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.