I blame Jane Austen.

source: usatoday

The reason I can’t drop “Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency” for “Tale of Nokdu” is Jane Austen.

Let me explain in my usual meandering way.

Let’s go back to Episode 1. The King/Blacksmith/Soo hears thunder and immediately goes in search for GaeDong (GD). GD has a paralyzing fear of thunderstorms, and she sits in the middle road getting drenched in the rain. A man grabs her and asks what she’s doing out there. But Soo swoops in to unhand GD. He ignores the man and pulls GD gently to her feet. He shows his identification to man, saying, “I’m Kim Soo. And she’s my wife.”

The man argues that he’s only doing his job. He’s a slave hunter and he mistook GD for a runaway slave (which she is, but that’s another story). Soo continues lying, “My wife isn’t in good health. Please understand.” When the man tries to detain them again, he shouts, “I said she’s my wife. There’s definitely a law for both nobles and commoners.” GD clings to his arm. He opens his umbrella for her and walks her away with an arm around her shoulder.

Later, when the rain stops, he notices that she’s limping. He insists on giving her a piggyback ride home. She falls asleep and her last words to him are “As expected, only my family cares about me.”

Soo doesn’t know that she’s nodded off. He tells her, “Why are we a family? But we’ll be family soon.” When she doesn’t respond, he looks back and sees her asleep.

Stop!! He should have stopped here. What good will it do to confess his feelings when she’s already sleeping? But I get it. The fact that she can’t hear him emboldens him to continue his confession. Tsk tsk tsk. Wimpy.

Anyway, he goes on saying, “Gaedong, I don’t care if you’re a beggar or a slave or whatever. I want you to be next to me. So why don’t we just stop being like a family, and start from now, become a real family? (sighing) Why is it so difficult to hear an answer from you?”

Dude, come on! For one, she’s sleeping. For another, deep down inside, he knows already inside why it’s *difficult* to hear her answer.

…because he’s been friendzoned. It’ll be painful to hear her answer.

To me, GD’s lack of response — be it confusion, giddiness, enthusiasm, or whatever — when Soo declared her to be his wife is a giveaway. Granted, swooning at the time when they had to escape the slavehunter wouldn’t have been perfect timing. However, afterwards, while they were walking in silence, she should have felt shyness at his bold declaration. Instead, she fell asleep.

lol.

In Jane Austen’s books, the heroes and heroines aren’t outwardly emotional but composure is only skin-deep. Scratch the surface, and the turmoil and angst are right there. For Gaeddong, however, there’s nothing. She’s unmoved by his public defense of her. She views him as a comfortable friend, not a romantic hero in her life.

1. Hoon’s rain scene

Now, let’s compare Soo’s rain scene with Hoon’s in Episode 2. To me, Hoon completely undoes that whole romantic rain scene between Soo and Gaedong and he does it in a very Jane Austenite way.

He and Gaedong are alone in the bridal room. She’s dressed up and he’s scratching an itch on her back. (lol. Is this a new trend: backscratching for couples? The man in “Tale of Nokdu” also scratches the girl’s back in Episode 2?).

MH: What can I do? It’s so itsy, and I don’t have a helper. Gosh, if I get married twice, it’ll be the death of me.

lol. This is what I call a presage or “you’ll eat your words one day.” lol. The character is saying something that will come back to bite her.

MH: Seems it’s your destiny to never become a genteel lady your whole life. (walks away)
GD: Uh…sorry about that. That thing. That issue…
MH: That issue?
GD: About Miss Oh. (remember, she accused him of being a conman who was only interested in “appearances”.)
MH: You acted like you wouldn’t even associate with a merchant like me. Why did you entrust your wedding to me?
GD: I thought you were a greedy swindler, but it seems you’re just a picky merchant. Others would have just closed their eyes and pretended not to see because they wouldn’t be caught, and even if they were, it was none of their business. However, you didn’t avoid it, Mr. Matchmaker. That’s why I said I’d do it. I felt like I could trust a marriage brokered by such a picky matchmaker. Did I do well?

She realizes that her first impression of him was unfair. Now, she likes him because he’s scrupulous and admires how he handled the delicate issue of Miss Oh. He’d known that Miss Oh was pregnant with somebody else’s child and didn’t want to deceive the groom-to-be.

Gaedong’s volte-face on Hoon reminds me of “Pride and Prejudice.” Elizabeth didn’t like Mr. Darcy, too, since he came off as a pompous ass who cared only about appearance. Mr. Darcy snubbed her because she was ugly, remember? “She is tolerable, I suppose, but not handsome enough to tempt me; I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”

Hearing Gaedong praise him, Hoon downplays his role in her wedding. He doesn’t want her to think that he’s guaranteeing the success of this marriage.

MH: I just accepted that guy (Soo) because he was such an annoyance. This marriage, do your best to make it work and live well.

She smiles at him. Outside, the rain begins to fall. The wedding guests scrambles to seek shelter. Gaedong tenses up at the sound of the rain.

GD: Rain. Rain. Is it raining?
MH: (thinking that she’s worried about logistics) There’s nothing to worry about. We put up shades so the wedding will proceed as planned.
GD: That’s not it. When it rains, I’m always unlucky.

He turns around and studies her face.

GD: Are you worried your groom might run away?

Not waiting for her reply, he quickly takes her wrist and pulls her to the window.

He then takes her hand in his and reaches out for the rain.

She looks stunned.

I don’t think she looks stunned because she’s touching rain. Remember? She got drenched in the rain with Soo. She’s in shock because they’re holding hands for the first time. Just like in Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice.”

To him, he doesn’t see the intimacy of their holding hands.

MH: It’s a sun shower. Since you’re getting married, the rain clouds are dropping by like a good guest should. Don’t be scared.

I like him here. He doesn’t dismiss her superstition as stupid. The fast way to deal with her irrational fear is to replace her ominous prediction with a lucky and happy perspective. He gives her a reason to look at the bright side.

After reassuring her, he does something very unexpected: he wipes off the raindrops on her palm with his sleeve.

This reminds me of “Pride and Prejudice” where every physical contact is significant.

Look: I find his attention to details very sweet. But here, there’s something sensual about the way he wipes the palm of her hand with his knuckles. There was no skin contact; the image here is very chaste. But we know, as veteran kdrama viewers, that the romance is brewing.

Edited to add gifs: 10/8/2019

Gifs from lavenderbyun’s tumblr

 

MH: If anything happens, I’ll take care of it.

lol. I don’t know about you but to me his promise is very romantic and MANLY (shhhh…don’t tell the feminazis, okay? because they’ll burn me at the stake.)

That’s how Soo should have proposed to her. Instead, he gave her a wishy-washy, “Gaedong, do you know why couples are two? Each of them has their own weight. It is so difficult to carry alone. You can put your burden on my shoulder also. Like that, let’s live together.”

Mahoon’s “I’ll take care of it” is a whole lot more PROACTIVE and DECISIVE than Soo’s “You can put your burden on my shoulder also.”

That’s one reason Mr. Darcy still has a huge fan-base even after 200 years. He didn’t ask Elizabeth’s permission to solve Kitty’s situation. He just did it. 

2. The horseback riding

Horseback riding is a very Jane Austen thing to do, too. A gentleman knows how to ride the horse. And Hoon gets on the horse like the aristocrat that he is.

He lectures her to grab tightly and they ride away.

They remind me of a couple eloping on a horse. lol.

3. Their first night

Gaedong and Hoon are still out on the street at curfew so they retire for the night at an inn. Gaedong insists they share a room to save money. The innkeeper thinks they’re newlywed. She teases him not to worry as she’ll never lay a finger on him.

He orders her in a formal voice to come to him because he’ll take “it” off.

She thinks the worst of him and warns him to stay away from her.

He means the hairpin, of course. He removes her hairpin from her hair, saying, “Your groom should be the one doing this one.” He promises her that he’ll find her a husband who’ll properly “raise” her hair sooner or later. (hmmm… I don’t know if that’s a subbing error. I thought the husband put the hair down, not up.)

She answers that Soo will return and he insists that Soo isn’t coming back. By now, I think he has an inkling that Soo belongs to the ruling class and resides in the palace. He knows that there’s no way Gaedong will be allowed to marry him in the future. This reminds me of “Pride and Prejudice” when Darcy deemed that the Bennet sisters had poor marriage prospects because of their lack of wealth and connection.

But Soo’s a softy, too. He yields to her request to keep her company that night. She reasons, “if you leave me, too, then it’ll really seem like I’ve been abandoned.” Yes, she does look pathetic although he brushes off her clinging hand from his robe.

He finds it amusing that they’re drinking from a couple cup. I like how the translation for a “couple cup” is called a “one and only cup”

They’re going to drink the “Daddy juice” that the landlord made for them. lol.

This scene reminds me of that time in “Pride and Prejudice” when Elizabeth arrived at the Netherfield Park all disheveled and muddied to nurse her ailing sister. Like Elizabeth, GaeDong defied conventions and shocked the innkeeper when she arrived at the inn with Hoon, and insisted on sharing a room with him to save money.

Also, Hoon expected her to know the little details of the wedding rite, such as the groom removes the bride’s hairpin on their wedding night, and the groom and bride drink from a “couple cup” (or a “one and only” cup) and had to explain these to her. Hoon’s fastidiousness reminds of Darcy listing the traits of an accomplishment woman. Elizabeth scoffed at his ridiculous high standards and said that she had never seen a woman with all those attributes combined.

Similarly, Gaedong didn’t think that Darcy should worry about finding her a replacement groom as she was confident of Soo’s return. Then, she pointed out that a “couple cup” need not only be used by married couples but also comrades like them who are united in search of Soo.

Hoon had the elegance and reserve of Darcy, while Gaedong was the cruder and more provincial version of Elizabeth. Do you see it?

4. The rain again

Near the end of this episode, there’s another rain scene. She’s caught in the rain and he comes for her with his umbrella.

MH: Get up.

GD: I’m fine.
MH: I told you. Get up.
GD: I’m fine. It’s just rain. It’s not a big deal. (thunder; she screams)
MH: How can you be so stubborn! I call you Stone Head, but do you think you’re really made of stone?

GD: (stands up and knocks off the umbrella from his hand in anger) I’m really fine. I told you I’m fine.

MH: Come to your senses. Your groom has really run away. How long will you stubbornly wait for him?

GD: I’d rather he ran away. I really wish that he did run away, and was happier to live without me. If that happened, I could just forget and move on with my life. But if my Soo was kidnapped or something, then what shall I do? What if he’s gone missing like my Orabeoni? Then what shall I do? So I have to at least confirm it, don’t I?

This rain scene also reminds me of “Pride and Prejudice.”

Remember Darcy’s proposal to Elizabeth? His proposal discussed at length her inferior social status. He had misgivings about being associated with her inferior family. In his proud mind, he was doing HER a favor by asking her to marry him. He expected her to be overjoyed at his proposal.

So her rejection stunned him.

Likewise for Hoon, he wasn’t looking forward to getting involved with GaeDong’s problems. Although he knew that it was raining and that she was afraid of the rain, he didn’t seek her out right away. He deliberated whether to get her or not.

When he finally decided to get her, his attitude was similar to Darcy’s who fully expected his proposal to be eagerly accepted. Hoon believed that Gaeddong would be grateful to see him with an umbrella for her. He saw himself as her rescuer.

Like Darcy who fixated on Elizabeth’s class inferiority rather than his great love for her, Hoon fixated on Gaeddong’s obstinacy. In his mind, she was rooted to that spot and getting drenched to the bone NOT because of her phobia, but because of her refusal to believe that Soo was gone for good. He was mad that she was huddled pathetically in the rain waiting for Soo. He was angry that she was clinging to false hope that Soo would return for her.

And just like Darcy, he was unprepared to handle GaeDong’s rejection. She rejected his umbrella, just like Elizabeth rejected Darcy’s proposal.

She gave him a piece of her mind. Sure, she was a jilted bride but her concern for Soo went beyond her damaged pride. To her, Soo’s disappearance was troubling because a family member vanished without a trace. It wasn’t possible for her to have any closure, as Hoon desired, as long as Soo’s whereabouts and condition were unknown.

Her outburst made him see sense. He didn’t say it but he had been unreasonable in his expectations of her. His judgment has been impaired. Seeing is believing, and he definitely began seeing her in a new light (lol, although they were standing in darkness).

She wasn’t pitiful. He misunderstood her.

So there you go. That’s why I said to blame Jane Austen if I’m sticking around with “Flower Crew: Joseon Marriage Agency.”

I can’t guarantee that this romcom will be amazing, but if you stick around with me, we’ll have fun dissecting it.