updated: 5/22/2021. Part 2 is here: Doom at Your Service: Eps 3 & 4 Open Thread, Part 2
The thread is now open for spoilers, serious discussions, and not-so-serious discussions.
Warning: Smoking reduces blood flow, which can cause erectile dysfunction.
hot guy + erectile dysfunction = yup, that’s doom alright.
Let’s enjoy the show.
LOL @pkml3 smoking-hot-guy-doom. Thanks for the thread!
I was thinking that unlike Doom, the other show, “Move to Heaven”, I believe, actually has smoking being shown. That is rare. It could be because show is a Netflix original and produced by companies Page One Film and Number Three Pictures which I’ve never come across before. The end credits alone stand out as being very different. They don’t have to follow the censorship ‘rules’?
I am really excited for these two episodes.
If I am correct, after watching that spoilish trailer, I believe that those two were together, but in a past life? It seems that their Fates are interwined, hence that red string MM gave to DK.
@packmule3, thank you for this thread.
I understand @Growing Beautifully about the smoking issue. In Move to Heaven, the smoking is definitely used as an anti-social behaviour and deliberately provocative on the part of the uncle. It’s a vicious and hostile action and is planned to be deliberately repugnant, both to the other characters and to us as viewers. In Doom, MM is a solitary smoker, who seems to light up when he’s alone or walking away.
Erectile dysfunction? I’ll take your word for it but gosh I wonder how the post-war baby boom happened? –All of those giant families with smoking parents in my parish. Smoking is definitely the root of many health problems including circulatory problems, for sure.
Looking forward to this evening’s viewing.
“Move to Heaven” is “not” produced by tvN??
Not to pile on Netflix, but I recall reading that Netflix was called out for showing a lot of smoking scenes in their productions.
I don’t smoke but I experimented when I was young and idiotic. The young is always a favorite target of the tobacco companies. Even now, media and social media like Twitter and Instagram have a lot of influence on how socially acceptable smoking is to the young. To them, smoking is cool, an “everyday thing,” and realistic.
Thanks to a successful ad and educational campaign, my generation look at smoking as health hazard, and as a selfish personal choice.
🙂
I said in a comment in the first Open Thread that they already knew each other. He definitely knew HER. That’s why he appeared in the hospital and came to her rescue when she was chasing the pervert.
So was my assumption right? 😂😂
It just came out! The first song of the Series.
Ailee – I am breaking down!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etTQKmwKxNQ
P.S. Hi @Packmule3!
@Packmule3,
I think that you might be right!
That is my hunch from that trollish video they have given us and @GB posted on Episodes 1-2.
Still, I think he doesn’t remember it though.
If he was human, then his memory is erased?
If he was Doom, he was not aware that she was around, because she didn’t mean anything to him back then.
Good morning, Cleopatra.
What video? I’m out of the loop here. Sorry. 😳 I’ll look for it later.
I assumed that he was there when her parents died. He was doom after all. And he noticed that the young girl didn’t cry, and THAT piqued his interest. So he was aware of her ever since then BUT avoided contact so she wouldn’t get his doom aura.
But something happened, or he couldn’t help himself, and he did come into contact without her knowledge. Hence, her tumors.
That’s why the Life deity know that he “met” with her. She had that knowing look on her face. I assumed that she knew why this guy Doom was in the dark mood that day, and that there was more to that “incidental encounter” than he was letting on.
🤣🤣 I told you this reminded me of “Goblin,” didn’t I?
Anyway, that’s how I’d write this whole setup.
Dear @Packmule3,
For your convenience here is the link:https://youtu.be/oq2pEY8EWZA
If you don’t mind -out of context- spoilers, you can watch it.
Yes, there are definitely “Goblin” vibes!
I am pretty sure that Deity knows about her too. The thing is how much does she know? Or she has an agenda of her own, like the Nabi Shin in “Goblin”.
The thing is that so far it is not revealed that Doom knows her since her younger days, like you mentioned above.
His Aura vibes, we got from Episodes 1-2, is that he is fascinated by her and her attitude towards her death *now* that he has encountered her.
He even put her on a red string of Fate. Red as a color means life, blood, passion and being angry.
Doom seems to be indifferent or even aloof, but it was shown that he is feeling too much that he chose to become numb. It was his way to handle it his doom mission.
So, we have a heroine that she cannot cry at all and a hero that is emotionally numb.
I believe that we are going to love these series, but that’s my hunch… 😀
@packmule3 That’s what I assumed too? That Doom knew her because he was the person who brought Death/Doom. And he was eternal? Which meant he knew every person who died and that would include her parents. So he would “know” her. What threw me was the fact that he seemed to have a start date…a birthday. And seemed to have flashes where he once had emotions…or was human…which made little sense to me. But we’re only 2 eps in so we’ll have to see what more the writer gives us.
But yes @Cleo to the red thread of fate. It’s in the opening credits as well. They are fated to be together somehow.
@packmule3 I believe Move To Heaven is a Netflix original. Which is why all 10 eps dropped at the one go. It was pre-produced and Netflix funded the production. So I think they didn’t have qualms about showing smoking. Uncle smoked like a chimney 😬. Whereas in Doom, he has yet to light up and blow smoke rings.
@nrllee,
I agree with you on that! I find the opening credit video very beautiful! Kudos to the artist! I have found it on YT, btw:
https://youtu.be/kGUKcT_o3-s
As for when he had emotions it seems there was a time where he was like Deity, but he got burdened by his “task”, hence he became emotional numb!
If you are referring to that trollish video with the spoilers, I believe that DK foresaw the future after her contract is over and how Doom will be affected by her loss. It’s a guess, but I am going with the most logical explanation.
I just finished watching Episode 3.
@Packmule3 you are partial right about your theory! 🤭
I will write more tomorrow!
Oh, Ι am excited though!🥳
It is going to be a hell of a ride this one…*grins*
Kalimera from my part of the world!
*(Spoilers below…)*
There are things I like and things I like the most.
Episode 3 gave me what I like the most and that is a smart and bad ass heroine.
Yes, DK might be naive regarding men, but with Doom she has a plan.
We could be thinking that the plot would go there, but seen it executed on screen is priceless.
Mostly, because we were watching an individual that worries about her aunt and younger brother and she is hardworking employee. In the latest episode, we witnessed Doom and Dk’s dynamic as a duo, with a sweet and teasing DK, but so far we hadn’t encountered her as determined one.
When she became determined to stay alive, then it was game on, for me.
I am deliberately not saying much about it, mostly because I want everyone to be on board about this.
I will only say that @Packmule3 was partial right.
Doom does remember her, but not because he went to her parents’s funeral. He was in the funeral hall, because the Deity in her previous human form has passed away!
So, Fate was indeed manipulated by the Deity, which made them to be in the same space at the same time.
Deity obviously started this manipulation in her previous human form, because she knew that Doom was sick and tired of his occupation?
I believe that there is a reason why Doom is cynical, but it is not yet revealed. What is revealed is that he DECIDED not to feel or love, but he feels and loves too much that is indeed painful for him. Hence, he puts up a pocker face as a front and became emotional numb.
When he realizes that the Deity manipulated him and DK’s fate. He becomes angry and reacts in a emotionless scene that has as a result DK’s bravado, but it is not a false one.
She is determined to live and love as a human being and I want to see how she will succeed it. Because with that decision she made, DK will pay a price as a result.
So, I am really curious about this love story. After watching Episode 3, it picked my interest even more…
😂 I think we kinda worked out her (DK’s) solution from Ep1&2. End of Ep3 was the epiphany for her. How to get out of her contract. She needs to love Doom. Honestly I am wondering how the writer will sustain our interest now that it’s already been “revealed”. I find Girl Deity somewhat suspicious? What happened to her initial “hands off” approach? The whole spiel about planting the garden and just letting things be? Her deliberate attempt to bump into DK at the funeral home thereby causing her to remember first meeting with Doom? And did it look like she was about to remove the red bracelet off DK’s wrist? 🤔. That looked pretty “interventionist” to me 🙄
I agree. This deity is manipulating Doom and DK. I am confused about the Deity. Does she change personalities when she re-incarnates? I can’t picture MM weeping at this one’s funeral as he did at the incarnation what died when DK’s parents did.
@Fern,
I believe that MM cried at his “Omoni’s” funeral because he was left totally alone, until her next incarnation. I mean he is eternal and after she dies, he was left alone, but we don’t know for how long.
Imagine to be eternal and have noone to talk to for some time. You go bonkers.
DK was 10 years old when her parents died. How old is she at the moment?
Deity now is a seventeen years old girl. If her rebirth takes time, then Doom has noone to speak.
Still, I agree with @nrllee too. How is this Deity deist? She seems that she does what she has to do in order for her garden to be alive, but does she hurt Doom in the process? Maybe that happened long ago as well? She kinda did the same?
😂 Can you get a tennis ball and throw it over my head? Because I didn’t get what DK meant by what she told MM after she tried to jump off.
She said she was going to make him fall in love with her. Was her intention altruistic? Or hostile and vindictive?
@Packmule3,
I think that it was her answer to the small letters of their contract. Doom kept from her that if she backed out of the contract the person who loves the most will die instead of her.
So, DK decided to love Doom, in order to save her loved ones who are human.
So, created a loophole in the contract, but at what cost?
I don’t think she has realized that yet…
Yes that’s what I gathered as much @Cleo. Her contract was that she had to wish doom upon the world before she dies (100days). In return Doom promises her no pain before she dies. If she breaks the contract before her 100days is up, the person/thing (I am assuming Doom is NOT a person) she loves most will die. Doom does say that he will grant her 1 real wish in her 100 days.
DK doesn’t want to wish Doom on the world. She already said she didn’t mean it. But she’s stuck in this quandary now. So her only way out (to break it) would be to make sure the person/thing she loves most is Doom. So that when she does break the contract, Doom dies…if that’s even possible? 🤔. If he is eternal, he can’t die? He will possibly be like Girl Deity who rebirths again some time later? There has to be balance (Yin/Yang) isn’t it? So you have to have Death/Doom in order to have Life?
And yes I was a bit confused about Girl Deity and how she “died”. Does Doom take her life? He must? Because he’s the one who brings Death into the world. And like @Cleo asked, when does she rebirth again? In what form? Is it immediate?
She’s only deist when it suits her then.
I think this deity girl is the reason MM wants DK to stay at home with him. He’s keeping her away from the girl.
@ Cleopatra, there are worse things than having nobody to talk to for eternity. Like, being stuck talking with an idiot for eternity. 😂 No, thank you. Let me just to talk to myself, animals and nature, and other deities.
I wouldn’t last a day while hearing voices. That’s like having tinnitus. I’d probably be driven to cut off my ears ala-Van Gogh.
Also, being assigned to spread doom and destruction for eternity. That’s going to end up in occupational burnout. Even if MM has no soul, the job is mentally overwhelming and emotionally draining. He already went on strike and did nothing. To me, that’s a sign that he was at his limits.
And having nobody to love for eternity.
@Packmule3,
I know what you mean. I agree on that as well.
Still, since we haven’t encountered any other Deity on DAYS that means in that micro-universe, Omoni / deity girl is the only anthropomorphic god that talks to Doom and vice versa.
Yes, that’s why he became emotional numb, it is clearly a burn out. Doom cares too much for his own good. So, as in the yin-yan philosophy, there is good in evil, as there is evil in good.
He does know what compassion means, that’s why he was asking the deity Girl if she knows too. I think, Doom knows more about humanity than the deity girl, because he can hear what humanity says all day long.
He does care about DK. If he didn’t he would let her die. I believe that he has fallen for her already. He became mean to her, as a reminder to himself mostly.
He has to distance himself, because the deity girl will do something to her?
I believe as well that the deity girl’s intentions are questionable. She even tried to take DK’s red string of Fate of her hand. That shows something.
I believe that the pot she is talking to at her hospital room, is the growing feelings of DK for Doom and vice versa. The seed is planted already for both of them.
@nrllee, I believe that we will get our answers pretty soon!
👍 Thanks, nrllee, for explaining. So you and I understood the same thing.
What I don’t get is the flaw in DK’s argument.
As long as she’s *using* MM as a stand-in for doom, then he isn’t the one she loves the most. Do you see it? Love means self-sacrifice. If MM really wants to know who she loves the most, then all he has to do is observe who she’s willing to die for.
And it isn’t MM. To her, he’s just a convenient substitute.
As for he’s being eternal. I think he’s eternal but not indestructible. Kinda like Goblin. He’s eternal too, until somebody tries to kill him. Should he get killed, then he’s dead as a doornail. He probably gets to be reborn as another caterpillar and will have to transition to another butterfly.
Or maybe he’s hoping that somebody will replace him.
“ I think this deity girl is the reason MM wants DK to stay at home with him. He’s keeping her away from the girl.”
Yeah I agree on this one. At least with Doom you know what you are going to get because you expect the worst of him? With Girl Deity, she shifts when it suits her. I don’t trust her one bit. 😂 She’s unpredictable.
👍Agree. That Girl Deity is shifty. I want her to fall in love with DK’s brother. Let’s see how she’ll deal with that mess.
But it’s also possible that she’s creating opportunities (like planting seeds) for MM and DK to fall in love but MM is resisting her.
MM is taking care of DK’s problems anyway.
First, the pervert was swallowed up by a sinkhole.
Second, her boss had to go on extended vacation bec of his GF.
Then, her cheating ex-BF got into an argument with a car and lost.
Also, her writer (the misogynist one) had low viewership and wanted to change editors.
Lol. Those were all MM’s interventions.
@packmule3 I also agree with you on the flaw in her argument. How can she “love” him the most when it’s obvious that she’s doing it for some other reason? Even if it was to “save the world”. It just means she loves the world more? Or herself more? It’s an oxymoron. Her one “wish” must come into play somehow. I am interested to see how the world building goes with this writer. I didn’t watch Beauty Inside so I have no idea what her track record is when it comes to scripts.
I agree with you, @nrllee. How can DK decree that Doom will be the one she loves most? That’s not love; it’s just a statement.
@Cleopatra, I don’t think that Doom had to wait for an actual birth to current age reincarnation of the deity. Didn’t she say something about getting to her 21st birthday? My impression was that she chose a young lady persona as this incarnation, but I could be wrong. I’ll have to re-watch that first exchange. There was also the strange thing about her discharge from hospital – that she had recovered. She muttered, “Liar.” but I don’t know who she was speaking to. Doom? The doctors?
At this point I don’t like the deity much. She seemed to be cackling about MM falling for DK and him wanting to save her. She said that she would feel sorry for the person who died instead of DK. This seems to mean that Doom could save DK, but in the same way as DK reneging on her wish, someone else would have to pay with their life. She’s kind of torturing Doom.
I’m not surprised that Doom saved DK. He is interested in her enough to trial a human reaction to her diagnosis. I think he saves her not only because he needs her wish or may be interested in her, but also for the ‘parking in my spot’ type of thing – he likes to call the shots about death.
I really liked his free-form home that exists, at least in her mind, no matter which door is opened. That would have given me a meltdown. He didn’t like her reaction to his house – because she kept asking if things were expensive? It seemed a bit petty.
So, I’m wondering also, when DK’s office co-workers say the boss is back, Doom looks like their boss to them but like MM to DK, is that correct? But he appears as MM to DK’s brother? At other times, does he only appear to DK, such as on the pedestrian crossing encounter with the ToD? I wonder if we’ll ever get to see any other of his faces if he has others.
I have to rewatch ep. 3.
@Fern,
It is not clear how the deity comes back everytime she dies for her garden.
|
About the muttered “Liar”, I think that the relationship between the deity girl and Doom is not cleared either.
Is there a chance that the deity is being recharged by Doom?
I agree with you that the deity girl is torturing Doom, without taking into consideration his feelings at all. Okay she is his “mother” so to speak, but still she doesn’t seem to understand how Doom feels or why.
I think that Doom was fascinated with her first, but he genuinely cares about her.
As for DK and what she said about loving him, she wasn’t in love with her Oppa – the cheating married man. I don’t think she know what love is exactly, hence my comment that she hasn’t realized what she has decided yet… @nrllee
@Fern,
It is a mirage. He hypnotize them to believe that they are seeing their Boss, etc…
In Ep 2, the Girl Deity said, “The moment a large group of people call for god, I open my eyes.
I think this screenwriter got the idea from:
Christianity: when two or three people are gathered in my name, there I shall be.
Peter Pan: whenever a child says “I don’t believe in fairies,” a fairy somewhere falls down dead.
According to the script, Girl Deity is created by mankind out of a need, perhaps out of desperation, perhaps for explanation. Accordingly, she expires when need no longer per exists.
Girl Deity = a figment of our imagination and needs = to serve our purposes = utilitarian premise
Agree. I also think he hypnotized DK’s coworkers.
Otherwise, they would have recognized him as the same guy who called himself Siberia the writer. Poor coworkers.
I don’t get the point of the second love story, though, involving the writer-unnie and the barista guy and snooty editor.
I also don’t get why the writer is an unnie to DK. DK looks older.
@packmule3,
You are right! I totally forgot about that part and I remembered now that you mentioned it again.
I have commented on the previous thread that in literature also Neil Gaiman’s “American Gods” has a similar deities’ creation.
Yeah no idea about the side story…maybe it’s meant to be a foil about the ridiculousness of it all when you put it up against Life/Death plot line? But still, that’s their (the SL’s) reality? Until Doom looms large, it’s insignificant? It’s all relative? What’s significant in the SLs’ lives are their work lives, their work their love lives?
So I gather the whole YinYang balance thing is at play here? Doom has to exist eternally. Girl Deity however can come and go depending on how self reliant HumanKind feels. If humankind feels particularly vulnerable and out of control (COVID I am looking at you), then there’s a greater cry to the Higher Being and therefore Girl Deity is birthed and buoyed along by humankind’s dependence on her. But as the circumstances around humankind improve and there’s less of a need for her, the need for her dwindles…she gets sick and eventually dies. Doom however remains in perpetuity. He is balanced by Girl Deity but when she dies, I guess what happens then is that he starts to loom too large. There’s only so much gloom the world can take before they turn outside of themselves to a Higher Being. And the cycle continues again? So there would be pockets where Doom is alone in the world doing his thing (as @Cleo suggested) and it would be horribly boring, alone and tedious for him until Girl Deity returns. There’s no one else to talk to? Now he has DK to converse with and keep him amused so presumably he’s kept “busy” with her and therefore less likely to wreak havoc in the world at large? Not sure about the 🪴 pot plant (soil). I guess as some surmise here it’s a seed that’s planted and it somehow relates to Doom and DK’s relationship.
DK seems to have been given the task of a messiah of sorts? She sacrifices herself (by choosing to love/embrace Doom/Death to save the world? She seems to be set up to be like a lamb to the slaughter. Sweet and kind to a fault? 🤔
Good morning, @nrllee. I think your theory makes sense. When society is relatively content with itself and is doing well, it would think less about a Higher Being, in a reverse of Marx’s “Die Religion … ist das Opium des Volkes” Religion is the opiate of the masses. Yes, Doom has set DK up to be that lamb.
The girl deity doesn’t seem to be of the same mind as Doom about ceasing to exist. She seems happy enough to be reincarnated in cycles. But as well, she only has Doom to speak with. Do they answer to no-one else? It doesn’t seem that there’s anyone above them or even alongside of them.
If the girl deity were to take the red string from DK, what would happen? MM promised to hold her hand each day to keep her safe, although he seems pretty free with that promise. Why would the girl deity want to take the red bracelet? Is she keen for DK to die painfully? If the pot plant is her project to grow the love of MM and DK, surely she would be supporting their relationship, but her other actions have a feeling of being based in jealousy. Perhaps because someone else is taking MM’s attention?
I admire the set designer for MM’s lair I wonder if it’s a real place, built into the side of a hill or mountain? The stone walls are fabulous as is the natural wood, multiple fireplaces and leather of the sofa. It is very organic and it’s limitless rooms are a foil to DK’s cosy and colourful little flat.
Hello ladies!
I will write my thoughts on Episode 4 first and then I will comment on what @nrllee and @Fern’s have said above.
*Episode 4 – SPOILERS*
So, I was watching Episode 4 with interest to see what is going to happen next, after DK’s “I want to love you” Bomb.
In the beginning, DK was trying to find ways to fall in love. She even asked her Unnie and we got information @Packmule3 why does DK call that writer that way.
The most important aspect of this episode was when DK said to Doom that she wants to know him better and she asked him to show her his world.
I have kept notes of what she said that it striked me that she hit a vein.
DK was the first person that saw and experienced what Doom is feeling like.
I think that specific scene, outside Doom’s house, is a pivotal moment.
DK’s thoughts (Viki subbers):
The reason for disappearance of everything.
The god of everything that disappears.
To love things that will disappear when you touch
must be lonely.
So much so that you never want to love.
I think I can understand a little now.
Frow what, you are running away.
In that scene, Doom was outside of his house, the moon was full and there were beautiful and vivid coloured flowers. The moment he started walking away from DK, those lovely colours vanished, leaving behind a black colorless space of rotten flowers.
DK is watching him and thinking at the same time and then starts to go near him. As a result everything came back to life. DK didn’t notice, but Doom did and he broke contact with her, because he was obviously shocked that she had the power to do that.
The day after that dream, DK said to him that she will forgive him.
Love basically starts from forgiveness anyway.”
What happened afterwards was that Doom pushed DK deliberately away. Whenever she comes near him even with a single step, he is trying to detach himself.
I think that is a self-protection mechanism he built, while he was hurting in general. Still, Doom is using it here as well, because he wants to convince himself that she is insignificant, when she isn’t. He denies his overgrowing feelings for DK and tells to the deity girl that DK became annoying to him.
When they meet again, they fight, while Doom is basically trying to provoke DK to make a wish, and when she does, she wishes Doom could experience death once, in order to understand how she feels like.
It is revealed to us, that Doom cannot die or cease to exist. In contrast with the deity girl that comes back to life, when people are asking for her.
It is rather interesting the mechanics of life and death between mother and son. Doom cannot cease to exist, while the deity girl returns to life endlessly.
After their heated encounter, she had an internal monologue that is very enlightening about how she lived her life so far:
I caused it, and it’s something I have to clean up after.
No one would take responsibility for me.
Not cause it, not try it.
Stay still. Just stay still.
My life was a continuation of staying still.
I shouldn’t have tried.
Not sympathy, nor love.
So, DK after her parents’ death, lived a life that she was not living basically.
She was enduring it and existing like Doom did. She was not taking any action and when she finally did. Doom was already there for her.
Still, in the end of the episode, even though they were at odds, DK tried to shield Doom from that lunatic killer we saw in Episode 1. He got hurt instead of her. He saved her, and then shielded her from what happened to the killer.
DK saved him too. Hence, his last sentence in the Episode:
I told you. That you won’t be able to love me.
Everyone either resents me or wants me. Or, they are afraid of me.
I think that Episode 4 gave us a lot of insight about Doom and DK, understanding more also about the deity girl.
Kudos to the funny scene, where DK is watching “The Tale of the Nine Tailed” in order to take ideas about how to fall in love with a non human being and she was ogling Lee Yeon (aka Lee Dong Wook), saying in Doom’s face that he doesn’t have the looks! It was hilarious indeed.
Lastly, DK’s manipulating little brother learned unexpectedly that his sister will die in three months and had a melt down.
That’s all for now… 🙂
Hey @nrrlle and @Fern,
I agree with that you said. I believe that with the side story they want to show us, that whatever is happening around us, life is keep moving on.
DK is going to die, but her cycle continues to work, love or not love, etc. So, she became the lamp – It is interesting but it came into my mind the following quote from Twilight:
E:”And so the lion fell in love with the lamp.”
B: “What a stupid and masochist lamp.”
In a sense, it suits them both.
@Fern, I agree with you that the deity girl manipulated Doom and DK to become entangled, but at the same time is jealous of the connection they have.
At least after Episode 4, we got to understand kinda more about how the deity girl and Doom’s symbiosis.
Thoughts on the Mother/Life Deity
My first impression of what’s going on with MM and Deity (and I agree with those who think her a mother figure. MM had once referred to her as Mother Nature.).
When it turns out in Ep 3 that MM regarded Deity somewhat as a mother to him, the thought came to me that maybe she’s acting like a typical Korean mum who manipulates her ‘child’. She might perhaps want to get MM out of the rut he’s in by using DK.
Deity engineered (by her previous death) the almost meeting of DK by MM. At least they had seen each other. So she gave them their childhood trope meeting LOL, and enabled them to ‘remember’ each other ultimately.
In Ep 3 she leaves her hospital room to bump into DK so as raise past memories of her seeing MM cry. It’s like she wants DK to help MM own his emotions once again. DK takes every opportunity to tease MM about his crying and tries to disabuse him of his lie that he cannot feel. From this we ultimately learn that to “not feel” was a decision he had made, rather than a objective reality he could not help.
Deity approaches DK and chats with her at the bus stop. A guess is that she chose the time when MM would come along as well, so that he’d be aware that there could be a threat against DK, and so he would pay DK more attention. If that was her intention, it sort of worked, because MM wanted to keep DK at home or to stick closer to her even at work.
I’m not sure if Deity wanted to do anything with the red thread bracelet, which was a sign of the promise to keep DK from experiencing pain. She might have wanted to touch it. Perhaps if she’d touched it she could have change the nature of the promise that MM made with DK.
MM accosts Deity in the hospital grounds over her bumping into DK.
MM : “Is this the ‘anything’ you said you’d do?
Deity : “What did I do? All I did was make her remember things that happened. You’re the one who got close to her.”
Deity : “Do you realise what it means to have compassion?”
MM : “I don’t know what that is.”
Deity : “No you do.”
Deity is like a mother trying to get her child to face up to the truth.
Deity : “You just tell yourself that you don’t. You smile a lot and feel bad for her, don’t you?”
Deity : “Your feelings will grow.”
MM : “Never.”
Deity : “Do you think you can let her die?”
MM : “She was fated to die, to begin with.”
Deity : “Can’t you change her fate?”
MM : “How can I worry about her? How can I feel bad for her.” (He speaks as if for him it’s an impossibility, but Deity knows better.)
Deity : “You pity yourself the most in the world, don’t you?”
An interesting question crops up… why does he not tell DK that he is not entirely alone, or that the young girl is Mother/Life Deity who was once his ‘mother’.
Challenges and battles Myul Mang vs Deity
There are conflicts between MM and separately with his two lady friends.
From Episode 2
Deity: “Do you know? If the garden is gone …”
MM : “The gardener and the butterfly won’t be needed anymore.”
Deity looks somber but MM looks pleased with the thought.
(He wants the world to be destroyed so that he can be done out of a job and need no longer exist. He wants to cheat his fate.)
Deity tells MM: “Do what you want. I plan to do what I want too.” (So there is already a battle in the brewing.)
Later in Ep 2
Deity :”You already know that you cannot avoid your fate. She (DK) will not give up on the world. Not like you did.” (I assume it’s his fate to exist forever and keep the world in balance by bringing death/destruction at the right times.)
MM : “I will make her give up on it.”
…
…
Deity : “Then I must do whatever it takes, because that’s not all that humans want.”
(1)Not all humans want the world to be destroyed and (2) humans still want life, even when they say that they want the world to be destroyed.
In the car, he is accosted by Deity who confirms that she approached DK because she would do anything to stop the world from being destroyed, including ensuring DK does not give up and wish doom on the whole world.
MM versus DK
When MM first sort of threatens to harm her brother, DK says : “Fine if that’s how you want to play.” She takes responsibility over her house by sleeping outside.
MM : “Why are you putting a blanket there?”
DK : “In case you do something to my home while I’m asleep.”
MM : “I will if you want.”
DK : “I’m a light sleeper.”
MM : “Are we bragging now? I can kill people.” (I like their repartee and how their verbal battles.)
In MM’s home, DK deliberately annoys him by exclaiming loudly over this things and asking if they were expensive, when he is trying to read. The next day when she’s at work he retaliates and messes with her over her boiler and how it is running up her heating bill. He struck back on her cost consciousness and during her busy times.
Move and counter move
On the rooftop MM threatens to let her suffer and not to make her smile. However when she is in pain, he touches her hand and the pain in her head dissipates.
MM : “I told you that you shouldn’t lower your guard. That bracelet could make you vulnerable. I’m not human. I don’t eat, sleep or cry. I don’t feel compassion or love. Such feeling don’t exist for me. That’s what I decided a long time ago.”
She looks up and looks decisive.
DK : “I pity you.”
MM : “No, you should pity yourself. You will cry because of me. And you will want to destroy the world, because that’s the only way to kill me.”
“Is that your grand plan?” She climbs to the wall and stands facing him. “Then this is my plan.” (She lets herself fall backwards. She’d rather die first than let him use her to have the world destroyed.)
Next move and counter move
“I knew it. I knew you would stop me. I figured you out. You don’t eat, sleep, or cry? You don’t feel compassion or love? Because you’re not human? But I do because I’m human. So my plan is to love you. Then I’ll be able to live without losing anything.”
She stares a challenge at him and he’s rattled.
He draws her in closer : “Then let’s do it right. Love me to the point that you want to destroy the world for me.”
Challenge accepted.
DK : “I won’t forget what happened today. I will remember it and do exactly what you did to me.”
MM : “Which one? How I tried to kill you or save you?”
DK : “Both. Here’s my key. Come on in or you can run away.”
The battle begins.
Saving MM
DK had noted that her mum and her aunt have the same face and it was hard to distinguish whether the face brought good or bad fortune. The same person too presented both good and bad. both MM and DK could be either killing or saving each other.
When DK asked to be shown MM’s world, and felt pity for him, she wanted to save him. His every step brought destruction to his surroundings and colour drained away.
DK’s thoughts “The reason behind everything that disappears. The deity that makes everything vanish. It must be lonely to love the things that that disappear, the moment you touch them. Lonely enough not to ever want to love them.” (The girl who cannot cry has tears welling up in her eyes.)
DK walks towards MM : “I think I finally understand what it is that you’re running away from.” (He decided not to feel anymore because it was too hard to not being able to help but destroy everything he loved.)
She takes his hand, not to get anything from him this time, but to give solace and show compassion. The surroundings come back to life and becomes colourful again. MM looks around surprised. He snatches his hand away.
The next morning DK tells MM that she is going to forgive him. He is not pleased. He has rejected her compassion and now he rejects her forgiveness because it hurts his pride. He feels he did nothing wrong and there’s nothing to forgive. He complains to Deity.
MM : “What a joke. That good-for-nothing human thinks she can forgive me”
Deity : “I know. Plus love starts with hate.”
MM is surprised.
Deity : “I guess you need to hate someone in order to forgive them.”
MM : “I’m not going to forgive you. I just decided to call a truce today.”
Deity : “I know you have nobody to talk to. It’s the same with me.”
MM : “Tak Dong Kyung is really starting to get on my nerves.” (So he’s feeling more now.)
Deity smiles. (Her plan is working?)
Killing MM
When MM seriously threatens to kill her brother. She insists that he takes back what he says.
DK : “I wish you’d die. I wish you’d experience it. Because then you’d understand how I feel.”
They end up in a forest with a gun and MM shows her that he can’t die.
DK : “If I can’t kill you, I’ll at least make you miserable. So that you can live in misery for all eternity.” She thinks of how her life had been a series of doing nothing, and regrets that she tried to feel compassion or love, probably for both her brother and MM.
However all that dissipates with a phone call from the hospital. Fearing that she might lose her brother, she’s beside herself with worry. And then outside the hospital, when MM might be killed, she throws herself in front of him to protect him.
MM allows the killer to kill himself while keeping DK from witnessing it.
He says to DK : “I told you. It’s impossible to love me. Everyone either resents me or wants me or some fear me.” MM thinks that DK cannot love him, but that she will resent him and want him to stop her pain. But he says only some fear him, meaning that DK is one who does not.
Of all the things she wished upon MM to neutralise or destroy him, she forgot to wish that he first loved and accepted himself.
DK the Table Turner
In the same way that she turned the tables on Dr Jung when he gave her the prognosis of terminal illness, DK turns the tables on others. In episode 3 she orders Dir Cha to meet Writer Lee Hyun in her place. Cha is surprised by how insubordinate she is and notes that she’s weird and has changed.
With MM, she should be afraid and clingy, subservient and willing to do anything to please him so as to preserve her life but instead she gives tit for tat, and argues and orders him about in any way that she can.
DK : “Forget it. Go to sleep.”
MM : “I told you before. I don’t eat or sleep since I’m not human.”
DK : “You ate the cake.”
MM : “I was playing along.”
DK : “Then play along and turn off the lights.”
I laughed when in the office DK made MM turn the pages for her as she typed in the hardcopy text of a story. Since he insisted on hanging around her at work and landed her with much tedious work, she dragged him in to share the burden. She is unafraid of bossing people who are more powerful than her.
MM laughably has to check out how a ‘normal’ person reacts to news of impending death by glioblastoma. There is fear, tears, entreaty to get treated at once to save or prolong life, and desperation.
MM to himself : “Right. This is the normal reaction.”I mean, you should be the one clinging on to me, right? She’s so weird.”
(The reverse is happening. MM, who could preserve DK’s life if she begged him, finds that he is the one who has to cling on to DK, practically begging her to make her wish, because she behaves like she does not need him.)
MM has to point out to her that he’s always awake and dangerous, and she’s defenceless when she sleeps, but she continues to sleep soundly and without fear in his presence. There’s nothing he can do to scare her except when he threatens her brother’s life.
Other notes about DK being painted as the sacrificial lamb. There’s temptations put forth by MM to DK. Similar to the temptation of Christ. MM tempts her with holiday snaps through the peephole of her door. Just give up on your day job and responsibilities and enjoy what’s left of your life. You deserve it. When that fails, he makes her day job even harder to try to get her to give up. By making her type up the hand written scripts by one writer. But she persists. The fact that she treats life and death the same befuddles him. The very fact that she doesn’t alter her priorities with her diagnosis can only mean one thing – she finds meaning in what she’s doing. She’s already doing exactly what she prioritizes in her life?
@Cleo, I’m slowly reading the posts here and see with a smile that again we are on the same wavelength over MM’s emotional state… that he had felt too much and had decided to become numb.
Also the point about the Deity’s manipulation. We need to see more of her motives, but at the moment, I lump her with the likes of the interfering grandfather of 1% of Anything where he forces a situation in which the couple have to date. The purpose was for the girl to teach the boy some sense and get him to be more reasonable.
I’m also loving the show very much, although I too am a bit worried that the main conflict may have already been outed and now it’s just a matter of arguments and figuring out who has the advantage over whom.
@Fern
I found Doom’s home very interesting, not least because of the huge space he had compared to DK’s cramp quarters, (which are more similar to the majority of homes in my part of the world), but also for the lovely natural features in it like real rock in walls, the beautiful wood table that looked like it was from a single tree, and several stumps of trees and wood and clay ornaments.
MM’s home seemed to be real and yet to be an image projected into DK’s mind. (Or maybe it was just fully in her mind since he can also enter her dreams).
I like how the distance and the space in MM’s home, reflects MM’s attempt to keep aloof and apart from the world, and yet his home becomes inextricably joined to that of the real world, ie DK’s home, which is close (small), comfy, and warm. Ostensibly he says it is against his will to be drawn in, to feel and to be more ‘human’, and yet perhaps it’s a wish of his that he has not even articulated to himself, that he wants to a part of the human world, since he has joined their homes so seamlessly, that they end up under one roof and practically like family.
= = =
I feel that MM protests too much about how humans are insignificant and do not deserve compassion, and how unfair it is, that they can dictate certain things which he cannot control. There was a note of envy in his words. At the back of all these protests could be a being who very much wants to be human, who wants to be able to live rather than exist, even if it means being mortal.
Most of all, he seems to be a being (that if the Deity and DK read him right) who actually wants to love and be loved, but who has found this to be so heartbreaking, that he has given up on the world.
I feel that MM is full of self-hate, that spills over into destruction. I gather from his conversations with Deity and DK, that his existence is essential to keep the balance of life and death, however instead of reveling in power, or being at peace that his role complements Deity’s role and contributes to life, his attitude is one of defiance. He is rejecting his essential role. DK, the girl who feels much but cannot cry, has been chosen/manipulated to be the foil against which MM is measured, found wanting, and the one through whom he is to find more joy in his existence.
On Dong Kyung’s Tears
I found it at first strange, but now, poetic, that DK has no standing sink in her bathroom. In order to wash her face, she who is already small in stature, has to squat next to a floor basin, becoming even tinier, entering her own space.
At different times, when she crouched to wash her face from that basin, she thinks more clearly, berates herself, asks herself questions, …makes decisions.
When first we saw her having her very bad day, and she comes home thinking how she cannot shed tears, she let the water flowing into the basin, overflow. We know that she was crying and that the basin shed the tears on her behalf.
Although she thinks she does not cry, we see her eyes glisten with tears when she was moved by MM’s sad, grey toned world and out of fear for her brother. Her complete recovery is not just from the glioblastoma of course, but from her enforced block to manifesting misery.
It is in fact that block more than the glioblastoma that sickens DK. It is possible that when the block is removed, her physical condition will be able to right itself. MM is intrigued by DK’s ability to smile in her misery, and is up for breaking that block. May he succeed without causing more harm than good!
Hey my lovely @GB,
I read last night your posts and I smiled too! Definitely in the same wavelength!
So far, I find both Doom / MM and DK that are two very interesting characters. Especially DK is a a bad ass lady in a very challenging situation that is handling it with the best way she can, even though she is emotionally detached from the pain she is feeling inside, kinda like Doom does but in an extreme way.
I understand what you are saying about the deity’s manipulation. It remains to be seen if she is doing it in that way. I am not familiar with that cultural aspect in Korean society.
As for your fear, I believe that it won’t happen.
They have danced around the topic too much.
They have discovered things about each other.
They have come at odds, felt numerous feelings from hate to love, but at the end of episode 4 they have embraced their fate, coming into a mutual understanding.
This is my guess and understanding of what we have seen so far. I think that from now on, Doom will try to woo DK. I have this feeling that he will stop denying, that DK has a meaning to his life and he will start persuing her, to be there for her, in order to love him.
As for MM’s house, I think it is an excellent example, of how architecture can encompass nature in the urban landscape. I am wondering who is the masterpiece behind of this design and decoration.
Hi My dear @Cleo!
You’ve got the right phrase that I was looking for … DK is “emotionally detached”. It’s like she knows she feels it, but she knows it objectively as if someone else is suffering. MM on the other hand has deliberately stopped himself from acknowledging the emotions.
It is interesting that these 2 characters with issues about expressing or acknowledging their emotions are paired up. From DK’s verbalising that she’s going to love him, because she has to, which sounds more like a work project, it seems like she has never really fallen in love before. She has liked and responded warmly to guys who were nice to her, but she probably never fell in love.
The fact that MM can accept her objective statement that she’ll love him in such a matter-of-fact way, without pointing out that going in that way is not quite ‘normal’, shows that MM too does not quite know what being in love is.
Putting these 2 together in real life would be a bad idea, but for a drama, it’s a real hoot and of course they are going to have their rough corners rubbed off by their frequent fights and adjustments. It will be a joy to watch them.
About the ‘trope’ where elders intervene/manipulate the young people into a relationship… I noticed it in Goong and 1% of Anything, and there might have been some other shows. It’s not that common now but arranged marriages do happen, and they can be very successful.
I’m glad that you are confident that the show will not become too predictable or (dare I say it???) ‘boring’. I look forward to more twists now that Sun Kyung knows his sister is going to die. And to see how the second lead sub-plots are to contribute to the story as a whole. The 2nd leads look to be working towards a love triangle which is a change, since it’s usually the main couple who have to bear with this trope. Probably with an immature brother and impending death, we don’t need a third wheel for our OTP.
I’d really like to watch MM woo DK. I’ve loved all their scenes together. They were all short of being like a couple on a date and more like an old married couple already who are always bickering and trying to beat each other in a game of wits LOL.
Yes, I like MM’s house to holiday in, but maybe not to live in … unless I have friends and family sharing it with me. There’s too much space for just a small family (and probably a very high heating bill!!). However with this pandemic and everyone having to work and do even schooling from home, that house with many rooms would be ideal!
I’m thinking it’s about time we posted in the Move to Heaven thread as well. Maybe on Episodes 3 and 4. @pkml3 has changed the thread to be a general open thread now, so we can just continue in it until it gets too long, if it ever does. Catch ya again!
My dear @GB,
I agree with you. They haven’t fallen in love before. I was pretty sure about DK, but for Doom is slightly different. He might have loved things or even persons but I don’t think it was a romantic love.
I think their odd pairing shows more the underlying message that people who are meant to be together either as friends or lovers, can be brought together subconsciously because they share one common trait and that is pain.
This wisdom is not mine. One of my teachers told us once, that we all in pain one way or another and we get to be attracked with another with a similar pain to ours.
So, for our OTP, pain is their starting point, but while time passes by against (?), other emotions will blossom too.
There are moments that I believe, that DK’s wish will be to stay eternally by Doom’s side, but I don’t think this will happen until the last episodes. We shall see…
I also agree about the old married couple who is bickering and trying to beat each other in an game of wits. I felt the same! LMAO!
As for Move to Heaven, yes we can post more on the thread. I have currently to watch Episodes 7-10. It’s a great story indeed…
Dear @GB and @Cleopatra, Good Evening and Kalimera to you.
Yes, the set for MM’s house is extraordinary. After watching his killing steps through the garden, I can see that it fits his character. (The only time I’ve seen that in plants is during a hard frost out of season, after weed-killer or even better, a fungal infestation.) It is hellish, with the constant fires, the darkness and the hardness. Although to me it’s beautiful, there is nothing living, no colours except for variations on black, white, wood and rock. I wonder if DK will bring some colour in somehow?
My mind is exploding with questions today. I don’t know if I need more coffee or less.
I like @GB’s thought that the Deity has actually been on MM’s side, maternally manipulating him for years, trying to change his conscious decision to not feel compassion. She is trying to get his psyche back to normal, if that’s possible. But if the couple succeed in loving, what then?
The Deity seems to imply that MM could save DK, but someone else would die in her place. In other words, it wouldn’t stop the number of deaths. She felt sorry for that person, but MM seemed troubled by it.
If DK falls in love with MM, DK could have him destroyed and the world saved, but although MM is going along with this, the Deity needs Doom. Why would Deity be promoting the couple’s relationship?
If Deity is promoting this, is it possible that DK can love MM best, save the world but MM can’t be destroyed, even though DK thinks he can?
It seems that MM can’t be killed, but although we saw the scene with the gun in the forest, were any bullets fired? I didn’t see any, just the bullets that fell from the gun when MM emptied the magazine. Did I miss something? Also, I was surprised to see blood dripping from his hand where he grasped the scalpel when he was attacked.
Hello, @nrllee. In your thought that DK already finds meaning in what she is doing in her life, I agree. I don’t think she loves her narrow life, however. She has a narrow focus, formed after her parents died. In her own words, she has ‘kept still’ but I don’t think it means she is content. She says to her brother that he is the reason she works so hard. He seems to have the emotional age of a teenager, so he resents that and can’t appreciate it, even while asking her repeatedly for money. MM’s temptations don’t work on her in part because she is emotionally stunted or blinkered. DK must ask her friend how to fall in love, as though it’s a task that can be accomplished. If MM succeeds in making her love him, I wonder if her outlook will change? It seems rather cruel, if she is going to die anyway, that she might suddenly come to love life.
Dear @Fern,
Kalimera to you too? I don’t know your time frame! Have a nice day ahead !
Since I haven’t decided what the deity girl / mother really wants from the duo, I cannot answer to your valid questions!
I will try though to answer to your last query. The gun was loaded, but when he fired the gun the bullet kinda vanished from the chamber, because Doom / MM cannot die. The bullet poetically ceased to exist in front the Lord / Shin / God of killing things, people, plants, etc.
That’s why Doom showed to DK that the gun indeed had bullets in it. To make her understand that he had tried to kill himself as well, but the rules don’t apply to him! He cannot die.
As for the blood we saw. I think that when DK shielded him, he was astonished.
At that exact second, DK who is going to die, throws herself in front MM who was being attacked. It is kinda poetic. The girl who is dying, tried to save Doom from dying. So, he was hurt instead of her.
She literally gave up her life to protect Doom and he finally addressed that he cannot let her be hurt instead of himself. So, Doom protected her with his own life force.
A human being’s life force is their blood. We give blood to those who need it in order to survive from a operation.
So, we got to see that also Doom can drip blood, but his blood brings out havoc instead. That’s why the killer commited suicide, not only as a punishment, but also because Doom had to take his life force back, that was lost from the unexpected attack.
I think this scene is also pivotal and thank you for giving your attention to it, because I have already watched Episode 4’s important scenes several times over in order to understand what happened after the dream –> their quarrel —> saving each other.
I hope I helped you in any way… 🙂
Hello, @Cleopatra. I am in England, so it’s 10.23 now.
Do you think Doom can only bleed when he is taken by surprise? That is really an interesting idea. And that he needs to take his life force back that was lost? I wonder if we’ll see more about this. I will have to re-watch the shooting scene.
I thought is was very touching that he protected DK from seeing his reactions and the attacker’s death. Everyone else saw but certainly without the same understanding that DK would have had.
@Cleopatra, I re-watched the shooting scene. MM pulled the trigger but nothing happened. I would have thought that the director would make the wound happen but that it would make no difference, Zombie Detective-style, and then it would disappear like the cut on DK’s finger. (Gosh, I loved ZD!)
I’m watching Healer at the same time. There are some similarities so I keep mixing these two stories up in my dreams. Even the men’s apartments are both dark and have hard surfaces.
Hey again @Fern!
I have missed the UK! We are two hours ahead from you!
So far we haven’t seen him bleed before, so I think it has a significance. It was an idea that came to me when you asked.
It is like a happening. If we see it as spectators. Doom had lost something and he had to take it back.
I agree with you that he protected / shielded her as well from watching that death.
He said to her: Stay Still.
This is also interesting (!), because in her internal monologue after their fight, DK was saying to herself the same thing. So, those two scenes are connected.
@Fern,
Healer is one of my favorites too! I really enjoyed it and I am happy that we will get to rewatch it altogether in B.O.D!
Every director uses different techniques to show the same thing! I have heard about the ZB, but I haven’t watched it so far! I have it in my very long long long list!
@Cleo I noticed the Stay Still mirror too. In fact I find a lot of similarities between MM and DK. Their apathy. I agree with you @Fern. It may look like she’s purposeful in living because she is unfazed by her diagnosis. But she’s just as listless and apathetic as MM? 😂. It’s the most apparent when she has voice overs mulling over things.
Hey @nrllee!
I think so far the writer-nim has been showing us little gems here and there.
I agree with you that there are similarities between MM and DK.
I don’t think though that DK is apathetic as MM. I think that she have found a formula to live after her parents’ death with her being emotionally detached, as I have written above.
Doom, on the other hand, seems as cold and arrogant, even mean, but its a facade. It is his pocker face.
Pay attention to his facial expressions when he was walking among people at the street listening to their inner voices and trying to make himself believe that he doesn’t care, he hasn’t any compassion for humans and so on.
Then, do the same when he is near DK. His smiling eyes and amused gazes. Even when they are fighting, his voice and face reveal his inner battle.
DK’s fate is to die. His fate is to exist endlessly without any break as his “mother” does. He is trying to detach himself from DK’s demish, because he already knows that he will grieve for her not for a year or two, but in eternity… *sigh*
Agree, @nrllee. I like that description “listless.”
Both she and MM remind me of that quote “Some feel the rain, others just get wet.” She and MM are just getting wet. They’re living day to day without being really alive. For them, there’s no inner joy and deep pleasure to be had in life.
But the thing is even the deity who supposed to represent life is moribund. As MM asked in the first episode, what’s the point of being the god of LIFE when she’s always in a hospital bed at the point of dying? 🙂
@packmule3 is this a very “Han” concept? This stoic acceptance of what is? At first when I watched DK I thought she was just in denial and everything was just surreal hence her “listlessness” and emotional detachment. But it appears to be her default state. 😂
@Cleo and @nrllee Yes I feel that apathy is a part of DK’s life. She said it herself in Ep 4.
I guess with her parents’ death and after her aunt left them, DK felt responsible for her brother and lived to support him. She may even have spoilt him to make up for not having parents. With her whole life wrapped around providing for him and pleasing her writers, she forgot to act and live for herself.
Even with only 3 months to live, she sees no reason to stop and put herself first.Her reactions and plans are to do with carrying on until the end as per normal. She won’t take leave for her health because she has not enough leave, and yet she won’t quit her job. She won’t tell anyone close to her about her illness, and she just wants to ensure her brother will be able to live on, while it does not matter what happens to her or how she is remembered after she dies.
I felt that this was pretty sad. She was willing to take the blame to spare the cheater husband (I enjoyed Kim Ji Suk’s cameo and hamming it up in this role!!), to risk herself with MM, and to disregard how appearances would put her in a bad light. She was even prepared to put her life on the line, based on a mere theory that MM would not let her die immediately.
However her apathy does not preclude her gutsy decisions to chase the pervert, to turn tables on MM and to find out what living in his world would be like. She is just unable to be truly enthusiastic. Perhaps she feels her life is not really meaningful, but just has to be lived.
I forgot that I wanted to drop a link here to a fun BTS. It looks like SIG provokes PBY into ending up hitting him a few times.
@GB,
Kalimera! It seems that they are having fun BTS ! 🙂
Hello,
I have revisited again Episode 4 and especially the scenes where DK and MM / Doom are saying: Stay Still / Hold Still.
I don’t know Korean, but I am listening to their pronunciation.
In her internal monologue Dk is using the word: Kamani and the subbers are translating: Stay Still.
When MM / Doom is shielding her from the Killer he says: Kamanish and the subbers are translating: Hold Still.
So, they are using a word / verb that has the same root.
Now, I have to pay attention to their verbal banter, mostly because I have realized that they are repeating words or phrases between them.
For instance: Doom in Episode 1 : Come with me or run away…
DK in Episode 4 : Come in or run away…
Hi @Cleo! Good catch! Yes you’re right. In their banter, bickering, battling dialogue, they are challenging each other and could be daring each other to take the next step, using the same or similar words. Sort of throwing the same words back at the other as a challenge.
Yes about the BTS. I hope there’ll be more fun BTS. Their real personalities are not at all like Doom and Gloom (DK) LOL.
@GB,
Thank you! I like that kind of dialogue!
I think that is a pattern though, which also shows that this duo is a catch!
I have to keep an eye to what being said from now on, maybe it will foreshadow things in the next episodes?
The more I am thiking about it we have also to pay attention to what Omoni / deity girl discuss with Doom / MM.
TvN channel has posted more videos but it is only in Korean!
Viu has some BTS subbed though! I like that they are having fun, that seems their working conditions are pretty good and they enjoy it!
Hi everyone!
@Cleo I am also watching this too other than Move to Heaven 😊. At the same time Memories of the Alhambra which I am loving so far.
I felt although the show has appeared to set 100 days for DK to live, I wonder if she was destined to die on the day when the truck was about to hit her in the end of ep 1? Doom said “The deity is on my side”. Presumably, the deity wanted her dead on that day, but that gives Doom a chance to negotiate/force the contract with a human to wish for doom. Otherwise DK would not have accepted the contract. Only because death is right in front of her so she would feel the fear and accepted the contract terms. No one would naturally wish for the world to end.
She lived that day because Doom interfered. Is Doom’s red string bracelet prolonging her life? If the bracelet is gone, does that mean life will be taken away from her anytime? Is that why girl Deity tried to take that bracelet off her so DK can die, and there won’t be a chance for Doom’s contract to be executed?
I think DK and Doom has started to love each other by the end of ep 4? Otherwise why would DK protected him and he protected her from seeing what he thinks is nasty. Is it now the time for Doom to recognise that his action for DK, although he doesn’t acknowledge it, is love?
Dear @Viva,
Welcome to DAYS’s gathering!As you have realized we are so into these SEries!
WE have written so many things already and we only saw the first 4 episodes!
I think that we all agree that DK is about to die in 100 days. That was her doctor’s deadline: 3 months.
The truck of Doom aka ToD was Doom’s outlet to show her that he is a celestial being and she is indeed going to die.
DK thought at first that she was dreaming or she had visions first or that what she was seeing was a result of her brain tumour.
So we have the FL that was unaware of her predicament. She called for Doom and MM aka Doom came literally to her.
As for “The deity is on my side” I think that @Packmule3 wrote about it best! Just check her post about DAYS first impression part 1 & 2.
To sum it up, the deity is not on his side!
I believe that this red string bracelet is their Fate interwined. I think @Fern or @nrllee said something similar above.
We have all commented about Deity’s true intentions and we are a bit wary about her motives as you have read above in our comments.
Only @GB thinks that it is a typical Korean mother, but I cannot say anything about it. I believe that it is going to be revealed soon.
As for falling in love.
I can tell you about myself, I believe that they have already fallen in love.
The thing is they both deny their feelings mostly, because they haven’t been in love before. They have their reasons though.
All their interactions in episode 4 state the obvious. I think that Episode 4 is the catalyst that will turn the tables while they becoming more accustome with their relationship.
As I have said to @GB above, Doom will try to woo DK. That is the only logical scenario that makes sense and that doesn’t mean that it will go smoothly.
They will certainly have their ups and downs. As @GB said better they remind us an old married couple with that bickering and wit conversations!
As you have noticed, everyone has contributed writing analysis about the episodes!
If you have more to discuss, here we are!
@Viva and @Cleo
Thanks Cleo for answering the questions.
A couple of things that @Viva brought up are thought provoking. What did “The deity is on my side” refer to…? I thought it referred to the pain in DK’s head that erupted just as she was crossing the street, literally walking towards her Doom, who was on the other side. The Deity allowed the pain to come, so that she’d collapse in the path of ToD, and be desperate enough to take MM’s hand. Her choice was to die or to agree to MM’s terms.
However what you say about death being sent her way that day so that she’d accept the contract (ie also take MM’s hand) is a slight variation on this but also possible. Perhaps the coming of the ToD too was something allowed by the Deity.
Again about that red string bracelet. I recall that when MM took DK’s hand, he told her not to let go, or she’d die. I don’t know if he was bluffing or not. If he was serious, then it’s true that either she should have died that day, or without his hand, her pain would be so bad it would be like dying.
If he was bluffing, then there was no reason for her to cling to his hand and he was just teasing her to make her hold on. I tend to think that he was serious. He may leave out some points but so far, he’s been truthful, therefore I begin by taking his word for it.
So let’s go with MM being serious that she would die/suffer intense pain if she let go of him, then this means that leaving her the red bracelet was the promise (he called it that) that he’d be with her to ease the pain (and presumably keep her alive for her 100 days). It was a string of promise and commitment. We also know of kdrama’s red strings of Fate between couples who are meant to end up together as true lovers. The latter string is supposed to stretch between the man and the woman and never break. We haven’t seen a semblance of it on MM yet, but as he conjured the bracelet onto DK’s wrist, we assume he has the invisible end of it.
So the concept of them being fated to be together, is as @Cleo says, the sign of their lives being intertwined and probably inextricably so.
I think Deity wanted to touch the bracelet but we have to see if she wanted to remove it or not, and why, if show will go there. If the string is MM’s promise and their fated relationship, cutting it might mean that one or both of them can break the contract and end their relationship, and yes, one or both of them could ‘die’.
I agree that by the end of Ep 4, the two of them had already fallen in love but were not aware of it. Their actions proclaim what they will not say out loud or even to themselves. I think both will continue to protest that it’s not so for a while yet LOL!
I rewatched the last scene of ep 4 like 5 times, it just really touched me how DK wishes Doom will die, but then when push comes to shove, she will put her life on the line and protect him.
When Doom put his hand and her head and told her not to look, I could feel the love.
I hope Doom will stop trying to aggravate her, afterall, DK doesn’t have much time left to waste.
I don’t feel the relevance or purpose of the love triangle of the 2nd leads, hope that will improve soon.
Hey my lovely @GB!
I think the reason he gave her that red string was because he liked DK.
As he told her when they were fighting in Episode 3, at her parent’s funeral she was the only little girl that was smiling and he thought that it was sad.
So, Doom knew that DK’s fate was cruel and he pitied her.
Remember what happened:
“Why? Why had it to be me?” she yelled at him when the truck of doom was approaching?
MM said: Fate. It is cruel for everybody, echoeing his mother’s / deity girl words.
Of course they will protest, but Doom will want to take intiatives first!
We’ve got an almost kiss in Episode’s 5 preview!
P.S. Check Felicity Queen’s new masterpiece for DAYS! How I love her edits! She is brilliant!
OMG! Another thought just crossed my mind!
In episode 4 we got information whatever Doom’s touches is being destroyed / becomes dead. The more I think about it It seems he put her the red string of Fate in order to protect her from his deadly touch.
Hence what he said: “Don’t leave my hand, if you don’t want to die right now and here”.
That’s why after that, DK needed the everyday recharge!
Thanks for the link @Cleo. I like Felicity Queen’s edits too. I watched not only the Doom video but the MTH video too.
You could be right that he remembered her and liked her. She was surprised that he was said it was sad that she smiled during her parent’s funeral. Which means that he does lie about remembering her. Again, why?
@GB,
Emotionally numb. He does that in order to convince himself that he has no feelings.
I think like the deity girl watches over her flowers, so does Doom. He surely remembers some people after all these millenia.
On the other hand, Doom cannot express his feelings or favorite somewhere because that is not on his manual settings. He has to be hard, but he is a softie.
I believe that he lost someone that he cherished. I don’t think he was romantically involved, but most someone he might respected.
He might even hadn’t talk to that person, but was watching his / her life by far.
Hence, his decision to not care, feel, love, etc.
I think that it will be shown, what happened to him and when.
I haven’t watched the MTH because I haven’t watched the whole series! I am watching a specific TK:EM edit she has done for Episodes 1-12. Ironically, it talks about Fate!
@TY, you’ve hit the nail on the head with the word, ‘aggravate’. That’s what the two of them have at the moment. A love relationship of aggravation!! They will keep poking each other, while being oblivious of how much they care about each other.
It was MM who kept saying that DK didn’t have much time and that she was wasting it doing mundane things like work, but he’s the one wasting/taking their time away from the more important aspect of life, ie from establishing a love relationship, but constantly aggravating her. She’s not much better because she retaliates! LOL. However, she does get some parts of a love relationship right.
She wanted to get to know his world and to understand him better. Then she felt compassion and wanted to console him. She felt he’d be difficult because of his situation and offered forgiveness as a step into a love relationship. He’s not at the place yet where he can accept all these steps into love.
We’ll have to see how much longer he’ll deny that others can love him. He has been testing and ‘proving’ this point over and over, which causes him to fail to see that he’s wrong.
Wow everyone!! I finally finished reading all of your comments. I didn’t realize that you all have written so much about this series. I’m glad that you all as usual explaining the details that I missed while watching the drama. It was great to finally see from many perspectives.
Here’s my highlight so far:
1. Definitely Goblin vibes. Fantasy drama like this tend to end up like sad-happy ending or open ending. So I have to be prepared emotionally.
2. I like how the two main leads unique personality is being paired. Both of them are pushing away to feel. I guess that the Deity’s secret objective is to make both of them at least “give up” to be cold hearted and finally feeling in love and not shy to expressing this.
3. I agree that both of them are already attracted to each other. My most memorable moment of them is when Doom/MM was walking in the garden and all the flowers died, but when DK was walking towards him the flowers and plants were like being reborn. That’s when I am sure they are already attracted to each other. In the dreams.
4. And now, I think we will see how Doom/MM will try hard to push away his love towards DK. He doesn’t want to have any compassion for her but I believe DK will always find a way inside his “heart”. Just like how she walked towards him in the garden.
5. As for DK. The challenge for her is how to fall in love with someone who is harming her loved ones. MM keeps repeating his statement again and again that no one can love him. At first loving him might be solely her purpose to save her brother and the world. But I believe that in time, she will find herself more and more in Doom/MM and she can’t help to finally falling in love with him.
6. I hope to see more in the second couple story. I agree that it is unusual to put the triangle love in the second couple so I’m curious how would it be like.
7. But my question is the same with Fern after DK and MM falling in love with each other and then what. MM said that he hope that DK will love him much so much that she want to destroy the world for him. But I don’t think that’s the kind of love that DK will show. And if MM love DK too, what would it be like. Is it true that he could prevent DK death. Because we see that he could postpone the criminal death by healing his wound in his neck, and he said he’s giving it back when he tried to stab him. But surely there will be cost for this. And when you really love someone you wouldn’t want him/her to be hurt. So making her seeing other dead because of her would not be the smart choice when you love someone. I’m just curious what kind of love that they will have. What kind of sacrifice they would do. Would they hurt each other or heal each other.
Ahh so much to anticipate for the next episodes.
@Growing Beautifully, I agree that MM is in denial rather than emotionally numb. He has the emotions but has consciously avoided them. That is why he’s delaying. It would be strange if he quickly changed and thought ‘okay fine, I’ll be emotionally available to this human.’
Regarding the red bracelet: In the scene when MM didn’t hold DK’s hand and didn’t remove her pain, I was surprised that she didn’t call him on breach of contract! It was a cruel move but it made her angry enough to try the fall from the roof.
@Cleopatra, thank you for sharing that gorgeous video. The editor really understands which moments count.
I wasn’t sure what MM meant when he said he found it sad that she was the only person smiling. Did he mean that she should have been crying? -That it would have been better for her emotionally? Or that it was a shame that no one else was smiling?
MM‘S lie about not knowing DK from her parents’ funeral: I thought that was him trying to maintain distance from her. He certainly sent mixed messages, saying to be clingy but then forcing distance several times.
@Moonstar512, great points.
Your point 6 about the usefulness of the love triangle. It could be the sort of filler that acts as an educational aid for our FL. She has already asked both her friend and the Director about aspects of falling in love and they both provided answers. It seemed clear from the director’s words that pity can provoke other emotions: hate as well as longing. Also her friend‘s theory that seeing someone in a dream leads to love -well her friend has a crush on the coffee guy but sees the director in her dreams. 😉. (It was interesting to me that DK mentioned a saying that first loves always cause some regret. I thought that was about her future.). DK said that she pitied MM and he probably pities her as well. She certainly sees him in her dreams.
@Fern That is good insight into how the show may go. I do believe that we are to take what happens to the 2nd Leads’ love triangle and extrapolate from it lessons for the Main Leads. Similarly, what is said about falling in love or relationships by the 2nd Leads, may be mirrored or countered by the Leads.
Hmmm… would anyone like to play the game of ‘Guess Who Na Ji Na’ will end up with in that love triangle? LOL.
What MM did by rejecting DK’s compassion and forgiveness, was similar to Writer Lee Hyun’s love story where the man runs away when the girl confesses to him. However, the difference is that MM does not disappear, but returns to challenge DK further, to prove to him whether he is lovable (or not).
@Fern, I too was surprised that when MM threatened to break his part of the contract, DK didn’t call him out on it. A writer’s lapse? Or did we not understand the contract from the subs?
About the smiling being sad – I wondered if it meant that he was to bring doom and gloom, and he himself felt the gloom of death over ‘mother’s’ demise, therefore DK’s smiling in a situation of death, was a slap in the face to him (thus sad for him… he had failed to bring gloom). It was the opposite, wrong reaction, and being so incorrect was also ‘sad’ for her (he perhaps thought that she didn’t know how to react). In actual fact, I believe she was hiding her sorrow behind appearing OK for her aunt and brother.
@moonstar512 I note what you say about them being attracted to each other or them falling in love in their dreams. It was a state in which they could manipulate the situation to suit their ideas (or rather Writer Lee Hyun’s ideas) of falling in love. It was so funny that both of them played along with it willingly, happy to be a pretend couple … which shows that they are in it already. However they stopped short each time, partly because it didn’t bring on the ‘feels’ but I believe, more because it wasn’t ‘real’. None of the 3 scenarios was a usual situation they’d ever have been in (unless we’re missing a backstory!)
But it was different with the dream of MM walking away and bringing death in his wake. This was a depiction of a ‘real’ situation for MM. DK being unfazed by this and accepting MM as he was – walking up to him and taking his hand – was a powerful indicator of how far DK was able to put the negative aside for MM. MM’s rejection of her response, I felt, was an indication of how much MM wanted to be loved, but feared it impossible. He was challenging her to love him by showing her some of his worst parts.
I feel that her unexpected lack of repugnance, and complete acceptance of him, threw MM into confusion. She was actually fulfilling his unspoken wish to be accepted, but he could not accept himself. He abruptly disconnects from her and runs to ‘mother’ LOL.
It was similar in a way to how she put aside her sorrow at the funeral to put the best face forward, how she accepted her situation and did her best for her brother, and in her work.
MM, of course, had to up the ante by coming back to threaten her with her brother’s life, to provoke her into proving that he’s not lovable. Instead of saying that she hates him for it, she says she wishes he would die so that he’d know how she felt. Seeing that he cannot be killed or die, DK then plans to make his life miserable and keep him miserable forever LOL. Does that mean she intends to live with him forever to torture him?
What is strange about her … she never asks or begs for her life. She simply accepted the prognosis of death without question (or a 2nd opinion!) and does not try to get out of it, even when Doom is right there giving her a wish. She seems to be wired to accept the bad things in her life.
The other thing about the kind of love DK would have. Not the kind of love that would want the world to be destroyed for MM. That’s true. True love ultimately does not go with what the other party wants if it’s a bad idea, but with what is ultimately best for the other party, no matter how painful it may be. There is the element of being cruel to be kind too. Choosing what is right rather than what is comfortable.
About not wanting the loved one to be hurt. There is also another aspect of love: the element of redemptive love (which is also a Christian concept of love). Yes, unnecessary or foolish pain is to be avoided, but some suffering is best endured rather than avoided, if it is for a higher purpose and a greater good. I hope the love that is explored here will not make light of it or dismiss it.
When it came to the crunch, in the face of a killer with a scalpel, the actions belied all the challenges and bravado of MM and DK. She was prepared to sacrifice herself to save MM and he held on to the scalpel to keep her from being stabbed. And although he’d wanted to show her the worst of himself when he threatened her brother, in the end he shielded her and kept her from seeing the death that was meted out upon the killer.
Poetic, what?
@GB I also wondered why she didn’t get a second opinion after she got her diagnosis! It’s such a serious disease and she didn’t even look into options or ways to deal it. After MM steps into DK’s life and pronounced her death and time limit, it made her give up on any kind of treatment, and instead use all her energy on dealing with MM.
If DK has a wish, can’t she wish to be healed? It seems like she never asked if that was within the limits of the wish. It seems like MM can heal, so it’s not impossible.
“We accept the love we think we deserve” – Perks of Being a Wallflower
MM doesn’t believe he deserves to be loved so he refuses to accept that DK can love him in any shape or form. So he tries to make it a self fulfilling prophecy by sabotaging all her attempts to get close to him. Showing her his worst self by goading her, taunting her, thinking that she would give up soon enough. Yet for all his efforts she still chooses “kindness”. I don’t think her act of sacrifice in blocking the criminal’s knife attack was because he was “special in her eyes”. I think that was just her default self acting instinctively. She would’ve done the same for any other person? Good or bad? She seems to be that way in all her dealings with people. Not just with MM.
@nrllee, that’s interesting that DK would do it for anyone. You could be right but it would explode the ‘took the bullet for love’ trope. In any case, it was instinctive. If she reflected, she would remember that MM can’t be killed (ie, the gun scene). But apparently he can be cut if startled or distracted?
In the garden scene, when MM leaves rot in his wake and DK leaves life — it seemed like if that was his superpower, then restoring life and colour was hers. I think he was shocked and perhaps even afraid. The phrase “And Death Shall Have No Dominion,” from the Dylan Thomas poem and the new testament came to mind.
@TY, I agree about the 2nd diagnosis as well as the wish to be healed. It’s curious, right?
MM definitely says that she will die in 100 days repeatedly, so once she accepted that he wasn’t a hallucination, she probably believed him.
As to believing her doctor, I think most people accept their doctors’ diagnoses and treatment options because they are the authorities, especially since she had symptoms and he showed her the scan as proof. She looked up glioblastoma on her phone at the bus stop before she got drunk as well. Still, if it was me, I would want a second opinion if I could get one.
Now, it would be very strange if MM and all of the events turned out to be a hallucination after all…
Dear commenters, do you think this thread needs a re-boot for the next 2 episodes or so? Should we petition @packmule3?
Hi @Fern, what do you mean by a reboot? We can ask @pkml3 to open up the Episodes 5 and 6 threads earlier. Doom will air on Monday night, so it won’t be too long from now, but because I like this show, I’m impatient and Monday can’t come soon enough!!
@Growing Beautifully, you are absolutely correct. Reboot was the wrong word. 🤦♀️ I meant ask for a new thread. There have been so many long and interesting theories.
@Fern, certainly we can ask. If @pm3 sees this, she’ll know.
*pm3 may we please have another thread?
Okay. 👍 Give me half an hour, and will open a part 2 for Eps 3 and 4. I expect discussion for Eps 5 and 6 will be long anyway so might as well keep it separate.
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