The thread is now open for spoilers, analyses and treatises.
Gifs from runnyeggsnham’s tumblr
Some of these gifs remind me of “Goblin.”
Like the beach scene, obviously.
source: soompi
The inescapable death.
And the yin-yang element. Park BoYoung and Seo InGuk were on the bed, back-to-back, but I’m guessing that the image is just a fantasy. Kinda like how Goblin and EunTak were resting their heads on the dining table and student desk, respectively.
I wrote about this in soompi.
Finally, and most importantly, the dynamics of the relationship between ET and Shin should be viewed in terms of complementarity. Or yin-yang. Or black and white. Or opposite attracts. Or two halves in search of wholeness. The point of the story is that ET and Shin balance each other.
I’ll cite two instances from the script – enhanced by the cinematography – of this complementarity.
One scene is in Episode 3. Both ET and Shin are sitting at their tables, their heads resting on one hand, one arm outstretched. Do you see the contrasting elements? His table is long, wooden, scratched, and empty. His table tells pretty much what he can expect of the infinite centuries ahead of him: unending, dull, scarred, and barren.
In contrast, her table is small, with a laminate/plasticky table top, and laden with school books and paraphernalia. Her table symbolizes her human future: brief, superficial, cluttered. It’s a life bogged down with mundane problems.
The other interesting feature of this scene is that both their arms are outstretched as if they are reaching for the other person across time and space. They’re two entirely different people. But, unconsciously, their actions mirror each other. See that? Yin-yang.
Let’s enjoy the show.
Much thanks @pkml3. I’ve just had my vaccination and had a nap and no longer feel the gloom or doom of sleepiness. I shall check if there are any subs for the show.
Yin Yang
gonna watch this because of ParkBoYoung..heee
Hi Azumin,
I see that it’s already subbed at Viki. Woohoo!
My Viki membership is seeing a lot of mileage this month. I usually prefer Netflix just bec there’s no wait time for the subs. But some subbers at Viki are good at subbing the songs, and clarifying unusual terms or historical figures.
I’ve watched Episode 1 and will certainly go with Episode 2, when it appears tonight. I liked Seo In-Guk’s performance in “The Master’s Sun”, and I haven’t seen any of his work since, so I’m looking forward to “Doom at your Service”, with him as the male lead.
Episode 1 scrambles a bit as it seeks to establish a relationship between mundane reality and the spiritual realm, and it was hard to accept the almost banality of the scene in the doctor’s office as Dong-Kyung learns about her medical condition/death sentence. But there was nothing so unbelievable that it put me off, so there will be more comments from me.
Juriel,
I think Doom was shadowing the heroine Tak DongKyung even BEFORE she called his name. He seemed to care enough for her situation (e.g., was present when she almost fainted at hospital, was listening to her when she was chasing that pervert). But he could only help from afar.
Shades of “Goblin”…
The storytelling in Ep 1 left me underwhelmed but I gotta say that Seo InGuk fits this brooding antihero role. He had me watching his every move, like in that Police/Sting song, “Every Breath You Take.” 🙂
Is anybody wondering what did DK angrily text back to her ex-boyfriend?
In Hangul, that’s the letter “o” however when it’s typed repeatedly like that, it means “Fuck you!” That’s because the letter looks like a middle finger being raised in the air. 😂
I’ve watched both episodes and although it didn’t start off with a bang, it’s still good.
Ep 1 Vague First Impressions
Show started out as expected and was predictable. It’s a relief that it’s immediately accessible and not obscure. We expect that the main protagonist would have to have a whole bunch of unfortunate events stacked against her in order for her to choose to align herself with Doom.
Probably, the minute it was certain that Dong Kyung (DK) would die in 3-4 months (100 days), Doom slipped into her life and started to keep half and eye on her. Even when he didn’t intend to actually intervene when she was running after the subway pervert, his act of lighting a flame, had the effect of opening up the ground before DK for the pervert to fall into. (We hear more about his ‘ability’ in Ep 2)
Goblin Similarities
There are some similarities to Goblin, no doubt about it. Even the look and feel of some scenes and the piano music reminded me of Goblin. The fact that it looks like Autumn-Winter and has to do with death, made it similar in colour and even in tone with Goblin, where Eun Tak continually faced the Grim Reaper.
So instead of the Grim Reaper we have Doom or Myul Mang (MM for short) and instead of a child Eun Tak, we have Dong Kyung who’s also orphaned, and not well treated. Another plucky girl who laughs instead of cries over her fate.
Like goblin, he’s not the only supernatural being, but he has a ‘boss’ lady (Mother Nature?) who reminded me of the “Birth Grandma” figure who took care of life, in Goblin. To an extent, the way Goblin rebelled against the rules, we have MM in opposition against Mother Nature. This shot of them standing separated by the pillar suggests this as well. And the butterfly motif is used again for a deity, but this time it is used for MM and not the highest god.
Goblin was alone and lonely and so is Myul Mang. Goblin longed to be free of his sword and to be with his bride but that was mutually exclusive. MM seems to want to be human, since he is forced to serve humans.
To begin with the supernatural being has the upper hand and is the giver of gifts. It’s Eun Tak who has requests to make of Goblin and she summons him to get things out of him. With DK and MM, it’s MM who has to keep turning up to get her to ask him for a wish. Ultimately I expect that both parties will be in a position to give to each other.
There were many great freeze frame-able shots in Goblin and also in this show. They are both beautiful although at first episode we don’t know if show will include even more great panoramas and well composed views.
MM’s home with it’s wall of soju bottles and cups hearkens to Grim Reaper’s den. He also has candles lighting up the house but not as many as Goblin.
MM’s finger snapping magic enables him to travel or make visible scenes from any part of the world, just as Goblin used doors as portals.
He can also stop time, and in addition, manipulate and bewitch people and situations. Like Goblin he can hear or know the intent of others. The sound and sight of MM’s footsteps as he walks under falling leaves, feels familiar too.
Once again it’s the girl who can summon the supernatural being, and while feeling out of her depth, is not cowed by her situation.
I’m interested of course in how this couple will end. Both alive, both dead or like Goblin. I’ll be ok with anything as long as it makes sense.
The Flower Garden of Doom
Not the same as HP Flower Gardeners LOL. The analogy of Mother Nature is natural and apt. Human beings are the plants and flowers in her garden. While she plants them, she does not take responsibility for how some of them may kill all those around them. She has Doom to act as the butterfly, serving the flowers of humanity forever. He gets nothing, even on his birthday. Even a wish on his birthday is meant to be fulfilled for the human being and not for him. No wonder he chafes at his job and looks jaded. He seems to want humanity to wilt away, maybe so that he won’t have to do his job forever.
He asks rhetorically the question that I suppose the audience is also asked: “What’s so great about humans?”
He takes a clay pitcher from the shelf but causes the cup to fall and shatter. He stares at the shards, which symbolise the fragility of humans. “What’s so great about those insignificant and mortal beings?” (He sighs discontentedly.)
The irony is that humans who are so short-lived consider themselves more lasting than other parts of nature, but our concerns are so mundane. As MM looks in at the cakes in a café, passers-by say: “Once it rains, all the gingko leaves will fall.” “Autumn is so short.” “Right.” “We can’t eat ice cream outside now.”
Ultimately all flowers have to die. But we should have lived to have made our world more beautiful.
Wishing Upon Falling Stars
I liked the reflection of the stars in MM’s cup and how both he and DK watched the meteor shower and became further connected by her calling out her wish for destruction. It’s ironic and cute that it’s MM who’s drinking soju who says he hears alcohol in that wish of DK.
It’s good that from the first episode we are shown the logic of how come MM can get properly entangled with DK. As long as she was merely going to die, he’d be around but not directly interfere. However when she had a wish on his birthday, he was able to take action, in her life and not only at her death. He says that she only needed to say her wish out loud for him, in order for him to grant it.
Finally, there is a spark of interest in him, to accomplish what he calls a small event. He hopes that because it’s a human wish to destroy the world, he can finally succeed in doing this which he had failed to accomplish before. However I feel that the spark is more to do with the difference and life DK brings into his boring existence.
I’m intrigued in Doom’s relationship with Deity, there’s more there but what?
Spoilers below:
My impression of Doom is that he’s frustrated with his position (Why me?) and bored. He’s seen it all. DK’s wish for all of the world to be doomed comes as a piqued reaction to to her diagnosis, but she’s stuck with her call to Doom.
Doom seems to toy with DK to make her accept that he is real. I’m glad that it takes a while for her to accept him, that she thinks he’s a dream or a hallucination due to her condition. When otherwise logical characters accept the supernatural or fantastic very quickly I find it unlikely.
I found Doom very patronising and sneery, and I was waiting to if DK would slap him. I imagine that she will become intriguing and important to him and that through her he will come to realise the value of the mortals he seemed to scorn.
I think we will see more about why he is in his position and see more about his relationship with the Deity.
I agree with @packmule3 that Seo In Guk is sort of mesmerising. His face is slightly disturbing but also I like watching him. Park Bo-young is more believable in this drama than in another I watched. She is unlucky, but not pathetic. I like how she is portraying this character. I also liked the voice of Lee Soo-Hyuk who is a co-worker. I had only seen photos of him and was wondering where the appeal was, but now I know. 😊
Hmm…when I saw the teasers it was giving me Meet Joe Black vibes. I am going to pass on this. I will be watching Move To Heaven so I don’t think I can stomach another morbid Death ☠️ related drama.
@Fern, you’ve become prophetic too LOL. What you say I believe will come to pass and one of those things has already come to pass LOLOL.
Yes, SIG inhabits his characters soo well. I forget it’s him and get totally immersed in the story. It’s another version of the rude, reluctant hero and the good heroine who changes him trope, but with enough differences so that it feels interesting. Ultimately I guess they will change each other and ‘Fate’. I’m kind of feeling that there’ll be the great paradox of them wanting ultimately to be together but Fate and the rules of the supernatural etc that will make it impossible (sort of like Goblin too).
I agree with what you say about it taking so long to convince DK that she’s really meeting Doom. It feels very natural that she tries to establish every normal explanation first before she is exhausted into accepting that she has to make a deal with Doom. I feel that he really out-manouvred and forced her into that position. When she called out doom on the world, she did not mean it to happen as I expect he wants it to happen. But he’s taking advantage of his one birthday wish to wreak havoc on the world against her will.
My quick notes on their Conversations
I like that the first episode has established a great many occasions for conversation and enlightenment for DK. In the process we too are enlightened and we get to see how good the interactions between the leads will be.
I found the MM-DK conversations funny. He was so set on fulfilling her unintentional wish supernaturally but she was so adamant about keeping everything down to earth and mundane. Their conversational misinterpretations showed how far they were from being on the same wavelength to begin with.
By the end of the first episode, she’s aware that he’s hearing her thoughts, and inexorably letting or forcing the situation so that she has to accept his hand. I envision resentment and much push and pull. So she begins with her agency at stake, but I hope to see her able to turn the tide and use the supernatural rules to outwit her Fate, while at the same time they come to an understanding, instead of into constant battle.
Crossing Roads and Bridges
I like it when shows use effectively objects of our daily life to convey more than words can manage.
When forced to make a deal with MM, DK is caught at the crossroads (of her life) and in the middle of the road. She has to make the choice to cross to the other side where MM is, or to stay where she is. In the crossing, Fate (or the Deity), takes a hand and she collapses in pain. Again the next day, when she berates him from fraud, for not telling her that if she broke the contract, someone dear would die, he again leads her to the same centre of the road to make a fresh choice.
I laughed when the Truck of Doom (Myul Mang Truck?) was gunning straight for DK on the road, when Doom himself stood close by.
Her next choice: to remain where she would be run over or to take MM’s hand (a play on taking one’s hand in marriage?) and the deal he offered. From that time, they have to literally and figuratively walk hand in hand in an unbreakable contract. He tells her not to let go of his hand. If she does, she’d die. Again I wonder if this is figurative or literal. As a sign of his promise to remove pain from her life, he leaves the red thread of Fate around her wrist.
It’s sounds like a joke that he needs to recharge that thread before midnight each night, by holding her hand. It might be partially true but it’s also a good excuse to see her and to make sure that she did not try to run off or avoid her part of the contract. However I can’t see how that matters, since he would have been able to find her anywhere she might go.
I’m taking it as an excuse of his to spend time, for the first time, with a human being, who actually called down doom on her fellowmen.
When despite being slapped by DK, MM faithfully shows up to accompany her before midnight to “recharge her safety battery”, (I wonder what will happen if he does not. Would she meet with an accident?) they have a truce of sorts.
They walk across the bridge, with DK for all the world, acting out in advance her funeral procession. She carries her photograph meant for the wake and funeral, face forwards and crosses the bridge, exactly as it would have been done for her funeral. The added significance, (I learn from other shows like Hotel Del Luna), is that the bridge is the symbol of the link to the afterlife. DK seems to be making up her mind that she will accept death and the terms of the contract, to save a loved one from dying in her place.
Deities with Limited Powers
In this show, the deities exist because they have been willed into existence by human beings, therefore the humans have the upper hand.
The Deity of Mother Nature came with heart disease, to pay the price for the world to exist. Might that mean that the good health and long life of many in the world are made possible because the deity suffers and will die young?
Deity says to MM : “I opened my eyes the moment a lot of people called out for me. So I will willingly pay the price. That is the job of a deity that people call upon, and your job as the creation of a deity.” (She seems to be saying that MM is created by her, and since she considers it her job is to pay the price for the world, then he too has to take on the same responsibility to pay the price.)
Deity :”You already know that you cannot avoid your fate. She (DK) will not give up on the world. Not like you did.”
(This is the first hint that MM was different before. Previously he had not given up on the world. He had not previously wanted to bring doom upon the world. But now he had given up and wanted it to end, but he could not end it on his own, he needed a human being to wish it. Humans had more power in that sense, than the Deities.
At this point, MM thinks his Fate is it to be a butterfly forever. However with DK, where the butterfly and the flower are no longer transient persons in each other’s life, a new Fate emerges, and cannot be avoided.)
Charging up the Safety Battery and Living Together
Picking a fight, DK speaks to MM on the bridge.
DK : “Do things like you only care about yourselves?”
MM laughs : “You have no idea how much I put others first. Look at me now. You slapped me, but I’m here to save you.”
He offers his hand.
MM : “Time’s ticking.”
She takes his hand reluctantly. The light of that part of the bridge starts to flicker.
(Could it be a sign of the recharging? Might it be drawing energy from the light? After all, DK had earlier sneered at MM for being an electric type and being able to manipulate only electrical devices, which he then disproved by making comets appear.)
MM : “Get used to it, if you want to walk with me.”
DK : “Did you do that?” (Referring to the flickering light.)
MM : “I didn’t do that but it is because of me.” (This could raise the question of responsibility, or culpability. Things happen just because doom exists, but it’s not his fault.)
Referring to the accidents and deaths she asks “How do you live like that?”
MM : “I don’t live. I just exist.” (This is one of the saddest answers ever.)
MM : “I’m just a button of doom. Every step I take, every move my hand makes, every breath I take. Everything about me leads to doom. I exist for that.”
DK : “And if you don’t do anything? What if you don’t do anything?”
He’s surprised.
MM : “All hell breaks out on earth.” (As in natural and other disasters).
We see him maybe in his mind, in a dark place, alone, suffering the endless voices that say only negative things, and covering his ears against them.
We do not know if he tells DK about his sufferings, but she seems to come to an understanding of him : ” ‘If you gain something, you lose something. Everything you’ve gained in life were thanks to things you lost.’ I get what that means now. You need winter to have spring, and darkness to have light. Death must exist for life. It’s like that, isn’t it? So you are winter, darkness, and death.”
MM : “Yes.”
DK : “Like you said, you really do care for nothing but others. You just had to come to me when you cared only about yourself [I’d rephrase that as “You still came to me even when you preferred to care only about yourself].”
(She has started to find him relatable and to feel bad for him. DK realises that MM was also subject to some rules, that he made sacrifices, and might not be that different from herself in having to do his job. It may have played a part in her sudden decision for them to live together.)
MM walks her to her home.
DK : “Why follow me all the way here? It’s too much pressure. (The trouble he has taken burdens her.) But thanks anyway. You can go now. I won’t run away again.”
MM : “Shall we meet again tomorrow? Shall I come for you? It’s up to you.” (He sounds like a boyfriend.)
DK : “Why are you like this so suddenly?”
When Cheater BF-husband gets out of hand DK tells him to get out of her life. MM suddenly shifts from boyfriend mode to husband mode. LOL.
MM to DK for Cheater’s benefit : “Then shall I get rid of him this way?” He calls her “Yeobo” LOL. and smoothly speaks to her as if they’ve been long married.
Her brother comes on the scene, wanting to know who’s married and who’s living with whom. This might also have put more ideas into DK’s head.
MM proceeds to do the boyfriend thing again, going a step further than applying plaster to her cut, he heals it entirely.
MM : “I said I’d make it so that you don’t hurt.”
MM : “I see why you thought of me. I wondered what kind of person would make that wish at that time.” (Referring to when she wished for the world to be doomed. He shows a dawning understanding of her as a person and not as a project/job to complete.)
DK : “I wasn’t thinking of you.”
MM : “I am doom itself/myself. You were the only person who had the same thought at the same time. (I’m guessing he means at the same time as the meteor shower and on his birthday). I’m grateful. In many ways.”
My guess as to where that sudden invitation to live together came from:
DK’s brother had already been given the idea that she lived with a man, so to actually do so was not more startling. On the other hand, it was just a thought DK blurted out without having thought it through. LOL.
From being a mocking and patronising know-it-all, MM had shown another side of himself as the lonely, much put upon deity who kept his promises, and was handy to have around with inebriated Cheater.
He was grateful to DK for thinking of him on his birthday (so to speak). Gratitude was something that few others had demonstrated towards DK. MM had begun to treat her as a person and her attitude towards him had become more positive.
She believed that she’d need to recharge in his presence every night, and didn’t want to continually put him out by having him accompany her home. The idea of living together was out of consideration for him and out of convenience for her. It seemed like a good idea!
I liked how startled MM was at the ‘live together’ suggestion. His jaw dropped, and he almost lost yet another cigarette! LOL.
The Episode 2 Opening Credits
The opening credits were non-existent where I watched Episode 1. Hence when Episode 2 had them, I sat up. They presumably give us the transition for the show.
It is an animation which begins with only black and white graphics and a butterfly that links all the scenes in it. We see cuts of many scenes from Episode 1, accompanied by ‘music that is suggestive of magic’. All of DK’s early life is in black and white, however this gives way to colour only when Doom comes to her door.
He brings colour to her dull life but it is only when they are together and joined by the red thread of Fate, and when we see a suggestion of love (an almost heart shape) and flowers (petals) in bloom that all following scenes are in full colour from day into evening. Colour everywhere and all the time, sounds like a nice transition for DK’s life, that MM had called a nightmare.
The way the show is meant to go looks obvious. I keep my fingers crossed for the happy ending in full colour.
@Growing Beautifully, thank you for your thoughts here. I was a bit stumped by the dialogue between the Deity and MM. Could MM have been human and could his wish have been to control doom?
My impression of MM’s thoughts on DK’s question, What if he didn’t do anything, is that he may have tried that and it was a horrible experiment. He, too, is trapped by his fate. It reminds me of an old film called ‘Death Takes a Holiday.’
He was grateful for her thought of him on his birthday but when he first came to her flat, she also wished him a happy birthday and he had some cake – he had seen similar cakes through the shop window. Could it be his first birthday wish and cake ever or for a very long time?
My dear @Fern, here are my conjectures for what they’re worth.
This is an interesting surmise. I would have thought that he might have been human once, but the Deity said to him: “Birthday? You think you’re human? Have you ever been born? Or are you human, for that matter?
MM thinks a bit and looks a bit hurt/sad that he cannot respond with a resounding ‘Yes’. (Either what Deity says is true or a red herring.)
Also Deity seemed to imply that she ‘created’ MM.
Grim Reaper (in Goblin) and Man Wol (in Hotel Del Luna) are trapped in a life of service perhaps as part of punishment or to make up for something they did in the past. Therefore I wondered if MM was also serving time, however when he asked how long he was supposed to be a butterfly to serve the flowers in the Deity’s garden, she said “Forever”.
In Episode 2, they had also agreed that if there was no more garden, there would be no more need for the gardener or the butterfly, ie., they’d lose their purpose and likely disappear. Deity said that she opened her eyes (came into existence?) only when people called for her. There’s no talk of them earning their way into the Afterlife to be rewarded etc.
Also MM says repeatedly, what’s so great about humans who are mortal, and yet they were higher than the deities.
All these seem to point to MM and Deity not having been human before, and not human now. However, it’s possible that MM may want to become human in time.
Yes, I feel this is something he may have tried. When he didn’t do his job, things got out of hand and disasters took place. Conversely, he also tried to do the opposite, ie, to destroy the whole world, but that didn’t work either.
He still needed a human being to make the decision and the wish for doom before he could act. And it had to be done on his birthday, I believe.
I’m thinking it was his first cake on his birthday. He’d been looking wistfully at the cakes in the shop counter before, but he didn’t get one for himself.
Ironically, the cake for the death anniversary of DK’s parents became Doom’s birthday cake as well – quite appropriate!! He was a little tickled to be wished a happy birthday as well, I feel.
He said that his birthday “doesn’t come easily. It travels worldwide and through the fates of many people. So hurry up and make a wish before it’s too late.” Later he thanks her for the cake by changing the scene to a beach, which she seemed to be more comfortable with.
He seems to have an extended birthday then, since it’s been days and DK has not yet made her wish. 😁
All I’m going to say for now is that I want to buy a pack of cigarette and practice that cigarette-swirling lips in the mirror.
Seo In Guk just put the sexy back in stinky cigarette breath and lung cancer.
lol.
@pkml3 Kdramas have this amazing ability to show loads of actors with cigs in their mouths which remain unlighted throughout, and which usually get thrown away unlighted. The only one that lit up was totally unseen ie in HP where JW supposedly smoked but we only hear the lighter and are never shown more than the smoke.
SIG has always had that sexy aura. Loved him in more serious roles like Hello Monster, The Smile has Left Your Eyes, Squad 38, etc.
@packmule3, I believe you’ve got it bad. 😄They put the cigarettes in just for the bad boy sexy vibe. Plus, he can’t get cancer, so he’s in no danger. I wonder why he smokes? Or drinks? Can he even get drunk? What would he be like if he were drunk? I’m just curious.
I still haven’t watched Goblin and I’m rather glad because I would be comparing them.
🙂Fern, I didn’t mean Doom would get cancer. I meant impressionable viewers will think that smoking is cool, and not the health hazard that it is. Honestly, smoking is a real turn-off to me, and the smell of cigarette smoke triggers me like car exhaust and overcooked hard-boiled eggs.
I happen to think that using cigarette as prop for “character-defining” is lazy writing. I wish the writer and director could have used another way to show bad boy-ness.
Doom smoking a cigarette is just copying a trope for bad guys set by…. 🧐… hmmm…
Clint Eastwood in those Western movies,
Cruella de Vil from “101 Dalmatians,” (not a guy though)
Penguin from the Batman comics,
Sherlock Holmes,
the Caterpillar from “Alice in Wonderland” (it was smoking a hookah),
Humphrey Bogart as Rick in “Casablanca,”
and THE iconic James Dean.
My guess is Seo In Guk was channeling James Dean, the original rebel without a cause, with that cigarette droop. 😂
Hmm…the discussion piqued my interest and I watched Ep1. It’s not as gloomy as I thought. I think in part because they are talking about life and death scenarios on a meta level? Objectively. With little feeling. Matter of factly. And it’s interesting how the writer pens the Deity/Life Giver in this instance. As if Life is given and then it’s up to circumstance/fate to decide how the flower/plant ends up? Doom seems to have input as to when he decides a person is snuffed out? He allowed the criminal who stabbed the others to live? So that he would end up paying for his crimes?
Life and Death/Doom are 2 sides of the same coin. In this universe, it appears that Doom or fear of doom creates in humanity a desire for a Deity/Higher Being? That was my impression when Life Giver/Deity appears with Doom at the hospital. She calls Doom a butterfly in the Garden. To service the flowers/humans? Life has meaning when you have the lens of Death looming large. My impression Doom was “birthed” in the life of DK with her diagnosis of Glioblastoma. That’s why he said it was his “birthday”. She was denying his existence in her life (in denial of the diagnosis) until she took his hand when the truck of Doom 😂 appeared. It took that moment for her to realize how fleeting her life is and Death loomed large. Because as soon as she acknowledged his presence in her life, she feared him (Doom). MM 멸망 in Chinese is 灭亡 which means destruction or to perish. As long as she was in the denial phase, it all seemed very surreal and life just kept chugging along. When she realized his presence in her life, fear set in.
I might stay on to explore this. It’s not gloomy because of its objectivity and personification of Doom/Death.
@nrllee, that’s a different and interesting take on MM’s birthday. My impression was that he had a long-term experience in hearing the wishes of others. But perhaps one day of hearing the wishes of the dying is a million wishes.
@packmule3, I know that you didn’t mean that Doom himself will get cancer, although that is an interesting idea, were he in human form and able to cure others but not himself. I hate cigarette smoke too. Never smoked and never will. And yes, it’s naughty to have him with a pack of cigarettes to hand, even if we don’t see him smoking. Misaeng had smokers, but I think actually smoking is rare now in Korean dramas.
If Doom could heal DK’s cut on her finger and the knife wound in the murderer’s neck, why couldn’t he cure her glioblastoma? I wonder if he might? I wondered if the shattered glass on the photo meant that she might not die?
@nrllee @Fern
We note with interest that MM considers the meting out of death as his purview therefore where it does not suit him that someone takes the lives of others or their own in their hands, MM will override what he can. He does not resurrect the dead but he can prevent the killer’s attempts at suicide. He has his own code as to whom should live to be punished.
He admitted to DK that he had a hand in deaths by accident, and I suppose he would just let nature take its course with illness. However his ability to heal external wounds could suggest that he can also heal internal anomalies.
Thoughts on Dong Kyung and Fear
At that first night when DK commemorated her parents’ death, she asked them if it was painful to die.
DK : “I hear I’ll die. Do you think it’ll hurt when I die?”
Her fears seems to be of the pain of dying. MM might have heard that, because on the way to work he meets her at the train station and says: “I’ll help you feel no pain. You won’t feel any kind of pain as you die. What do you say?”
Her doctor-writer tells her that the pain will be so bad, she will want to die, and he fears she will do something rash like commit suicide. But now that MM is around to eradicate her pain, the irony is that she won’t want to die.
In the evening she sees MM across the street, waiting for her.
She thinks : “Nothing changed even after I was told that I’ll be dying. You’re not scared of things you can’t see such as death or destruction. But once they become visible, your fear suddenly becomes real.”
MM is the visible epitome of death. But it is not fear after all that struck her, but pain. Unless the pain was brought on by fear.
The time she manifested fear was on the second night when she could not bring herself to cross the street. She had been traumatised by the TOD. I don’t know if it’s a small distinction, but it was more like she did not want to die, rather than that she feared death.
MM turned up to hold her hand and take her across the street, however they had a fight and a re-visit of TOD.
DK’s main emotional responses to MM were disbelief, followed by reluctant tolerance and then anger. Interestingly, she did not fear him per se.
Deity’s Creation and Birthdays and Birthday Wishes
@Fern, How interesting to consider that birthday wishes are a dime a dozen but hearing the wishes of the dying is like hearing a million wishes.
The Deity’s statement of how people called her often and hence she came to exist sounds vaguely familiar because the Christian God spoke Creation into existence. Would this also be considered a birthday for the deity?
The humans in this show are made out to be higher than the deities, as if they too are gods in their own right, and their wishes/wants are the command of MM.
MM: “I’m responsible for everything that dies or gets destroyed.”
DK : “Then why not end the world yourself? Why do you keep asking me for help?”
MM: “Do you think I haven’t tried. It didn’t work. It’s probably because I’m just a small part of a system. In other words, you guys have more authority than I do. it’s how Mother Nature works. But this time, I’m hoping it might be different, because it’s what a human being wants.”
So the title Doom at Your Service is appropriate, since he exists to serve humans, in particular, if they want death and destruction as a wish made on his birthday.
Hello everyone!
I have finished watching the first two episodes yesterday and I think that I am going to like it from the premise of it so far.
I won’t comment about the episodes, because already @GB and @Fern did a marvelous job !
@Packmule3 that James Dean imitation was pretty good I have to say!
What I wanted to add to your thoughts is the following:
Neil Gaiman in his “American Gods” book has commented on how a Deity is born by humans and how powerful or not he or she is.
The more a human believes to that Deity the more powerful he /she is. Hence, there are Deities that are forgotten and are trying to gain energy by other means.
I won’t do a *SPOILER* here about the book.
Still, if you are interested the book has become a series by Amazon Prime with Neil Gaiman being an executive producer I think.
I haven’t watched it, because the first sequence of the story is gruesome and gory and I dropped it. I don’t know if I will watch it someday, but for no is a big no-no!
Hope that helped the conversation…:-)
My dear @Cleo, thank you for joining in the conversation. It’s always wonderful to read you and any others who share their thoughts.
I’ve heard of Neil Gaiman. I fancy he dabbles in the dark and spooky and now you say, also in the gory and gruesome. I only caught a whiff of it with Coraline, but that gave me enough of an ‘impression’. His tales are too dark and creepy and not something I’m in the mood for either.
Doom is about as dark as I want to go for now. LOL.
This concept of humans creating their gods is probably anthropologically studied and has been around for a long time. It’s a first time for me though, to hear it actually being spoken of a drama deity, and so without rancour. In fact, the deity here smiled as she said it and accepted her ‘fate’ willingly, to suffer if necessary, so that the world could do well. These deities are admitting that they only exist out of the needs/wants of humans and that therefore they are subject to limitations and may even lose their relevance.
This gives me the idea that Doom too might be in danger of fading away if DK denies she needs him. Taking a leaf from what @nrllee says, with a twist, if he only exists (in her life) because DK was faced with her doom, then when it no longer matters to her if she lives or dies, will MM still have power in her life or will he continue to exist?
MM appears in this show to have existed for ages and is jaded by his mere existence. He does not seem pleased that his every move brings about doom somewhere or other. He is bored, and so the difference in DK compared to other humans intrigues him.
(A guess) It may not be too much of a stretch to imagine that he’ll probably want to be human like her so that he won’t be subject to the rules of the deities, or the vagaries of his existence based on human wishes, and especially so that he can experience the love that only humans are able to give and receive. Maybe in this great change in his purpose, his very existence will be compromised. Doom in love is a doomed love LOL.
I just finished Ep2. I am wondering if Life (the female with the heart condition) is a reflection of the human condition. Her health seems to fluctuate accordingly. So human kind as a race is sick. They go through the motions of life and talk about death glibly (DK’s writer friend who talks flippantly about dying just because she lost her typed up work due to the blackout). Death/Doom is the only absolute. It is a certainty. It just is. Life on the other hand is variable. Our reliance and trust in a higher meaning for Life (Deity) is as changeable as the wind. DK mentioned that she didn’t even seem to have any dreams or things she wanted to check off her list in her 100 days left. I guess on the one hand it could mean she was directionless from the start and just plodded along. On the other hand, it could well mean that she was actually content with her lot in life? She didn’t want or need anything to change. She could’ve given up her job and gone on a holiday to save herself all the heartache but she persisted? And lived the same life as she would’ve even without the cancer diagnosis. There’s a certain courage in that that I find admirable. I think that’s why Doom finds her interesting. She constantly surprises him with her decisions. On the one hand she fears death (the pain). Who doesn’t? On the other she accepts him in her life, as her constant companion and talks rationally to him, attempting to understand.
Hey my lovely @GB,
Yes for joining in the conversation! I agree with you that Neil Gaiman is dark and spooky! I really like his “Stardust” though!
The thing with “Fate” though, ring a bell to me, since the morning I was reading your comments, and I was thinking about TK:EM and how Fate was used in that k-drama.
There are two times that we listen about Fate in TKEM:
1. From Tae Eul:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hRzsvTk_5SqPiNpQYmq2zqnIt2Uo7I-f/view?usp=sharing
And she chose the Fate that chosed her.
2. From Prince Lee Jong-In
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hWy6lXgbkaCeD31JmUeYtrOfh5kEMqtb/view?usp=sharing
LG not to fight the Fate that came to his way.
Yes, you are right thought, from Episode’s 3 preview, Doom is asking from MM to be the first and only human to love him!
Their love is doomed, but at the same time I think it is a hidden blessing by the Shin / Deity. Because in the preview the Deity pumps upon MM and then she feels excruciating pain, even though she wears the red string.
So we have both the Deity and Doom being PRESENT in MM’s life. Even though, she feels, her life as a burden and everything she managed was after a lot of pain.
Hi @nrllee, I really like what you wrote. It resonates with me.
Yes, Mother Nature/Life diety is the personification of life and living and her health varies as life varies for humanity. If we are sick, then it’s most appropriately heart disease since so much of what is wrong with humanity is that we are not humane. As sickness of the heart.
Often times we neither appreciate life nor the leaving of it. We may never even consider the full devastation of death, or the true significance of life, until it becomes too late. It is our doom that gets us scrambling to live more fully.
I feel that the interesting thing about DK is that she does not plead or bargain to get more life. She does not bother to offer anything in exchange for living longer. She never even asked for pain relief from doctor or from MM. As for treating Doom as a companion, it is perhaps because of that very pragmatic streak in her, honed since she was orphaned and had to take care of a younger brother.
On one level, intellectually, she seems to understand that she will die, but because she is unable to cry, emotionally she behaves as if it is a remote happening. She may feel but it is trapped in her mind and cannot be released. In actual fact it happened too unexpectedly, because she only had a scan when the doctor-writer offered it to her. She might not have taken in the full import of her diagnosis as yet.
Her approach so far is not that she is devastated, but that she continues pragmatically. She has nothing else to do with her time, and needs to earn money, so she might as well work. But if she works then she has no more leave to take to do a biopsy. Anyway, the doctor said that even with surgery, she might live only for a year and with debilitated health, so she might as well not bother to get surgery. (She has not yet thought that it could be good to get a second medical opinion. How sadly ironic if in the end her brain tumour could have been cured somehow.)
MM knocks on her door and finally cuts through her rational doubts and thinking, while giving a pretty good offer to remove pain, so why not stick to that deal.
Without the ever growing pain to make her wish for death, she might as well live out her 100 days, and so she should keep MM nearby for an easy ‘recharge’. The most pragmatic thing is to live together.
The catharsis for her, I guess, is when she is able to cry freely again. When she can let herself feel and just be, without imposing on herself, being a strong sister, or good editor or friend. It is good that she has met ‘her Doom’ with whom she can sort out what is truly important to her. He asked her pertinent questions about wasting time and whether she could exchange her life for that of a loved one, etc. It took a moment for her to realise what it meant when she was confronted by her brother, whom she may have forgotten is her most beloved.
It will probably be good if DK also meets the Deity Life, to listen from her perspective, on how we plant what we can, but need to let those plants grow as they will.
An interesting drama with a much needed message: we can choose to live as wholesomely and completely as possible, with a positive mindset, even in the face of this pandemic and of our own doom.
@Cleo I like your references to Fate in TKEM. Sometimes, the attitude towards fate is too defeatist. But in TKEM, there’s the element of being able to choose.
I just caught one of the videos on Doom and what MM said was
MM : “I’m saying that you should be more clingy.”
DK :”To you?”
MM : “To your fate that came to you.”
So she has a choice too. She’s hanging out with Doom without clinging to her fate. I wonder if the word ‘cling’ could also be translated to ‘accept’.
The permutations you can guess are to keep being with or without Doom and/or to accept or not accept her fate. There is fate but there is still choice in how we accept it.
I just saw a lovely long extended trailer but it has SPOILERS.
Watch only if you don’t mind spoilers. It mentions fate as well where he tells her to meet her fate.
The word ‘wish’ is translated as ‘hope’ in this trailer, which also works pretty well. She can choose to make the wish that would save both her and MM.
WARNING SPOILERY VIDEO
Thank you for the video, @Growing Beautifully. It will be interesting to see if the director is trolling us in parts by putting things out of order and context.
That’s an idea @Fern!! I do wonder why they put out a video with so much ‘information’ in it. Might it be another way to troll poor viewers like us who are invested in figuring out the show and the trajectory?
Yes, we see the power of editing in this video. So many scenes are placed out of order and who knows if some of them are just dreams or imaginings.
To be fair, with just 2 episodes it’s hard to know anything for sure. It’s just fun to guess now and see how right or wrong we are later. It’s been a good beginning, because the logic so far ‘appears‘ simple enough for us to feel we’ve gotten a handle on it, and to draw us in … but twists may come along. Already we see that DK is upset because of an implicit clause in the contract that she was not aware of. There might be more.
It’s nice to have a show that I’m excited about. It’s one of those times when I can say, I wait with anticipation for Monday nights!!!
I got trolled several times lately by ‘previews’ which included footage of episodes quite far ahead (cough, cough Vincenzo).
Yes, DK has been trolled, too. She couldn’t read the fine print because there wasn’t any and she couldn’t possibly have asked the pertinent questions because there was no precedent. I would have slapped Doom, too.
Did you get the impression that Doom once had feelings? When the criminal was trying to hang himself he said he wanted to end the suffering because he kept hearing voices (I guess the guilt was getting to him). And we get a flashback? Of Doom hearing voices and seemingly in pain? Was that him in the past? So he decided to block that out and just detach himself from his actions and just go about it with no feelings whatsoever?
Loving Doom/Death is a novel thought. I remember reading Book Thief (one of the most beautiful books written) and thinking that it was interesting the personification of Death. And I remember in the end when Hans (her adoptive father) dies, Death receives him like a friend. Because he had lived well, he left with no regrets. Is that how DK is? She didn’t have any dreams or anything on her bucket list? She just accepted it? There was no anger. No resentment. No why me? Just acceptance? She feared the journey (the pain) leading to Death but she didn’t seem to fear Death itself?
@nrllee, yes, I had that impression that Doom may have had feelings. There was that flashback then and also when DK asked him what would happen if he didn’t do anything (not do his task). It seemed to me that he tried to stop acting on his fate and it was excruciating. He says that he has no feelings, but I don’t quite believe it. Why would he eat (cake), drink or smoke if that were true?
This love of Death seems familiar somehow. There were some artistic motifs about Death and the Maiden – this was popular in renaissance times as well as a string quartet by Schubert. In the artworks, death is usually a skeletal figure and the maiden is anguished and fearful. But there are other paintings in which the young girl is more accepting or even eager to leave with Death. There is one by Levy around 1900, in which Death is a very beautiful angel and the young girl seems to be caught tenderly by him as she falls.
This last painting is on the theme of Orpheus and Eurydice. I wonder if DK has an ‘Orpheus’ who will try to save her?
@Fern and @nrllee, About MM being able to feel or that he once had feelings – Yes, me too. To me, MM currently looks pensive and bored. He has sort of given up and is just biding his time, but he really wants to have an end date to his ‘life’. He did after all ask how long he had to serve the flowers in Deity’s garden and was aghast that the answer was ‘forever’. Which means he feels unhappy, which means he is capable of being happy.
He did try to end his life by destroying all the world but he couldn’t. He also tried to not do anything so that nothing got destroyed but that didn’t work either. Those attempts meant that he despised the situation he was in, and wanted to change it. He was prepared to cease to exist, but he could not kill himself (again like Goblin). He needs to have outside help.
DK fascinates him because she does not respond in the predictable way and she could be an agent for the change that MM desperately wants. She does in fact have the wish that could make his wish come true, but whether she will use it is the question.
@Growing Beautifully, DK’s wish may have come up in your spoilery video, but is it directed at MM or not? Possibly we are trolled . But as well, if he becomes the most beloved person to her and she goes back on her part of the bargain, he will be the one destroyed, not her brother.
This is possibly well off the rails but it follows the thought that deities exist when they are called forth by humans. I wondered if when the Deity asked MM if he were human and was he born, was it possibly a rhetorical question? Could she have made him from a human with feelings and mortality because he asked or bargained with the Deity (perhaps he or someone close to him was dying) to be in control of death? So that his relationship with the Deity is a bit similar to DK’s relationship to him?
Interesting thoughts @Fern (and @GB). I wonder if MM is akin to the Angel of Death. So he is a “being” of sorts? Hence he may have existed as another form before? Which is why Life/MotherNature asked him if he was human before? Did he “die” and was tasked with being the Harbinger of Doom/Angel of Death? Was it a punishment? Judgement? By who though? The pair of them seem to allude to a higher being (Deity) but also toss Fate around like it’s the same thing? But this “Deity” seems to be a fiction of humankind’s imaginings? So MotherNature and MM/Doom keep having these conversations because they are dependent on the mental state of humankind? MotherNature seems to be totally hands off in the whole affair, willing her ultimate “fate” to humankind. MM on the other hand, does not seem content to just sit back and do nothing, he steps in at a whim to “stir the pot” (or so it seems anyway). I think it’s more fascinating trying to work out the world the writer is planning than the whole “love story”. 😂
But I agree with @GB. MM seemed bored (like he’s seen it all). Along comes DK and her rather unusual response to her impending doom. And he decides to take her on like some project? To keep himself amused?
@Fern, yes, I’m thinking that, that will be the twist. MM will become her most beloved, therefore breaking her contract will doom him LOL. Perfect twist!
That’s an interesting question about MM’s provenance (if that’s the right word). Might he have been formed from a wish to control death. It is possible.
This is one of those shows that gets me asking, is it Monday yet?
@Growing Beautifully, I was trying to say something like that. That, like the Deity, he was wished into existence by himself or by someone else. I wonder who?
@nrllee, an article in Soompi this morning hinted at an earlier history between MM and DK. I am looking forward to Monday.
I saw that @Fern. But why wouldn’t they recognize each other then? 🤔. I thought maybe during her parents’ death he would’ve been around? He had to have been unless he was “birthed” later. He’s “eternal” isn’t he? I find it strange that he drives a car 😂. If he can control time (stopping the truck and rewinding time) and space (showing her visions of other countries through her door peephole), it seems odd for him to be limited by his mode of transportation. Or maybe that’s just for show. He’s already dead isn’t he so the cigarettes is just for show as well?
Hey my lovely @GB,
You will not believe it, but I was watching that trailer already when you posted your comment. I found it on YT!
It seems that those two are interwined more than we and they know. Hence that red string of Fate. I think that the PD is indeed trolling us. Since the video shows scenes that are out of context, I won’t comment more, until we have more information in our hands!
My dear @Cleo LOL finding videos on the show. This is one rare time when I bothered to go look for the BTS and other videos on a show at the beginning of the series. That means I really like what I’m watching and am dying to know more.
I’m glad it’s Monday afternoon for me and I’ve maybe 7-8 hours to wait for the subbed episodes. I hope it is a popular show, so that the subs are done sooner rather than later. 😉
@GB,
I really feel that we are going to remember this show for all the right reasons, just a hunch!
I am glad you will get to watch it earlier than me! LMAO!
Yes the subbers on Viki are pretty good, I do hope they will do their magic for #DAYS as well.
@nrllee, I wondered why she wouldn’t have recognised him, too, but perhaps the reason is that the moment was fleeting and about 10 years earlier.
If he wasn’t ever human, how could he be already dead?
Some (most likely off-kilter) theories regarding the car and cigarettes, might he have been a human and is, in those actions, nostalgic for some things he did previously? Could he have found himself in a life and death situation, wished that he could control doom and so was deified and landed that bitter, unhappy task?
He seems determined to remove himself from the equation by one means or another. Either by eliminating mankind (and any reason for deities) or making himself DK’s most beloved. Very calculating, but tragic if either or both of them fall for each other and find a reason to exist.