I’m slow so go on ahead and discuss this week’s episodes without me. There’s baseball today and it’s do or die for my Washington Nationals.
I can ship this girl with Kim Min Jae, Yeo Jin Goo, Siwan, Kyungsoo Do (oooooh, why not?) and all other male actors < 30.
Kim Hye-yoon is my new “it” girl.
I’m quickly falling for Kim Hye-yoon as well. Not only is she a joy to watch in monologues, she somehow naturally oozes chemistry with all her co-stars, both on and off screen. Netizens have been teasing that you could even ship her with Joo Da (the jacket scene confirmed it).
I didn’t watch it yet but I’m very happy that you like Kim Hye Yoon too. On another blog, the majority of the comments say that Lee Jae Wook is only one good actor in this drama and Kim Hye Yoon the worst actress… I was screaming internaly at reading it >_<
I agree. She’s delightful. She has that inborn ability to get the audience to empathise with her character. Even when she’s jabbering away during soliloquy. 😂. Normally people like that annoy me no end but she’s just cute when she does it. She has a good career ahead of her, gotten off to a great start. 🙂
Actually to her credit, her character dominates this drama so much that she eclipses all the other male characters. Rowoon (?) the actor who plays Haru? I can’t work out if he’s good or not? He’s very pretty to look at but so far I haven’t watched him that closely other than treat him much like Cha EunWoo in Gangnam ID. Like an ornament. 😂 Then again he spent much of his limited on screen time just “looking” at her so it’s not a fair assessment.
@Barbrey do you have any further thoughts on Squid Fairy? Does he fit as Lucifer in your paradigm? I am still trying to work him out because he doesn’t quite “fit” into any of the standard roles thus far in the comic universe. He’s an extra, with a name so he can be controlled by the writer (as evidenced in the scene with NamJoo’s mother). He’s obviously the “first” to achieve self awareness because he explains it all to future characters who cross that divide. He didn’t seem to know what to make of the black hole when he saw it (when DanOh was on the bridge and noticed him staring up at it). Either he was used as a plot device to explain the whole stage/shadow scenario and other little bits of background information that the audience needs to make sense of the drama, or something more? It’s almost like he’s a living addendum to a book? He’s the person everyone who’s self aware comes to for information or perspective on what’s happening within the Secret Universe when they are befuddled or distraught. It’s actually quite nice that he hides out in the kitchen because oftentimes that’s where deep and meaningful conversations are had. Nice, comforting, cozy ambience conducive for mulling. “Priest” comes to mind as well. Because they act as conduits to explain the greater truths of the Universe to parishioners? The writer’s designated person in the Secret Universe to maintain order as set out in the ManHwa rule set.
Ditto!
That’s why I’ve been holding back on critiquing Rowoon (?). His face is blank, and I’m not sure if that’s because his character is supposed to be stoic, watchful, thoughtful, emotionless, passive, observant, pensive, or waiting. The other actor, the scary one playing Kyung, he’s much better at showing his confusion and anger.
But then again, Haru might not at all be confused about his set-up. So who knows what the actor Rowoon is doing? lol.
Yes. He reminds me of Cha EunWoo. Sigh. Pretty face but … sigh…
Rolling my eyes here.
Don’t these people know how hard it is for an actor to emote when he’s just staring at the camera?
That’s what Kim Hye Yoon does a lot of times in this show. She’s looking straight at the camera and talking as if there’s a person was in front of her. Go ahead and try it in the mirror.
It’s easier for Lee Jae Wook to emote because he’s responding to REAL actors in front of him. For example, when he shouts, “You better die now! I hate you, and your sickness and your pathetic little show!” he’s addressing it Kim Hye Yoon. He’s saying those words to an actual person and that person is reacting to his hurtful words and he’s responding in turn. It’s easier to act because he’s acting with somebody.
But Kim Hye Yoon on other hand has lots of monologues. She’s talking to herself, either facing a camera or staring into space.
The emotions that have to come out of her facial gestures or body movement all have to be visualized in her mind so she can project the right feel onto the camera. She isn’t relying on verbal response or visual cues from the other person. It’s all her emotions from the inside. Like when she’s crying as she was wading in the water. Or building the rock tower.
She’s acting in isolation. And that’s hard, demanding…and tiring. She has to imagine the person in front of her shouting at her so she can tear up or look woebegone in front of the camera.
Do you see what I mean?
So don’t let those dingbats in that other blog, wherever that is, diminish you appreciation of KHY. She’s doing great. Lee JaeWook is good but KHY is carrying this show. Just count how many scenes she’s on per episode.
“She has that inborn ability to get the audience to empathise with her character. Even when she’s jabbering away during soliloquy. . Normally people like that annoy me no end but she’s just cute when she does it.”
Yes even in Sky Castle. Her character isn’t likable there but it’s her acting that made it a bit endearing.
Ep 9, 10 thoughts
Haru walks to the corner of the library where he has his old stash of drawn pictures. The black hole (portal) is there. We get a glimpse of him in Flower…I was right, he got that scar from a sword grab? He looked stunned? It looks suspiciously like someone plunged a sword into him and he grabbed at the blade with his left hand? Anyway, Haru sticks his left hand into the portal and it comes out with the fresh scar and all his memories of the past come flooding back. That’s why his hand wound when he met DanOh at the crossing was fresh.
https://i.ibb.co/J2d67Tq/17-C95-FED-0-FE2-45-A4-A45-E-2154-BC8726-AA.png
https://i.ibb.co/s337rZM/2332-ADF6-9669-4-CE3-8728-6-C1348-DA8-C1-E.png
They talk. She debriefs him and they share a moment (or 2 or 3 😂). She is petrified that she will lose him again. He says something interesting though. “If I had to save you, I would do it over again. Hundreds and thousand times over.” Something to that effect. As if to say that it’s his lot in life (and lifetimes to come) to rescue her. Speculation – just like how he saves her, the Haru in Flower potentially would’ve taken the sword meant for her?
Kyung starts to show feelings for DanOh. He says everything is going back to what it should be. In his self aware state, he likes seeing the picture of them as her phone wall paper (she keeps trying to change it 😂 but it always defaults back to their couple pic after a session in stage.
There’s a lot of talk about sub consciousness so our guesses that they have lingering memories of Flower deeply embedded in their subconscious minds that reawaken when they become increasingly self aware. Kyung tries to find the comic Flower but it’s missing. He looks up a Plant Index and finds Trumpet Flower and looks to be trying to figure it out. He asks DoHwa who has read almost every book in the library if he’s ever read a book that has the same drawing techniques and plot line. DoHwa says yes, even the lines are exactly the same 😮 but then covers it with, “well all romance comic books are the same”.
DanOh and Haru play hooky and have a date. They visit an antique shop and chance upon an assortment of things…I think this is significant…Haru’s Diary, SuChol’s Polaroid camera (that took a photo of them together and he faded away), Kyung’s tennis balls, and finally the trinket box they found buried that contained the flower ornament. It looks to be mementos of significant events in Haru’s growing self awareness? 🤔
They wash their hands at a park (?). There’s a page flip and Haru is transported back to Flower times and he sees DanOh and he by a stream, she flicks water at him. Back to Secret Universe and DanOh repeats the same scene and flicks water at him. He flicks water back at her and then apologizes as she glares at him. He offers her his shirt. She smiles and says, “I have never felt like this before. I feel like I have been born again.” Haru stands mute as he sees the exact scene play out in Flower. Why do I get the impression he will die for her? 😢😬
There’s quite a lot of revelations in this ep. It solidifies our theories that Secret is playing out exactly like Flower and this writer chooses to recycle characters. Squid is a character that’s recycled all the time and seems to be the one who gains self awareness regularly. The others maybe less so? They have memories of previous lives embedded in their subconscious mind. Secret is still being written so the ending is foreshadowed in the pages of Flower but DanOh and Haru (especially Haru now) are determined to subvert that.
The Kyung of Flower also has a terrible temper. Their tennis match in Secret seems to be a hint at how Haru betters Kyung in the Flower Universe when it comes to swordplay? I seem to get that vibe. Haru in Flower is in love with DanOh.
I am sure Kyung’s brother is self aware. I think he probably plays a prince in Flower as well. Kyung is Crown Prince maybe? Whose mother (Queen) passed and Kyung’s brother is younger sibling prince determined to keep the family intact (his mother potentially a concubine and his father the King)? Or some sort of dynamic like that…maybe not royalty but noble family with stepmom.
JooDa is most certainly self aware but pretending not to be. I think she likes DoHwa, not NamJu.
Last bit is an altercation between Kyung and Haru in Flower (with Squid watching it all unfold from the sidelines). Haru is leaving. Kyung screams, “you can’t leave me!” (As if to imply he owns Haru?). Haru turns to leave. Kyung then yells out, “I know why you are leaving. You are in love with Eun DanOh”. Haru is shocked and turns back to look at Kyung.
This would explain the Kyung/Haru dynamic as it stands now (Haru doing everything for Kyung). Problem I have is why wasn’t it there in the beginning of Secret? Who was doing that in Haru’s Place? Had Haru NOT been rewritten, someone else would’ve been the one to run errands for Kyung. Was it DoHwa? 🤔
The other thing that has me confused is that during the scene where they are flicking water, there’s a page flip and we see the scene in Flower which I assume is stage…but the scene in Secret is supposed to be in shadow. The scene And Haru flicks the water back at DO in the shadow (Secret) but we don’t see a similar stage scene in Flower?
There’s a disparity there. An anomaly…potential loophole to exploit for our intrepid duo?
😂 I better stop with my theorising. There’s no end to it.
I first watched Kim Hye Yoon in Sky Castle and I love when I watch a totally different character of her here in Extraordinary You. Not sure about RoWoon’s acting because this is the first time I have watched him act but I am biased and I like his character’s cool composure, kinda shy, a bit bashful and cute which is really heart fluttering. 😛
@nrllee, I have yet to watch yesterday’s episode of the water flipping thing, you brought out a point about whether events that are repeated is in the stage or shadow. For sure, stage events seems to be repeated in both worlds. Are Haru’s memories in Flower in stage or shadow? I’m thinking it could be shadow. Probably a forbidden love that doesn’t get played out in the stage but they have so much memories of because they are self aware.
Which now when i think of it, Haru remembers the past, DanOh sees the future.
@grace I like your point about HR seeing the past (Flower) and DO seeing the future (Secret). If we go with the recycled plot line idea we get the TF leads of BK/DO/HR (where BK and DO are the main leads and HR second lead), then their past story currently playing out in the Secret story of NJ/JD/DH. I don’t think there is an extra equivalent being played out from TF in Secret. So I don’t think it’s a “hidden love” as such? Maybe they aren’t supposed to like each other but if you look at the same plot line in NJ/JD/DH, it is very clear that DH likes JD, even NJ knows he’s a rival. BK/DO/HR are reliving their past life as their lead characters from TF in the Secret Universe even though they are just extras right now.
For Rowoon’s acting, I dont’ find him blank. He’s the only one composed character but I can see his love for Danoh and he’s more charismatic when he faces Baek Kyung.
For the last episode, Danoh and Haru were so cute! I love their relationship. With Dohwa, they’re so funny. I thought Rowoon will choked with all the food they put in his mouth.
For the plot, Baek Kyung is the only one who seems curious about Flower book, Haru doesn’t know where came his memories from and the others don’t know about it. Fairy should stop at keeping secrets, it cleary doesn’t work.
Juda is aware, I pity her. Her Candy life is pretty hard. But I don’t understand why she keeps it for her. Dohwa’s words were pretty clear, she could ask.
Baek Kyung’s half brother is aware too. But we don’t know if he had a role in Flower.
@sayaris Are you sure JuDa is aware? I’m thinking she’s got an ulterior plot, but as part of the stage. She clearly liked Do Hwa not Nam Ju at the beginning. Fair enough, but unlike the characters she is based upon, she didn’t make that clear to Nam Ju. If anything, she led him on. We’ve seen glimpses that she’s not as pure as she seems…is she part of a revenge plot and is she using Nam Ju? Not to say she isn’t falling for Nam Ju – it’s part and parcel of a revenge plot that she would fall for Nam Ju.
But I don’t think she’s aware. I think she has a ‘secret’.
@nrllee, it seems from the preview we’ll be getting Squid Fairy’s back story so clarification is in the offing. I wonder if the girl that is coming to the school was the “extra” he was talking about who changed things and was snuffed out? I don’t think the allegory will do much to en’light’en us, lol.
@nrllee, regarding water. As I’ve said here and elsewhere, the sageuk Flower was probably, like Secret, based on kdramas we’re familiar with. Secret is based on youth rom coms like Heirs and Boys over Flowers. Which would Flower be based upon?
I think ‘water’ is a clue. We’re drawn to its significance in Secret- playing in water, drowning in water, swirling watery abyss – with images.
There are two sageuks that I remember clearly having to do with water – and both involve time travel. Rooftop Prince: the modern day hero dies by drowning, the sageuk heroine dies by drowning, water is the way between time periods. Scarlet Heart Rye: Hae Soo travels to the past via drowning.
Two other things about water and time. Water is what seers use to see the future – crystal balls and mirrors had their scrying antecedents in pools or dishes of water. But also, the Korean river or water god Haebak is also a time god in some versions.
Tying this together: either Haru or Dan Oh or both likely have origins in a time travelling sageuk, and water is dangerous because it can skip them out of time. My thoughts anyway.
Lastly want to comment on how poignant I found episode 10. “When we are 19 and 20…” That just choked me up, because chances are lovely, vibrant Dan Oh won’t live to see those years. The love story in this episode surpassed its rom com bounds; we could have been watching those two other teenage lovers, Romeo and Juliet, and from me, a Shakespeare buff, that’s a true compliment to the writer.
@nrllee, does what I said about water above add to your observation about the anoma!y? I would have to rewatch to understand exactly what you mean.
@grace, my understanding re he sees the past, she sees the future is the same as yours, but as outlined in my previous post, why is that? And so I’m operating on the premise that these abilities were actually written into their original characters (whether that was in Flower or an even earlier text). I also wonder whether his roots are in the past and hers are in the future, and they keep time- and book-jumping to meet in an impossible ‘now’.
@Barbrey it does. The black hole looks suspiciously like a whirlpool? 😂. I think I got mixed up. @grace’s reply helped me rethink. The love triangle that is happening in Secret between BK/DO/HR only exists in the shadow. It’s not a love line that exists in the stage of Secret. HR was not supposed to exist as a competitor for DO’s love at all in Secret. Even now as a named extra (rewritten as BK’s friend), he is not a competitor for her affections on stage. He’s just the loyal friend. In fact, now that he’s been drawn as such, he is aligning himself with the Haru of Flower (and the plot in Secret has shifted as a result of their interference)…who looks to be the loyal friend/bodyguard of Kyung (hence his tantrum at the end of Ep 18 when Haru declared he was leaving). That’s also why Kyung gets so mad in Secret when Haru doesn’t do his bidding. I can’t tell if his vehement accusation at the end with, “I know you are in love with Eun DanOh” is meant to be a threat (as in I will kill her if you don’t stay with me) or a challenge (as in I am her suitor and vastly superior to you). 😮
What I am not entirely sure about is whether DO actually loved HR in Flower? Or was it a one-sided love like what we are seeing now in the JooDa/DoHwa pairing?
And yes I was going to mention Romeo/Juliet… I keep wondering if we will get that ending here too. If it was a forbidden love (and DO loved HR in return), then we could very well finish with that. And a promise to meet again and again in the next comic till they finally get their wish for a happy every after. As if to persist in loving until the writer finally caves and grants them their wish to be together. So I am guessing Squid Fairy wants HR to stop DO from changing the plot in Secret because the ending for them in Flower is worse. Instead of just DO dying, both of them will. 😬
😂 watching Ep10 now. I can’t stop laughing at HR’s failed attempts at being the bf who takes photos of his gf. “Why didn’t you make my legs look longer??” 😂. I get that too with my daughter when she asks me to take pics of her on her phone and she has to school me on how to angle the phone to create this illusion…so I totally get poor HR who has no skills whatsoever in the modern world. They are the cutest together…but there’s a foreboding…they’re shared happiness feels like a swan song… and I am prepping my heart 😩.
HR changes the stage 😮. They make a promise to meet by a 300year old tree (they took a pic there together earlier) on Oct 10… this would be significant. 🙂.
And look what I found 😂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dano_(Korean_festival). 5th day of the 5th month (lunar) is about June…and guess what starts blooming then? Yup…trumpet creeper flowers… 😍. Also, DanOh in Chinese is 端午… and there’s a festival associated with that too. Dragon Boat Festival and it happens on the 5th day of the 5th month as well. https://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/china/dragon-boat-festival (Read the story for the water reference) 🙂.
By the way, is anyone else scared for Kyung after his brother’s desperate warning?
I’ve been saying since the beginning the writer has included a curious symmetry between Kyung and Haru, and that impression strengthens every episode. It goes further than that they are two men in a life triangle with Dan Oh. I’ve put forward a number of theories for this: Kyung and Haru are two sides of the same person; Kyung and Haru were brothers in a previous ‘life’/book; Haru was Kyung’s bodyguard (he is protective of him even in Secret) in Flower, etc.
Someone says (Squid Fairy?) that only Kyung can change the stage. His brother desperately tells him not to change anything. But we ourselves are seeing a major change: Haru is taking on Kyung’s status, as athlete, as scholar, and as Dan Oh’s love.
I think he should be very very afraid. With Haru in the picture, he’s becoming disposable. And if this story requires someone to die, and Dan Oh is able to avert that fate…?
Yes @Barbrey I feel like Kyung is like Gollum 😂. He will be the one in the end to jump in to save the day at the final hour. Redemptive death. So maybe DO and HR will get their happy ever after. Not sure where the writer will go with it. But I agree, someone dies in the end. And it’s unlikely DO because everyone kinda expects that to happen already.
@nrllee Oh my! The connection to the DuanWu (端午) festival makes my hair stand! The connection to water is very strong here. QuYuan the main guy in this story is the loyal subject of the king who got exiled because of false charges of conspiracy. He drowned himself. If the writer was going to write the story like this Duanwu Festival story, Haru would die in that Flower story.
I’m sure Kyung’s brother and JuDa has more to contribute to the story that feels very ominous. I agree with you all that some will need to die in the end…and ideally Kyung but I’m not sure how. If DanOh or Haru dies we are going to be left with a ending like MoonLovers, which will be a devastating end. I would prefer for a ending that ends with hope, but how we get there will be the skill of the writer.
@Sayaris, @nrllee, i get it now Haru’s character is from the past where they are not expressive or in a way, they hold back their emotions more. The real RoWoon is very unlike his Haru character. I thought the Flower story DanOh acted more ladylike and composed compared to her student character in Secret (when you compare the splashing water scene). But I love Haru’s innocence, like how he doesn’t quite know how to take a photos and not versed with modern tech; and a lot of protectiveness vibe
@nrllee, love the Gollum! Admittedly, that’s what occurred to me too. I think the ‘if’ is big that Dan Oh won’t die, but if she doesnt’t I think this is lead up to it.
@pkm3, something just occurred to me I thought might interest you about the ALTERNATE title: Suddenly One Day. I hadn’t noticed this title before. We know that Haru’s name means ‘one day’ so that’s a nice little pun but this title has a deeper meaning for literature people. Because an opening sentence like this one for a book, in a cliche sense, would be followed by’a stranger rode into town’.
In a quote attributed to John Gardner in The Art of Fiction, he said all fiction plots can be boiled down to two: 1) you go on a journey or 2) a stranger comes to town. (Most of us would argue this point but it’s a well-known dictum).
So fiction exercises often started with ‘Suddenly, one day, a stranger came into town’ and the fledgeling novelist would take it from there.
Get it? Ha ha ha.
Suddenly, Haru, a stranger, came into town.
It certainly punctuates your point that Dan Oh’s (and all other recurring characters except Squid’s?) awareness begins with Haru’s arrival, and that the watery abyss in the air was caused by him.
And perhaps it’s been said before, but do most of you think that only the recurring characters – from Trumpet Flower or elsewhere – have the ability for self-awareness? So Do Hwa, Kyung, Dan Oh, likely Kyung’s brother, maybe the nasty mom (she could be a wonderful person in the shadow!), Ju Da and maybe Nam Ju – all awoke with Haru’s arrival though many of them don’t know about the book?
Love that pick up about “Suddenly One Day” @Barbrey. Adds perspective to the story for sure.
@Grace I don’t know if you saw my reference that I think Haru is a guardian angel? That’s what I am thinking now. DH kept being referred to as a guardian angel. Even JD called him that? Haru is the guardian angel for DO. The stained glass in the beginning episode.
The guardian angel idea is fitting more and more into Haru’s profile. He has no beginning. He hovers over DO protecting her. She willed (summoned) him into existence in the comic world. Initially I thought like PM3 that his innocence and cluelessness about modern world things (like pointing, like reading English, like taking photos on mobile phones) was because he was from another era (Sageuk). But it would also fit into the story if he was not of this world in the first place. He was supernatural/alien. He didn’t know how to live as a human being (or someone in the comic world). He grew into that role. His type of innocence has an otherworldliness about it? Don’t know. I could be seeing things 😂
@nrllee, I don’t quite buy it because he knew how to do things from the sageuk era, like the flute and the language. So he came from there, though I guess he could have travelled there but originated as an angel or…My Love from the Star!
It’s not actually impossible. Flower would definitely be based on kdrama sageuk, straight or fusion, and that was the plotline of My Love from the Star, remember – he saved her in the Joseon era and waited 300 years or something till she reincarnated and he saved her again.
These writers! Playing with my head!
True that about the flute and language. @Barbrey. 😂. We can keep guessing.
@Barbrey, the alternative titles give more clues to the story main idea, I love the “Extraordinary You” title because of the many layers of meanings. The “Suddenly One Day” title is similar to its other title “Ha-roo found by chance”. Who found Haru? Totally Art of Fiction as you said. He is the main driver of the whole story, without Haru there is no new story, no change.
@nrllee love the guardian angel idea, just that she fell in love with the guardian angel!
I’ve been thinking how and why Haru is the only one who can change the story. Not just because he is not from Secret. But I’m thinking if he is also a cause for some devastating problems in Flower. He said “If there is no answer about where I come from, I will make my own answer.” Do you realise only Haru and DanOh want to change their destiny? The rest seem to accept it or say what can they do, even DoHwa tried and gave up, letting fate happen to him. Reminds me of W:Two worlds where the KungChul want to go against the fate the writer gave him.
And then it reminds me of how we are in control and yet not in control of our lives. Are we really in control? If you believe in God, He has determined your life but yet you make choices that determine your life, so who is in control? This idea is hard to grasp. We want to but we can’t? I’m finding a parallel in how we can shake our fists at God and say why did you do this to me, pretty much like how Squid & other characters bad-mouths the writer. oops!
@grace I don’t think he stayed a guardian angel though… he was “conceived” into the ManHwa world when she named him. He was just #13 before then and running around protecting her like her guardian angel (like the stair incident). She willed him to life and he took on the form of her ManHwa (human) saviour Haru. That’s why he seemed so naive and full of wonder at every little thing eg the sunshine. But @Barbrey has a point about him knowing how to play the flute etc which pins his beginnings in the Sageuk era. I think I would be less inclined to think he just had his origins there (like DO and the others) if BK hadn’t said in TF that Haru of the past “had no beginning” as well. We’ll just have to see where the writer takes us.
As for the free will debate, I want to point out that the world view presented in this drama is not the Christian one. We do not have a cosmic killjoy god who is out to make it hard for us to have a happy ever after (in this case the HR/DO pairing in their idyllic Trumpet Flower forest corner (which the writer has deemed “Off Limits”)).
Getting on my high horse…
So for me how I make sense of the whole free will and a sovereign God things is that I am finite. My brain is finite. In trying to use finite terms to explain something infinite like God (who isn’t constrained by space or time) will never be completely satisfactory. We know only in part. And because our brains are finite, we tend to think only in dichotomies and linearly – it either is, or it isn’t. We either have free will or we don’t. If we have complete free will then God cannot possibly be sovereign and know the outcome beforehand. That’s using finite logic to explain the infinite. It’s like the whole concept of infinity ∞. I can’t picture it in my mind. I think in numbers. Is 99999999 infinity? No…not even close. So all I know is that these 2 concepts – free will AND God’s sovereignty are both spoken of as truths in the Bible and they coexist happily. Just because I can’t quite make sense of it in my finite thinking doesn’t mean they can’t both be true. And it will really only make absolute sense when I don the clothes of the imperishable in the Second Coming when I too will no longer be confined by the finite. 🙂
Getting off my high horse…
An interesting take, nrllee.
Christianity comes in many forms: when (very Christian) Milton wrote Paradise Lost and gave Lucifer understandable reasons for rebelling against God, Milton didn’t understand the fuss made about it. God was so fundamental to him that it didn’t matter what Lucifer’s reasons were, he said, because Lucifer disobeyed God and so should be thrown into hell. Disobedience was the ultimate sin.
And subsequent literature has been inundated with the free will/obedience debate ever since. It is so much part of the canon that you never have to read Paradise Lost to get a sense of the debate. So I agree that your and many other’s Christianity is likely quite different from this Miltonic view, or the literary views based on Milton!
But it is core to literature not religion, so no need to defend on that score.
In this story, for instance, we encounter the allegory, but you can interchange the players. To me, the publisher or the market is likely God, insisting on a formulaic script/webtoon, and the writer could very well be rebelling as a Lucifer figure, but not quite, undermining the formula from the shadows with more realistic characters that have a ‘mind’ (variations on the writer’s mind sans formula) of their own. The conflict is in the writer’s head; she’s caught between money and art really. A sad but realistic state for all artists, obedience to the market, freedom to follow their imaginations.
That to me is the real framework. I just wrote about it on Soompi but I’m never very clear.
@Barbrey I like that analogy with the running social expectations as the “god” of the drama and stage/shadow as parts of the writer’s conundrums. There seems to be Team BK Vs Team HR battle going on in cyberspace. I had to laugh when someone took it a step too far and suggested that perhaps these comic characters had lives of their own outside of the comic world much like KDrama actors with lives outside their acting profession 😂. So in effect, HR and DO can have their happy ever after once the comic is done as they go back to their normal lives loving each other till the next comic. 😂. That theory was pretty wild. I think I responded in jest with the fact that characters could well live on in fan fics in between comics. Didn’t like the ending? Well why not write alternatives of your own? Channeling all that rage into creativity is cathartic. 😂
I think I have worn out most of my theories and will wait for more tidbits from the writer. My guardian angel theory sounds somewhat far fetched now… 😂. It could just be the writer using that motif to suggest HR’s prior profession as a bodyguard in TF. Who knows?
Those theories of the characters actually living freely as if they were not written, but actors and alive, was what made me write about the writing process.
The guardian angel theory was good and not at all far fetched, nrllee! Haru is a change agent sent by the writer, consciously or subconsciously, willingly or not, to tranform the world and its inhabitants. That’s what God does with angels as I understand it! He even uses Lucifer on occasion :). So on an allegorical level, that’s a perfect analogy.
Theory fatigue is a thing. Can’t wait for the newest episodes.
Oh and I’ve come around on the Saviour/Jesus analogy that you proposed for Haru. When Haru swamps Dan Oh with water and she subsequently tells him, “I feel born again with you, Haru”, that’s a pretty apt description of baptism.
“ When Haru swamps Dan Oh with water and she subsequently tells him, “I feel born again with you, Haru”, that’s a pretty apt description of baptism.”
😂👏. Sprinkling.
Lol.