You know me: I can’t resist blogging about a kdrama that I find funny. Despite its dark subject, Psychopath’s Diary is funny for a few reasons.
1. It turns the trope of the “Birth of Superheroes” upside down.
Superheroes always have a creation myth to explain how they gained their power to fight crime. Many superheroes emerged from a freak science accident. For instance, Spiderman was bitten by a radioactive bug and Dr. Bruce Banner was exposed to gamma radiation to become Hulk. But then there are superheroes who are superhuman from birth, i.e., Superman, Wonder Woman and Thor.
And then there’s Batman who witnessed his parents were killed by a mugger. He swore to avenge their deaths, and studied and trained to become the cape crusader against crime and injustice.
I think Episode 1 of this “Psychopath’s Diary” is a parody of these Superhero tropes.
Prior to his transformation, Dong Sik resembles Clark Kent, the alter-ego of Superman. Clark Kent was often described as “mild-mannered,” and portrayed as clumsy, introverted and socially awkward. Similarly, Dong Sik is described by his colleagues as a “push-over.” He’s submissive and non-confrontational. He meekly apologizes for every little thing and tolerates abuse from everybody. He slouches because he’s missing a backbone. His personality, prior his transformation, aggravates me a lot.
But in a way, Dong Sik also resembles Batman because he, too, witnessed a murder in process, and that changed his life. He got hold of the murderer’s diary and got into accident while fleeing the murder scene. He’s now studying and training to be a psychopath murderer in order to fight against his bullies.
He’s getting in touch with his “inner” madman. He’s embracing his real psycho self.
To me, getting his hands on the real psychopath’s diary is a stroke of luck. That’s the funny part. It’s similar to the radioactive bug or the gamma radiation that transformed Spiderman and the Hulk, respectively, into superheroes.
For Dong Sik, the diary becomes his catalyst for transformation. Because he suffered amnesia and couldn’t remember his former mild-mannered self, he only had the diary to inform him of his past life and to guide him on his course of action.
Take for instance when his boss bullied him again and he relied on the diary to show him how he handled tough situations.
He had already thrown the diary in the trash because he didn’t believe he’d do such heinous act.
In his mind, he believed his employer’s assessment of him, “An idiotic and timid pushover. A person who can’t refuse and does whatever someone asks. A fool.” He observed that his own office mates weren’t afraid of him and they didn’t want anything to do with him. Based on all these assumptions, he concluded that was neither a predator nor a psycho murderer.
But after his boss bullied him at their office party, he became angry with himself for tolerating such abuse without fighting back. He then remembered his last diary entry when he coldly killed the homeless man in the men’s room with a toilet lid, and he went after his tormentor, his boss, and copied the scene as described on the diary.
Inwardly, he was telling himself, “It’s not that I’m a loser. I was just pretending. To hide my identity. I know… I know I was a psychopath.”
But as he was raising the toilet lid, a chunk of porcelain broke off. He bent to pick it up and noted the sharp edge which could cause injury (lol). The boss took advantage of his momentary distraction and scampered away. lol.
Dong Sik didn’t even need to touch a hair of his boss during the confrontation. The boss became deathly scared of him because his image of a pushover Dong Sik was shattered by Dong Sik’s erratic behavior in the restroom. Dong Sik’s menacing look, his cold narration of a gruesome crime, and his intimidating action were enough to convince his boss that he’s a killer psychopath on the loose.
The bathroom scene marks the birth of a “virtual” psychopath. A Superhero Psychopath.
Have you seen a psychopath this happy?
Even the way he shed off the bandage and splint reminded me…
of Superman removing his glasses and tie. lol.
2. The drama is also funny because it hypes that Dong Sik is a serial killer when he clearly isn’t.
The opening of the drama shows Dong Sik in police custody walking to his press conference. In a voiceover, we were informed of his crimes, “A serial murderer who terrorized people has finally been arrested. The suspect has admitted to committing seven murders, six of which were conclusively identified in a diary about the suspect Yook Dong Sik’s behavior, plus one additional murder for a total of seven counts.”
However, all the homicides, including the seventh murder of the homeless man, were committed by Seo In Woo, the son of the President of the investment company where Dong Sik works.
Dong Sik and In Woo are the complete opposite of each other.
For one, although they both have older sisters, brothers-in-law, younger half-brothers, stepmothers, and dominant fathers, the family dynamics aren’t the same. While In Woo schemes behind-the-scenes, Dong Sik appears to be doted on by his family. For another, although they live by themselves, their habits are different. While In Woo murders people, Dong Sik preoccupies himself watching and reading mysteries.
Also, look at the inside of their homes. In Woo had knives, swords, and gun displays. BTW, please note the logical fallacy here in the drama: possessing guns does NOT make one a murderer. I’m a gun owner myself and an NRA member.
Dong Sik has posters, books and movies on detectives, mysteries, and crime-solving. The killing that he sees are only in his head while for In Woo, the killing is an actuality.
BTW, because we’re obsessive bitches…
This book that he’s holding… this is a page from Dan Brown’s “Da Vinci Code.” Da Vinci didn’t actually write those stanzas. lol. It was a code in reverse text, and it read like this:
An ancient word of wisdom frees this scroll
And helps us keep her scatter’d family whole
A headstone praised by templars is the key
and atbash will reveal the truth to thee.
🙂
If Dong Sik hadn’t lost his memory, the psychopath’s diary entries would have intrigued him to solve the identity of the murderer on his own. The diary would have given him valuable insight into the murderer’s mind so he could predict or anticipate the murderer’s next move.
For instance, in Episode 2, Dong Sik read the entry on the murder of the grandmother.
It was written, “The most enjoyable thing about killing someone is watching their life fade away right before your eyes…She was worried, then she had to make a choice: whether to die with the gas or to be killed by me. In the end, she locked the door herself. The appropriate self-sacrifice of a stupid, weak person is the best scene.”
This entry would have tipped Dong Sik off about a few things regarding the psychopath’s personality. Not only does the psycho like to witness his crime up-close and personal, he also liked to gloat that he was smarter. Additionally, he liked to be in control. He controlled the death of this old woman so well that she went “voluntarily” to her death…in the manner that he had planned it.
To me then, Dong Sik’s press conference in the beginning of Ep 1 could be a setup. If the police captain was really that good of a profiler, he would discover soon enough that Dong Sik didn’t have the personality of the serial killer. Moreover, thorough investigation of Dong Sik’s whereabouts should give Dong Sik’s alibis on those dates the murders occurred.
To me, it’s possible that Dong Sik and the police captain staged the press conference to lure In Woo out and trap him. In Woo claimed that watching the “self-sacrifice of a stupid, weak person is the best scene” so he would enjoy watching Dong Sik convict himself. But at the same time, he would surely be enraged that his greatest works were being claimed by a “stupid, weak person” like Dong Sik. The press conference was about control. The police and Dong Sik were wresting control from the serial killer by upstaging him. 🙂
Anyway, that’s how I would do it, but as you know, I’m not the writer of this show so oh well…whatever. Just chuck my theory in the bin when I’m wrong. 🙂
3. Lastly, I find the drama funny because it’s pushing the novel idea that to be a psychopath is infinitely better than being a pushover.
Psychopath >>>> pushover
In a dog-eat-dog world, where only the strong survives, and where the kind, meek and forbearing people are considered losers and abused by the bullies, it feels good to see Dong Sik stand up for himself. If it means taking on certain traits of a psychopath, like the boldness, defiance and fearlessness, to make him a better person, why not? For far too long, Dong Sik has been suppressing his subconscious.
Mind you, his subconscious is NOT telling him to murder. Rather his subconscious is telling him to stand up for himself, and to stand up against bullying and injustice. As he said, “My subconscious is telling me to read the diary and accept myself entirely. If I’m a true psychopath, someone like Team Leader Gong is nothing.”
Then when he found out the company director who was really making him the scapegoat, he decided to take the bigger fish on, too. He looked at his hand, saying, “My wounded hand has not fully recovered yet. However, I need to start writing in the diary. A new murder diary.” He proceeded to write the reverse text in wobbly letters. (They look like chicken scratching to me.)
To me, he was going to “take a page” from the original psychopath’s book. He was symbolically and literally mimicking the psycho’s behavior to take on the bullies in his life. Of course, it would go without saying that his success would largely depend on his crazy luck, the goodwill of others, his bumbling efforts, and his reenactment of famous movie scenes.
Ultimately, this last scene, when he was hard at work scribbling and he vowed vengeance, is what I find most hilarious in these first two episodes. You see, I never expected to see a time when I was cheering for a “Super Psychopath” to win the day.
lol.
Hi @packmule3, I’m glad you’ve chosen to blog about this show. I’ve been uncertain about how I feel about it. I usually prefer shows that I find compelling, and this one isn’t one of those, however I am intrigued about how Dongshik’s belief in what he is capable of, shapes his attitudes about himself and others.
I like the thought that he had always subconsciously wanted to stand up for himself, and that the diary gave him the impetus. The question I watch to find the answer for is how far will his beliefs and desire to be not-a’pushover bring him in the area of intimidation, when it goes against his normal true personality.
Certainly it would be a great ploy if the detective and DS had staged that press conference to bring in the real killer. It’s a possible twist. When I first watched that scene, I was thinking that the killer would be so pissed!
I was thinking about the homeless man, about how DS’s lack of memory played that trick on him, making him believe that he was in first person killing the man, when in fact he had been the witness. It was so frustratingly ironic that seeing the homeless man alive and approaching him, scared him off, when this was the person who could have helped him clear up the diary issue. I was actually upset that the man ended up dead anyway, after that chance he had to escape and locate DS.
If DS had been less intent on believing himself a psychopath who had succeeded in killing, he might have been a bit more willing to see that the homeless man was not a figment of his imagination, and could have saved him. However that would also have taken the wind out of his sails. I feel he was enjoying the thought of being a psychopath far too much. The combination of his hating how intimidated he had been with resenting the bad treatment of others and wanting to change, has made him embrace the diary in a much more determined way than he might have otherwise.
I was also wondering about memories and what makes us, who we are. I was saying on Dramabeans : In the Kdrama, Circle, there was the question of whether putting memories in a clone, makes the clone the same person as the one who had the memories.
With Dongshik, who is taking the diary to be his memories – can what a person thinks are his actions/memories, make him like the actual person who had them?
On top of that he has been lied to by Jae Ho (and even by policewoman Bokyung). He has to grapple with ‘false and manufactured memories, which unknown to him, have changed his reality.
Although I feel a degree of concern and interest in DS, it’s evident to me that I’ll only be more fully invested if he were or became more likable. I’m also wondering why I don’t warm up towards him in the same way I do with lots of other leads. He was shown to be good to the homeless man and willing to walk Bokyung’s dog for free, afterall. He was in the ‘wrong’ place at the wrong time and witnessed the almost murder. I should have felt more pathos for him who almost committed suicide, even.
That aside, I do like watching Yoon Shiyoon in this show, and how well Bokyung and imaginary dad are going to solve the crime.
Same @GB. I adore YSY. But I haven’t been able to sink my teeth into this drama (yet). I was already tentative about the writer taking the drama into uncharted territory. This writer penned Liar Game. And I am told he writes thrillers well…so when the teasers came out comedic and the writer himself said in the interview he wanted to add comedic elements to a thriller, I wasn’t enthused. The whole topic of serial killing just…isn’t…funny? So even now after the first few episodes I am not sure how I feel about it. I feel like I can’t invest in any of the characters. Not in DongSik who seems to have already turned down that path, nor InWoo who is the actual serial killer, nor BoKyung who tried to cover up the accident (?) 🤔. She’s a police woman? 🙄. So when I watch this drama I am totally doing it on a cerebral plane. Exploring the whys and wherefores of the serial killer psyche. Can feeding your mind with violent viewing send you off on the deep end given the right trigger? Is belief that you are a serial killer sufficient? Like the mass shootings at schools done by bullied students? Could it have been prevented? Is there a “serial killer/warrior gene” that some purport is the deciding factor which is required for you to go that far? I feel like the fact that the writer has presented to the audience similar family backgrounds for both DongSik and InWoo may well be the social experiment he is trying to explore in the story.
Still, I feel like 16 episodes is a LONG time to try to keep the audience’s attention on the issue. Especially if the audience isn’t particularly invested in any of the characters. It just becomes an intellectual exercise, nothing more? 🤔
As an aside, I did smile at the mirror writing. My daughter is left handed. And when she first started to write, she did mirror writing…which was cool in hindsight but when I saw that, my first thoughts as a mother was that there was something seriously wrong with her brain 🧠 😂. Turns out it’s totally normal for them because then they can actually see what they are writing instead of having their hand cover up the writing. I never bothered to force her to became right handed. So she remains a left handed person navigating a world full of right handed people.
@nrllee Yes, looks like we will begin this show at the cerebral level, although feeling souls like us will miss the emotional engagement!
A couple of my family are lefties. My eldest is basically left-handed but somehow (probably it was her kiddy school) got down to writing with her right hand, but cuts with scissors with her left. She has not complained about having difficulty overall. I should ask her now that I think about it.
I didn’t know that writing with the left hand automatically got a person to do mirror writing… I thought we write as we see it and not as seen in a mirror!!!
“ I didn’t know that writing with the left hand automatically got a person to do mirror writing… I thought we write as we see it and not as seen in a mirror!!!”
She wrote like that because she couldn’t see the letters if she wrote it left to right…so she just started spelling it right to left…what freaked me out was that she even wrote the letters like a mirror. So you could only read it when you face the mirror. Up to now she has problems working things out spatially eg now to turn keys, knobs. She’s always been rather unusual. I have just decided that she sees the world very differently and have gotten accustomed to her eccentricities. 😂