassi, should we have some ramyun?” Of course, since he’s an angel, he wouldn’t know that it was a pick-up line. But I’m surprised that the writer even used this tired joke.
5. The head angel
For somebody who should be busy with a gazillion chores, he sure does invest a lot of time overseeing Angel Dan.
6. Elena
She’s going to be an interesting addition. She reminded me of Ursula from the Little Mermaid.
It didn’t help of course that Nina was wearing a green dress. She resembled the Little Mermaid who’d do anything to get a voice. In her case, however, she said she was willing to do anything just to beat YeonSeo.
The theme of the understudy or substitute
I was thinking that KW was actually the picky muse, insisting that Yeon Seo should be the dancer inspired by him to dance his version of Giselle.
Definitely we can see that he’s aiming to groom Giselle to be Seol Hee’s understudy, but I rather think that he will fail, because YS is not about to just listen and obey, or play along the way Noel and Dan did.
The old lady not only clung to Angel Noel, insisting on treating him as if he were her husband, but after he was dissolved into the air, she does the same thing to Dan, deliberately speaking to him as if he were her husband. She gets him to play along being husband’s substitute so that he brings her to where she wants to go. Once he has served her purpose, she switches back to her coherent, rational self, showing that she knew full well who Dan was and who Noel was as well.
She was never demented or confused. It’s terrible, this disease of ruthlessly lying and deceiving, of using others as substitute, and focusing obsessively on the substitute to attain certain ends. Then, without remorse or apology that her deliberate deception caused untold harm to the substitute, she continues on her selfish way.
A foreshadowing of what YS will be in for if she dances to KW’s tune.
Ni Na no longer wants to be YS’ understudy or shadow. It is better that she has initiated gaining greater competence and confidence in dance to beat YS, rather than just crying over her lack of confidence, but it’s also concerning that she has chosen Teacher Elena to be her guide. Elena’s methods from hearsay sounded pretty extreme. Practically drowning Ni Na in a tub of water to get her to experience what she was to dance, might not be the most healthy sort of training.
Show has not made it clear what KW’s ultimate aim is. Does he want to become mortal and die, or act like god in creating his own Seol Hee to live with on earth or what? If the long dark tunnel he was in for 15 years was life on earth without Seol Hee, then by saying that he sees the exit in YS, it sounds like the latter goal may be his intent.
His ballet, Giselle, will take revenge on Albrecht instead of redeem both him and herself. The ballet will not end in hope but in a total tragedy without hope of salvation, choosing in death to do wrong rather than forgive; in fact re-entering the tunnel with no exit.
The irony is that he is playing the role of Albrecht by luring YS into the ballet as his ‘prima ballerina’, when actually he sees her as Seol Hee’s understudy, and because his heart is already bethrothed to Seol Hee.
If anything, Seol Hee (being already dead) should be the Wilis that returns from the grave to kill him, not Yeon Seo. But his ballet Giselle, is setting the stage to destroy no one else but himself. Does he not see it or is it his plan?
I was just thinking that it’s no point Sunbae Hu spending time overseeing Dan, since he does not give much in the way of good advice or helpful pointers. In fact he has given bad and wrong advice in pointing somewhat to Kang Woo being the Rib. It’s been mostly that he pushes Dan into the deep end to sink or swim on his own, or he scares him with threats to his continued existence. Dan has been floundering by acting on his best guesses, and watching to see if they work or not.
Seems to me that Sunbae does not know much. He does not have the requisite info to work with in helping Dan, or he has been misinformed. The advice he received must have been just as cryptic as a mission of one word, ‘love’, with nothing more to interpret it with. It can be a verb or noun, or may do with both giving and receiving and might encompass a myriad kinds of ‘love’.
A thought just occurred to me. In the face off between Kang Woo and Dan, Sunbae may intervene and get himself hurt. So far we have not seen KW manifest any powers, but who knows with an almost fallen angel, who’s not above resorting to violence.
I wondered where KW’s supervising angel was when he was going through his love affair with Mathilda. Dan has been given so many chances to reform but how many opportunities did KW get?
I remember that first episode when the head angel said that Dan would disappear if he touched a human. But Dan touched YS’ tears after rescuing her and he didn’t disappear into thin smoke. Instead, the car brightened. Then the bell rang and lightning struck him and transported him to the church. From the start, the head angel got it wrong already.
Will work on Eps 15 and 16 after my jog.