The other thread for Eps 3 & 4 was getting too long so let’s continue talking here while we’re waiting for Eps 5 & 6 to come.
Link to Part 1: Doom at Your Service: Eps 3 & 4 Open Thread
gifs from dramaism’s tumblr
I’m just going to leave this gif here. 🙂
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Thanks a million @pkml3. A zillion cookies for you! (The non-fattening kind).
When I look at the gifs (and I’ve noticed it even in the show and the BTS), these 2 leads have quite a big and repeated job of eyeballing each other. It’s often eyeball to eyeball, and because each scene may require editing, they have to stand there and stare for long intervals without blinking.
Not only that, they have to do multiple takes. And we add to that the great, GREAT, disparity in height LOL … If I had to do this, I’d be dissolving into embarrassed giggles constantly, but they do it so professionally. I also consider poor PBY may suffer neck ache.
I was watching a show about shooting scenes for the X-Files and how Gillian Anderson was small compared to David Duchovny, hence she often had to stand on something, or run on a platform, so that both their heads could be in the same frame. It’s not obvious from the Doom BTS that they have to do the same here, but I was thinking they might. I’m going to look for more BTS. 😉
@Cleo and @GB thanks for coming back on my comments.
When MM said the deity is on his side – my thinking is that the deity is not intending to be on his side but created an opportunity for him to force DK to accept the contract terms by scheduling her death on the day. Just my current thoughts, not necessary going to be right 😊
In the show, who decides/schedules the human death? Is that MM or someone else? Is MM just the one carrying action on the almighty’s order?
@Fern I was also thinking about @nrllee comment. I also thought DK knows MM can’t die, why does she protect him? I feel I need to see more interactions of DK with the others to know how far/heroic she can be for people she cares, or people she just met randomly.
That dream scene reminds me a little of Sophie from Howl’s Moving Castle. Sophie is an ordinary girl but seems to have an ability to talk life into things with no heart. DK seems to be able to bring life to someone who has no heart like MM.
Hi @Viva
Yes, I believe we’re roughly on the same page about the Deity being on MM’s side. Whether it was the setting up of the situation, the fact that DK had the pain at that time, scheduling her death or allowing the threat of it to happen while Doom was present, and not stopping him from profiting from it – it allowed or made it more likely that DK would take MM’s hand.
To your other question about scheduling death, I’m not sure if this answers it but I checked on Ep 1:
MM says he’s a small part of a system.
What I expected was that MM wouldn’t be alone as the sole dooms-body. He does not seem to be omnipresent, therefore I thought there must be other ‘dooms’ who are helping to take care of deaths and destruction.
However, 4 episodes in, and we still see only Deity and Doom, Life and Death who are antithetical. When they speak to each other they do not mention an almighty whom they serve. Deity said in Episode 4 that she knows MM has no one else to speak to. It seems that the system of human life was just that … people live and they die, therefore MM is needed.
MM tells the doomsday lady who gave out the brochures, that there’s no afterlife. He said we have one life and that’s it. This actually goes against much of the Korean belief in reincarnation, so I was surprised to hear him say it. The only one who reincarnated so far is Deity herself.
My ‘premature’ conclusions (premature because we are only at Ep 4) are that they are the only deities, created because humans called them forth, and they are destined to just exist to tend the garden of the human world. Deity plants the garden and lets it grow, and Doom sees to the destruction of the plants, according to their ‘fate’.
My hope is that MM sees that even in death, it’s not the end. That life still continues because the love of humans never die with them. DK showed that even in preparing for her death, she thought of the ones who would remain after her, and she had her funeral photo taken in readiness to leave to them. The example they left for us, what we learn from those die, and memories of them continue life beyond death (even in a drama-verse without an afterlife).
I imagine and hope that the converse of what MM challenged DK will be true. It’s not that DK will love him so much that she’d want to destroy the world for MM, but that he’d love her so much that life and death would have meaning for him. Perhaps then, he’ll be a happier MM.
Bus and Train
I was noticing that DK waits at the bus stop and does not get on the bus. She does that more than once. One time when she was stunned by the doctor’s prognosis of certain death and again when Deity approached her. The bus stop motif is an analogy of how she does nothing and lets life pass her by.
With the train, DK is ‘stuck’ in a moving vehicle, unable to determine its direction. She has to either balance to keep from falling or hold on tight, is subject to being jostled by uncaring individuals or to being victimised by perverts. Her choices are limited and she’s only able to get off the train at designated stops. This is an analogy of life for many of us.
Into this train, MM appears from time to time to take her hand. It’s interesting that it’s Doom that keeps her from being jostled and who keeps the pain away. It’s Doom that walks her home and keeps her safe from drunken ex-bf, and opens his spacious home to her. She finds comfort in Doom’s home and in his bed (literally). It is death that gives her a new perspective on what she’s been doing with her life, and gets her thinking that she’s been too apathetic and caring for people who do not care for her.
This is a nice comment on how we need even death, and how we can find comfort in it. Instead of being a negative aspect to be avoided, it is a reality that we should embrace and which will spur us on to accomplish more than we ever would, should we think we last forever.
MM had a point when he asked DK if she was not wasting her few days left of life. She could have chosen to experience and accomplish more before death. But her overall attitude was ‘What’s the use since I’m going to be dead anyway.’ DK needs to be less defeatist and to get off the train and maybe onto the bus to see how good her life is because she’s done her best.
We want to see how great her last days might be when she discovers how much she is loved, because she loves.
@GB Same. I thought there were multiple Dooms/Angels of death. But thus far, it seems there exists only 1 Girl Deity and 1 Doom in this drama’s universe. There is also Fate? Which seems to be something one is “born into”? I am trying to work out how that works in this drama’s universe.
Seemingly, GD plants and then leaves humans. But there seems to be a thread of Fate that determines our lives which is inescapable? Who we marry, who we meet, how we turn out, and of course when we die. But Doom seems to have some agency here because he appears to be able to dictate when a person’s end point is? Like the criminal? If that is the case, then DK can escape her predetermined end point then? If Doom lets her? If he can do that for the criminal, he can do that for her?
I am wondering if instead of loving Doom, DK would turn the tables on him and start to love herself best? Because if that happens, then when she opts to break the contract, she’s taking it all on herself. She dies to save the world. Sacrificial lamb. Messianic references here. Because just as Christ was fully capable of escaping the cross, he marched resolute towards impending Doom. I think if DK did that, it would crush MM because he would be the one to take her. She would not fear him, or hate him or want him to come sooner. She would just stand still and let him take her.
Hi my dear @nrllee, I trust you had a good night’s rest before your hectic Sunday. It’s Pentecost and I’ll be getting (not cooking LOL) some yummy salt-baked chicken for lunch.
Yes the omnipresent ‘Fate’ that even Doom and Deity can’t control and have to succumb to. That’s the closest that we have to a higher authority (so far), but without any person-hood. It’s just an inexorable ‘thing’ that predetermines how life goes or ends. And yet, Doom seems to have more say over fate than we may know.
Yes, of the 2 deities, Doom seems to have more agency than Life. Life can only start lives off but does nothing forthwith. Doom is able to intervene and interrupt death or manipulate who dies (he says he takes the doom that hovers over one person and passes it to another). I wonder what else his power enables him to do.
Those are the questions that strike us. Which leads me to ask… now that by the end of Ep 4, DK knows MM can take away and give back the option to die to the criminal, will it occur that he too could do the same for her? Or … perhaps because of the proviso that someone else would die … she will never ask for it and never want it. She will not risk her brother dying in her place.
However, on MM’s part, he could choose. He has 10-12 more episodes in which to make a decision on this score.
It would be a good solution, what you say about DK loving herself most, if it wasn’t a sort of tautology. It negates the contract because it will be as if there hadn’t been any. She merely loves herself, and does nothing else, and hence breaks the contract. She and MM have to be convinced, though, that it is true. If she sacrificed herself so that no one else would die, then her love for others would be considered greater than love for herself.
The contract requires that she calls doom upon the world before she dies, or someone she loves the best will die. Like she figured out, either way that person (and herself) would die.
Interestingly at that same conversation MM had said to her:
So the possibility of her not dying is in the air.
Even the Life Deity asked him in Ep 3 (52:35) “Can’t you change her fate?” So there is Fate, but it sounds like Doom can change it. He’s the deity with more choices at his disposal.
Scenes of Goblin in grief comes to my mind.
Conjecture: When MM becomes aware that DK has this in mind, (by the way, he seems to have really stopped being able to hear what’s on her mind), he decides that he cannot bear the pain of her death and so stops it for as long as he can. She, however, will not want to live forever. I can imagine the endless battle they’ll engage in over this!! LOL. If her really loves her, should he just let Fate take over again?
Hearing DK’s Thoughts
I was thinking that MM has a limit to how much power he has. I find it funny that there is a 24 hour limit on MM’s pain relief. He can stop time, control minds, make comets appear, cause the writer to be lost in his dreams and not wake up until evening, etc but for pain relief, the bracelet has to be recharged. It’s also strange that he should worry about this bracelet, since if he could make one, he could always replace it with another. Or perhaps that bracelet is the symbol of that one promise and cannot be removed, like how he told her never to let go of his hand.
I was noticing that MM told the truth about the limits of his being able to hear DK’s thoughts. MM had said in Ep 1:
We hear him ask her a couple of times after that what is on her mind. MM says to DK:
. This means he cannot hear DK’s mind to know whether what she says is true.
Her suggestion to live together took him by surprise. He asked her what she was doing when she took out her bedding. She also had to tell him what dreams she wanted him to ‘star in’ for her attempts at ‘falling in love’. So he really cannot hear her thoughts.
So MM has a limitation imposed upon him by the contract. We hear what will happen to DK if she breaks the contract. And while I was thinking that MM didn’t seem to face consequences for his breaking the contract, I found in Ep 3 (52:54) that it’s the same consequence.
By the end of Ep 4, DK is the one who pities MM who avoids loving what will disappear or be destroyed. That’s what human beings do, knowing full well that we are all mortal.
I’m sorry, but I watched too many unrelated dramas that I lost the plot on this one. I just finished Ep 4.
Can somebody please tell me again what exactly do MM and DK want from each other?
Is it:
DK: to be spared death? to die a painless death?
MM: to have an excuse to kill the whole world? to kill himself?
And how do they benefit from the cohabitation?
Thanks.
Pm3
@pkml3 Summarising is not really my strong suit but I’ll try.
DK wants to get out of the contract that she was ‘forced/tricked’ into accepting.
MM claims to still want to end the world so that he can end his existence, and hangs around to make DK make the wish for doom on the world.
Since DK finds she’s stuck in the contract she might as well get her end of the deal ie pain relief from MM every night. To ensure a steady supply of pain relief she suggests they cohabitate.
Other than the first time where DK wanted to keep an eye on her house, there were no good reasons or advantages for them to be together/sleep together except as a dare. Challenge issued and accepted. By this time they have already fallen for each other through their bickering.
Because DK has to figure out how to love MM, (to get around the possible loophole in the contract), the next excuse for ‘sleeping together’ was that he was to enter her dreams. So living together was useful.
By the end of Episode 4, what they want seem to have changed somewhat.
DK has shifted from wanting to love MM in order to save the world to being sincerely sorry for him and wanting to forgive him and love him for himself.
MM wants to sabotage DK’s efforts to love him. He does his worst by threatening to withhold pain relief and then threatening to take her brother’s life. But I feel deep inside, just as he denies that he feels compassion, he is denying that he wants to be loved.
They are supposedly on the worst of bad terms, and do not believe they love or are loved by the other, but both end up saving each other from the killer by the end of Episode 4.
As for what the Deity wants, I’m guessing that she wants MM to accept his role as Doom and be happy.
I trust that helps!!
To add in answer to your first question @pkml3 … DK has never said that she wants to be spared the death. She took in the prognosis of death without once asking for it to be delayed or considering that she should find a way to avoid it. Given a chance to make a wish of MM, she does not seem to have considered that she ask for her fate to be changed. It’s the attitude of how death is a non-event, the absence of begging for life and her lack of concern over her health that is noteworthy.
Thanks, GB. This helps a lot! I thought I missed out on something or skipped a part. But you confirmed it.
I’ll answer on the blog. 🙂 You summarized it very well.
You’re welcome @pkml3. I’m glad to be of help!
~ヾ(＾∇＾)
I don’t normally watch ‘reaction to kdrama’ videos, but I was quite entertained by the reactions of these 2 Korean girls to the first 2 episodes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDsdv4qN4q0
The next video (unfortunately without English subs), has SIG showing us around the set. That home of his and DK’s home too, was a set specially designed and built for the show.
Hello everyone!
I watched again the first 4 episodes of DAYS and I have something I want to pinpoint, mostly because I have commented about it in our previous thread, but we had other issues first to focus, so I wanted to return to it.
I really think that we don’t have one love triangle between the second leads.
We also have a triangle between:
Τhe Deity Girl —> MM / Doom —> DK.
So, my theory is that the second triangle echoes the first.
We have Cha Joo-Ik that advises Na Ji-Na about Lee Hyun-Kyu. What is going to happen to them it is unknown so far.
I have noticed before that some words or phrases are being returned between our OTP. Let’s revisit again some:
Episode 2:
MM is going to his Omeoni / deity girl to boast that he found a human who asked for Doom. Their conversation goes as below:
MM: Let me ask one thing.
Why is it me?
Deity: Not sure.
Fate?
MM: How Cruel.
Deity:Fate is cruel to anyone.
If you do bad things,you’ll get punished.
MM: I am already being punished.
This encounter is being echoed / repeated later on when Doom recreates the Truck of Doom scene and as a result he is being slapped by DK.
Doom / MM : Hurry and choose. You might die.
DK: Hey!
MM:You win some, you lose some.That’s how it goes.
Think it through well.Throught your life, you’ve won things,
by losing other aspects. *
DK: Why?
Why is it me?
Why on earth does it have to be me?! **
MM: Fate.
DK: How cruel.
MM:Fate is cruel to anyone.
*Keep that one, this phrase is being said by DK in the bridge scene after that photo op.
** Rings a bell? 😉
I have already written in the previous thread how DK and MM are keep bickering using same phrases to each other.
Like come (with me)/ in or run away.
The most profound one is in Episode 4:
Kamani / Stay Still in DK’s internal monologue after she wished Doom to die.
Kamanish / Hold Still, when Doom told her not to look to the killer’s demish.
I really think that it is a pattern.
The Deity says something to Doom, Doom then says something to DK, DK returns that information back to Doom. It is like a circle.
This information though, it doesn’t stay with them only, but it is spread to the rest of the world.
I am really interested to see, IF we will get to see the ramifications of the OTP’s actions, reactions, realizations in that second leads’ love triangle story.
In my opinion that would be very interesting!
@Growing Beautifully, in your earlier post, you mentioned that DK knows that MM could give and take back the option to die to the criminal. I wasn’t sure about that, since he kept her still and looking away from what happened. He seems to have revealed himself by speaking out loud, but only if DK comprehends what his words to the man meant. He previously told her that she had 100 days to live. Was he hiding a power to heal her? Or does he only have that power if the person (like the criminal and like DK on the rooftop) takes on the job of self-destruction by themselves. If DK’s wish is to live, then won’t someone else die in her place?
@nrllee, I like your theory that DK could come to love herself best. I also like the thought that she could be a healing person (looking at the dead garden scene) and could join the Deity and Doom with that gift.
@packmule, that gif separated out had even more combustion potential than when within the drama. Personally speaking, of course.
Do we think GD has no agency because she can’t? Or because she won’t? I feel like she’s purposely sitting on her hands and doing nothing? Non-interference. So she can interfere if she opts to but she chooses to just sit back and watch? But she definitely interfered by jolting memories back for DK at the funeral home by running into her. And then talking to her at the bus stop.
I like @Cleo’s thoughts about the 2 love triangles. One on the meta level (GD-MM-DK) and one on the physical (the SLs – can’t remember their names 😂). The 2ML kissed the 2FL because he pitied her? DK also said she pitied MM. So there’s a mirror there somewhere. I haven’t rewatched carefully so I can’t pinpoint the exact links.
@nrllee, yes, DK said she pitied MM and Director Cha Joo-ik said that he kissed someone he hated because he pitied her.
I thought the following scene in the office was so funny. The sly and teasing background music helped. –DK and the Director sort of circling around eyeing each other. I think he was worried that she kept looking at him because she might have a crush on him, but no, it was the awkward question, “Have you ever fallen in love with someone you hated?” To his credit, he doesn’t ignore her stares and confronts her and when asked the question, answers honestly.
When he gets to the townhouse with the real Lee Hyun-kyu (not the author), he asks LHK if he remembers what his first love looks like. When Lee Hyun shows the photo on the phone, do you think he lied when he said no he didn’t remember? There was just a tiny flicker in his eyes then he changed the subject. The novel Romantic Egoist is by Fitzgerald. The quote about ‘Every woman I liked was Francoise’ may echo Hyun-kyu’s way of being attracted to women who look like Ji-na or it might be the frisson Joo-ik gets when thinking about Ji-na.
Was the director trolling us with the foreboding music in the scene where Cha Joo-ik takes the elevator to the penthouse with Lee Hyun-kyu?
I think that the conversations DK had with Dir. Cha and Na Ji-na shed some light on the future of her relationship with MM. They weren’t simply filler. I wouldn’t call MM and DK innocents in love, but perhaps inexperienced in the subtleties.
Thanks @Fern, @nrllee, Thanks for all your thoughts and insights. I need to keep them in mind (as this show has a theme of pity/compassion running through it, I guess I can say I pity myself for my lousy memory LOL).
Yes, when I was saying that DK knew MM could change the fate of the one who was to die, it did occur to me that she couldn’t see it. I’m just assuming that she would put 2-and-2 together from what he said. I await tonight’s show with impatience to see if it follows up from the criminal’s death or whether we’ll be still left in the dark about whether she knows that MM could change her fate.
The unknown logic – since DK has a wish as part of the contract, will it be breaking the contract to use it to wish for life for herself in such a way that no one dies as a result? It could perhaps be interpreted so that no one ‘has’ to die because she, in a fit of pique, called for doom on the world.
I do believe the director was trolling us with the music and the elevator scene. Turns out ChaJI and LeeHK are ex-tutor and ex-student. Might it be because Cha saw Writer Lee Hyun pathetically abandoned by LeeHK, that he pitied her and kissed her? I’d think that he must of course have already liked her at that time, but she was only focused on Swimmer LeeHK.
As for Life Deity’s agency, it looks more like she chooses very selectively to intervene, rather than that she cannot. Future episodes may show us the extent of her power. We have only ever seen her sickly and apathetic. Perhaps there’ll come a time when she’s emotionally involved enough to take some kind of action to change fate.
Kalimera ladies!
@Viva, I am glad you are here with us too!
@nrllee I think it is a meta level over here and we need to pay attention.
If the Writer-nim has done this in purpose, then she is brilliant indeed!
As for their DAYS universe where there is only the deity girl and Doom, they have a disclaimer that is fiction in the opening credits.
I don’t know if DK will be a sacrificial lamp. Mostly because so far the Writer-nim has created something entirely new, as an idea is valid though.
I really like the idea of DK loving herself first, but for me that applies to MM as well. Because he doesn’t love himself and that the healing thing to do for both our leads. They are both broken by the world and their responsibilities and don’t know how to open up.
As for the why DK hasn’t gone to another doctor for a second opinion. Brain tumours are not easily treated. I think she suffered before the first episode and from that pain she knows something is not okay with her.
So, she accepted her Fate and Doom in her life that easily. She knows that her condition is such that she cannot hope to be cured.
In Episode 1 in the grocery store her doctor calls. She asked him what he wants her to choose from. Her choices are: more pain vs lesser pain, but still she will feel pain and she won’t be herself, i.e. she cannot work or take care of herself and her brother, etc.
The fact that Doom told her that she won’t feel any pain is the cheese in her trap. She doesn’t want to spend her last 100 days in pain. She wants to be okay, even though she will die in the end.
Hi My Dear Cleo, what you say resonates with me. Shows with the healing of characters (especially if they were traumatised as kids) is my catnip.
Yes, at first I didn’t catch what the doctor said. The choices offered were not great… Even with the operation, she would probably die in a year. For prolonging her life by 9 months, she would have to risk “hemiplegia, a speech disorder, and a cognitive disorder as well”.
Taking pain relief from MM for 3 months, and being of sound mind in that time is so much better, except that she’s also stuck with the world destruction wish.
Thanks for bringing together the conversations where similar things were said between Deity and MM, and between MM and DK. We’ll keep looking out for more. 😉
@Growing Beautifully, good evening. I think you must be right about DK understanding what MM did to the prisoner despite not looking. We’ll see the aftermath in the next episode.
@Cleopatra, kalimera. I agree with you and with @nrllee that loving themselves would be the ideal for DK and MM. I hope that it can be accomplished. If they can’t love themselves most, the next best would be the ability to accept and give love and support to the other.
Many people seem to be asking why there is a second leads triangle. It doesn’t bother me because I think their conversations are relevant to DM, MM and maybe Deity triangle and gives us a break from the heaviness of the main topic. Also, shallowly, because they are picturesque. 😉
My lovely @GB,
We have seen our medical dramas, we have talked with doctors. We know that meds are not enough, when the pain is immense. Especially if a patient gets used to it.
So, DK doesn’t want that. She doesn’t want to be in and out of consciousness, she doesn’t want to become a burden for her guardian. She doesn’t want her Aunt to leave Canada and come back for her or her brother to take responsibility for her. She doesn’t any of that.
Yes, I though that meta convos have a significance. Also I agree with @Fern that they want to give us a break from the heaviness of the main topic!
I am in about the healing process @nrllee, @Fern and @GB.
I believe that people need to love theirselves and open their hearts to another. It would be nice to witness that, mostly because it gives spectators hope for themselves to do exactly the same. 🙂
@Fern, I feel, like you, that the 2nd leads triangle is given to us to highlight (and maybe parallel?) certain aspects of the main leads’ relationship.
I was toying with the idea that LeeHK seems to have run away from Na Ji Na (well at least that’s what she thinks) after she confessed to him. Might that be similar to how after DK tells MM that she wants to love him, that she forgives him and pities him, MM goes off upset to Deity, pushes DK away etc and makes himself as unlovable as possible? It’s another form of running away.
We’ve all learnt that in kdrama, lots of hints that will augment the plot are littered in the side stories, and few things are extraneous. So I expect you’re right!
And yes, they do look so pretty together. All 5 of them and not just the second leads.
Ah, it’s so nice to have someone else confirm that my shallowness isn’t unique. 😊 I wonder if the others will see MM or is he outside of that venn diagram? DK told Ji-an that she will report about her love target in 3 months, so perhaps not.
One of the reasons I’m late to this discussion is that I was watching The Tale of Nokdu, got frustrated with that series, decided I needed something else to think about, so picked up DAYS a couple weeks after it started. Imagine my surprise to find Cha Yool Moo / Prince Neungyang in the Doom drama universe! I hope the role Kang Tae Oh plays in DAYS, Lee Hyun Kyu, isn’t so evil and two-faced. I’d like to be able to root for him without having the rug pulled out from under me.
In the BoD discussions of The Tale of Nokdu, @Packmule3 mentioned that she had come to appreciate Lee Seung Joon, who played Nokdu’s foster father, as one of her favorite support actors. He does show up a lot, doesn’t he? I counted on his AsianWiki bio the number of drama series I’ve watched in which he’s had roles, and I’ve seen him in ten! He’s doing a good job here as the neurology doctor / writer.
NOTE: Subs are being changed. Before, a scene between GD and MM was translated, “I pity the person who will die in her place when you break the contract.” Now, a couple weeks after that episode was released, the sub of GD’s line reads, “I’ll find the person who will die in her place after you break the contract pitifully.” That’s a big difference in meaning.
Dear @Welmaris,
Thank you for posting this! I have watched the episode the other day and I thought that something was different. I am glad that you have noticed it too!
We have a problem with the translations. When you will be up to date, you can check the Episodes 7-8 threads, Viki translated a phrase with a specific way, while Viu with another and we are trying to find out what was said,
because as you wrote above that’s a big difference in meaning.
If this phrase is connected with one of my theories I posted on Episodes 7-8 threads, then it give us intel that my theory might be right.